You smirk, crimson divinity crackling at your fingertips as you salivate at the idea of striking a deal. Even without the system involved, you've become so accustomed to striking bargains that such affairs have become a part of your soul. You have everything you need to strike a binding agreement.

Your lips part, mock-surprise dripping from your tone in a manner that borders on contemptuous, “Oh?” you say, coyly lifting an arm that wasn’t before present to your lips, the sudden change in anatomy causing the princess to recoil backwards in shock, “Her highness deigns to make a deal with something like me? What an honor.”

“I’ve no time for your jokes, witch.” The princess spits, “I need you to help me expose my brother. I know you two were collaborating.”

You tilt your head, suppressing a chuckle as you reply, “What’s in it for me? Even if we were in cahoots, surely everything so far has been going according to plan. Why should I suddenly turn traitor now?”

“I know what you are, and I know what you want. Father trusts my brother and I wholeheartedly– say the word and the records are yours.”

You frown, “I think asking isn’t gonna be enough.”

Her eyes widen, prompting you to explain your insights, “Your father bears the dignity of a king, and the resolve to put his nation first and absolutely everything else second. More to the point, he lacks the naivete of your brother and the cold, amoral calculations and unfettered arrogance of you, your highness, and your brother.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s human nature, really! A predator prey response, the unyielding terror of witnessing something higher up on the food chain. A man who trusts his instincts could never trust something like me.”

Her gaze wavers, lips agape for a moment before she musters a reply, “What would you have me do?”

>Enter under false pretenses
>Steal the records
>Gain the throne right now
>Do whatever you want
>Write-in

>>6178489
Was the deadline deal with Casziago a soul contract?

>"You claim to know what I am, but-"
>T1000 ourselves through the metal bars and take our usual Ate form on
>"You call me a witch, that's not what I am. I was human once. I used the power of my soul to slowly shed myself of mortal restrictions. I'm on my way to become a god. I even have millions of humans who adore me where I am from-"
>"I couldn't care less about this dimension, I have friends to get back to in mine. You will do whatever it takes to get me home safely. And you will help empower me while I am here, but for that you don't need to go too out of your way. Just maybe give me some prisoners who were sentenced to death anyway."

links please

>>6178540
support

>>6178489
>Steal the records
If we find what we need among them we'll do as you ask

>>6178632
Past Threads
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?searchall=Olympus+Incarnation+Quest
>Rentry masterlink, includes character sheets, shop information, inventory, and general information
https://rentry.org/olympus-quest-links
>Inquiries: olympusqm@gmail.com

>>6178489
>Do whatever you want
Oh DESIRE, Lovely lovely DESIRE. Aren't you grand?

>>6178840
Thanks for providing the links!

>>6178540
>>6178654
>>6178864

“Honestly, I couldn’t care less about the specifics of your tactics. Feel free to get it in any way that you want! That being said–” you rise, slipping out of your cuffs as your bones and flesh liquify, black ooze seeping into the rough outline of the <Figure Unspeakable>, pausing briefly before warping and shifting into your usual visage. The princess’s face goes white with terror, body trembling as she staggers backwards, magic instinctually sprouting to life at her fingertips as the iron of your cell creaks under the pressure of your body pressing casually against the bars, “you only have three days. If you don’t get me those records by then, I’m leaving this cell to get them myself.”

“Y-you dare threaten me?”

“Duh.”

She clicks her tongue, “I don’t care what you are, if you try to take the records, you shall surely fall at the hands of the Dragoncutter even if you can manage to strike me down.”

An interesting title– you take a mental note of it before replying, “If that happens, your kingdom is doomed. Again, I don’t belong here– you’re not doing me a favor by sending me home, you’re saving yourself as well.”

Her eyes waver, so you decide to press her. “Besides, your brother is responsible for my state,” you croon, technically telling the truth, “I was only working with him because I had to, but he almost doomed your entire world. Can you really bear to let him become king?”

