Powder Miner

Check of Sheets Submitted Thus Far: 1. krim (Ebon Knight): Your base SPD is one higher than it should be -- this may be minor, but I would like it fixed because I guarantee that I'd forget it later on if I accepted you and then miswrite your initial stats. Otherwise, this is a valid sheet. 2. Yours Truly (Soggyshanks): YOU DIDN'T PUT THE PARENTHESES ON THE ADDED STATSSSSSSSS nah lol this is a valid sheet. 3. ctsun (Sting): This is a valid sheet. 4. Lotus (Raindrop Valkyrie): You should choose the starting weapon you'd have if accepted, but this is a valid sheet. 5. Life-Recorder (Unlurking Sentinel): This is a valid sheet. 6. RedMageCole (Pinecone): This is a valid sheet. 7. EXLink32 (Stardust): This is a valid sheet. 8. ElfCollaborator (Faithful Diligence): This would in fact appear to be a sheet of the valid variety. 9. TricMagic (Goldleaf): This is a valid sheet, although I'll note that the preferred stats and weapon proficiencies aren't typically expected to be laid out through promotions, as it can become cluttered. 10. Lady Stardust (Rainstorm): I'm not sure I like the promo PS, but that's not something to worry about right now. For a more current issue, though, I would prefer that the added bonus stat points not be added into the base totals, which means that MAG and DEF should be one point lower. 11. kj1225 (Mercy Harefoot): This is a valid sheet.

It didn't take long after Scarlet got Jack's revive nanites kicked back into gear to put his abused body back together that he was back on his feet... although he did notice a rather strange feeling to his, uh, internal organs. "Huh." It was definitely not a pleasant feeling, and he felt like his, uh, body was messily put together in some way, but... whatever. He'd felt enough pain by now that he was fairly inured to it. "Well, I've definitely got something fucky going on right about now. Hmmmm." He quirked an eyebrow and then he just shrugged widely. "Ah well. No point worrying about something like that, you get me? I'm gonna go find a place that looks empty -- if I can find one I'll punt my way in e-z." Jack searched for houses that seemed like they didn't have anyone in them.

Perlita began to calm down again, the panic that she had been managing to build up over the course of the battle fading away as the situation once again came under control -- sure there was some sort of weird cloud thing, now, but what mattered to Perlita was that the only person who seemed to be in a worrying state was the rather fragile Lyra, with Mira particularly wounded but, Perlita knew, more than tough enough to withstand further pressure. So Perlita figured that she could now afford to throw out another Media without worry of causing undue strain on her energy, especially since a full Diarama would be wasted and then she'd inevitably see more people put into trouble. "Crawford!" Pink energy engulfed several members of the group. Perlita uses Media on Atton, Lyra, 6D, and Mira, healing each for SYN (12) HP!

Hey folks! Sorry for not mentioning this earlier (recent days have been pretty rough) but I extended the deadline for this game to February 3rd! I'll probably also start advertising the game a little more strongly.

LOTUS finally took this opportunity to speak up., the fairy crossing her arms as she sat in Isobel's pocket (for her part, the botanist elected to stay silent for now, figuring LOTUS had it handled... although she did note the oddity of somebody being both a gardener and some sort of swordswoman). And when she spoke it was with a shake of her head. "We're being given more than enough information to know exactly what is going on here -- there's no need to preamble it forever and run around in circles when we can just communicate the situation and get straight to it... especially since we are now, evidently, pointing weapons at each other. It's unnecessary." The fairy sighed, and then spoke. "We do indeed know what's probably going on with your," upon brief consideration, "friend, and it's almost certainly what we've already been investigating." "The gist of the situation is this -- there are artifacts, as you mentioned, that exert a corruptive influence on those that come into contact with them, twisting their behavior into undiscriminatory hostility and seeming to completely destroy their capacity for judgement... these artifacts are likely related to an outside threat that we arrived here in order to combat. We do not know exactly how they got here, and we are still working on investigating that and getting to the root cause, but this does mean that we know what to expect. The bad news is that, yes, as long as the artifact is affecting her, she will be trying to kill you and, should we come to help, us, though we've been capable of holding our own thus far. The good news is that this only is the case so long as she is in contact with the artifact -- removing them from the possession of the people the artifacts have been affecting has caused this effect to cease entirely." Isobel watched Youmu intently as LOTUS spoke... she wasn't entirely sure how to interpret the relationship between this girl and the "Yuyuko" she was referring to, but at the very least this girl was extremely close to the other. Whether or not that actually meant girlfriend close... well, Isobel supposed that while she knew what she wanted to see, that wasn't really ultimately the point, either. In whatever way these two were close... "I want to make something clear to you, okay? One other person we saw affected by this attacked somebody she is very, very loyal to, and once that artifact was removed from her, she expressed nothing but regret over it and seemed to hold no less loyalty to this person. Don't worry that this is... some sort of effect that amplifies violent desires that already exist, or something like that -- these artifacts make people attack even their dearest loved ones, and it's not through any fault of their own or any desire of their own. Once we get the artifact off of Yuyuko, she's going to be okay, alright? You'll be okay." Now, to get this other girl on track to hopefully give her something to move onto. "Would you mind telling us your name? We want to work with you, because we're here to help deal with this anyway, but that will be a little difficult if we don't have anything to call you."

