>>27869259
Since the sacrifice just happened, we probably don't have much time until she comes up. I vote we either look at the spellbook a bit more or go down to see if they keep the door locked. Not try to leave, just check.

>>27869259
As you consider everything you've discovered at this point, you head downstairs and to the front door. The sound of the "monster" on the other side is still present but your concern is on the door itself. Just as you observed before, the lock is rudimentary, practically useless. If there WAS somepony on the other side of the door, let alone a REAL monster, this flimsy lock would not deter their entry. You toggle the knob and the door unlatches with a click. The monster still thrashes against the wood from the other side, but there is no actual force on the door. You gently close it.

"Oh dear," the malevolent voice from upstairs whispers in your mind, "thinking about leaving so soon? Bah. Be my guest. I'll come for you soon enough, planeswalker."

And with that the monstrous noises cease. Did the spirit cancel her spell? Or is this some kind of trick? As you stop to decide what to do you sense another burst of black mana get siphoned into the battery. Did Needle just sacrifice another creature?

Leave while you can?
Explore around some of the other rooms?
See what the baroness is doing?
Something else?

>>27869613
Check the Baroness.

>>27869613
Your mind is eased at knowing you're able to leave this building at your leisure, but you're still engrossed in the mystery surrounding this place. You make your way down the hall and crank the elevator up to your floor and then ride it back down. As you do you hear the metallic clang of the spiked vice snapping shut and killing another one of the creatures. Has Needle gone inside from your private encounter this morning? Has the spirit possessed her or something?

You slowly enter the chamber and find thick ichor pooled on the stone floor, glistening in the lamplight. The baroness shoots you a casual glance as she stands next to the machine and resets the kill lever. Talker slowly shambles his way into the cage and leads yet another of the helpless beings out as it silently weeps for mercy.

"Well, my friend, have you decided to get your hooves dirty? The timetable's moved up and we're culling the entire stock! You want a turn?"

Murder aside, this can't be good. What will you do?

Lock her and Talker inside the chamber?
Try to reason with her to stop what she's doing?
Reason with Talker?
Explore the room?
Help her kill the thrulls?
Something else?

>>27869804
Ask her what's happened. Also ask her what the time table is.

>>27869804
Sneakily study the battery wherever it is. I wonder if we could break it before it gets full.

>>27869804
Ask her who she first learned magic from should the chance arise after asking about the timetable.

>>27869804
You won't have any part in killing those... things. But you can't deny that even though it's not your preferred method of science, there is something fascinating about breeding creatures purely to harvest mana from them at a later date. You ask the baroness why she's doing all of this now to which she yawns and shrugs.

"Look, friendo, I don't have time to go into the specifics about all this. Once the mana battery is filled we can sit down and have a chummy laugh about how everypony else has to bow down to my whims for all eternity, blah blah blah... but RIGHT NOW I gotta actually fill the stupid thing! So just relax, go back upstairs and wait for me in my bedroom and we can have some more fun in a little while, alright?"

She completely brushed you off. Talker frowns in your direction as he finishes strapping a sibling to the machine.

*K-CHUNK*

"WOO! YEAH, BABY! Keep 'em coming, Talker! We're a quarter done!"

"Yes, Mistress."

Trying your hardest to ignore the bloody spray, you question the baroness just where she learned her magic from. If you knew that then perhaps you'd be forearmed in devising a plan to counter it. She raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean, Cascade? I've... I've always... known... I've..." she stammers in thought. You ask her what does her cutie mark stand for, what her special talent is, anything to distract her momentarily. "Cutie mark? Special... talent? I sew. I sew... things... I... I... don't know? Huh."

The baroness just stands there lost in thought. Talker looks unsure of what to do. What do YOU do?

>>27870030
Tell her that she is in control of a much darker force affecting her actions. The magic she's storing in that battery probably isn't going to her.

>>27870030
Taking advantage of her self discovery you tell her that a darker force is guiding her actions and that the mana in the battery isn't truly meant for her. Her eyes sharpen and she scrunches up her face in anger.

"What? See, there you go again making accusations about this and that without knowing the facts! Well I'll have you know that I was MADE so that I could absorb the power from the mana battery! What do you think about THAT?"

Made? Just what the fuck did she mean by that you wonder. It seems you're not the only one who found that comment unsettling, as Needle Weaver stops and reflects upon what it was she just admitted.

