Story Wednesday September 27, 2017

[Tom Sewell 268]

3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, we DO have some conclusion jumping champions on cast ...

And in this forum, neh?

[hkmaly 490]

2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Of course, we DO have some conclusion jumping champions on cast ...

And in this forum, neh?

Well sure, but THOSE can't really tell Adrian anything.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, hkmaly said:

Just now, Tom Sewell said:

Elaborating on the theory that the Francine we see hiding in the toilet is really Pandora.

Oh. Didn't occurred to me. I interpreted Pandora's theory as Pandora being the Francine we saw earlier but this being the real one.

Still, neither makes sense. Sure, Pandora CAN look like anyone, but she's more likely to be completely invisible.

Also, Dan said in comics "Francine's unconscious for some mysterious reason".

She could have been magically put the sleep and has been there all day, and the person we saw in the halls was a shapeshifted imposter.

We know Pandora isn't above impersonating people, she pretended to be Fox to wake Nanase up and tell her to save Ellen, she pretended to be Wolf to get into Adrian's hospital room and get the Scrubs reject to leave. It would make sense for Pandora to have decided to keep an eye on Diane while Jerry2.0 watched Susan,though what purpose would knocking out a janitor and impersonating her do when she could pose as a random student like Helena and Demetrius had done, or just watch from another plane of existence like Jerry2.0 is?

[Drasvin 123]

11 hours ago, hkmaly said:

13 hours ago, Scotty said:

I don't think she's the victim of another aberration, that would imply that there's an aberration roaming the halls of MSHS, we've already seen the "security system" that the school has, it makes me wonder if there are other wards and such that Adrian's put in place to protect the students since the encounter with Abraham.

So what, you expect her to be victim of ordinary human attack? ANYTHING magical is likely to trigger Adrian's wards. Although I agree that it's weird we don't see the wards activated.

I don't think the lockdown barriers have an automated trigger. I think Raven has to cast them whenever he wants to lockdown the school. (Though his spell does automate a majority of the placement of those barriers) My evidence for this is the lockdown ending after Abraham knocked Adrian unconscious. Even if there was an automated trigger, Adrian would have to reset the lockdown spell every day (unless he doesn't sleep, which would be odd considering even his more magical mother sleeps) and there would be the steady energy drain of the spell sitting there, ready to trigger.

Adrian had been expecting trouble and would be ready to act to protect his students. Abraham started his attack by cutting the power and blocking communications, which would alert Mr Raven, letting him cast the lockdown spell to attempt to keep Abraham out, or at least keep innocents out of the way (And his elven sense, while diminished in human form, would let him know that the power loss was magical instead of due to the weather or some other mundane happenstance).

11 hours ago, Scotty said:

Immortals can't be detected, it's possible that Magus might not be detectable on that plane either though dunno for sure. Sure Sirleck might not be detect if he's on the same plane, but ...

Well, Immortals can't be detected because they're Immortals, regardless of what layer of reality they're on. It's an inherent quality of theirs. Though Magus and Sirleck(when not attacking a new host) would still be difficult to impossible to detect due to being on the spirit plane. The only indication of Magus being detected from the physical plane is when he first entered the EGS main universe, though he was also crashing through trans-dimensional barriers at the time, which is what the DGB investigators had detected.

9 hours ago, hkmaly said:

If Magus can't be detected - and he probably can't, he was in Tedd's house multiple times and Tedd's house is warded - then it would make sense than Sirleck wouldn't be detected either. The same might be true for other aberrations, in fact some might be even harder to detect if they don't want to be detected than Sirleck.

Magus likely can't be detected by people and things on the physical plane, though it's also possible, if unlikely, that Mr. Verres didn't include a means to detect spirit plane residents in his wards, assuming such a means exists of course. The only spirit plane residents that we know of are Immortals (which can't be detected if they don't want to be anyway), Magus (who is a unique circumstance), and certain aberrations like Sirleck (Which have to shift to the physical plane to attack someone anyway and might be fairly rare). He might have figured that such detection means weren't worth the effort and cost to implement. Again, I think it's unlikely that Edward would skip on a defensive measure, even one unlikely to be helpful, as he's really concerned about his son's wellbeing (even if he's not always good about approaching certain topics properly) and his line of work makes a degree (but not too much) of paranoia healthy...unless the costs of said defensive measures are simply too great, or the implementation too unfeasible, for even a healthy amount of paranoia.

