Advertisement
The_Merchant

Welcome Back

Oct 1st, 2016
196
0
Never
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 23.08 KB | None | 0 0
  1. FFXIV
  2. Au Ra (free)
  3. Xaela Warpath (free)
  4. Astrologian (free)
  5. Ninja (free)
  6. Summoner (free)
  7. Stellar Blessing (free)
  8. Joker Deck (900)
  9. Catch Me If You Can (free)
  10. Silence from the Knife (800)
  11. Mudra Merging Technique (600)
  12. Elemental Distribution (free)
  13. Summoner's Conduit (500)
  14. Eyes on Me (300)
  15. Contractual Bind (0)
  16. Soft Echo (free)
  17. Resounding Echo (-200)
  18. Voidsender (-500)
  19. 8 Companion Import (-800)
  20. Dealer (-1000)
  21. Celestial Alignment (-1300)
  22. Kill on Sight Order: Illuminati (-1200)
  23. All Scenarios (0)
  24. This gets me a great deal of useful abilities. Celestial Alignment I especially have some lovely plans for, while the deck should allow me all sorts of interesting techniques. Summoning gets me a lovely accompanying set of allies that get free potshots in when the enemy inevitably tries to kill me. Contractual Bind is also fun, getting me a toolbox of instantly summonable monsters. The Ninja line I picked up to get myself some blasty magic and because Silence from the Knife is obscenely good.
  25. Phase 1: Sacred Moon
  26. Join Research Group (29)
  27. Scholars (28)
  28. Scientists (27)
  29. Aether (26)
  30. Creatures of Yore (25)
  31. Ruins of the Last Age (24)
  32. Races of Hydaelyn (23)
  33. Mythology (22) May as well start into my usual thing of just researching everything. Makes for a fun hobby.
  34. The Wanderers, Yda and Papalymo (21) Wait a minute, a Masked Spirit that had no shadow? This looks like the work of an enemy Stand! I’ll send his remains to the labs immediately to be examined, the fool didn’t expect me to be able to harm his spirit.
  35. Establish Free Company (20) The Stardust Crusaders are now officially a thing. Having found no other easy solution to harming spirits in this world I have decided to create a coalition of Stand Users with the Arrow. Captain Fishface is in charge of the day to day affairs.
  36. Establish Presence (19)
  37. Recruit Adventurers x2 (17) We’ll be needing some extra hands to deal with this, they shall be the Phantom Blood unit
  38. Train Adventurers (16) How to spot possession and Stand Battles 101
  39. Company Crest (15) Wouldn’t do to have infiltrators, crest is a replica Arrowhead
  40. Storehouses (14) Best to keep supplies going
  41. Rapid Restock (13) Mwahahaha now we have large supplies of rope.. and other useful stuff, but mostly unlimited rope tricks
  42. Local Support (12) Always useful, also getting to know the locals might get me a few more prospective Crusaders
  43. A Measure of Fame (11) What can I say, the strange abilities exhibited by our group kinda got us noticed
  44. Company Actions (10) Regularly scheduled mock Stand battles, with my companions and I doing the occasional public exhibition match.
  45. The Agent, Lucia Goe Junius (9) High speed teleportation abduction go. From there start detailing what’s actually going on with the war in hopes of getting her on our side, might even see about staging an “escape” to get her back in the ranks so she can search for Ascians on the other end. This also gets me some other useful contacts. Frankly I find the current regime in Ishgard distasteful but will be useful to have fingers in there.
  46. The Amnesiac, “Marques” (8) Happy to help out. Hesitant to give him a Stand quite yet but should be possible to help him out some.
  47. The Refugee Leader, Yugiri Mistwalker (7) Valuable allies. Even more so once I give Yugiri a Stand
  48. The Diplomat, Skaetswys (6) May as well help the Grand Companies out some. Bloody incompetent necromancer, there’s always an easy source of dead bodies that they’d be happy to give you when there’s a war going on.
  49. Lancebearer, Ser Alberic Bale (5) Well time to fake some kills. Progenitor Crystals should let me get at least a few decent corpses together.
  50. Adventuring Maiden, Y’shtola (4) She came to the right place. One Arrow application later and she should be able to actually see them. Since I was feeling generous I used Our Monsters Are the Same plus some Demon Tools to get her a couple live captures to go over.
  51. The Experimenter, Mutamix Bubblypots (3) The Illuminati already want me dead, so I'm happy to take in some of their other enemies. Going to have him in the research group and introduce him to the wonders of the printing press.