"I-I was... made? I... hnnng... my head." The baroness sinks down to the floor and holds her hooves to her skull. She winces in pain and begins crying pitifully. Talker releases the thrull who runs back into the cage with the others and walks over to you.

"Why are you interfering, the Mistress's friend, Cascade? The Mistress must sacrifice the 'live to dies' so that she may become the vessel. She is the 'live to command'. Please do not interfere further."

>>27870326
Do you serve the mistress or the battery?

>>27870326
Talker. Is this what you really want? To kill innocent creatures until you're no longer needed? I know that there is more to you than being a slave. You don't have to do this.

>>27870326
You turn your attention to Talker, his devotion unquestionable even to the point of helping to kill his own kind to further some unknown design. You ask him to whom he is truly loyal. He smiles in mixed confusion as if you didn't already know.

"I am a 'live to obey', I obey the Mistress."

You shake your head and explain to him that he DOESN'T have to do what he's doing, that he doesn't have to kill his fellow thrulls. He steps backwards and thinks about that for a moment before walking over to Needle Weaver and helping her up. She sniffs back tears as she brushes herself off and tries to regain her composure.

"I am as the 'live to make' created me. The 'live to die' and the 'live to command' were also created by the 'live to make'. We are not... 'live to live'... that would be wasteful."

When he says "live to live" the thrulls huddled in the cage turn to each other as if some great blasphemy were uttered. Even Needle Weaver cringed and dropped her head. If anything at all these creatures have an order and they know their place even if it's detrimental to their well being. Talker then walks across the room to the small pit in the corner. He motions you closer.

Follow him to see?
Leave and lock the room behind you?
Something else?

>>27870513
I don't trust going near a pit with anyone right now.

Everyone in the room seems afraid of the 'live to make'. Though our best shot is to persuade Needle Weaver at the moment. Showing her the truth is affecting her I bet.

>>27870513
And just what is the "live to make"?

>>27870513
You don't feel comfortable at the thought of nearing a pit after everything else that's happening right now. You suggest Needle go look in the pit. She looks at you like you're crazy.

"And what do you suppose is down there that I haven't seen a hundred times already?"

"Mistress, the 'live to make' is dow-"

"I KNOW WHAT'S DOWN THERE, TALKER! This is MY house after all!"

Annoyed, Needle walks over to Talker and snags his robes to pull him away from the edge when she happens to glance into the pit herself. A look of abject terror crosses her face and she shudders where she stands.

"WH-WHAT THE?! But! But I! That's not! I'm not! I'M NOOOOOOOOOOT!!!"

She shrieks in terror and runs past you out of the room, splashing the black ichor blood on the floor everywhere as she passes through. Talker follows her with his eyes, his jaw dropped in astonishment. "M-Mistress? Are you alright? A-are we going to continue the ritual?" He looks over to the equally stunned thrulls and then back to the pit. "I am sorry, 'live to make', I must go tend to the Mistress."

You hear a gurgling echo in the pit and Talker slowly turns away and walks towards the door.

Lock him in?
Stop him and question him?
Investigate the thrulls or the pit?
Investigate the spike machine?
Something else?

>>27870758
No going near the pit. It seems like a bad idea now that we cancelled it's ritual. Let's try to persuade Talker again and when he leaves (make sure he doesn't lock us in), we free all of the thrulls if we can open the cage.

>>27870822
We have to get information somehow.

>>27870758
As Talker approaches you stand in the doorway to block him. He politely asks you to move while craning his neck to hear the crying baroness as she cranks the elevator to go upstairs. With a pleading look he turns back to you.

"The Mistress's friend, Cascade, please allow me to pass, the Mistress is in distress. I answered your questions truthfully. If my answers were insufficient, I am deeply sorry. Please excuse me, the Mistress's friend, Cascade."

With that Talker simply picks you up by the waist, sets you out of the way and steps into the hallway calling for the baroness to come back down. After all this and he is still polite to a fault; you seriously doubt he will harm you.

Turning to the thrulls, you slowly make your way to their cage, each step in the sticky blood making you wince. The thrulls are curious about your presence but otherwise stay huddled in the corner. You speak gently and coax them to come near you, even opening the door for them, but they make no moves as if confused by your kindness.

The pit makes gurgling sounds again. They're like sickening moans more than anything. The thrulls notice the sound too and seem troubled by it. You feel very uneasy about being here.

