Chương 122: 4.12 Gonna Fly Now - Bill Conti (2:47)

Z3ke (Original Poster) Quick problem with the grip glyphs that I'm hoping you all can help figure out a solution for. After Simon found out that I'm apparently as obsessed with hunting down the Krill Kraken as he is, he put me to work. I figured it was easier to play along with his assumption than to explain how I knew about the creature in the first place. I gave him the general plan that you all came up with, he listened, and he liked it. More specifically, he liked the whole grip glyph idea.

I told him that the fight with the kraken would end up becoming a slippery mess with all the krill and seawater and ink getting tossed around, and that everyone on the ship would be slipping and sliding and losing their footing. When I told him that I might be able to help with that, he clapped me on the shoulder, gave me a bunch of chalk, pointed me at the deck, and told me to do whatever I could.

I started with a small grip glyph near the side railing of the ship, and when I finished it I had a couple of the nearby sailors walk across it and tell me if they noticed anything. The good news is that the grip glyph works. I was able to draw it out and there was a noticeable difference in footing in the area. The bad news is that it only lasted for about twenty minutes before burning out.

I figured that I must have messed up somewhere with the construction so I started again, but that one also burned out in twenty minutes. I don't know exactly what the problem is. I might have missed a line or two. My glyph writing is at level 3 and when I write down the lines I think that they make sense, but I could be wrong. So… useful glyph but 20 minutes isn't gonna buy me shit in the middle of the Krill Kraken fight. Do you all have any ideas about what's going wrong?

ArtooDeetoa Hmm, I never bothered with glyph writing in any of the games so I'm not the best person to help out… but do you think it's an energy problem? Saltmines?? What do you mean energy problem? A grip glyph isn't that mana consuming. It's a fairly easy glyph to place. Cold_Reboot Oooo shit. No. Artoo is right. It's a mana thing. Grip glyphs are only ever really used for small traps or one-time jobs. 20 minutes is normally enough time for that.

Think about what Zeke is trying to get the glyph to do and where it's failing. He said that it worked fine and then he tested it and it burns out after 20 minutes. That's not saying that the glyph itself is faulty. It's more that he's exhausting the mana from it. Since it's only got a limited amount of internal mana, everyone who steps across it is putting pressure on it and burning it out sooner. R1otPolice Can't Zeke just pump more of his mana into the glyph? That should solve that problem. Cold_Reboot Nah.

That's the worst idea. Imagine him being in the middle of the battle and he's connected the glyph to his own internal mana. Shit starts popping off and everyone is running across that one glyph, burning the mana. The glyph starts pulling on his mana to recharge itself and then BOOM, thirty minutes later Zeke is a desiccated husk. DeadMienWalking | everyone is running across that one glyph | There's another problem here in that a single glyph isn't going to do much against the Krill Kraken.

Zeke needs to plaster that glyph across all the ships in Simon Pucco's armada. It's not going to work well if each one only lasts 20 minutes. And it won't work if whatever solution he comes up with only works for a single glyph. You do that and you're basically hemming in all the pirates on the ship into a very small area. That's less than useless when fighting the Krill Kraken because the only way you can survive that thing is to stay mobile.

ArtooDeetoa What I'm thinking - and please someone tell me whether or not this is possible - is that Zeke powers the glyph through everyone else's ambient mana. He doesn't need to be the only one powering the glyph. There are tons of sailors onboard. Maybe you can design the whole thing so that it captures a small bit of energy from everyone who is using the glyph, and then you redirect all that energy back into the glyph? That way, the more people use it, the more mana the glyph would have to keep itself active.

Inkwell You're talking about a momentum-fed glyph and it's theoretically possible. There would be some challenges to it though. Off the top of my head I'd say that the ship is constantly moving and during the fight things will get a little hectic. Plus, you're still running into the whole "people powering the glyph" thing that Cold talked about before. Imagine you're fighting the Krill Kraken and some bits of your mana are leaking into all these different grip glyphs.

You're going to become tired and sluggish, and that's the worst thing to be in the middle of a fight. Also, that would complicate the grip glyph a lot. It's a glyph that is useful for one-off jobs, but you're asking for Zeke to modify it so that it takes small sips of mana, converts it and feeds it back to the original glyph without destabilizing it. It's possible, but very very difficult. Ch3micalBurst93 Yeaaa, I don't think Zeke should try that. The idea itself isn't bad, but it could lead to complications.