"Alright! Monstrosities of the undead, we battle!" With what was perhaps an overly enthusiastic battlecry, Satomi pulled out one of her crossbows with her free hand, steadied it on top of the shield held in her other, took a moment to squint intensely, and then she let loose a hail of bolts in the direction of the hole with the eye peeking out of it, emptying the precision-machined crossbow in a furious opening barrage that may or may not have actually struck her opponent. But whether or not she succeeded, she was fully devoting herself to this battle, throwing into it with the feverish zeal of someone whose entire society has revolved around fights with these sorts of beings, war and death and battle and defense at all costs, with even the slightest quarter neither expected nor given -- not without becoming truly sick and traitorous, anyhow. Satomi fires the Perfection Crossbow at the monster behind the rubble, dealing 6d6+DEX (7) damage!

The Doll was likely quite disappointed at Jack's reaction to partial disembowelment -- even as he spilled forth, he grinned bloodily at his foe, and though he fell there was a glow of green from his body as the abused revival implants within his body got to work once again, his implant the only thing ensuring that he was even capable of surviving something like this. And that damnable grin was still there just as wide when he came back up. "Well, let's get to this, shall we?" Jack scooped his pistol up off of the floor with a smooth motion... and then flicked his wrist as he aimed it, for just a little bit more mocking flair before his finger pulled the trigger on the fat pistol twice. Jack once again fires twice at Executioner with the Mag-Shot, dealing 3d6+DEX (6) damage two times! Active Cooldowns: Nanite Mesh Generator (3 more turns) Live Free in the NC! (Last turn)

Oops, yeah. To clarify, other animals didn't change with whatever event disappeared humans and made bugs into bug-people -- so mounts are just what your tiny little people can manage to ride. There are traditions of riding frogs and birds in particular, but squirrels and raccoons and stuff could be other kinds of mounts.

Player Characters: Ebon Knight (krim): Faithful Diligence (ElfCollaborator) Life-Recorder (Unlurking Sentinel): Lotus (Raindrop Valkyrie): Mercy Harefoot (kj1225) Pinecone (RedMageCole): Secluded from Illumination (Trash): Soggyshanks (Yours Truly) Stardust (EXLink32): Sting (ctsun): Non-Player Characters: Brilliant Deduction: Recruit Bend:

