Legend of the Hunter: Chapter 4 - [S] Fight. Talk. Don't die.

[siguard]

Guard: Give them their complimentary BLADES OF TRUE MEN, then take them on the way to the king.

second
Gwydlin> ask the General for a replacement Dire Beer, ya know For Beer Science. it will be key for fighting the demon and you are in no way just going to drink it. *wink wink nudge nudge*
Sebastian> so what now?

[Professor zobot]

>Gwydian: Don't look now, but that guy you were TOTALLY BEATING earlier has come back for more! Quick, get Seb to freeze him or something.

[Wessolf27]

>Gwydian: Don't look now, but that guy you were TOTALLY BEATING earlier has come back for more! Quick, get Seb to freeze him or something.

seconded

[Godbot]

> Make him join Sebastian and Gwydian's party in your place.

> General: Flip up your enormous dragon head-shaped visor.

[Chaos Waltz]

Collar Guy> Stab Gwyddi. He tried to break into your Mistresses' mansion.

[Disva]

General: >Turn out to force random people to beat the crap out of you just about every day.

[ChronoSamurai]

General: >Turn out to force random people to beat the crap out of you just about every day.

Turn out to be Gray Fox.

"YEsssssssssssssss Seb. HURT ME MORE!"

Seb: o_0

[mythLeader]

>GWYDIAN: Immediately attack the guard. Don't wait for him to explain anything.

[Torquemadras Trump]

Legend of the Hunter - 61

> General: Flip up your enormous dragon head-shaped visor.

A guard armed with two wicked blades appears as the General stands up. The General takes off his helmet, now that the worthiness of the exorcists has been proven to him...



...but the guard will have none of that.

- Hrm! Was that all, General?
- Is that the true skill of our fabled dragon champion?
- Stand up, man, and give 'em hell! Else every drat beggar from the streets would be worthy.
- AND WE CAN'T HAVE THAT, GENERAL.

- I WAS BARELY HOLDING BACK, YOU RAPSCALLION!
- THEY ARE WORTHY TO DEFEND OUR CITY WHILE WE ARE OCCUPIED!

- Hrm! "Barely holding back." Yeah, right.
- There's nothing honorable with a fake battle, blockhead!
- And you do this ALL THE TIME. Testing everybody's skill in some true men shit...

General: >Turn out to force random people to beat the crap out of you just about every day.

- ...and getting beaten because you aren't even really fighting!
- Now, for real, dammit!

- THERE IS NOTHING WRONG IN HAVING HONOR BATTLES AT EVERY POSSIBLE OPPORTUNITY!
- BUT FINE



- I WILL NOT HOLD BACK ANYMORE!

Collar Guy> Stab Gwyddi. He tried to break into your Mistresses' mansion.

- Alright! I'm gonna skewer your ass, punk - 'cause that's how we deal with trespassers around here!
- If you're a real exorcist, you should have no problem dealing with that.
- It'll be over soon. I'm just the best there is. That's a fact.

This is not the DEVELOPMENT YOU'D HOPED FOR. Instead of being showered with appreciation, POSSIBLY MONETARY IN NATURE, you have to fight the General with activated FLAMETHROWER WINGS as well as this sword-wielding braggart! With your BANISHING PUNCH charging up, you can absorb the worst of the heat, but this won't be an easy battle-



- You will NOT continue with this bullshit.
- My patience has RUN OUT. Your LUCK is about to.
- The final preparations have to be made for the cannons.
- The holy grounds have to be guarded.
- I DO NOT see much of that being done around here.
- So stop acting like brain-dead little boys, and get back to KILLING AND DEFENDING - FROM A DEMON!

The pent-up frustration unleashed by Ava is just TOO OVERWHELMING. Defense is not possible. The eerie feeling of having disappointed an entity of INMEASURABLY GREATER POWER crushes your spirit and forces the battle to a halt.

>GWYDIAN: Immediately attack the guard. Don't wait for him to explain anything.

- Uhm
- I wasn't just gonna suckerpunch him
- Wouldn't be honorable
- And we already established the fact that we are honorable
- Right?

- Hrm.



- Now get back to your jobs before I have to get all Dragon Maiden on your ass!

- YES HONORABLE MOM
- I MEAN DRAGON MAIDEN

Gwydlin> ask the General for a replacement Dire Beer, ya know For Beer Science. it will be key for fighting the demon and you are in no way just going to drink it. *wink wink nudge nudge*
Sebastian> so what now?