You reach your arm through the bars, bending the metal as you offer the shaken lady a handshake, “I’ll prove to the court that he and I are in cahoots. I’ll tell your brother too, so that he’ll finally man up and use the <Scales> on Casziago. All I ask is for you to give me the one thing we need to keep both of us from being annihilated. What do you say? Do we have a deal?”

Tentatively, she shakes your hand.

Crimson light crackles between the two of you, her body wrenching in pain as her existence rejects your foreign influence. You feel a sharp sting yourself, though likely much lighter than the one she’s experiencing thanks to the difference in magnitude of your souls.

>Degradation: 8%

You snicker, “By the way, our bargain states that you need to give me the records. That means that if I get them from Casziago first, or from any other avenue for that matter you don’t get any guarantees.”

“I understand that. Besides, my soul is on the line– you will have what you requested.”

A smile spreads across your face. “I’m looking forward to it,” you declare, your body snapping back into the binds and appearance of the false Casziago, “Best get to it then.”

Somewhere between a contemptuous exit and a terrified retreat, the princess departs from your cell.

>Explore the castle
>Speak with someone (specify)
>Meditate on the <Ritual> until one of the royals shows results
>Write-in

>>6179203
>>Meditate on the <Ritual> until one of the royals shows results

>>6179203
>Meditate on the <Ritual> until one of the royals shows results
We got all the kids on the job, one will probably succeed.

>>6179203
>Meditate on the <Ritual> until one of the royals shows results
Ultimate divine power sure is a lot of homework

>>6179310
>>6179379
>>6179443

>Meditate on the until one of the royals shows results

You close both sets of eyes, only passively observing the areas around your main and substitute bodies for threats or updates as you peer into your <Soulscape>, attempting to understand the schema behind the Ritual in order to make the notes more useful once you manage to acquire them. Re-entering the sandstone library of your miniscule castle, you pull the book containing the <Art> you desire from its place, shivering a bit at the impetus lingering in its pages as you flip through the tome.

It’s important not to conceptualize physical space when you open a gateway between one dimension and another– indeed, outside of the confines of a particular reality, <Space> is irrelevant; this is the same principle that Perdix mentioned when he was talking about how <Divinity> was capable of defying the confines of spacetime to enable instantaneous transportation of information, items, and energy. You begin to trace a circle in the sand, its surface becoming soft and pliable at your touch, representing the world you come from. Overlapping with it, you draw a square, representing the reality of the Uncrowned King. While there are corners or edges breaching the point of overlap, most of the area exists in both. This almost seems sufficient but…

You sigh– this won’t do. You have no way of knowing if you’re on an edge or not. In effect, even though the shapes are just an analogy, you effectively have to square the circle, an infamously impossible task.

You smirk, digging your fingers beneath the square drawn on the floor and lifting it as one solid tile before pulverizing it with your will, shaping the resulting sand into a rough circle. To strain the analogy, nothing says you need to use a compass and a straightedge: since you’re ignoring space itself anyway, as long as you line things up properly, everything should be fine.. right?

You frown– it’s difficult to tell how effective this is going to be until you run some trial runs. In particular, triangulating a specific dimension is going to be a lot more difficult than simply picking a random reality and forcing a gate. The soulscape won’t do, you think to yourself, you’re going to have to perform some experiments.

~

>Degradation rate: 10%

The midnight of the deadline, you hear footsteps echo through the cold stone hallways of the castle basement. You frown– the clunky iron clanks of armored soles suggest someone other than either of your signatories, but their perfect, almost metronome-like regularity betrays a level of training and discipline unbefitting of a random guardsman and surpassing the level of the Kieldrich of this world. You have no guarantees, but your gut is telling you that danger approaches.

>Wait for them to enter
>Try to escape
>Set up an ambush
>Write-in

>>6179830
>Set up an ambush
Just in case they decided to be foolish
Perhaps leave a meat puppet in the cage and hide on the ceiling?