With a grunt, a figure hauled herself bodily up with one of the pitons that she was carrying, a thwack following that grunt as another piton slammed into and partially splintered the surface that she was hanging off of. This was dangerous work, and it always had to be undertaken with care lest she go hurtling to her death. The harness that she'd been given by the other scholars helped, to be sure, but if she fell all that harness represented was a chance not to die! It wasn't like what she was climbing had any solid points to knot the thread around, and it wasn't like she was terribly strong, either. The thread was simple twine taken from an old craft room, but it was the size of the arms of the figure climbing on it, and that figure's extra legs, yellow and spindly and protruding from her abdomen through her clothing, twitched in stressful little movements, the tiny little person on her shoulder chattering with her own nervousness. The surface the figure was climbing was wooden, and it was no wonder that it was daunting to her -- it was around three or four feet tall, whereas the figure managed a mere one and a half inches herself. But her fellow bugs back home needed to keep making progress... if she let an old human dining table get the best of her, what would it mean for that? Yes, her fellow bugs were making progress, and therefore so would she... one tiny step at a time. Welcome to Fire Emblem on Forums: Tiny Steps! This damned game has been months and months in the making and I'm overjoyed to finally get it out the door -- a lot of effort went into this, and I'm proud to now be running it. While I suspect that probably very few people reading this will be unfamiliar with the genre of game this is, for those of you who might be, this is a Fire Emblem on Forums game -- a play by post tactics game, run in a mechanical system based on the Fire Emblem game series. These games are meant to be mixtures of roleplay and tactical gameplay, and I fully intend to commit to both of these in Tiny Steps, especially the former! Tiny Steps is a game I really intend to suffuse with my vision... it takes place in a very peculiar setting with a very particular premise, and I want this game to take place in that setting from top to bottom, from the world you're in to the situations you navigate to the enemies you face to the terrain you fight on, to of course the characters you play! To those of you who haven't been present for my months of ranting about my setting, the premise is this: Thirty years ago, humanity disappeared, and suddenly taking their place were bugs -- very tiny, very confused, and suddenly forced to put together their own societies and adjust to a human life, among the vast ruins of their predecessors. And so you all play as tiny little people, just a couple of inches tall, in very tiny but very complex societies, taking on a task as big as any human's. But to go into more detail... here's my lore! Lore: I wrote a lot of lore for this game -- in fact, roughly around 15.7-15.9k words -- so it's very much understandable that reading it all might be a fairly daunting task. To this end, I want to highlight below the lore that you do and do not have to read, as some of it is much more vital to character-making than others. The categories I've separated the many lore pastebins into are, respectively: Basic Lore, Regions, History of the Scholars' Redoubt, and Bug Types, only two of which are mandatory reading. Basic Lore: Map: Regions of the World: History of the Scholars' Redoubt: Bug Societies of the Scholars' Redoubt: Mechanics This game uses the Fire Emblem on Forums v2.3 handbook! As is fairly standard for Fire Emblem on Forums games, I've put together a set of houserules that modify the game -- this might look pretty daunting, but you don't have to worry about class changes for classes that you don't intend to give your character. General Changes: Personal Skills: Class Changes: New Classes: Finally, the Character Creation: Who are you?: Character Sheet: I have two more things to note. A: If you sign up for this game, I want you to commit to making an effort to RP at least sometimes. I'm not gonna put a gun to your head and force you to write for every scene or even every chapter, as I've certainly decided to hang around in the background for chapters of other games, I just don't want to have characters that only exist as empty statblocks for the battles, with your only post being number coordinates during those battles. B: If you have questions about the game or FEF in general, feel free to contact me on discord, where I can be found both on the server for FEF games on this forum (invitation here: https://discord.gg/MnKEmR8) and on the server for FEF games on Bay12/the system in general (invitation here: https://discord.gg/yCvR2wV)! I will be accepting 10 players, and the deadline will be on February the 3rd!

"I somehow doubt that your explanation will make things crystal clear," LOTUS couldn't help but snark at the much larger fairy. "As for our capabilities, Prototype... well, there are many, many other members of the group that are simply not currently with us, and it would be fairly difficult and very much time-consuming to try to summarize for ALL of them. However, for the ones that came here... Isobel and I focus on medical support and tactical support respectively, Empi also provides... well, she provides support magic, although I still wonder why she's here, Rory seems to be a moderately powerful fighter but primarily very tough, while Masako seems fragile but capable of putting out a lot of hurt and even taking multiple foes out of the fight temporarily, which is something I've made a lot of use of. Walmond focuses on medical aid and Lambda also focuses on taking hits and drawing aggression like Rory. Hikari is also a healer and support-focused member of the team primarily, whereas Ritsu is primarily a fighter. Ultimately I can't point out any stunning individual weaknesses besides Hikari's vulnerability to lightning, but as a team we do suffer somewhat from a lack of firepower -- we have an overabundance of people like Isobel and I who are focused nearly entirely on supporting our allies."