Gwydian tries to take the chance and get himself another DIRE BEER, but the General is not in favor of listening to any more demands. Disappointed, he settles down, vowing to get another beverage someday THAT CAN EAT PEOPLE.

- Don't be sad, Mr. Twiddlefeet
- Someday, I'm gonna figure out how to give you orders
- And then we'll be the most awesome team
- Hmmm... If only there was some person around that still owes me alcohol...

Now that the battle screen of true men has been SCARED OUT OF ITS MACHISMO and you have introduced yourself to the General, it is time to continue your preparations - with YOUR BROTHER as the only real roadblock remaining.

Now, how to convince him TO LET HIMSELF BE SHOT OUT OF A CANNON.

==>

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Okay - I think the speech part of the updates is getting a little hard to navigate. For now, I tried to make the speech stand out more; I'll think of something else for the future...
Maybe tiny little character portraits! Which won't suck, as they do in this game, because they won't be made by drunk programmers.

and the other piece of fanart! The brothers this time.

Thanks a lot! I have the best readers ever

You know what's a good way to totally destroy any readership you might have?


HEALTHY COMPETITION

Okay, here's the idea. Since you made me choke with laughter on seeing some of those suggestions as for WHO or WHAT is in the General's armor, I thought to myself: why not see who can come up with the most ridiculous theory OF 'EM ALL?! I'm gonna draw the winner a sketch of his/her choice*!

*Not specifically included: the truth about the General, mwahaha

So, feel free to include your most awesome theory with your suggestions! One theory per user, I reckon, that'd make the judging much easier!

So, anybody up for that?

[siguard]

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General> be a smaller version of the dragon armor which in turn contains Sebastian from the Future sent back TO RIGHT WHAT HAS BEEN SET WRONG

Gwydian> weren't you pissed at your brother about something now that there is no looming threat to your life?

[Chaos Waltz]

Seb> Promise Gwyddi you'll find him a Dire Beer if he lets you shoot him out of a cannon

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And the General is obviously an Angelic Fire-Breathing Dire Land-shark.

[Mibbs]

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The general is another necromantic floating cat head

That or just more dragon suits into infinity
Dragonsuitception

Seb: tell him about the howitzers, and how they punch people to heal them. You just assumed he'd want to get in on something like that.

[PavlovianCat]

> Seb: Get over to those cannons man, who knows when the demon could show up! Make sure to drag the ammunition your brother along with you.


Competition you say? Well then what if...

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... Ava really is the General's mother. More specifically the General is actually Ava's son from the future that she has by accidentally imprinting herself on a fire elemental boss which gains functional immortality when Gwydion uses the dev console to delete the event flag for it's death (there was alcohol involved), which then manages to burn so hot that it breaks the game's internal Heat_index variable and rolls over into negative heat, freezing itself (yes, so cold it froze fire), where it stayed in a half-dead state for so long that the future rolled over into the past, and it has only now managed to half-thaw itself out. See that fire he shoots? That's just him coming out of the armor.

So I suppose he would look like a half-dead half-frozen half-fire-elemental Ava with a handlebar mustache (It was a male fire-elemental after all).

In his coffee? He prefers half-and-half.

[Dragon Fogel]

"It's perfectly fine, healing mages get shot out of the cannons all the time, and they've got to be way more fragile than you. Plus did I mention it will let you punch things really, really hard? Seriously, you'll love it."

[Professor zobot]

A contest, eh?

I would bring great shame to my writerly roots if I didn't try out for this! But first...

>Sebastian: Dealing with your brother, like all things, requires strategy. First, get him outta here and take him to a place where causing a scene isn't expected, but almost required. In other words, the diviest bar in the city. Away from anyone you don't want hearing this. Then, lay out the tenants of the plan: how safe it is and the fact that healing priests will be fired immediately fired right after him. And just to be EXTRA safe you'll find him a helmet. Heck, maybe even a LEGENDARY helmet! And he's survived way more risky crap than this, didn't he jump out of a flying train a little while ago or something?

(Expect a general dramatic reveal submission later tonight!)

[Godbot]

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Gonna stick with > IT WAS THE ONLY WAY TO FIT THE ENTIRE ELITE DRAGON GUARD INSIDE

> Gwydian
> Think of the chicks

[Wessolf27]

Ava: Get a huge level boon from beating four men with your wishful thinking skills!