Aberrations on the physical plane are likely detectable as such via magical means (pretty much the inverse of aberrations that can detect those that can summon magical weapons). Helena and Demetrius were able to direct Andrea to aberrations to kill. While there are certainly a plethora of possibilities of how they found the aberrations, magical detection would be a clean and simple method. On the other hand, aberrations have a vested interest in not being found as a literal monster, so they likely have various methods to evade detection. Maybe an aberration can only be detected as such when in monster form? Aberrations like Sirleck hide on the spirit plane, where they're likely only detectible to other spirit plane denizens (Which sounds really risky, given that is were the Immortals live, but the first few aberrations that tried that might have been using the logic of 'hide in the place they least expect to find you')

15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

My first though was "she's newly turned vampire". Then I remembered EGS vampires can't turn people to vampires and though about Sirleck. Although she can just as easily be victim of some other aberration ...

Well, EGS vampires might be able to turn other people into vampires, the rules just require it to be intentional and consensual. They can't turn someone by accident or against that person's will. And I'm not sure if they would have much incentive to change someone into a competitor for resources, unless there was something to gain which could be possible in some cases.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Remember, there can be multiple Immortals on the "spirit plane" and yet none of them be visible to each other.  It's only young (recently reset) Immortals that can't hide from other Immortals.  Magus, on the other hand, seems to be stuck in the spirit plane in a manner that leaves him visible to Immortals, but in which he can still perform magic, such as the nifty illusion he used to escape when Les Immortels caught him near Ellen and Elliot.

[hkmaly 490]

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

19 hours ago, hkmaly said:

So what, you expect her to be victim of ordinary human attack? ANYTHING magical is likely to trigger Adrian's wards. Although I agree that it's weird we don't see the wards activated.

I don't think the lockdown barriers have an automated trigger. I think Raven has to cast them whenever he wants to lockdown the school. (Though his spell does automate a majority of the placement of those barriers) My evidence for this is the lockdown ending after Abraham knocked Adrian unconscious. Even if there was an automated trigger, Adrian would have to reset the lockdown spell every day (unless he doesn't sleep, which would be odd considering even his more magical mother sleeps) and there would be the steady energy drain of the spell sitting there, ready to trigger.

There can be two (or even more) spells. Sure, the active lockdown has so big energy drain it goes off when Adrian sleeps, but the wards (meaning: detecting spells) may not. Edward Verres protected his house with defenses which he likely didn't needed to refresh every day after waking up, especially considering there were supposed to hold even when he was on "business" trip for multiple days. Not only Adrian is likely to be better than Edward, it's likely HE taught him the spells.

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Well, Immortals can't be detected because they're Immortals, regardless of what layer of reality they're on.

Their MAGIC POTENTIAL can't be detected. You can see them on physical plane just fine and I think someone would comment if Helena nor Voltaire wouldn't be visible on all those videos from Mall incident.

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

If Magus can't be detected - and he probably can't, he was in Tedd's house multiple times and Tedd's house is warded - then it would make sense than Sirleck wouldn't be detected either. The same might be true for other aberrations, in fact some might be even harder to detect if they don't want to be detected than Sirleck.

Magus likely can't be detected by people and things on the physical plane, though it's also possible, if unlikely, that Mr. Verres didn't include a means to detect spirit plane residents in his wards, assuming such a means exists of course. The only spirit plane residents that we know of are Immortals (which can't be detected if they don't want to be anyway), Magus (who is a unique circumstance), and certain aberrations like Sirleck (Which have to shift to the physical plane to attack someone anyway and might be fairly rare). He might have figured that such detection means weren't worth the effort and cost to implement. Again, I think it's unlikely that Edward would skip on a defensive measure, even one unlikely to be helpful, as he's really concerned about his son's wellbeing (even if he's not always good about approaching certain topics properly) and his line of work makes a degree (but not too much) of paranoia healthy...unless the costs of said defensive measures are simply too great, or the implementation too unfeasible, for even a healthy amount of paranoia.

Well, given the "anything except time travel" limit, there MIGHT be way to detect spirit plane residents ... however, Mr. Verres, experienced wizard, seems to not know any.