Z3ke's glyph writing is only at level 3. There's no telling whether he would actually be able to copy out the glyph that we modify for him. Maybe he can reproduce it, but if he messes it up that would become a catastrophic problem. If he had Milicent there to help him out, I'd say do it. She was a glyph writing expert and could catch problems before they became too dangerous. But Milicent is back in The MIZ and Z3ke is just surrounded by pirates. MinMaxMike | I don't think Zeke should try that.

| There's another reason that it's a bad idea, and it's got nothing to do with whether or not Zeke would fuck up the glyph. Need I remind everyone that Simon Pucco is watching him? The man knows that Zeke can write glyphs now. I'm not going to argue whether it was a good idea to tell him that or not. I will say that having a guy who can create a grip glyph isn't all that interesting because it's not really a hyper-powerful glyph. It's not an instant powerup that everyone would become obsessed with.

But the "momentum-fed" glyph that Inkwell and Artoo are talking about is completely different. Do you all remember back when Zeke gave Milicent the first couple pages of the glyph book? She freaked out because she realized that Zeke had a ton of information that far outstripped what she knew about glyph construction. She was an expert, and she was asking questions about how Zeke was casually pulling out theoretical-glyph information out his ass. Now, put Simon Pucco in that position.

What happens when he watches Zeke "invent" a complicated-ass glyph that most glyphwrights couldn't understand let alone be able to reproduce? What happens when he realizes that Zeke's got all this knowledge that would be worth a FORTUNE!!! I'm not saying I think Simon would chain Zeke up and enslave the man. But I'm also not not saying that. He could decide that Zeke is a lot more interesting than the Krill Kraken and just kidnap the man and start probing him for his secrets. Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh…

I'd rather not get probed, thank you. So what are you all suggesting? KetracelWhiteNoise I think I've got the solution. Min is right in that a momentum-fed glyph would draw too much attention to you, Zeke. If you were on your own and you needed a glyph that would work best, we could design you something that could use mana from everyone onboard. BUT, anyone with any understanding of magic would instantly understand how unique and powerful a glyph like that is and it would draw too much attention.

So you've got to make a somewhat shit glyph. Instead of building a beautiful and complicated glyph network that would generate its own energy from all the sailors running around, you're going to need to carve a bunch of smaller glyphs outside the hull of the ship. They'll sit just below the waterline where the ocean is constantly moving against the ship. The idea is that the ocean carries enough ambient mana that the glyphs can slowly draw from it.

Then you link those exterior glyphs back to the grip glyphs on the deck. It's going to require A TON of work. And that's why it's so effective in hiding your true skill from Simon Pucco. He's going to look at all the work you're doing and be like "that's so much effort for a little bit of extra friction on the deck," and he isn't going to think that your glyphwriting knowledge is anything special.

You're just taking a basic glyph, connecting it to another basic glyph, and then using the ocean as a slow and constant source of ambient mana. I will say that there is a downside to this plan though. The momentum-fed glyph system would be MUCH stronger than what you can make without it. In short, you're trading off effectiveness of the glyphs for flying under the radar. KetracelWhiteNoise <HERE> is the pdf for what I'm talking about.

It's got the grip glyph, the extra modifications you'll need to make to it, and then the linking that you're going to need for the glyph that you place under the waterline. Do you understand all of it? Do you think you can make it work? Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh… yea. Quick runthrough of it and it all looks normal. Thanks for this.

Z3ke (Original Poster) Update for everyone. I'm still working my ass off with these grip glyphs. So much freaking work and I'm about ready to break down and just ask you all for that momentum-fed glyph. I don't care if Simon knows what you all are capable of. I figure you all want to know what's going on with the rest of our preparations. I still don't know when we're going to be fighting the Krill Kraken, and I've got no clue how Simon plans to find the thing.

I'm assuming that he knows where he's going and just hasn't bothered to tell me because… who the hell am I? Whatever. The point I'm making is that we've got some time before the attack. Simon has been sending out ships to gather more people and equipment and ammunition and whatnot, and they're gradually coming back together at a rendezvous point before we all head out. I think the man's been planning this for a good long while.