>>27870995
Check the god damned pit!

>>27870995
Uh oh. Sounds like it's angry. Or maybe it's making another being to confront us? After all, it made Needle Weaver and Talker.

Find a way to destroy the spike machine, get the thrulls to follow us to the elevator, and then get back to the top.

If there is a way to destroy the battery, then do it.

>>27871047
I don't feel comfortable about it. Needle had a breakdown by just staring into it.

>>27871071
It might be her mother for all we know.

>>27871071
Don't know about something powerful and evil? Just break it. Also we already stopped the ritual so it's more important to convince Needle not to start again than it is to break stuff.

>>27870995
Despite the sounds rolling out of the pit, you keep your distance. Whatever it is that's down there clearly disturbed Needle, you're not sure what it could do to you. The thulls likewise resist your efforts to uncage them. You aren't sure if it's because they were bred to feel comfort in captivity or because they have no reason to trust you.

Instead you focus your attention to the murder machine. Your school of training leans more towards intellectual theory than intellectual application, but you're confident enough you can break this terrible device. You study its joints and mechanism for a long moment before activating it to snap it shut and then buck the trigger release with all your might. You manage to fracture the lever and send a few small gears shifting out of place. It's far from destroyed but at least it's useless for the time being. The thrulls in the cage stare wide-eyed at you yet still make no effort to escape.

"Well then," says the disembodied voice to you, a tinge of annoyance apparent in its tone, "seeing how you have disrupted my efforts to charge my battery - yet again - I have no choice but to collect from outside sources. Their blood is on your hoofs, planeswalker..."

You feel a slight vibration in the very fabric of the building like the beating of a heart beginning to speed up. You can sense black mana drawing towards the building somehow at an ever increasing rate! The pit makes a long gurgling sigh and then falls silent. The caged thrulls begin to cry, a few reaching their misshapen arms through the bars towards the pit. You can't help but feel a sense of dread looming in the air.

What would you like to do?
Go look for Needle?
Head upstairs to the battery?
Simply escape the manor?
Something different?

>>27871293
Why didn't you listen to >>27871212 ? Your posting to quickly.

>>27871293
It's draining the city to death now, isn't it?
We should find a way to break that battery. Like right now.

>>27871398
I read it. Just to clarify, the machine was just a modified iron maiden of sorts. It had no impact on the evil voice in changing tactics any more than Needle leaving the room did. Either way the ritual is being ignored and the battery is now going to be drawing from a new source. If players can't agree on a singular task, I'll do my best to merge the commands when possible.

>>27871468
It did have an impact on wasting time, just like trying to free the thralls that obviously don't even understand the concept. Also how did this:
> Also we already stopped the ritual so it's more important to convince Needle not to start again than it is to break stuff.
come into play?

>>27871509
Check the pit, don't check the pit, break the machine, maybe check the pit, don't break the machine. Like I said, I'll try to combine when I can while still making something happen. It would have been a waste of time to just make her stand around undecided on what to do for a turn only to have the same things suggested again.

Right now we have a vote to go break the battery.

>>27871509
>wasting time on freeing the thrulls
Sorry about that. I was just trying to go along with Cascade's character since she felt bad about watching them die.

I think now's a good time for a break anyway. The game will likely resume tomorrow night around 9:30. Good session, all.

Well since hulk smash tends to be a stupid option, lets think about what's going on a bit. It's using the crystal loop to get energy now. It seems to depend on having ponies meditate around the crystals placed around town. Since it'd be impossible to go around town and break every crystal and it'd most likely kill us to smash the battery, considering how much energy it has inside it, we'll have to figure out a way to break that part of the circuit or figure out a way to drive all of the ponies away from the crystals from here.

>>27871707
Is it possible to damage the battery and have it drain out at a steady pace instead of having it burst all out at once? Going around town and warning the ponies may take too much time.

>>27871776
We know nothing about the battery, and as for the second part:
>from here

>>27871707
>>27871776
>>27871814
Y'all are forgetting the biggest problem... WE CAN'T CAST SPELLS AND WE ARE A MAGE. I feel like priority number one is to go break whatever is suppressing our magic. Then, if it looks like a big spell is about to be cast to make the litch (which I am guessing is the mother), we can cast that counterspell we learned that is XUR and grab as much mana as we can from the battery ourselves to pour into the X to try and counter it and burn the creature with its own mana pool.

