The Tower of Voices Voting Thread

I really don't think this scorpion is enough of a threat that we *need* to kill her. Since the Hive seems like it'll be tougher than expected and sentiment was already against going to the Hungry Sands, we'll probably head straight into the Hive. All we need to do is buy an hour or two without the scorpion or her wasp revealing our plans. That's easily achievable with Puppet. Just "sit here and say nothing for two hours." Done.
While I'd agree that the scorpion deserves to die, I don't think it's the right call here due to Yulia's current mental state. She seems to be on the verge of some kind of breakdown. Mechanically, that could be an effect similar to Faithless. I don't think we need a big shift in Yulia's passives right before the final floor if we can help it.

As for using the Collector to intimidate any bugs we come across, it lost its iconic cloak and probably looks pretty similar to our other undead. That's the tradeoff of essentially oneshotting it. However, Lri can conjure an illusion of the original over the remnant we have with us, that might do the trick. For the pitfalls, that's exactly the sort of trap Isalia is suited to dealing with, so we should have her at the front and use our 20 feet of spider silk to tie her to Cherchiel or Lemiel as a precaution. If she's ever uncertain, we can have one of our undead go ahead and test the path. In addition to conjuring an illusion of the Collector to scare off bugs, Lri could also stay near the front to keep an eye out for ambushes. Traps and ambushes are the bread and butter of the Hive's defenses, but we have an expert in dealing with each.

 

Or we use open and collapse all the pitfalls at once. But there is also this barrier, open may or may not work on that.

 

Newest Chapter: The result of Yulia's crisis of morality.

 

Yulia you haven't gotten any more side effects because of your crisis of faith, so stop your moping around and pull yourself together!

Some of our girls can see in the dark, so it might be best to put these in front, especially Isalia since she is also our trap spotter.

It might also not be a bad idea to use some of our zombies has bait and have them advance first to trigger any traps.

Besides that, Yulia has the Light Module, so definitely activate that.

Other then that, before we descend into the Hive we should come up with a plan as what the hell we are actually trying to achieve down there.

My proposition is still to seek out the Tarantulas and convince them to join our cause. With them, we have to Wasps and a massive advantage against the scorpions.

 

Many of the theories of morality (by one means or another) are differentiated by the importance they place on the means and the ends.
You say you only want to heal, not to hurt. That is a very means focused position (called Deontology). The Tower is the exact opposite, in the Tower (at least for the chosen), the only thing that it seems to care about is the outcome (called Consequentialism).
Simply coming to the tower has shown you care more about the end result then a pure Deontologist would, they would only keep on healing. You have repeatedly shown that you will do the best thing you can for the people around you, even if the method is unsavoury.
So think about what outcome you want, and what means are acceptable to achieve it. For me I would like to see the hive cease to be a threat, to the temple in particular, and I don't see anything like a redeeming quality so far so anything goes as long as it doesn't jeopardise our primary mission.

Next step, talk with the tarantulas. Worst case scenario is they call the whole hive down on top of us (so try to find where the barrier is generated so we can destroy it), best case we get a mostly peaceful option to sort this place out.

 

It wouldn't hurt to hear Tarantulas' side of the story. Also it would be nice if we find Dahlia here.

 

Newest Chapter: It was going to happen eventually, short of surrendering this is your first inevitable fight against the Hive's denizens.

 

Hmmm, the upside to the Illusion Collector will be to control where the wasps look. If our casters stay behind it, it should be harder for the wasps to counter. And the illusion will likely be more effective on scorpions, who will go into a full retreat.

I don't think we need to do anything too fancy since there are only two here for now. Just keep an ear out for reinforcements, avoid using any wide area magic that could mess with the tunnels, and use our numerical advantage to overwhelm them.

 

Illusion really seems to be effective. Normal buffs and melee fighters at front and casters somewhere behind the illusion sounds reasonable.