[mythLeader]

>SEBASTIAN: Assure Gwydian that "cannon" was just a code word for... a magic power-up chamber that will temporarily increase his strength tenfold... and which happens to look exactly like a cannon.

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Okay, really I made that update as an excuse to post a ridiculous theory about the General:

He's really the street vendor from Update 6! (He did say he was looking forward to doing business with Sebastian again!) He moonlights as a Dragon General in order to be in a position to find out who would be most likely to want his wares, and to convince his underlings to buy from the street vendor that is actually secretly him out of disguise! His armor is actually made of all the goods he couldn't sell, glued together and painted and lacquered. It looks impressive from the outside, but inside it's mostly cheap souvenirs, badly-made religious thingamajigs, and papier-mâché.

[goldedge2]

Ava: Get a huge level boon from beating four men with your wishful thinking skills!

+1

>Seb: let's hunt some demons

[Demothesis]

Ava: Get a huge level boon from beating four men with your wishful thinking skills!

Agreed.

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My crazy suggestion? It's not actually one person, his armor is a Voltron style combination robot! It splits into arms, legs, head and torso robots! Each controlled by a fae, or leprechaun, or really small dragons.

[Professor zobot]

Ava: Realize you just got 4 men who are physically stronger and more dangerous than you to shut up and do what you say. Feel a bit like a smug badass about that. (Guys? I do NOT think we want to see what happens when Ava's ABILITY TO PUT UP WITH THIS SHIT drains all the way to zero...)

Ok, let's review what we know of the General.

1) He has no problem taking off his helmet to let people see his face (or lack thereof) which means he's not ashamed of it or anything.
2) He likes fighting, and usually does so at a handicap to see how people handle themselves. Maybe he could seriously hurt someone if he fought fairly. I don't know, but it's worth speculating about.
3) He's pretty big on the whole "Honor" thing.
4) He has absolutely no problem firing Gwydian out of a canon as long as he thinks it's an effective strategic move.
5) He likes Dragons probably more than is healthy. This is probably just a Videgotta thing, though.
6) He's very, VERY good at killing. Asotil-level good.
7) He has a bit of a flair for the melodrama.

Knowing all this, I present:

My submission for the General's identity:

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As the number one son of Videgotto, our General grew up knowing his entire life he was meant for great things. He grew up training in the art of KILLERY and MAIMERY and of Taking Hits That Would Cause A Lesser True Man to Die. On the battle field he achieved great prowess, rising through the ranks quickly and without fail.

And then.

The Incident.

The now-promoted General, while winning glory on the battlefield, led a contingent of men against an enemy super weapon. A terrifying thing, all blades and fire and unnatural machania. As it attacked, the General intercepted an attack on one of his soldiers, which cleaved his body in twain. But such was the General's BADASSERY statistic that even bisected, he not only survived but fought on, defeating the device even without the use of his legs.

For honor in battle, and because nothing alive can seemingly kill him, the noble technicians of Videgotto took the remains of the evil warmachine and crafted their general a suit of righteous Dragon Armor that even a man without legs could command, which he dwells in to this day, a living sign of the unconquerable Spirit of the Land of the Conquered Sky.

And that, dear friends, is the fate of our awesome General.

[Anthano Zasalla]

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I can more or less tell by now that you don't get that high status in this kingdom without proving your honor in glorious battle. Nor do you without an organ in your body which enables you to breathe fire.
He challenges the "exorcists" to validate his decision to entrust them with the protection of the city. Top it off with his incredible suit of armor and his stoic trainer/bodyguard with legendary speed and strength, and it becomes fairly obvious who this man really is.

He is King Skal, and he is the biggest badass in the land.

> Where'd Tristan run off to? Be him.

[Torquemadras Trump]

Legend of the Hunter - 62

>Seb: let's hunt some demons

You do not have any more time to waste. The demon could appear anytime, and even if you're just a FAKE EXORCIST SEARCHING FOR THE ULTIMATE WEAPON, you will defeat this demon! You'll show everyone how great you are at demon fighting, oh yeah.

> Seb: Get over to those cannons man, who knows when the demon could show up! Make sure to drag the ammunition your brother along with you.

You hurry to one of the cannons that the Remedy Squad has installed, telling Gwydian to shut up and just follow you. If only your brother would be more cooperative.

Man I'm kinda getting depressed here
'cause I still don't know how to keep bro away from the Ultimate Weapon
Dammit, and I blew that chance to talk to Lady Naum! Fuck!