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

On the other hand, aberrations have a vested interest in not being found as a literal monster, so they likely have various methods to evade detection. Maybe an aberration can only be detected as such when in monster form? Aberrations like Sirleck hide on the spirit plane, where they're likely only detectible to other spirit plane denizens

Most likely, aberrations need active methods to evade detection. They can either hide on physical plane by masking as human or on the spirit plane by masking as nothing.

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

22 hours ago, hkmaly said:

My first though was "she's newly turned vampire". Then I remembered EGS vampires can't turn people to vampires and though about Sirleck. Although she can just as easily be victim of some other aberration ...

Well, EGS vampires might be able to turn other people into vampires, the rules just require it to be intentional and consensual. They can't turn someone by accident or against that person's will. And I'm not sure if they would have much incentive to change someone into a competitor for resources, unless there was something to gain which could be possible in some cases.

Right. They can't force-turn, they may be able to turn willing victims. And regarding the gain ... well, empathy or not, some of them might have lovers or just friends they would like to turn ... but generally they would need to be bribed, yes.

Francine doesn't look like the type who would WANT to be turned, AND she's unlikely to have anything valuable for vampires.

19 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Remember, there can be multiple Immortals on the "spirit plane" and yet none of them be visible to each other.  It's only young (recently reset) Immortals that can't hide from other Immortals.  Magus, on the other hand, seems to be stuck in the spirit plane in a manner that leaves him visible to Immortals, but in which he can still perform magic, such as the nifty illusion he used to escape when Les Immortels caught him near Ellen and Elliot.

I think Magus is in exactly same situation as young immortals - he is on spirit plane, so he can't be seen from physical one, but he doesn't know the additional method(s) of hiding allowing older Immortals to hide from other immortals.

[ChronosCat 155]

On 9/27/2017 at 7:18 PM, Tom Sewell said:

I think that unlikely. Sirleck used the old man for a long time, and acting like someone who has empathy would be difficult and distasteful to Sirleck. Any man that rich would have lots of important people watching him, and even if none of them figured out what was really going on, he could have lots and lots of trouble with his businesses if his behavior changed radically. Trouble like loans being called in, credit ratings downgraded, stock prices falling, unwelcome investigation from the authorities, hostile takeover atempts, etc. On the other hand, if the old man was already well established as a selfish jerk and still got and stayed rich, the people who worked with him before to some mutual profit would go on holding their noses to make even more money and/or avoid making him angry enough to crush them.

Do we know how long Sirlek was possessing the old man? I don't know why but my headcanon is that Sirlek possessed him when he was a young man, and built up most of his fortune himself. So his business associates might know him as a ruthless and greedy guy even if without/prior to Sirlek's influence he was a nice guy.

19 hours ago, Scotty said:

Immortals can't be detected, it's possible that Magus might not be detectable on that plane either though dunno for sure. Sure Sirleck might not be detect if he's on the same plane, but

Well, Magus can certainly get past the wards on Moperville South without being detected; we saw him lurking there back when Nanase was showing Ellen her clothing-swap spell (early on in Sister II if I remember correctly).

[ChronosCat 155]

Okay, either the forum or my browser is messing up; I pressed "submit" and nothing seemed to happen, so I pressed it again and it still seemed like nothing happened. Luckily I checked the thread again before pressing it a third time because it had gone through both times...

Edited September 28, 2017 by ChronosCat

[Scotty 1,061]

2 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

Well, Magus can certainly get past the wards on Moperville South without being detected; we saw him lurking there back when Nanase was showing Ellen her clothing-swap spell (early on in Sister II if I remember correctly).

As was pointed out earlier the lockdown was apparently activated by Adrian himself when the power went out and then ended when he was knocked out. But what are the chances he's beefed up his security measures since then?

[mlooney 3,417]

3 minutes ago, Scotty said:

But what are the chances he's beefed up his security measures since then?

That's another one of those "pretty close to unity" statements.

 

[Tom Sewell 268]

1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

Magus, on the other hand, seems to be stuck in the spirit plane in a manner that leaves him visible to Immortals, but in which he can still perform magic, such as the nifty illusion he used to escape when Les Immortels caught him near Ellen and Elliot.

It's a clone/illusion spell like Nanase's color clones. I wonder if Nanase has any more clone spells besides Fox now.