This isn't him suddenly deciding that he wants to hunt the kraken and then improvising everything as he goes along; he already had people moving around the ocean, gathering ships and crews and whatever else he thought might be useful. He told me that over the next several days the rest of his ships should start arriving, and by then he expects me to have the grip glyphs working. Two smaller ships have already joined us, and both of them look like tiny fishing vessels.

They're kinda weird because I was wondering what the hell these things were going to be doing in the middle of a massive battle with a kraken before I realized that Simon decided he was gonna use them as our fire ketches. Malv0lio had originally suggested using a fire ketch to draw the Kraken's attention away from the rest of the fleet and kite it around. I told Simon about the idea and he liked it but then he also said "you know what's better than one burning ship? Three burning ships."

So now our plan involves three fire ketches. The first fire ketch is being prepped to give off as much magical energy as possible, and it's supposed to be the one that draws the Krill Kraken to us. I'm not entirely sure how you would measure "a shit ton of magical energy," but Simon assures me that's what's gonna be on the first boat. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

According to him, part of the Kraken's original story was that it was a guardian of the treasures beneath the sea and thus it is attracted to magical objects. I'm not sure if he's right or not, but Simon thinks that using magical items that he's gathered over the years is a good way to build a decoy ship and draw the Kraken to us. He's collected a ton of stuff that he's looted from merchant ships over the years and a surprising amount of it is magical.

There are jars of powders, pieces of metal, jewelry, carved objects, strange little pieces of wood, and all sorts of other things that I've got no idea what they do. Simon admitted that he didn't know what much of is was for or how it works, but he knows they give off magical energy so he packed the first small fishing boat that came up alongside us with the items and it's just tailing along now.

The idea is that once the Krill Kraken commits to attacking the magical decoy boat, that ship would try and pull away while the rest of the armada would move into position. Then the second ketch comes into play. That one is being loaded with fuel and oil and the ropes are being soaked with animal fat and it's gonna be deliberately set on fire.

The idea there is that the Kraken will have to choose between the magical energy coming from the first ship and the enormous burning target that has suddenly appeared somewhere else. The armada would stay mobile while the Kraken follows the ketches, and every time it moves towards one of them it buys us all a bunch of time to attack. Malv0lio (Primary) What do the crews of those boats think? Do they know that Simon is sacrificing them? He's going to lose both those ketches.

And what happens to the first ship if the Kraken ignores the big flaming wreck and instead focuses its attention on all the magical items? Z3ke (Original Poster) Good question, but you're thinking like Simon really cares about what happens to the crews. I don't think he does. He's so obsessed with the Krill Kraken that he's basically told the crews they're gonna kamikaze themselves against a giant monster and it'll be fine because it'll let him kill the thing.

I mean, the dude did suggest that with three fire ketches working together, the Kraken isn't going to be able to concentrate on any single one of them. I think that's a lie that the crews were able to swallow because… I don't know, they don't want to think their captain is willing to let them die for his own adventure. Also, you said that he's going to lose both the ketches, but there are actually three boats. We just haven't got a third one near us to prepare it yet.

Simon says that it's on the way with the rest of the ships. That one is gonna be loaded with barrels of oil, fuel, explosives, and anything else that'll cause a massive explosion. That ship isn't supposed to be a decoy. Simon said that the crew is gonna need to stay at the edge of the battle until the armada has done enough damage, and then once the Kraken is distracted, they're supposed to race the ketch at it, get as close as possible, and then abandon ship before it makes contact.

The whole thing is basically a mobile IED that Simon is gonna ram into the kraken. Look, it might just be me but I think this plan is dramatic and suicidal and bound to fail. But Simon seems completely comfortable with it and his crew seems to have just accepted it as the way that Simon works. I don't know man. It's kinda insane. CrushDaddyXx THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME!! Zeke, I know I've joked about explosions before. But the fact that you're going to 9/11 the Krill Kraken and hope that works…

it brings a tear to my eye. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. 10/10 no notes.

HarpoonHoliday Zeke. Quick question. You're sort of useless when the fighting starts, so what are you planning to do about it? Eventually the kraken is going to show up and start tearing ships apart. Are you working on your guitar? Have you figured out what exactly your music can do? Instead of the grip glyphs, can't you use your music to help out? MushroomCleric Stuck in the Middle With You. StoryLeech Oh shit. Yes. That's amazing. Zeke, do that. Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh… I don't know if that would work or not.