I would highly suggest following Talker up in the elevator. Perhaps if we break whatever hold the mother has on the baroness we can convince her to aid us in some way.

>>27872220
That big spell isn't going to be cast if we prevent her from getting the necessary energy. Also the more time we waste, the more unnecessary deaths there will be. However we might be able to get two birds with one stone here. The illusion that's hiding the townsfolk's real appearance is running off of stolen blue mana, break that and we'll both get our magic back and disrupt the energy gathering from the town. Also, Needle is most likely going to be heading to her room so we'll be able to reason with her while we're there. We should grab the lithograph along the way.

>>27872290
Well I am just saying as a last ditch effort we now have counter/damage magic but it sounds like we both want to do the same thing here so I agree we should do all of this.

pg10

>>27872207

>>27874081

>>27873704

>>27877579

>>27879148

>>27880132

>>27880792

>>27882344

>>27883273

>>27884520

how are you doing on page 10?

>>27871293
The surge of black mana and the voice's ominous message has you concerned for the lives of the townsponies now. You can picture in your mind the crystals sucking their life energy en masse, and you still have no magic of your own to defend yourself. You suppose as a last resort you could try and tamper with or smash the battery itself, but you know it would be not only suicidal but the sudden explosion of death magic would surely poison the city for ages. No. That's not happening.

You decide the key to resolving this entire mystery involves Needle Weaver in some way you've yet to figure out, hopefully soon. You dash to the elevator as Talker stands idly to the side of it. He's spaced out and mumbling to himself.

"T-the 'live to make'... Why does it no longer sing? It... It is a 'live to make', not a 'live to die'! Why...?"

You push past him and crank on the elevator with all your might until you carry yourself to the ground floor. You rush up the stairs and find yourself in the hallway in front of the baroness's room. The door is open and she's not inside. The lab across the hall is pulsing with black mana, no doubt rushing to top itself off for who knows what. Past them all are the bedrooms you checked earlier, however, the one door you did not explore this morning is ajar.

Ransack the baroness's room and try to find the spell nullifier?
Check on the battery to see if you can't slow its progress down somehow?
Investigate the open bedroom?
Something else?

>>27887404
Grab the lithograph and find Needle.

>>27887404
You briefly glimpse through the doors as you rush down the hallway. Believing the lithograph of the family will be useful in aiding Needle, you retrieve it from under the bed in the room at the far end of the hall. As you exit, you stop to peek inside the room next to it that you'd previously ignored and there you find Needle. She is sitting on the edge of a bed and staring blankly into a mirror. An old, tattered book lays on the floor in front of her, apparently dropped in her stupor.

What do you want to do?

>>27887594
Put the lithograph in front of the mirror.

>>27887594
Comfort her.

>>27887594
You slowly walk into the room once you're sure it's safe and move to the baroness's side. The room is like the others, in disuse, covered in sheets, boxes containing worldly possessions stacked up as if preparing to move to another home. The baroness looks as if her mind has already escaped this place.

You hold the lithograph up in front of the mirror and pat Needle Weaver on her side. Slowly her eyes come into focus and she reaches out in confusion and takes the picture from you. Tearfully she rubs her hoof along the gloss. She looks up to you with an utterly devastated expression and bursts out in long pained sobs. You awkwardly hug her as she clamps around your body, her chest heaving.

"It was all a lie," she cries, "all of it. All of it!" You ask her what she means, conscious of the fact that the limited window of opportunity you have before the battery is charged is steadily closing. "EVERYTHING," she screams as she pushes you away. "ME! THE MANOR! THE BATTERY! M-M-MOM! Mom... Oh, Mom... What have I DONE?!"

Needle begins trembling and holds her hooves to her head as she silently mutters to herself. She's clearly unstable right now, possibly even more under the influence of whatever malevolent spirit is haunting this place. You might be able to yet reason with her, or perhaps the answer is in the book or somewhere in this room?

Try to focus Needle?
Read the book?
Search the room?
Look in the mirror?
Something else?

>>27887926
Ask he to help us find the magic nullifier if she wants to help stop all of this. It should be in her room.

>>27887926
You explain to her that if you had access to your magic then you might be able to stop what's going on. You tell her that you know about the null field in her room and that she needs to disable it. Needle looks around the room and then to you with pure confusion.