 

You know, despite what I said earlier, I kinda like the wasps we encountered so far. They strike me as the honorable warrior type, who would still brutally murder/enslave us, but at least they are polite about it.

Anyways, we probably should have done this way earlier, but let's us this battle as a test to see what our zombies can do.


Goma, sound the horn, I want to know particularly if this will also buff our zombie friends
Yulia, try to cast energize on the collector
Also we should probably identify one of the wasps to see if we get some intel(should have done that earlier too)

Beyond that...I mean come on it's two wasps, without aerial advantage who can't even look at us properly. After we get our life fire training with our zombies, let Goma puppet one of the Wasps and attack the other. The rest, attack as needed.

I don't really want to murder them, but unfortunately I think showing mercy here won't be an option. Let's just get this over quick

 

If they are under orders there realistically isn't much we can do, even puppeting them is unlikely to help much. So it's a fight.
If we can get proper control of one with puppet we might be able to get directions at least, the other we will have to subdue. Killing is the most practical as we can just do that with magic at range, I don't think we have a good way to knock one out safely.

Also, is it me or is Yulia starting to act like an overstressed teenager?

 

You could say she is acting like someone who is near breakdown. We probably should have a little break after we are mostly through this level before rushing of to the final level.

 

Newest Chapter: This likely did not help Yulia's mental state.

Also I don't know if I pointed this out previously... but remember that 100 robot fight on the previous floor... Goma and therefore the horn was in Sally's hands at that point and I thought about having it be used by the robots in that fight which would have likely made the fight impossible so I didn't, but man that would have been hilarious.

 

Oh, yikes. Umm, I think we will need to keep careful control of those zombies. Right, heal the wasp and puppet her. She is clearly not a threat so getting some directions would be good, and keeping her around using puppet and infinite mama glitch could be helpful, perhaps? The other one we reanimate (along with the deanimated) I guess, we might as well.

I propose we see if we can take the barrier down (and potentially other things that come up) then head to the temple for some extended relaxation. Even if the hive stays hostile we can go overland with the barrier down.

 

Let's heal the wasp, If she flees and spreads rumour of our horrible army of Collector and zombies it may make this easier. Apparently breaking the spell controlling wasps would be beneficial to us as wasps could then flee if scared.

 

Yeah, let's heal the Wasp, maybe we can use Puppet to make her tell us which way to the floor exit? As for the deanimated zombies, I don't think we can get any more use out of them since they went down when their heads were destroyed. And given Yulia's mental state, I don't think one more zombie will be worth the psychological toll having it follow us will have on the entire party.

We have little choice but to continue to advance for now. But for tactics, maybe we can have the zombies focus on being meat shields for our party and grappling enemies? We can leave the finishing blows to the party since at least they can make it quick. Yulia is clearly on the verge of a breakdown, and I don't know how well the rest of the party can handle more of... what just happened.

 

This is quite the nasty business

I don't think healing the Wasp will do anything, she is forced to act this way, so the moment she is able to she will attack us again.

Sure we could puppet her, but that will use up our puppet slot, which would be better spend on another enemy.

I also don't think we will get directions out of them, puppet only controls their bodies, but might as well give it a try.

I guess we can tie her up and leave her here. That said, I doubt these are the only wasps we will need to kill, so everyone better brace yourself.

 

Newest Chapter: The Tarantula

 

This is exactly where we are supposed to be and I think it is the tarantula near the entrance that is supposed to answer our questions. Firstly what is this place? Of the two major spells what and how is it related? Are the tarantulas tending to be aggressive towards outsiders or not? How can we stop this wasp fighting us constantly? What is your and what is the general tarantula opinion about the current state of the hive? Do you have a name, and if so what is it?

 

Well, that was easy.

Let's tell the Tarantula that we are taking over the Hive and to bring us to their leader.

The Tarantulas look like pushovers, so as long as we act forcefully they are bound to cave easily.

Just make sure to act very intimidating.