[Scotty 1,061]

3 minutes ago, mlooney said:

That's another one of those "pretty close to unity" statements.

 

It's one of those things where you gotta wonder if, after existing procedures have been shown to fail, there have been any changes made to try to prevent future failures.

[Tom Sewell 268]

I don't think Sirleck could possess a single host for decades. If he'd done that, he would have had decades to prepare for his next host. Since he has a vampiric/parasitical nature, Sirleck almost certainly destroys the health of any host over time at a much faster pace than normal aging.

If Dan cares to, he could make up a long list of notable hosts Sirleck has robbed of life and morality. Idi Amin comes to mind.

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

It's a clone/illusion spell like Nanase's color clones. I wonder if Nanase has any more clone spells besides Fox now.

She already have two clone spells. What exactly could third clone spell be doing to be different from both previous?

More likely, she has some upgrade on Fox, just like she got multiple upgrades on fairy. Like, two Foxes at once?

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

I don't think Sirleck could possess a single host for decades. If he'd done that, he would have had decades to prepare for his next host. Since he has a vampiric/parasitical nature, Sirleck almost certainly destroys the health of any host over time at a much faster pace than normal aging.

Therefore the speculations that he takes "vacations" from his long-term host to drain energy from some other hosts and then return.

Also, can still be decades. He might possess current host at 40, is now 60 and looks as 80.

1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

I don't know why but my headcanon is that Sirlek possessed him when he was a young man, and built up most of his fortune himself.

Note that possessing him at 20 might again attract too much attention ... but at 40? Friends from school gone, his wife left him with someone younger and more competent, parents got tired of nagging him to get children, fired from work for drinking (see the wife part) ... ideal target. Then Sirleck possessed him, picked up the wealth from previous host and started to multiply it.

 

[Tom Sewell 268]

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

She already have two clone spells. What exactly could third clone spell be doing to be different from both previous?

How about making clones of other people? Perhaps seven extra Ellens?

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

She already have two clone spells. What exactly could third clone spell be doing to be different from both previous?

How about making clones of other people? Perhaps seven extra Ellens?

... good point. Fox, but targetable to other people like Ellen. Now, would she be controlled by Nanase or Ellen subconscious?

If controlled by Nanase, it would be just like transformed Fox (and possibly upgrade to Fox instead of separate spell). However, I'm not sure if spell can give control to someone else ...

Or maybe something more like the color spell targeted at other people ... or, even better: mass distraction - clone group of people which can't really operate as individual but can make convincing ... uh, cluster? ... group of people which can for example block up path.

[Tom Sewell 268]

19 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... good point. Fox, but targetable to other people like Ellen. Now, would she be controlled by Nanase or Ellen subconscious?

If controlled by Nanase, it would be just like transformed Fox. However, I'm not sure if spell can give control to someone else ...

Hmmm. Well, it could start out as simple as making illusion-clones. Note that the color-clones are illusory but they can act autonomously like Susan's fairies or Fox. Then, control options. Next step, duplicates that have the same knowledge, abilities, and personalities of the original, but fade out or can be unsummoned (explosions optional.) Finally, permanent duplicates--That's what Ellen is, more or less, isn't she?

[Scotty 1,061]

1 minute ago, Tom Sewell said:

Note that the color-clones are illusory but they can act autonomously like Susan's fairies or Fox.

Unless Nanase's got an upgraded version of that spell in the past year, the color clones wouldn't be very useful as they can't physically interact with anything or they go poof.

[hkmaly 490]

59 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Hmmm. Well, it could start out as simple as making illusion-clones.

... I should've reloaded the page before making the edit.

59 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Next step, duplicates that have the same knowledge, abilities, and personalities of the original

I don't think Fox actually have some personality. I think she's using Nanase's personality and is unable to have separate "character grow" or anything.

59 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Finally, permanent duplicates--That's what Ellen is, more or less, isn't she?

True. Although ability to make permanent duplicates like this sounds 1) OP 2) Evil if you get rid of them and quickly going out of hand if you keep them.

56 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Unless Nanase's got an upgraded version of that spell in the past year, the color clones wouldn't be very useful as they can't physically interact with anything or they go poof.

Well FOX is the upgrade, isn't she?