"Friend? What're you going on about? There's nothing like that in here! I just... I... Ugn... Please no..." The baroness snaps her head backwards, wincing in pain and then drops it slowly forward to meet your gaze, her eyes dead inside.

"You're lucky I've been so predisposed with controlling the flow of energy around here, Planeswalker. I would have scrambled your brains the INSTANT you began poking your muzzle where it DIDN'T BELONG!" The baroness, or rather the spirit controlling her body like a puppet, stand up and prods you hard in the chest with a hoof before smugly sizing you up. "But I suppose I haven't been a proper hostess, either; I've yet to introduce myself!" You angrily demand to know just who this voice belongs to and to what end this entire setup is for. The baroness laughs.

"Why, I am Regal Onyx, the TRUE BARONESS of this manor and soon all of Marblehaven. Kneel."

A blast of black mana surges from the battery, is channeled through the baroness's horn and engulfs you. You can feel your focus slipping, memories rearranging. It seems Regal Onyx isn't suffering your impertinence any longer.

"What... in... what is this?! Why...?" Grumbles the baroness as she continues tearing into your mind. You and Regal Onyx appear in an astral form next to your bodies similar to how you did when Needle slept with you this morning.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?! WHAT MEANING OF TREACHERY IS THIS?!" she bellows, walking around the room in her spirit form again. "DON'T THINK I'VE FINISHED YET, PLANESWALKER! The selfsame moment I am free..." she hisses as she attempts to reenter Needle's body.

You may apparently freely roam the house now, but are still constrained to the structure. What do you do?

>>27888524
We should be able to find the exact location of the nullifier if we aren't physically limited.

>>27888524
Search around her room for the nullifier.

>>27888524
With the physical threat of Onyx momentarily behind you, you realize you might just be able to find the nullifier now. You dash through the wall much to her protest where you find yourself in an astral version of the hallway. Three young ponies are running around the hallway playing ball. You recognize them as the ponies from the lithograph as well as the "encounter" you had this morning.

"That used to be my room," says one of the little bat ponies as she turns to you and points at the room you just left. "My name was Dream Weaver." You slowly float towards her only to have all three disappear, only she reappearing down the hall next to the lab.

You float down the hall where she motions into the room. The lab appears much different in this vision, all the lab equipment replaced with meditation mats, the battery replaced with one of the large crystals. The entire family sits in the room around the crystal, the green-eyed planeswalking stallion here too! "I always enjoyed when Leaf Shaman came to visit us. He always shared the best dreams."

Leaf Shaman? Is that the stallion's name? The scene fades and the little pony appears in front of the master bedroom crying. "I know what's going to happen if I go in there so I won't. I know what you're going to be looking for so I made sure this memory would be passed on to the new me." She fades as she sinks into the floor. "I have to go back into the pit now. Good luck."

When she disappears you find yourself alone in front of the room Needle Weaver has been using. The astral entrance glows ominously and crying and screaming is coming from inside. You feel your mind refocusing, as if the domination spell is being lifted. You head inside.

You know this scene all too well. Only now you see it as it apparently happened. The little unicorn and a bat pony swing from their necks, the father helplessly forced to rape your little storyteller, and Regal Onyx laughing all the while controlling the show.

To Be Continued...

>>27888857
We should take this opportunity to see what really happened while we search. Also, is anybody else troubled by what she said about returning to the pit? The pit that SOMEBODY was to afraid to let us even peek into despite obviously being a part of this whole situation.

>>27886756

pg10

>>27891942

>>27892838

>>27894006

>>27888857
As you watch the ghastly scene from this morning replay for you, you feel just as much disgust and shame now as when you thought it was happening TO you. The little bat filly who looked like the baroness struggles against the silk bindings as her body and soul are violated. Her brother and sister dangle in their nooses, their final moments reflected in the terror on their faces.

"WHY... UNG! ARE YOU DOING THIS? UNF!" the stallion cries out as he is forced upon his child. Your stomach lurches to see just how satisfied Regal Onyx looks as she sodomizes her husband throughout this grisly act.

"You are to breed her."

Just like before. The stallion begs forgiveness to his children, unable to save them, as his very seed is forced into Dream Weaver. Regal Onyx smiles and pats her husband on his mane condescendingly.

The ropes of silk turn sickly grey and all at once the father and two hanging children are turned to stone! The statues in the master bedroom WERE the family! The beastly mother then turns her attention on Dream Weaver's defeated form, casting another spell that pours an endless flow of black mana into her womb.