Isobel shot the faunus a glare, hardly appreciative of being called "annoying" by Rory of all people, but her expression ultimately softened at Walmond's words. "I suppose you are right. I'm just worried about potentially missing out on something... and considering that it's, like, these singular objects that mind-control people I guess the idea of one going unseen is really worrying. You're right that there's really not much we can do but keep investigating, though." Even Masako's demeanor only drew a slight quirk of her lips. "Uh, sure, let's go with that. Hmm... you're from this place, right? I have to wonder... is this kind of just how things normally go around here, going from person to person to fight to fight? It seems odd but it doesn't really seem like anyone else thinks so either." "If the others we have met so far are any indication, I would imagine that she is probably not actually a child." With that noted, however, LOTUS got to her original point. "Alright... allow me to provide a general summary of events. I imagine that this will be somewhat hard to swallow, so simply ask me any questions you may have and I will answer. The situation is this: As you have been seeing firsthand, the world that you are used to is not the only one that exists. Worlds, planes, dimensions, realms -- no matter which of these terms is the most comfortable for you, the gist of it is that there is more than just one universe -- we live in a multiverse, where there are many universes disconnected from each other. UB-65... Imagine space, with all of its stars out to infinity... maybe replace those stars with individual universes with different rules, and you may be able to visualize it better. This isn't a completely accurate image, but I think it might help. IP, simply view this as similar to the idea of alternate dimensions, except that instead of branching possibilities it's more that there are many parallel dimensions except that they all operate on their own rules. There are beings known as Trespassers that come from between these dimensions. Their goal is to devour everything --everything-- that exists, every person in every country in every world. As far as we know, the way that they do this is by going around to individual universes, corrupting the people within them, and then using them to destroy these universes in some manner. But what you need to understand then is that these are fairly implacable enemies that work through corrupting people, and find it difficult to enter beyond a level that they can be fought at. This means that they can be fought, and the reason that we are all here is that we have been called by something, though I admit I do not know quite what, to fight these creatures in order to defend all of our worlds from destruction. Our group travels through different worlds and fights the Trespassers off within them, from a base that is, well, a traveling castle. Masako has been misleading about this: she isn't a leader of the group, and in fact she's very new to it, all told. In reality we don't really have any permanent leaders; we have tended to appoint them on the spot for individual missions or simply cooperate on an equal level as needed. We don't have a hierarchy -- we are just all trying to accomplish the same goals and we coordinate flexibly accordingly." Of course, sharing the same goals was no guarantee of organizational success, LOTUS well knew that, but it was working so far. "As for my chassis... my usual form is that of a tablet, and being... organic like I currently am is just the effects of this world in action. I was produced by the Echelon Artificial Intelligence Corporation, however."

Despite the gore still spilling everywhere, Jack immediately stood back up the moment that Harold's healing brought him back to life, kicking up off of the ground and attaining verticality in just a couple of seconds flat -- a wide grin on his face as he looked at the steaming-mad doll and then pointed at her, beckoning her towards him. "Come on, honey, you must really be used to people who give up early if you think that one little death is REALLY gonna stop a fight like this. You've got to do better than that, you know." His grin actually managed to widen here, though. "Doubt you can, though. This is some baby-tier shit, this shit sure as hell doesn't compare to a Prowler HESH round, it's just some dumb bitch waving around a dumb bitch sword." And then, to hammer in his point, he raised his pistol with a laziness that was only half-affected, popping off a shot at her without his grin leaving his face. Jack uses Live Free in the NC!, taunting Executioner, and then fires at her again with his Mag-Shot to deal 3d6+DEX (6) damage! Active Cooldowns: Nanite Mesh Generator (4 more turns) Live Free in the NC! (1 more turn)

This fight was a tough one, and even if it didn't have the same terrifying scale as the fight with that awful creature Trick did, Perlita was realizing that the limited manpower they had was beginning to seriously work against them -- with fewer people to get aimed at, the people they did have were getting absolutely hammered at a rate that Perlita was already becoming extremely hard-pressed to keep at. This wasn't something that exactly helped to keep her calm, and already she was sweating, her eyes darting around. "I-- I can't get everyone like this! Someone needs to protect Lyra and the men in Atton's truck, I can't get to them right now!! CRAWFORD!" With that final shout, Perlita brought forth her glitzy Persona, and almost violently pointed in the direction of Atton, who was promptly engulfed in the pink mist of her more powerful healing spell -- laced with a swirl of sunlight as she activated the Symbol of Lumabella she carried for the first time to have further effect on Atton. Perlita drops a Diarama on Atton with the Symbol of Lumabella activated, healing for 6d4+SYN (12)+SYN (12) HP from perk and removing the Soaked debuff from him!