  52. The Researcher, Surito Carito (2) An interesting story. Now I just need to find one target and I'll get an entire species of allies. Also I might be able to shield them from the Rancor's effects when they're in close proximity, which should prove useful.
  53. The Dreamer, Sezul Totoloc (1) Bloody birdbrains, tried to pull one aside for questioning and they took it as an attack. Anyway Sezul will be sent towards The Amnesiac, they seem like they'd get along and their goals are compatible.
  54. Exploring the Deepcroft (0) The Choir should enjoy this. Heretics, demons, and undead to kill. Should be right up their alley.
  55. So all in all this should get the Stardust Crusaders on the map as a significant faction. Sure we're kinda small in number but we've got weird esoteric BS that other factions are kinda at a loss for. And that's before you get into me opening inroads with most of the major factions. Admittedly I'm busy dodging assassination attempts from Ascian agents as a regular occurrence but still doing fairly well.
  56. Phase 2: Unbreakable Chains
  57. Infiltrators (29) There's a war on, I want a decent intelligence network.
  58. The Garlean Empire X3 (26) Know thy enemy. Also fuck up the supply lines of thy enemy. Livia should be useful here.
  59. Paragon (25) Although we should also keep an eye on our true foe. Once more the Phantom Blood unit will be working to dispose of confirmed sightings.
  60. Commanders (24) Fishface is the ranking officer, technically I can pull rank on him but generally I find it best to leave things to his discretion on the battlefield.
  61. Path of the Twelve (23)
  62. Scions of the Seventh Dawn (22) We have similar aims. The Primals are a terrible idea to summon in all but the most dire of circumstances.
  63. Resounding Echo (21) This should help my attempts to field Stand Users against Ascians and Primals immensely.
  64. Anyway Research time, would be dreadful to fall behind on the arms race.
  65. Sons of Saint Coinach (20) They seem the useful faction to talk to.
  66. Teachings of Amon (19) Some interesting tricks. Now my Curiosity Reactors are even more potent, also the Light will probably be getting upgraded with this soon-ish.
  67. Agent of the Void (18) Better control of my highly erratic summons is always a plus.
  68. Otherworld (17) And now my summons can teleport. Reality is for squares.
  69. Retaking Wanderer's Keep (16) Just go through in full stealth mode, by the time the King realizes I'm in the Keep he will already be dead.
  70. Ragnarok Class Starship (15) Cantus and Carawyn get sent on this one, they're my best investigators and Cantus can go true form if worst comes to worst.
  71. Phaeros Sirius (14) Father Alexander gets this one, he should do a decent job of clearing things out and is probably willing to try to give the Siren a second chance.
  72. Exploring Ampadoor (13) Louise and the Choir get this one.
  73. Diplomats (12)
  74. Dravarian Horde (11) Best to get their side of the story. Not going to let them know about Bahamut for now though.
  75. The Legions (10) Some research wouldn't be remiss.
  76. Save points for Part 3 (0)
  77. Castrum Meridianum/Our Plight is Repeated
  78. Okay, so the plan is as follows: first we stage a big attack at Oriens, Fishface gets deployed at that one alongside Louise. That should get us the big and flashy diversion. From there I lead the assault force to Meridianum, including Father Alexander, the Choir, a small army of golems, five giant curiosity elementals, and some very nice Nasuverse Puppets. Meanwhile over at Centri we deploy the Banshees, Carawyn, and Cantus, although they're more going to infiltrate and mess with the minds of everyone there, leaving the apparently safe line of retreat an utter hellhole of a boobytrap.
  79.  
  80. Louise and Fishface can pretty much steamroll fortifications, so that shouldn't be much of an issue, especially since Fishface will likely be going in his EVO form that's ridiculously hard to kill and good at swimming while his stand lets him turn solid matter into liquid to swim through. Meanwhile Louise has massive freaking explosions as her main mode of assault, has a lovely Real Eaten Unknown Hero variant that boosts her endurance, and can control gravity on a whim. While the fortress sadly won't be taken intact it will cease to be an issue, especially when the area around the teleporters is set to fling anyone entering it skyward thanks to a tube of permanently inverted and strengthened gravity.
  81.  
  82. Meanwhile on the main assault on the base I send Father Alexander forward to unlock the doors, his Stand is remarkably well suited to infiltration. Meanwhile I'm mostly just using this as a testing ground for golem designs. To open I'll stick with my more basic abilities, using Height of a God to draw attention to me so my Egi can get some nice pot shots in. The real fun though is that the curiosity elementals will be guiding the enemy soldiers into questioning the reasoning behind the war. The Maelstroms are providing some supporting fire as well.
  83.  