Gwydian> weren't you pissed at your brother about something now that there is no looming threat to your life?

Better cross that bridge once I get to it
First of all
I AM STILL PISSED BRO

You duly take notice of your brother's continued displeasure.



The General and the guard with the silly collar WHOSE NAME SHALL ONLY BE KNOWN TO THE CRAFTIEST INDIVIDUALS ponder the recent developments. They aren't very interested in dealing with the accumulated damages caused by Gwydian yet. TRUE MEN DON'T DO ACCOUNTING.

Ava: Get a huge level boon from beating four men with your wishful thinking skills!

Ava feels pretty much like QUEEN OF ALL LIFE-FORMS right now. Those stupid guys actually LISTENED to her! Who would've guessed that you could intimidate grown men by just WISHFULLY THINKING YOURSELF TO BE IN CHARGE? Truly, her newly awakened talent is ALL THANKS TO THAT GREAT MR. SLICK.

Ava gained a ARBITRARY UNIT COUNTING TOWARDS THE IMPROVEMENT OF COMBAT PERFORMANCE! Sadly, she doesn't know HOW TO SPEND THOSE.

Hrm. I'm going to follow those two.
I KEEP TELLING YOU, THEIR WORTHINESS HAS BEEN PROVEN!
BESIDES, EVERYBODY KNOWS ONLY EXORCISTS CAN PULL OF THAT BANISHING PUNCH.
IT'S A GIFT FROM THE ANGELS OF ARAEL!
I'm just a suspicious nature. You gotta be as the absolute elite.
Not that you'd know anything about THAT.
YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE FLAMETHROWERS.



You soon arrive at one of the cannons. You have no idea how the Howitzer priests actually got it up there, but you ain't complaining! It seems that Father Lamard has arrived, too. He seems to develop a sixth sense for ABSCONDING BEFORE GWYDIAN FUCKS EVERYTHING UP AGAIN.

Okay bro, what the hell?!
Getting shot out of cannons
That is stupid! I'm not gonna be fuckin ammunition

"It's perfectly fine, healing mages get shot out of the cannons all the time, and they've got to be way more fragile than you. Plus did I mention it will let you punch things really, really hard? Seriously, you'll love it."

You counter your brother's aptly expressed points by patiently explaining that it's perfectly safe. PROBABLY. You try painting a prettier picture as for his role in bringing down the demon - he's not just a projectile, he'll be a PUNCHING PROJECTILE! What's not to love about that?

> Gwydian
> Think of the chicks

Also, CHICKS DIG STORIES LIKE THAT. And what better way to pull that story off than demonstrating it to people all over the plaza!



You're trying to outsmart me, aren't you
I know you are that's what you do you're an inveterate outsmarter
Well that ain't workin
I tell you, we should... just leave this place before anything bad happens

You don't know what Gwydian is talking about. Bad things happening? This whole bluff is more luck than you'll ever have again! Besides, you're not gonna let that demon get away. The citizens need to be protected. AND YOU NEED TO GET YOUR DEMON KILLING ON. Discussion is over.

The two of you stop arguing for a second when you both notice a lone SPOTLIGHT appearing next to you. For what purpose, you wonder?

> Where'd Tristan run off to? Be him.

Unfortunately, YOU CANNOT BE TRISTAN RIGHT NOW.



However, you can be EL VENDAVAL, Lord of Storms and Good Fortune, the dashing rogue of the emerald planes, the moustache'd favorite of all the ladies!

Uhm, greetings, brave heroes!
My name is EL VENDAVAL, and I could not help but notice that you are on a quest of utmost importance!
Me and my close quarter table demolition fighting style could be of great help to you!
Why don't we join forces for a poorly explained or even no reason?

EL VENDAVAL throws a golden and a silver dice in the air. They don't actually do anything. They just look fancy.

You look familiar
Did I piledrive you in the past?

==>

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FANCY PORTRAITS! So that you too may now know just who is talking!
I'm not going to have huge walls of text, so I think space issues should stay manageable. Tell me what you think.

As for the competition,

ONE MORE DAY OF ENTRIES SHALL BE GRANTED!

There's great suggestions so far, and maybe there's still some more!

[Wessolf27]

Tristan El Vendavval: Show your awesome gambler skills to these two.

[PavlovianCat]

El Vendalva: Uh.. Yes! Us plot important types always tend to bump into each other right? You where probably too... drunk, to remember. Or something.

(also I like speech portraits, I wish more adventures would do them)