Isobel found herself musing as she walked upon the path towards the human village -- and, despite her contemplation, she managed to avoid tripping over even a single one of the fairies, deftly balancing on one foot or performing little hops seemingly without looking at the fairies she was dodging in order to gracefully wheel around them. As for what she was thinking about... "I can't help but wonder about how much progress we're actually making. We're making connections, and we're confirming that it is in fact the artifacts that are evidently making people go nuts, and, yeah, that's probably thanks to the Trespassers, but... that's all kind of surface level stuff, you know? Scarlet only really seemed to have a direction to point us in, and I kind of have to wonder if we're only going to get another direction from the village. I dunno... I just feel like we're only skimming the surface level here, you know?" LOTUS, meanwhile, was actually not with Isobel -- instead she had been spending the last few minutes rounding up Instructor Prototype and UB-65 through lots of running, hops with frantic wingbeats that gave LOTUS a bit of air, and clinging onto the legs of moving people. Eventually, though, the formerly-largely-inanimate fairy managed to get the two put together, the green circuits on her face and hands pulsing bright green thanks to the exertion inherent in even such a simple task for a fairy who couldn't fly. She climbed up onto Instructor Prototype's shoulder and, with a huff, sat down and took a moment before finally speaking. "Hff. Alright. This new form does bring new difficulties, I must say. Anyway, I felt that there was a critical lack of information in the team that must be addressed, so I have elected to brief the two of you on exactly what is going on. Prototype, I am afraid that, adjusting to this form, which is not my usual, I do not remember how much you were told, so some of this may be repeats but it would be good to solidify your grasp of the situation nonetheless. As for you," and here she meant UB-65, "you're even newer, and I imagine that you know next to nothing about the entire situation. Do you both understand? I suppose that it would help if you both explained just what you do know."

Immediately, with the Scantgobbler rather too far away for the clone with the fancy words to pursue any sort of offense against it on his own, he instead elected to try to contribute to the monster's defeat in a different way. So he pointed at the monster, and he began to speak. "It appears that the Scantgobbler makes use of the magma present here in order to regenerate its wounds! I recommend making it a priority to prevent it from re-entering the magma if we are to have any lasting effect upon it! Perhaps this involves barriers, but it is also a potential possibility that the blocking clone could block it from submerging!" The social clone attempts to use Speech to explain the monster's strategy and provide aid to the actions of the other clones taken against the Scantgobbler by doing so!

Immediately, the clone knew that his time had come, and he knew what he had to do. Scrap-metal cuirass on his chest and sounds in his body, the clone proceeded to run full tilt at the strange, turkey-like monstrosity. Now was the time to prove the value and might of his noises and words! The many ways of communicating that he had begun to acquire had many purposes, and would no doubt follow him to, er, uh, wher-- wherever he was going next, he really didn't know and was kind of trying to figure it out even at this moment-- BUT-- there was one that was useful for this moment in particular. The clone immediately ran directly up point-blank to the Scantgobbler with little regard for his own self-preservation, and suddenly: "AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!?!" The talkative clone uses Shriek to convey his confusion and unsureness about future events and stun the Scantgobbler!

Ena's first remark draws an extremely dark chuckle from Didi -- perhaps shockingly so, as it was laced with a deep and resigned bitterness that seemed to soak every single bark of laughter. "Yes, of course you would. That's the one thing of us neither can escape. But what can we do? We have to wait for Godot. Even after all of this! You are all at least something different, though." He let out a long sigh, now, and then just shrugged. "As for Estragon, I... honestly, I don't know. I don't think.... I don't think he remembers much of anything, so... I don't know how he'd react. But... maybe it would be good for him. Maybe it would be bad for him." Here, Didi fell silent for a moment, the gaunt man tapping his fingers against his cheek as he contemplated. "Gogo would know better than me, normally... he was always better with that sort of thing, except... that... well, he doesn't remember not remembering things, either."

Lizaveta stayed kneeled in front of Shin as he slowly began to stop writhing and squirming, and she wasn't really sure if he was unconscious or not, to tell the truth. Was he crying and struggling against some unseen menace? Then why had he stopped? Was he fighting just against what Tabitha had done to him, and crying because of all that had happened? She didn't really know... but she sucked in a breath and a sob and wiped her eyes once again, the whole situation having drained her to her very limit even with Fey's attempts to calm her down. Eventually, she gently moved to squeeze the hand that Shin was reaching out with to give him some comfort, looking down at him without glasses but with watery eyes and a tear-streaked face, speaking only loudly enough for him to hear. "Shin... why...? Why would you do that...?"