  84. Then the WEAPON is unveiled. Unfortunately it appears they caught the errors in the blueprints my spies had slipped in. Oh well, a brief telepathic probe confirms the location of the generator and that this man is being mentally influenced towards slaughter. Nero honestly I don't particularly care about, so he gets a quick death the instant I Transliminal Stride in, he's not nearly able to stand up to my Haki and sheer strength, especially when struck from ambush. From there the generator goes down a couple seconds later. Teleporting back out it's boss fight time.
  85.  
  86. Frankly the golems are mostly useful as a distraction, the puppets fare somewhat better but still just lack the scale and power necessary to face this monster. So it's time for plan C: Angel Form, Gaius isn't in a state to see through the trick of my form so this should be a relatively simple fight, although I lack Cantus to allow me to Ascent to Transcendance into AT supremacy. So instead I just use brute force, with Thousand Faced Hero giving me a lovely properly scaled weapon. After some landscape reshaping and me pulling a ton of cheap tricks the mastermind finally shows himself, apparently not connecting my Angelic form to the slayer of his kin. After letting him deliver his speech he gets a Haki empowered swat and an exorcism performed with an improvised AT field manji.
  87.  
  88. Part 2.1: Another Side, Another Story
  89. Oh so suddenly a bunch of voidsent pop up and suddenly everyone assumes the local practicing Voidsender is responsible. I may as well take the case to clear my name. Besides this seems like an interesting place and might get me a break from the Ascian hunts. Of my own crew let's bring Louise and Cantus along to get a decent spread of specialties and so that I've got at least some relatively sane people around. After a quick duel with Greg over ownership of Thousand Faced Hero we were on our way.
  90.  
  91. Deciding to just go with the flow for now we end up crashing our commandeered airship into the laboratory. Thankfully nobody was too badly injured and I fixed us up quickly before getting back to investigating the lab on the off chance it had something useful. Unfortunately Hildibrand apparently considers using my contacts within the Sons of Saint Coinach to be "cheating". So instead I'm following him on his lead because he'd likely die horribly without someone around to keep him alive and he was determined to follow the lead. Once we actually got into the lab I might've attempted to use telepathy to nudge the idiots in the direction of the other human mind I could detect. Unfortunately my attempts to do so were done in by my mind reflexively recoiling from touching the ocean of madness that is their minds. Meanwhile Greg just sort of stormed off in a robot slaying frenzy.
  92.  
  93. After getting the answers from the Curator and meeting someone actually competent and relatively sane it was time to head back to base to await Hildibrand's return and decision on which leads to follow. I'm actually kinda surprised that it actually ended with us having anything approaching what a sane person might call a lead. While awaiting the return of the various people sent flying by irresponsible explosive use (don't even get me started on the competition Louise got into to see who could make the bigger explosion), I decided to check in to see how things are going on the repairs and offer some "acquired" tech for the reconstruction.
  94. Hypello Attendant (19)
  95. Cactaur Hunt (16)
  96. Cloister of Water (15)
  97. Moogle Attendant (14)
  98. Temporal Rift Puzzle Room (11)
  99. Guidance Nodes (10)
  100. Crystal Ports (8)
  101. Living Museum (5)
  102. The Curator (2)
  103. Memory Crystals (1)
  104. Fat Chocobo Attendant (0)
  105. It seemed to be going decently. Lovely decor and quite a few guides, although it could use a few more attractions at this point. The Cactaur Hunt would be especially interesting to see how the guests made use of the crystal ports when searching. But shortly after I deposited the tech Hildibrand and Greg showed up back at the base again, intent on following another lead.
  106.  
  107. 2.2 A Small World
  108. Well that explains why Hildibrand hasn't achieved a Darwin Award yet. While I doubt his mother could do anything too bad to me I'm not taking the risk. At least we've finally got another semi-sane person in the party. I admit I may have missed the disappearances due to being busy punching the books into unconsciousness and then reading them. The quick scavenger hunt with Shantotto was relatively simple thanks to some abuse of White Queen of the Unreal. From there I mostly just spent awhile finding interesting books on the shelves. And of course I looted some improvements for the Golden Saucer.
  109. Traveler's Guide (19)
  110. Living Staircases (17)
  111. Grand Library (14)
  112. Living Tomes (11)
  113. Shoopuf Attendant (10)
  114. Sandbox Digging (7)
  115. Musician Band (6)
  116. Black Mage Attendant (5)
  117. Small Theater (4)
  118. Blackjack Tables (1)
  119. Belle Prishe Attendant (0)
  120. Companion gained: "Greg" and Enkidu
  121. Could still use some more fun attractions but it's rounding out quite nicely.
  122.  