>>6179830
>>6179834
+1

>>6179830
>>6179834
sure, but don't attack first, try and gauge their intentions first

>>6179834
>>6179908
>>6180124

>Set up an ambush

You pause, considering scuttling over to your cell and using the false body as a decoy for the ambush, but you decide it prudent to stay where you are, activating the vestiges of <Stealth> and <Guerilla Tactics> embedded in your soul as you extend your fingers into talons sharp and fierce enough to pierce rock, tipped with your offensive <Art> to make the process easier as you scuttle to the ceiling of the room, clinging to the cool stone roof like a spider observing the edges of its web.

You feel the presence approach, the size of the soul not unusual for this world’s denizens, but, as it grows closer, you sense a certain sharpness, a sense of anxiety welling in your gut like that of a child holding a weapon in their hands. Almost on instinct, the muscles and bones in your body reinforce and harden, preparing for the oncoming threat.

The footsteps slowly but surely grow louder, pausing only briefly as the figure steps through the illusory wall guarding this secret catacomb: whoever it is, they’re headed right for you.

A man enters the room alone, one you recognize from the trial as the Archduke of something or other– you knew when you were inhabiting the Prince’s mind, but you had since purged the information as less than useful. However, you remember a title, one that the princess had unwittingly reminded you of in your little visit.

This man is the one they call Dragoncutter.

He sighs, prim black clothing contrasting nicely with his greyish, almost sickly looking scarred white flesh and the deep black hair cut neatly in military fashion far above his sharp, icy blue eyes. As his title is Archduke, you imagine he probably has some royal blood running through his veins– his eyes, so very much like Kieldrich’s despite having so different a soul behind them, seem evidence of a shared line.

He places his hand on his blade, almost lazily shifting his gaze to stare directly at you. It seems like the notion of an ambush was dead in the water. You snap your neck with a resounding crack, hoping to strike some fear into his heart to gain some psychological advantage, but he seems utterly unphased as he keeps his gauntlet rested casually on the pommel of his sword.

“You’re the outsider the prince told me about,” the Archduke states as matter of factly as a bureaucrat reading out the information on a visa application, “The one who showed up out of nowhere and demanded he steal the ritual to send you home.”

You can’t help but laugh– Casziago really is a rat through and through.

>>6180568

He’s a liar,” you retort, “He’s the one who brought me here. Far from framing him, I actually bailed him out of quite the pickle.”

“Regardless,” the man shrugs off your revelation, seemingly fully aware of the second prince’s true nature, “You’re a liability. We can’t rely on your sorcery alone to keep something so dangerous from leaking from the confines of the vault.”

“Get to the point.”

“Gladly. His majesty has decided to grant you the documents which you seek. After all, this incident has proved such texts to be far too dangerous for the general public.”

Your eyes widen– that was a lot easier than expected. Before you can graciously accept, however, the warrior adds a caveat.

“However, we cannot afford the risk of having you melt down near our kingdom and its people. Or, in fact, in this world at all.” he adds, the almost clinical timbre to his voice remaining despite the absurd nature of his words, “We will be sending you, as well as your accursed documents, to Sortara.”

“Sortara? You don’t mean..”

“That’s right. The white world’s second moon.”

You balk at the ridiculous ultimatum– while you have been surviving reasonably well without breathing in this world’s air, surviving the temperature, radiation, and complete lack of air pressure of outer space for an extended period of time is another matter entirely. Even supposing you can survive and keep your necessary organic matter functional through sheer force of will, it will surely consume enough of your concentration to massively expedite the degradation of your soul and, worse still, put you on an even more stringent timer to return home.

“You understand that if I fail, your entire reality could die?”

“The king considers this the most sensible decision.”

“Stubborn old fool,” you scoff, mostly to yourself, “Are you sure he hasn’t gone senile?”