Lizaveta had been planning to shove the staff into Tabitha's hands, but Kane did something similar, and the ponytailed girl didn't resist as Kane pulled her off. Instead, when she was let down, she immediately fell to a knee beside Shin, crouching down beside him. She looked him over, even if she had to get close to do so because of the fact that her glasses were abandoned somewhere on the ground, and then looked up at Tabitha. "I-- I think he's going to make it now, b-but-- Snowbird-- she's probably in real trouble, please...! I can do anything else now with a vulnerary, please go save her!"

Lizaveta stood there for a moment, just drying her tears, but what Tabitha then began to do to Shin is really something that Lizaveta could not stand there and accept. She too had been worried sick about Shin, and she too was horrified and disgusted by how his value of himself was so evidently low that he thought killing himself would work better, but... watching Tabitha start to kick the hell out of him, and seeing that she intended to do some horrific cycle of healing him and beating him bloody... "NO!" She launched herself bodily at Tabitha, intending to knock the other girl to the ground.

"I-- I just thought you could help M, Snowbird while Sh, while he-- while-- while Ficus was being taken out of the water--" Lizaveta hadn't expected the glowering rage that Tabitha turned on her, and as panicked as she was she really didn't have any way of handling it -- she just pulled off her mask so she could take off her glasses, hands shaking, wiping at her lenses and then her eyes with her sleeve since her tears were starting to get on the glass and making it difficult to see. She took a deep, shaky breath in. "PLEASE just help him! Help them! I-- I just-- I don't want either of them to die! I-I-- I can't-- I can't do anything, but-- please--"

The clone who liked to talk a lot began his own preparations for the task ahead of them -- first, he found one of the thin sheets of metal from the cots, and politely asked the clone that liked blocking to block for him, before wildly flailing the piece of metal at him for several moments until he'd kind of created a scrap metal cuirass that was super dented and not that good or comfortable, but that was at least armor. "Thank you for your aid, blocking clone." With thanks given, the clone sort of just hovered around the clone that ate metal, who was an absolute enigma. He simply could not understand why this other clone did what he did -- why eat his own chest sphere? Why eat metal? Were there not worthier things to take? Weren't you not supposed to eat metal? He did exercise his capacity to comprehend madness, sure, but this was a mystery to him. He then screamed at the top of his fucking lungs for a couple of minutes before wandering over to the elevator with everybody else. "I believe that I have sufficiently practiced and prepared to pursue this encounter."

Lizaveta found herself locked in combat with an enemy mage, spells flying, and her teeth grit -- she couldn't get to that hooded bastard, and now Mim was going to die even if Shin lived, and she couldn't get to him, this scholar was in the way, she couldn't do anything-- A lance meatily stuck through Death, and her opponent was distracted just long enough for Lizaveta to furiously throw a bolt of magic into his head, that ate through his skull and brain and left the mage dropping... As the corpse hit the ground, Lizaveta was torn about whether to go to Mim or to the lake, but eventually she screamed something to Tabitha as she herself ran to the lake. "T-- Ta-- Rose-- Get Snowbird taken care of! Orchid can't take care of her, so you need to help her! Ficus! Ficus! Ficus! Are you alive?! Do we have him yet?!" Now, she made it to the edge of the lake, going to her knees at its edge and trying to peer down desperately through the water.

The socially-inclined clone looked gravely at Scantankerous Tim, and then closed his eyes and nodded, putting a hand sympathetically on the man's shoulder. "I understand what you are saying, sir. Do not worry; we will help you retrieve your still, I understand that you must be very concerned." At this point, he turned towards the others and began to speak to them. "Scantankerous Tim here has been pursued by a creature known as the Scantgobbler, which he merely has been mispronouncing due to his understandable fear of the monster. It seems to have a specific sort of malice aimed at him, and it accordingly is likely guarding his still in order to lure him back and eat him once he gets there. Accordingly, as we ought to retrieve Tim's still, we will need to have some manner of dealing with this creature, whether it be combat, diplomacy, or perhaps some way of bypassing it entirely."