"How wonderful for you, you are finally a mare now." She says venomously. Onyx strokes her child's shivering and battered body. "Soon you will grant me many, many grandfoals. And I have the perfect place to keep you safe..."

The basement? The pit? She couldn't have... Before you have a chance to mull things over in your mind, your spirit is thrust into the body of Dream Weaver as she turns around on the bed to face her mother. You see through her tear-blurred eyes what she wanted you to see - the family portrait hanging in her parent's bedroom over the baroness's bed. You feel yourself drawn violently into it and twitch as you regain control of your physical body. You've returned to the bedroom down the hall.

"Wha...? WHAT?! BUT HOW?!" shrieks Regal Onyx. "ONCE I REGAIN CONTROL OF THIS VESSEL I WILL DESTROY YOU!"

What do you do?

>>27895251
To the portrait. Like right now would be a good time.

>>27895251
So she breed her daughter and used her magic to turn her into a baby factory for the thralls. Does that mean Needle is her grand-daughter?

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>>27895251
You waste no time in rushing down the hall, ignoring the threats of the baroness. You burst into the room where it all began and grab the ruined portrait from the wall.

And there it is - a mindlock orb.

The hum of the device reverberates through your being and you feel it tugging at your essence. You don't know what will happen if you break it, but you know what will happen if you don't. In your mind you hear the infuriated voice of the baroness as she becomes aware of your intrusion.

"GET. AWAY. FROM. THAT!"

Smash the orb?
Take it and run?
Something else?

>>27895493
Throw that thing out of the window and as far as you possibly can

>>27895493
To bad we no longer have a device that can smash it for us since SOMEBODY decided to waste time breaking equipment that wasn't going to be used anymore. Lets get it outside of the room before we break it, since I don't want to risk getting trapped in the bedding again.

>>27895557
No windows and that would just put it out of our reach rather than destroy it.

>>27895557
The manor has no windows, only shuttered window slits. The orb won't fit.

>>27895493
Let's smash it with everything we have. Or we can run out the front door with it and throw it.

>>27895583
>waste time breaking equipment
Sorry about that. I was just suggesting actions that fit our character.
It's too late to get angry over it anyways. We didn't know any better when we came in here.

>>27895651
Why use our hooves to break the magical thing? Seriously, I don't think "HULK SMASH" fits our character. Why leave the house when there's a perfectly good staircase or elevator shaft to throw it down? Would we be allowed to reenter the house to stop the battery if we leave?

>>27895699
>>27895651
>>27895584
>>27895583
>>27895557
Break the orb? (will it harm you?)
Throw it out the front door? (will that do anything?)
Drop it down the shaft to break it? (do you have time?)

>>27895801
Break it. Sure it may hurt us or leave a permanent mark on us, but it seems like the best option other than the elevator shaft.

Also, could it possibly be used as a weapon? Since it nullifies magic, what if it went on or in the battery?

>>27895801
The orb is blocking our powers, so it has to be destroyed somehow. We don't have time to study it and come up with a safe way to deal with it, so trying to minimize risk by breaking it away from use (throwing it) is the only safe option we got. Leaving the house isn't safe since we can get locked outside. The staircase is also an option and it's closer.

>>27895847
Yeah, like possibly losing a limb could ever be a problem. Orb absorbs blue mana, Battery contains black mana.

>>27895801
Worst case scenario we should be able to plansewalk away right as it explodes to avoid harm.

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>QM's call: Cascade has studied the basics about mindlock orbs and knows they only serve to block one's connection to magic.

>>27895493
Snatching the orb in your hooves you feel it vibrating your entire body, that it would engulf your very being if it could. You carefully skirt around the bed, paranoid of the silken drapes that could so easily ensnare you, and rush into the hallway. The black mana battery speeds to full throttle as if anticipating your actions and preparing one final push. With every ounce of your strength you heft it over your head and slam the dampening device into the wooden floorboards.

In the cacophony of shattering glass, tirade of expletives and explosion of unwoven magical spells, a single "ping" ushers the return of your spark.

As the magical veils fall around you you're awestruck just how dilapidated this place really is. There was a glamor spell over the entire building! Since there weren't any guests you reason it must have been for Needle's sake. But why go to that level of subterfuge? Runes of all kinds are scrawled across the walls and floors of this place, like it was trying to regulate magic somehow, or amplify it.