And I've got no idea what I'm gonna do when the fighting starts. Maybe just stay out of the way. IridumSky Your best bet is to convince Simon that you hunt differently, that you take an overwatch style rather than a frontline. Means more work but if you can swing it, less frontline. Z3ke (Original Poster) Yea, I've kinda already done that with the whole grip glyph thing. And Simon has agreed that that is where I'm useful.

A few more ships have joined up with us since my last update and Simon's been having me go around and writing a bunch of glyphs on the deck. It's actually been pretty useful for leveling the skill. My Glyph Writing hit Rank 4 while I was working on one of the ships, and at the rate that I'm going I wouldn't be surprised to hit Rank 5 before we finish all our preparations. That does open some problems though. Simon's been watching me work and he talked about how he thinks I would best fit in the battle.

Iridum, you said I should be like an overwatch and that's kinda where Simon wants me to fit in too. His idea is that I should be responsible for the glyph network on the ship, not just write and forget about them but actively maintain them throughout the fight. If the sailors are moving towards the front of the ship, I make sure that the glyphs are working there. If a section starts getting weaker during the fight, I'm supposed to reinforce it before it burns out. I don't really think I know how to do that…

but I'm not gonna say anything. It gives me the opportunity to move around the deck while everyone is fighting, and I can always be like "oh no, there's weakened glyphs far away from where the tentacles are attacking." That should keep me out of the worst of it. Malv0lio (Primary) That's probably the right role for you, but you should take it seriously. You're not a frontline fighter and you don't have experience with naval combat, but you can still make some meaningful contributions.

The glyph network will be incredibly important once the second phase of the fight starts. If you can keep everyone on their feet, that should make your survival be more assured too. Caboodle (Proctor) Don't listen to him, Zeke. You do what you think you should. If you need to look busy far away from the Kraken, you do that. It's doubtful that Simon is going to be keeping an eye on your actions once the shit hits the fan. All your most important work was at the beginning of the fight anyway.

There's not much you can do if a tentacle swings down and crushes one of your glyphs. Z3ke (Original Poster) | There's not much you can do if a tentacle swings down and crushes one of your glyphs. | That's my thought process entirely. I will say that I did unlock a new skill. Balance is Rank 1 now. Apparently I've spent enough time running around on a moving deck and dangling off the side of the railing carving glyphs below the waterline and I got a skill out of it.

Obviously it helps with maintaining my balance while moving across uneven or shifting surfaces which… go me. But at the same time, I'm not sure how useful it'll really be during the upcoming fight. It's only at level 1 so… what can I even really do with it? I can definitely feel the difference when I'm walking around the ship now, but we're not in the middle of a fight. I doubt it'll change much for me going forward.

CrushDaddyXx F5 F5 F5 MoronicMnemonic Hey… don't steal my bit. CrushDaddyXx I can't help it. I want some action. How long have the preparations been going on for? MushroomCleric This is one of the drawbacks to Zeke's story being more realistic. All the past updates have just been about glyph writing and sitting around. I'm with you Crush. I want some action. But I also want Zeke to be safe. But I also want fighting. But Zeke needs to keep out of the thick of it.

Z3ke (Original Poster) | How long have the preparations been going on for? | Oh, I'm sorry, is my attempt to not die boring to you? CrushDaddyXx Kinda. Yea. Z3ke (Original Poster) Well… I didn't really expect you to answer that. Okay. I think it's coming to an end anyway. The rest of Simon's armada has started to trickle in. For the last two days I've been watching a bunch of ships just pull up alongside us and settle in for the ride. There are actual pirate ships but they all look pretty shoddy.

Some of them have obviously been through a bunch of battles. There are burn marks and bullet holes and whatnot. There are some merchant vessels like the one that I was on that Simon took over. It's pretty easy to tell which of the armada used to be trading ships because they don't look nearly as dangerous as the pirate ships. There are small ships that are deceptively fast, battered fishing boats, cargo vessels, and a couple ships that I'm not sure what they used to be before Simon took them over.

Some look like they were built for combat, some look like they were built for transport, and some look like they might have once been ferries or something. All told, the whole thing looks sloppy. Nobody has a matching uniform, there isn't a standard ship design, there isn't a consistent set of weapons, and as far as I can tell there isn't even an obvious chain of command beyond the fact that everyone recognizes Simon Pucco as the person in charge.