  123. 2.3 Into the Void
  124. It was disappointing to realize it was not the three of us posing that was killing the undead. Darn it, I thought I'd found something abusable there. Wound up just bypassing the labyrinth by using Transliminal Stride to just bring everyone to the end. The mad ranting of my passengers about being able to see forever was completely unrelated. From there we ascended the tower, taking everything not nailed to the floor for further study. Sure there were a lot of robots attacking us but they tended to fall to assaults faster than their sensors could process. From there the pose off with the emperors was long and hard but in the end we were victorious. Also there was a quick fight but they weren't ready for me suddenly turning invisible and speed blitzing them with the School of the Undefeated of the West.
  125.  
  126. The dance off with the dragon was also interesting, thankfully flight meant I didn't need to bother with physically possible dance moves and I conscripted about half the voidsent as backup dancers. In the end I was happy to give Cloud of Darkness some of my spare personally made hedgespun. Admittedly I didn't explain about me using the agreement to get her a better wardrobe as an excuse to make a pledge of ensorcelment and that the Mask of the clothes was somewhat more mundane.
  127. Cat Sith Attendant (19)
  128. Moomba Attendant (18)
  129. Helgas Attendant (17)
  130. Magic Pots (16)
  131. Minification Ray (14) Not to self: Don't let Shantotto anywhere near this
  132. Void Light Show (11)
  133. Five Headed Dragon (8)
  134. Skyferries (7)
  135. Hot Dog Stand (6)
  136. Triple Triad Tables (3) It's time to Duel!
  137. G Bike Simulator (0)
  138. This does a good job of rounding out the attractions. Might've wanted Fort Defense but sadly lacked the budget. And with this new technique my craftsmanship will become the most fabulous in the world. Sadly it appears that the omake is over and now it's time to get back to the war.
  139.  
  140. Phase 3: Vector to the Heavens
  141. Now that the Stardust Crusaders have assembled and established themselves it's time to finish what we started. Our foes the Ascians are finally making their moves so we shall rise up and Stand defiant. While Cantus, Carawyn, and I had managed to extract some info from the Ascians we had fought we needed more. And so Carawyn, Father Alexander, Louise, and I headed back to Azys La. Our spies in the Empire alongside some slight telepathic suggestions and They Might Be Giants allowed us easy entry into the fortifications. Although apparently the researchers figured out something was off and managed to instigate a lockdown. When we finally got to the central room we found one commander standing above the dead bodies of all her fellows, They Might Be Giants proved worth its weight in gold as the Ascian failed to recognize us as the ones responsible for the deaths of a good deal of her comrades. Hiding the nature of Alexander's Stand by claiming it was some of his other powers was paying dividends. So having added another Ascian to my body count after their speech about the destruction of the world we proceeded to loot the White Materia and all the other stuff we could grab.
  142. Armies:
  143. Illuminati are with the Ascians
  144. Heavens Ward ---
  145. Scions of the Seventh Dawn are with me
  146. Maelstrom++++
  147. Goblins++
  148. Sahagin+
  149. Forum of Sharlayan+
  150. Sons of Saint Coinach++
  151. Students of Baldesion+
  152. Ixal-
  153. Twin Adders+++
  154. Tonberry Kingdom++
  155. Dravarian Horde+++
  156. The Legion+
  157. Kobolds+
  158. Garlemand Remnant ++
  159.  
  160. Deaf to Our Cries
  161. Saved from Part 2 (40)
  162. Primal (free)
  163. Tempering ("free")
  164. Aether Starved ("free")
  165. Coalescence (38)
  166. Elemental Mastery, Void (36)
  167. Egi Servants X3 (30)
  168. Channeling (28)
  169. Temporal Shift (23)
  170. Astral Flow (13)
  171. Crystal Sustenance (11)
  172. Seductive Radiance (6)
  173. Gamma Quadrant (5)
  174. Imperial Dreadnaught Argius (4)
  175. Lifting the Snowcloak (3)
  176. Ascians of the Twelfth X2 (1)
  177. Dark Crystals (0)
  178.  
  179. The Radiant Knight, Lucia Goe Junius: Infiltrated the Vault via the Hedge, then escaped with Ser Aymeric after disposing of Thordan.
  180. Representing Garlond Ironworks, Cid nan Garlond: Good to see him up on his feet, his ships will be valuable in the coming battle. Now that his head's on straight he also gets a Stand.
  181. The Vigilant, Yda & Papalymo: Eline gets hired on and given a new face to allow her to retire when she wishes. Don't feel safe giving her a Stand quite yet though.