I mean, sure, Nanase acts like Fox is something completely different, but come on, the spell is called Decoy Summon. It's totally upgrade of her color clone spell which can interact physically.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, hkmaly said:

Well FOX is the upgrade, isn't she?

Kinda? Maybe more like it was the combined use of colour clone magic and the fairy avatar that allowed for Fox. But I don't think Nanase could summon more than 1 of her, it seemed like the magic requirements to summon her was fairly high.

[Tom Sewell 268]

1 minute ago, Scotty said:

Unless Nanase's got an upgraded version of that spell in the past year, the color clones wouldn't be very useful as they can't physically interact with anything or they go poof.

What about color clones that can interact? This could seriously off-foot anyone who thought they knew Nanase's fighting style.

In fact, we do know that Nanase was always one of the color clones. Maybe she could already switch between clones.

[hkmaly 490]

5 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Kinda? Maybe more like it was the combined use of colour clone magic and the fairy avatar that allowed for Fox. But I don't think Nanase could summon more than 1 of her, it seemed like the magic requirements to summon her was fairly high.

Well I don't think there is limit in the spell ; only reason she can't cast two Foxes would likely be she doesn't have enough energy for it ... or DIDN'T have. Her magic capacity went up while she was burned out, didn't it?

5 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

In fact, we do know that Nanase was always one of the color clones. Maybe she could already switch between clones.

No she wasn't. Look at this and next three comics and you'll see ALL color clones AND Nanase next. She was one of them only when she needed to.

Hmmm ... combined attack: Nanase changes into three versions which are completely identical (instead of color-coded). One of them is illusion, one is real Nanase, one is Fox.

[Scotty 1,061]

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

No she wasn't. Look at this and next three comics and you'll see ALL color clones AND Nanase next. She was one of them only when she needed to.

Yeah, she can likely pick which colour to be when she casts the spell, but beyond that she only seems to change colour to indicate her clones going poof.

[hkmaly 490]

6 minutes ago, Scotty said:

10 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

No she wasn't. Look at this and next three comics and you'll see ALL color clones AND Nanase next. She was one of them only when she needed to.

Yeah, she can likely pick which colour to be when she casts the spell, but beyond that she only seems to change colour to indicate her clones going poof.

It's less "which color to be" and more "which color to skip summoning".

[Don Edwards 548]

20 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

I don't think Sirleck could possess a single host for decades. If he'd done that, he would have had decades to prepare for his next host. Since he has a vampiric/parasitical nature, Sirleck almost certainly destroys the health of any host over time at a much faster pace than normal aging.

If Dan cares to, he could make up a long list of notable hosts Sirleck has robbed of life and morality. Idi Amin comes to mind.

While it wouldn't surprise me to learn that Sirleck drains his hosts fairly quickly, remember that it's nothing unusual for a human who has reached physical maturity to last another six decades. So double-time aging would give him 30 years.

The problem is not preparing for the next host; it's preparing the next host and the wealth-transfer. In order to not be caught out by behavior changes or a sudden disappearance, he needs a new host who has no strong attachments and can explainably disappear from the host's current setting.

The problem with pre-identifying and pre-preparing such a host is that originally-suitable people tend to either acquire disqualifying social and economic connections, or disappear without your help.

Hmm... how to find a host quickly...

1) Call up FarFromHere University, which is let's say somewhere in California, and offer a paid internship for an undergraduate in business management.

2) From the applicants, pick a few who are near the bottom end of plausible academic qualifications and who are NOT from anywhere near the university - or Moperville. Say, from east Texas. If their applications contain no mention of family, good. Hire private investigators to look into their friendships and social and romantic entanglements. What you're really looking for is the fewest and weakest such. You also care about good health and healthy habits - you don't want a host already partly wrecked.

3) Get your chosen intern on-site. If you can do so without actually changing hosts, seize control. Otherwise, praise said intern fulsomely and express great paternal affection.

4) Offer the intern a permanent position effective immediately. Get him/her to agree to drop out of college.

5) Mention that you're dying and have no heir. Adopt the intern. Alter your will to make him/her sole heir.

6) Change hosts.

So now you have a host who's about 20 years old and in good health, with no connections, who is the sole heir of your previous host. You're good for at least a couple decades. When the time comes to do it again, be sure to pick a different university and an intern from a different town.