I'm not sure how that's gonna work when we're getting rocked by the Krill Kraken and everyone starts panicking. Z3ke (Original Poster) I will say that I think I met the tattooist that you guys were all talking about. Remember back before I got to Cliffhaven, someone said that I should look for a tattooist in Emberveil? I don't think anyone really got too in-depth about what a tattooist could do for me, or where I could find one, or why I would want to ink myself. But I do think that there's one aboard Simon's ship.

I've been working on a bunch of grip glyphs for any ship that saddles up alongside us. A ship will pull up next to us and I hop in a boat and head over and start making the grip glyphs. I wasn't really paying much attention while I was working, but slowly I started realizing that while I was on the new ship, a bunch of their sailors had taken a boat over to Simon's vessel.

Well, yesterday I was just lounging around and a small boat pulled up alongside us and it had a couple people who looked like fighters and they came aboard. Then they disappeared into one of the cabins for a while and eventually came back and I noticed they had some fresh tattoos. I've seen people come back with designs covering their arms, their necks, their faces, and wherever else they've got exposed skin.

The tats are pretty detailed and I've noticed that all the people disappearing into the cabins seem to treat the whole process pretty seriously. I went poking around last night and I found the woman doing the tattooing. She's kinda older, maybe middle-aged, and has clearly been part of Simon's crew for a long time. She's also much quieter than him and doesn't have his flamboyant dress-sense. She just sits quietly and works on people when they come through. So what's that all about?

HecateTeaCozy Wait, Simon has a Malagra tattooist? KnightsWHOsay-NIN-NIN Dammit Zeke. Luck 11 over here. Z3ke (Original Poster) I don't know. I don't know what a malagra tattooist is or why you're all freaking out. He does have someone in the cabin who is tattooing people. I figured it was just a pirate thing. Why are you all freaking out? What's a malagra? StoryLeech | What's a malagra? | It's a town in Emberveil known for its tattooists.

They are able to tattoo magical abilities on people and give them what amounts to a weakened spell or a trait or a boost without a person needing to level up a skill. Malv0lio (Primary) Holy shit Zeke… you need to tell us these things beforehand. Do you understand how lucky you just got? A freaking Malagra tattooist is chilling on Simon Pucco's ship, and you've just been sitting around NOT getting tattoo'd.

Magical tattoos are unique abilities that characters can get, and frankly it's a must-have for someone in your situation. It's like a magical button you can press that give you some crazy good stuff. You can get a tattoo of a knife, and then focus on the tattoo and then pull a blade out of your skin. It makes it so that you don't need to worry about ever being disarmed. Or you could get a tattoo that acts like a health pot. You just press it, concentrate, and instantly heal yourself from damage.

Magical tattoos are crazy good, and the fact that Simon's got a tattooist AND a bunch of people from all the ships have been coming to her over the past couple days means that she's probably tattooing everybody for free. Do you know how expensive magical tattoos are? Z3ke (Original Poster) I obviously don't know how expensive they are. You know… now that I think about it, Simon does have a shit ton of tattoos. Do you guys think they're all magical?

Inkwell There's a good chance at least a few of them are, but there are limits to how many magical tattoos you can have. It depends on your health, your body type, and a few other things, but most people can only ever get 3 tattoos. That said, I'd expect Simon - if he does have a tattooist in his crew - would have all three of his tat slots filled up. You should talk to him about it. I'd be interested in hearing whether he used them for combat abilities, navigation, or movement. HarpoonHoliday GET A TATTOO!!!

BECOME THE THING MOTHERS WARN THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT. MushroomCleric ^Harpoon. You might as well take advantage, Zeke. Especially if she's giving tattoos away for cheap. MapHackJunkie You should get a sure-foot tat. You were already worried about your balance being thrown off during the fight, and you were saying that a Rank 1 skill isn't going to do much. You're right about that, so you should check and see if the tattooist can help improve your footing. Plethora There's no need to rush getting a tattoo.

Zeke, you should be thinking beyond simply what is going to happen over the next few days. Just because you're fighting the Krill Kraken doesn't mean that you should focus your entire build on that single fight. Don't rush into getting a tattoo right away. Give it some thought and tell us what all she can create and what limitations she might have. Z3ke (Original Poster) Uh… shit. Don't think that's gonna matter much. Everything just became freakishly calm and I think shits about to go down.