“Think what you want, demon,” the Archduke dismisses your comment, “I care not for the opinion of something like you.”

You would kill him where he stands, but the powers and magics of this world are currently beyond your understanding. Even if you were to ignore the tension lingering in the pit of your chest, you’d be taking a considerable risk by fighting.

>Accept the terms
>Fight back
>Write-in

>>6180570
>Ask for a lead shield, preferably a small dome that can house us
>Ask for a large water bag
we should be able to do electrolysis to make oxygen
>Ask for any remaining coppiest of the research to be destroyed for good.
>Ask for Casziagos soul, he wanted to merge with a demon, he can live in our belly

>>6180570
>Accept
Is it really so bad? Once on the moon we can burrow under the surface and plug it up, which should cover temperature and radiation.

Maybe we can accept if they throw in some compressed air for us to release once our lair is complete to take care of that last component, surely they can provide that if they’re going to send us to the moon

>>6180570

>Accept, pending acquisition of key supplies to increase our odds of success

How much can they teleport? Can they bury it underground? Could we get by as a flesh soup sealed in a lead sphere? Understand, we are trying to avoid your reality melting.

>>6180570
>>Accept, pending acquisition of key supplies to increase our odds of success
I also want Casziagos dead. And I want Kieldrich to do it. Cas is the biggest threat to the kingdom after us, and Kieldrich needs to stop being a pussy and starts acting like a king

>>6180621
>>6180664
>>6180672
>>6180717

>Accept, pending acquisition of key supplies to increase our odds of success

“Those are difficult terms, Archduke,” you pout, plopping onto the floor from the ceiling, retracting your excess arms back into your torso to take a more conventionally pleasing shape as you add your own stipulations, “I need an airtight lead sphere or box at least two lengths of your body height in diameter, filled with pressurized air or an inert gas.”

“Inert gas?”

You sigh, recalling this world’s lack of scientific information, “Air is fine. Can your mages manage it? Remember, if I die, your entire reality could implode on the hole I leave behind.”

He pauses, briefly considering, “It will take time to make.”

You tilt your head, “Your mages can’t manufacture it?”

“It’s doable, but we still need to acquire the metals and bring the specialist in. Factoring in the process, two days is the fastest we can manage.”

“Well, you’d better start now. The sooner the better, for both of us.”

“Do not order me around, demon.” He narrows his icy blue eyes, his grip on his blade tightening ever so slightly.

“Not an order,” you reply, lifting your arms in mock surrender, “Just a suggestion.”

“..it shall be done. Anything else?”

“I need to speak with the first prince again.”

“I’ll convey a message.”

You shake your head, “I need to show him myself. I don’t think words alone can convince him of how great a threat his brother represents.”

He stands still, stalwartly refusing to humor your request. You exhale, cooling your head slightly to calmly explain the situation.

“Where I come from, there’s a monster,” you begin, “an invader from another universe. My version of this universe. That beast bears the weight of an entire reality in its gut. It ATE this entire reality.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He remains stoic, but you can feel the doubt welling behind his cold expression.

“If Casziago had completed the ritual as intended, that would have happened here too. He made– no, he BECAME that monster. Just by being summoned instead, I saved your universe. Now, presumably having lost standing pulling whatever stunt he just tried, the prince is just as desperate now as he was when he pulled me here.”

“Get to the point.”

“I think you already know.”

He stops for a moment, seemingly lost in thought before turning around and walking away, “We shall prepare your lead box.” He declares as he exits, “You are not to leave this room.”

You click your tongue– his sort really are a pain to deal with.

>Go find Kieldrich
>Use your contract to contact the princess
>Meditate on the ritual until the archduke comes back
>Write-in

>>6180829
>Meditate on the ritual until the archduke comes back

>>6180829
>Use your contract to contact the princess
Tell her the second prince has set the Dragoncutter on us to silence us and cover up his crimes, so she'd better hurry