At that moment you sense a surge of black mana lash into the room at the end of the hall and then hear Needle screaming in horrific agony from inside the lab. "I DON'T NEED FULL POWER FOR WHAT I'M GOING TO DO TO YOU NOW, PLANESWALKER. FACE ME!" You brace yourself against the wall and peek inside. You are horrified to find... what you believe to be Needle absorbing a large amount of black mana into her body.

Now that the orb is broken you technically can go home. But what will happen to Needle and the residents of Marblehaven? You can battle the baroness but if she's in Needle's body will you hurt Needle if you do? If you call forth your summons they can fight for you, but if they die they die for good.

Moment of truth, planeswalker.

>>27895982
She's only controlling her, the real enemy is in the battery.

>>27895982
Leaving may not be a good idea. Didn't she say that she would hunt us or something like that? We could put everywhere we go in danger.

Attack the battery. Talk to Needle Weaver and tell her to fight back and resist psychologically. Or at least make the fight easier on us.

>>27895982
Mindswipe that mothafukin battery!

We don't actually have to destroy the battery here. We could try planeswalking it to a desolate area, like that first village that already has nasty stuff, and let it discharge the energy where it'll cause no harm. Than we can deal with this situation when there's no time limit or external power source to worry about.

The following are suggested options for ending this segment of the adventure. Each carries their own risk but also a potential for a new plot arc. The mc will not be killed because of these choices but that doesn't mean she will succeed either. Discuss and choose, or offer alternatives. If summoning choose one she knows. If planeswalking choose a destination. A non-violent option has also been offered.

Options for attacking the battery:
*Fireball it? (Possibly fatal)
*Mindswipe it? (Must wait to counterspell an attack)
*Physical force (Unlikely to occur manually)
*Hulk smash with a summon? (Likely fatal for the summon)
*Planeswalk the battery away? (May destabilize the containment and be fatal)

Options for attacking the baroness:
*Physically? (Likely fatal)
*With a summon? (Likely fatal for the summon)
*Convince her to mindsculpt you to show her another way? (Relies on HER wrestling for control)
*Mindswipe her? (Must wait to counterspell an attack)

>>27896223
Just a question. If we were to planeswalk the battery out of there. Would it explode instantly or would it have a delay for us to get out safely?

>>27896261
You might have a scant few seconds to grab it, teleport, plant it and teleport away, but when all that black mana explodes what will it do to the things around it?

>>27896285
Ya, that could be a possible problem. Maybe we could go onto a plane that's completely devoid of life and place the battery there. Then look for the Leaf Shaman to help us clean up the mess. Judging from him destroying dangerous corrupted seeds, he'd probably help us clean out or seal off the black mana if we asked him about it.

>>27896320
This realm is your first journey into the multiverse. You don't know of other worlds yet.

>>27896333
Oh. Makes sense. I got mistaken when we first started the quest and we had the choice for the plane.

How far can we teleport? We could take it far out into the desert so it can't reach the city in time for us to clean it out with help.

>>27896350
A planeswalker's teleport is like using noclip in a FPS. You zoom out instantly until you're in "space". But that's assuming you can even planeswalk something so huge by yourself.

>>27896403
I bet we could teleport it out and escape if we tried hard enough. It might cost us passing out for 3 days again, but it could be a plausible idea.

A decent destination is that dune we talked to Leaf on. It's far away from anybody that it could hurt and it'd be far enough away from that village that it shouldn't release the seeds when it blows. I would like to do the mindsculpt one, but it'd take time that the ponies of that city don't have.

>Blue mage with no non-lethal counterspells

Guys maybe we just deserve to die, just saying.

pg10

>>27897565
We we limited in the number of spells we could take at the beginning. I'm not the one who chose them, but I trust the anon who did. I'm sure he'll know how to make good use of them.

>>27899306
I missed that part. What kind of spells do we got besides planeswalking and summons. Not including the spell we learned here.

Leaving page 10

>>27900617
https://www.anonpone.com/walker/27652311#navbar

>>27902184
Redirect seems useful in this case. Perhaps we should just redirect any spells she fires at us to the battery and have some summons out to keep us protected physically.

saved you from page 10.

>>27903697

your on page 10 again.

another bump is needed

>>27904890
Ya, people are spamming threads of Glimmer. Gotta bump frequently until it stops.

pg 10

pg10 again