  182. In Search of Kindred Spirits, Yugiri Mistwalker: Oh well, sometimes you get caught in a wild goose chase. On the plus side I got a trustworthy comrade, tutor, and Stand user out of it.
  183. The Diplomat, Skaetswys: Universal Language came in handy here. Managed to convince the Moogles they were in a state of mutually assured destruction on Primal summoning. Also provided them with some golem guards to set them at ease. Reaching out to the Horde awhile back proves to have been the right decision.
  184.  
  185. Atoner, Ser Alberic Bale: Now this was an ugly matter. Firstly the true nature of my "dragonslaying" got out, then we had to juggle keeping two seasoned combatants from killing eachother while attempting to fend off Odin.
  186.  
  187. In the end I wound up using Primal form to allow me to better match Odin while using Celestial Alignment as my power source. I wound up taking Odin and myself off to the center of a desert via Temporal Shift and then fighting as hard as I could. Odin managed to prove himself a challenging foe, which is a rare thing for me these days. I came back during the tail end of the Knights' duel, managing to apply healing to keep both alive and then sitting them down to talk. From there I did some independent investigations and confirmed the truth of Estinien's claims.
  188.  
  189. Lifebound Y’shtola: Went fairly well. Got to test out the anti-Primal countermeasures I created after the battle with Odin, they worked quite well. Managed to speedblitz Belias after disorienting him with some interesting crystals added to the pile he was drawing from. Another summoner to talk shop with was also useful.
  190.  
  191. The Expert, Mutamix Bubblypots: After a good deal of searching and teleporting I finally managed to find the core. Hadn't expected them to have summoned Alexander yet so I didn't have my companions useful for destroying fortifications with me. As is I just ended up cloaking myself and sneaking my way to the core. Wound up as a bit of a stall match, I lacked firepower and countermeasures sufficient to easily deal with his hordes of super robots while he lacked anything that could scratch me. On the plus side my Bandana got a good deal of Legacy of Use killing machines.
  192.  
  193. The Professor, Surito Carito: So maybe hiring on Cloud of Darkness to consult about this case might not have been the best idea. On the plus side it got handled quickly and cleanly. On the downside the Tonberries are kinda suspicious of me. Doesn't help that I'm a practicing Voidsender.
  194.  
  195. The Pilot, Sezul Totoloc: After helping as the test pilot (near indestructibility and ability to fly on my own really helped my credentials) I did a quick trip to deal with the Ixali. First to avoid yet another fight with a Primal I snuck in and used the Warehouse Portals to steal all their Crystals. From there Fishface went in and destroyed their blimps and airfields. All in all a quick afternoon's work.
  196.  
  197. Gamma Quadrant: A quick mop up of the remaining forces. The remnants were rather jumpy initially because my group had ended up with quite the reputation but we were able to talk things out. Had no problems with harboring some deserters, my spy networks were extensive enough to tell there was weird stuff going on in the command of the Empire, so even their history read more as patsies than enemy combatants to me.
  198.  
  199. Imperial Dreadnaught Argius: Honestly was a bit blindsided by this. I was busy paying attention to spies in the Empire and hunting Ascians, so some weirdness unrelated to both as well as most of my allies was able to catch me off guard. On the plus side my history of collusion with the Horde paid off, I was able to reach Midgardsommer easily, and the alliance proved fruitful.
  200.  
  201. Lifting the Snow Cloak: With the Church mobilizing against me I deemed it prudent to help what dissenters they had among their flock. The theories they proposed were interesting and I set a Carawyn to searching for decent evidence of them to be distributed throughout the realm.
  202.  
  203. The Land She Mourns: I was eager to test out this theoretically mass producible method of murdering Ascians. While I was cheating with loads of esoteric magic most of my subordinates couldn't do so, even Stand Users were mostly suitable for driving them off instead of killing them if their Ability wasn't specialized in that area. While they could be wounded very thoroughly by a punch ghost they just wouldn't die regardless. The Empire ran into major problems because I finally engaged my spies as saboteurs, and then threw Cantus at them just to be sure. Enough mind worms can incapacitate most anything, and Cantus definitely qualifies as enough mind worms. From there it was a matter of battering my way through to the Ascians after my other companions went to deal with the Primals. The rout was very thorough and I declared my retirement from military matters shortly afterward.
  204.  
  205. Reward: The Fourteenth Crystal's Lingering Echo, always nice to get a system of magic I can hand out, plus it helps fuel my Primal form if necessary. Turning down the excessive amount of companions, already pretty full there.
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement