Put remaining skills into pyromancy and use an appropriate skill to light the room.
Wonder what "appropriate" means.
Shout something inappropriate.
Be Continue-chan. Go save our true love!
eckbh
d.hk
ufyl
Be Jack, find clone, merge with clone into SuperJack.
gsghj
Shoot a 20cm fireball at the gazebo and run back into the laboratory. Teehee!
challenge Cassandra to a danmaku battle using our levitation and fireball skills
,xu6
>>12
Leaning out from aside the tall windows in the ballroom, which were broken by Stove Stove and Continue-chan earlier, you summon and cast a respectably sized fireball. You are set back by twenty mana, leaving you 695 mana remaining. As you make an immediate retreat, you do not see the fireball strike the gazebo. In fact, it does hit, leaving a black smear on the rooftiles but doing no permanent damage.
>>13
Enough cowardly posturing! The hour of your ultimate battle has come! You leap outwards, somersaulting through the air, overtaking your earthbound clone and coming within a few tens of metres of the gazebo. "Cassandra! I hereby challenge you to a danmaku battle! Come and face me like a real magical girl, if you dare!"
She exits the gazebo in a leisurely fashion and, still smiling, still holding her cup of tea, ascends to your altitude. "Whenever you're ready," she purrs.
>>14
You launch a barrage of tiny, 2cm fireballs at her, in the formation of a henohenomoheji. Of course! Why, you bet she gave up halfway through memorising hiragana - if she ever learnt Japanese at all! This reminder of her own probable failings is truly the epitome of psychological warfare.
Effortlessly, she slips between the も and the right hand の. Her tea doesn't even spill. "You forgot the じ," she comments dispassionately.
>>15
You try very hard to ,xu6; so hard, in fact, that you are momentarily distracted and thus fail to give your full attention to the tiny projectiles pouring out of Cassandra in an immense, awe-inspiring swarm, looping back and forth in intricate, gently curving trajectories before suddenly converging on your position. You are perforated from every side at once. You die.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 49
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>11)
Gracefully accept your defeat at danmaku and have tea with Cassandra while making cryptic comments.
Wonder aloud if the right-hand の that Cassandra slipped effortlessly past was the one on her right or our right.
Then, when she least expects it, shoot this bullet pattern at her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt7I0Wnf0J0
(spending 1 mana per bullet)
fhbae
buwagf
fwahs
iotsh
(acrostically interpreting >>20-23)
Find Hell by accessing Eternal Beelzebub, under whom a great flame flickers. (Whistle a hellish song in order to summon him.)
hjeth
Waste the Maim Master's time with irrelevant and irreverent commands.
ctykhj
Sing, "You know I'm born to lose, and gambling's for fools,
But that's the way I like it baby,
I don't wanna live for ever!!"
Find our clones and use necromancy to raise an undead army.
Shapeshift into a tentacle beast.
gjiuv.n
>>17
Whilst you have, of course, never been anything but graceful in the face of honourable defeat, you are fairly sure you've never been defeated in danmaku. Indeed, you feel certain you'd remember something like that, unless it, perhaps, happened in an alternate universe/timeline. Being a steadfast proponent of the Copenhagen interpretation, however, you don't believe in multiple universes or anything silly like that.
You fly over to the gazebo, effortlessly overtaking your clone, sit down opposite Cassandra and pour yourself a cup of tea. "The dichotomy between reality and fantasy is less precise than you might think," you comment. "Is that so," she replies, arching an eyebrow.
>>18
"I wonder if the の you slipped past was on your left or right," you say. Your comments may be getting a little too cryptic; even you don't have a clue what that one was supposed to mean. Perhaps, you reflect, this is one of those cases in which it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and thus remove all doubt. You sample the tea so as to otherwise occupy your mouth.
As the warm liquid flows down your oesophagus, you suddenly feel an acute pain in your abdomen, followed by an awareness of your muscles becoming steadily less and less responsive. You hyperventilate, body fighting a losing battle to avoid suffocation, as your lungs turn static.
>>19
With your last breaths, you summon as many single centimetre diameter fireballs as you can and launch them in an indiscriminate, radiating spiral pattern, bullets spilling everywhere with gaps that even a butterfly would be hard pressed to pass through. You are pleased to see, as you draw your final breath, a look of shock and surprise replace Cassandra's usual cool composure. Unfortunately, you are not around long enough to admire your handiwork.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 50
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>11)
>>20-23
You find that your newly composed acrostic poem spells out "fbfi", which, of course, is the secret to finding Hell. You are aware, however, that Hell does not, contrary to popular belief, entail ancient demons, nor great flames, nor rivers of blood, and its summoning does not require any ritual or password. Hell is something everyone is familiar with. When people have spent thousands of years searching for a meaning of life and no one seems to have found anything convincing, it is not entirely far-fetched to conclude that maybe what they're looking for isn't there; indeed, Hell is the awareness that your life has no more meaning than the word "fbfi".
>>24-26
You aren't too sure who the Maim Master is. Given your missing fingers on your right hand and the serious puncture wound on your left, you feel you might well qualify for the position yourself. You go ahead and waste your own time by commanding yourself to hjeth, then to ctykhj.
>>27
You decide to take comfort in the likely proximity of your own death, trying to convince yourself that you weren't all that attached to living anyway. Naturally, you express this through song.
To your knowledge, you only have one clone, and she's currently walking across the remains of the hedge maze towards Cassandra. She's only around ten metres from the base of the hill at present.
At that moment, you remember that there's an enormous ungodly sigil in the centre of the ballroom, with five ritually sacrificed corpses arranged within it. You use Reanimation (ritually killed dead)(active skill) on each of them, costing 80 mana each and leaving you with 315 mana remaining. Four reanimated Mecha Alexei clones and one reanimated guard (formerly known as Onii-chan) have joined your party. "Army" may be pushing it, but you suspect that your new entourage may prove useful.
>>28
You require level 12 telekinesis, level 5 healing, level 5 thaumaturgy and 75 mana to shapeshift into a tentacle beast. You currently have level 10 telekinesis, level 6 healing, level 2 thaumaturgy and 715 mana.
At that moment, the other Mecha Alexei (with the cloned girl in pink in tow) clears his throat to gain your attention and says, nervously, "Listen, I need you to... I mean, please, could you... distract Cassandra, and keep her away from the gazebo long enough for Jacqueline and I to get there? I can't really explain why, but it's very important. Please, will you help?" A single bead of sweat forms on his brow, as he stares pleadingly straight into your eyes. "Yes or no?"
>>29
"Gjiuvn!" you reply.
jxey
Annihilate gazebo.
In case that doesn't distract her enough, do a strip tease for Cassandra.
Do more tease than strip.
Let Cassandra know the meaning of that black hole song earlier by introducing her to the Crotch Void of Doom.
crhkr
>>32
Just on the off chance your previous answer of "gjiuvn" wasn't quite sufficient to satisfy Mecha Alexei's yes or no question, you clarify with a comment of "jxey". He nods cautiously.
>>33,34
That gazebo is, you conclude, clearly the source of all your suffering. You exit via the broken window to the terrace outside, raise your hands to the sky and spend all your mana on summoning an immense sphere of flame. Unfortunately, you only have enough mana to summon a 3.15m diameter fireball, but it'll have to do. You stand for a moment, holding it above your head like Atlas holding the heavens, then cast it towards the little building on the other side of the garden, ready to commit it to complete oblivion.
"No!" shouts Mecha Alexei, rushing out from behind you, a moment too late. The two of you - and Jacqueline's clone, behind you - watch in silence as the roiling, incandescent orb arcs towards its destination. Watching carefully, you notice a diminutive figure leave the gazebo before impact; it would be silly to think that you could've caught Cassandra unaware with an attack like that.
Your projectiles strikes the building with an explosion, larger than you would've expected, with rooftiles and former pieces of carpentry launched tens of metres into the air. Mecha Alexei lets out a heartrending wail. "Oh god! You... you destroyed it all! We were so close, and you...!" Without warning, he grabs you from behind by the throat, both hands clenching hard onto your trachea. You struggle, but cannot effectively employ your espada ropera or ceremonial stone knife from your position, nor can you use arcane methods as you have just expended all your mana.
The cloned girl in pink appears at his elbow, pulling ineffectively at his arm in an attempt to aid you, but soon gives up. "God damn you! You monster! Why did you have to destroy it? Why‽" screams Mecha Alexei, grip tightening. With the compression of your carotid arteries and jugular vein, your brain soon succumbs to hypoxia. You pass out, and do not wake up.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 51
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>31)
>>35,36
You make your way over towards the gazebo, ready to offer Cassandra a distraction she'll never forget. Levitating twenty metres from her vantage point, you shrug the labcoat from your shoulders seductively, then go ahead and show her a little thigh. It's difficult to striptease when you're only wearing a labcoat - you can't exactly perform the dance of the seven veils with only one thick, opaque cotton garment. Nonetheless, you do your best and your audience is, surprisingly, very appreciative. A furtive glance over your shoulder reveals that Mecha Alexei and Jacqueline's clone have exited the mansion and are taking a circuitous route around the ornamental lake towards the gazebo. Cassandra does not appear to have noticed anything.
>>37
With a sudden, dramatic movement and a cry of "Oh baby baby", you part the lapels of your labcoat, drawing both sides apart all the way down and thrust your bare crotch in Cassandra's general direction. She proves to have faster reactions than expected, and covers her eyes with her forearm. "Conundrum-chan, that's not very ladylike," she admonishes.
Still looking away, and still holding her cup of tea in one hand, she rises from her seat and hovers over to meet you. "Of course, two can play at that game." Eyes closed, she grasps the hem of her ornate, lilac dress and pulls sharply upwards. A blindingly bright light emanates from between her legs, forcing you to look away. You hear a low creaking, groaning noise and feel a rush of air against your face. Something is emerging from beneath Cassandra's dress.
>>38
Whilst crhkr is, of course, a very versatile and useful method to employ, and despite it having helped you out of many a tight spot in the past, you simply can't do it right now.
Shapeshift eyes into Pecten oculi (eagle eyes) so that we can perceive blinding light safely.
remember the basics of CQC
Throw a meter-sized fireball in the direction of Cassandra's crotch and whatever is emerging from it.
Throw several dozen 1-mana fireballs in a V-formation towards Cassandra and use telekinesis to make them all converge on her head.
make noises like a choo-choo train as a veiled complaint to no one in particular
>>40
You use your recently acquired Partial shapeshifting (active skill) on your eyeballs to create a new capillary structure in each of your eyes. In order to maintain mass conservation, you lose an equal amount of now redundant existing blood vessels. As the requisite 50 mana leaves your body, a new sharpness and clarity overcomes your vision, as though a blurred filter has just been removed. You find that you can effortlessly discern minute details on the surface below you, but Cassandra's crotch is, if anything, even brighter and more difficult to look at than before.
>>41
Oh dear, what were the basics of CQC? You never got around to learning them. I mean, you did work out that thing about calling your adversary "Onii-chan" as a distraction, but you suspect that mightn't work so well against your current adversary.
>>42
You spend a further 100 mana on another fireball, leaving you only 165 remaining. You cast it just as the light and noise reach their crescendo, and, with a flash of light, a small wooden boat launches itself from beneath Cassandra's dress. There are many passengers, more than you can count, all of them screaming in mortal terror. The fireball strikes the vessel in mid-air, killing one of the passengers - you aren't sure which - and, via your Flame sacrifice (Passive skill), gaining you 100 mana and two skillpoints.
The boat quickly succumbs to gravity and traces a curving trajectory, spouting flames the entire time, towards the ground. Over the screaming you just make out a startled yelp from your clone. Looking down, you see that the boat has fallen to pieces on impact, with the passengers - most of them male, with one female and one young child - all no longer moving. You suspect that they died due to the impact, which, unfortunately, does not count as a secondary effect of your attack. Your clone is pinned by the legs under the prow. She appears to be in serious distress.
Cassandra tuts to herself, explicating how usually when she summons things from parallel universes they tend to be a little more deadly than a flimsy little boat full of unarmed humans. She breaks off mid-sentence, swoops down and inspects the wreckage, commenting "Huh, fancy that." You can't see what she's looking at from your angle, but she seems entirely indifferent to the fate of the former passengers or your poor clone.
>>43
You launch 35 little spheres of fire, in a skein formation, in the general direction of Cassandra. She scarcely glances up, moves a metre or so to the side and goes back to staring at the remains of the boat. Employing all of your cunning, you use Telekinesis (small objects)(active skill) on the 1kg air parcel containing your projectiles, for a cost of only ten mana, shifting their path straight towards the back of her head.
They strike! Her hair is partly set on fire, causing her to flail around patting at her head in a rather amusing fashion. She is very upset at this turn of events. "Honestly! To do something like that, after I spent so much time getting my hair in order earlier today. Well, let's see how you like it." With a single hand gesture - without even needing any projectiles - she sets your hair alight.
>>44
You attempt to metamorphosise into a massive cloud of magically flaming vampire bats, for the express purpose of swarming Cassandra and biting the fuck out of her, but, alas, you still require level 12 telekinesis, level 5 healing, level 5 thaumaturgy and 75 mana to shapeshift. You currently have level 10 telekinesis, level 6 healing, level 2 thaumaturgy and 255 mana. You also have two unspent skillpoints.
>>45
"Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga!" you say through gritted teeth. "Whoo whoo!" Yes, your hair may be on fire, your clone may be dying and Cassandra may be continuing to try to kill you, but you've something more important to worry about: with your newly augmented eyesight, you have just noticed Mecha Alexei and Jacqueline's clone have appeared at the base of the hill with the gazebo. Mecha Alexei is gesturing towards Cassandra, suggesting that she is too close and that you need to lure her away. You imitate a steam locomotive to express your frustration with your unfavourable place in his plan, taking pains to make it seem not to be directed towards anyone in particular.
Use telekinesis to lift the boat off our clone and heal her!
put one skillpoint each in thaumaturgy and telekinesis and list our new skills
climb inside our own crotch-hole and see if we come out through Cassandra's crotch-hole on the other side
Find our undead army and command them to distract Cassandra with undead shenanigans.
Cram the evil pussy into your crotch.
Use mana/skillpoint interconversion to convert 150 mana into 3 skill points, put 1 into telekinesis and 2 into thaumaturgy. Then do the bat thing. Finally!
Ritualistically kill ourself and then use necromancy to bring ourself back to life. Trade 50 mana for one skillpoint and put one point in telekenisis and two in thaumaturgy, then shapeshift into a giant cloud of flaming bats and bite the fuck out of Cassandra.
Teleport a limb from one of our undead underlings into the inside of Cassandra's throat.
Perform a silly dance while Cassandra chokes to death and dedicate it to Loki, nord god of silly dances.
>>56
Make sure to use ritual flame sacrifice for the extra mana and skill points.
Change name to Zoosmell Pooplord.
Change alleigance to JEWISH.
Be Frodo Baggins. Refrain from being an ass and throw the Ring into Mount Doom like you are supposed to.
>>54
Fearlessly, you sweep aside your labcoat and thrust your crotch towards the unholy beast before you. "Oh no you don't," chastises Cassandra. At that moment the cat's eyes are relocated - presumably by her - to a metre or so in front of the cat monster's face, leaving its eye sockets empty. They fall to the ground with a dull thump. The cat howls in pain and rubs its paws against its face, but then, within seconds, reverts to the cautious calm of a natural predator. It can no longer see the void, and thus can no longer be hypnotised by it.
>>55
You convert 150 mana into three skillpoints, leaving you 80 mana remaining. Upon allocating the skillpoints to telekinesis and thaumaturgy, you gain access to the following skills:
At long, long last, you experience the liberating catharsis of exploding into a massive cloud of magically flaming vampire bats and swarming your enemies, biting the fuck out of them. The cat beast, upon being bitten, expands its neck frill in a display of anger, then drops to the floor and rolls around. Several parts of you are crushed to death beneath the monster's enormous bulk. The parts of you which attack Cassandra fare no better; she waits for you to descend upon you, then teleports away at the last moment and teleports the cat beast directly on top of you and your undead minions. You are, again, crushed to death.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 53
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>62)
>>56,58
Unfortunately, you find you cannot ritualistically kill yourself with fire due to your Fire resistance (passive skill). Instead, you use your trusted ceremonial stone knife. You succeed in dying, but cannot reanimate yourself on account of your being dead.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 54
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>62)
>>57
Due both to the one kilogram limit and the caveat of the target volume containing nothing but gas, you settle for teleporting the recently dismembered reanimated Mecha Alexei's right middle finger into Cassandra's upper trachea. "Ach!" she says, gripping her throat. She bends over, coughs violently, and is swarmed by the three reanimated Mecha Alexeis and Onii-chan. The four of them grasp at her for a few moments, but are then thrown aside by an explosion centred around Cassandra. She rises from the epicentre, still clutching her neck, quickly reaching a height out of the undead's reach.
Thus preoccupied, she just barely dodges a laser shot by Stove Stove/Continue-chan from the North. It trace a burn line across her right cheek. She scowls and turns to face her new opponent. For better or for worse, Continue-chan focuses all her attention on Cassandra, leaving you to defend yourself from the cat monster alone. The two exchange bursts of lasers, antimatter bullets and elaborate patterns of tiny projectiles. The sky is lit up more brightly than the aurora borealis. Cassandra eventually stops struggling with the foreign body in her trachea, presumably having dealt with it with some magic of her own.
Meanwhile, you prance about on the ground next to the cat monster. Against all the odds, you dodge every one of the giant feline's attacks by dancing in time to Loki's will.
>>59
"Hey everyone!" you shout, suppressing a snigger, "My name's now Zoosmell Pooplord!" You are so distracted by your own keen wit that you fail to dodge the cat monster's deadly pounce, and are struck down.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 55
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>63)
>>60
"Hey everyone!" you shout, in complete seriousness, "I'm now Jewish!" You are so distracted by your own sudden religious conversion that you fail to dodge the cat monster's deadly pounce, and are struck down.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 56
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>63)
>>61
You cannot play as Frodo Baggins; you can only play as members of your current party.
Teleport another disposable middle finger into the cat monster's trachea.
Teleport Cassandra's heart away from her body.
Eat it.
Continue Loki's dance and throw 20 1-mana fireballs toward the cat and use telekinesis to make them all converge on its head.
Put Continue-chan's kiss on our list (of the best things in life.)
Just in front of "hear the lamentations of the women".
shapeshift into a cloud of chlorine gas and suffocate the fuck out of Cassandra
>>64
You spend ten mana relocating the dereanimated Mecha Alexei's left middle finger to inside the cat monster's respiratory system, leaving you sixty mana remaining. Given its size, its trachea is probably the size of a small tree; given also how easily it accepted its recent double enuculation of the eye, it's perhaps not surprising that it doesn't seem particularly bothered by your action.
>>65
You try to teleport Cassandra's delicious, delicious viscus directly into your mouth, but unfortunately it seems she - like you - is in possession of Teleportation resistance (passive skill).
>>67
As the cat weighs substantially more than 100kg, you cast Flammability (active skill) on its cephalic portion specifically. You have only ten mana remaining.
>>66
Alas, you can only afford ten little fireballs, and can't even aim them as Telekinesis (small objects)(active skill) would require a further ten mana. Ultimately, however, that proves unnecessary; as soon as one strikes the cat's amply sized head, the entire organ ignites violently, sheathing it in a complete layer of flame. The creature screams and howls at an ungodly volume, whipping its entire body around wildly. You narrow avoid its enormous venomous stinger, dodging it only thanks to Loki's grace.
>>68
You are aware that the flammability effect lasts only sixty seconds, so rather than let this chance slip by, you leap headfirst into the cat's neck ruff, hacking at it with your ceremonial stone knife and praying to Bastet, the Egyptian goddess of cats. You only barely manage to hang on as the creature rears on its back legs, claws at its face with its front paws, sways and rolls on the floor. Eventually the fire dies down, and the creature stops moving. You are covered head to toe in cat blood.
For killing a sapient being ritualistically with fire, you have gained three skill points and 150 mana.
>>69,70
As the vicious firefight between Stove Stove/Continue-chan and the vile Cassandra rages on above you, you decide to spend a few moments reflecting on the finer things in life. You're sure that when Continue-chan sees how well you fought, she'll be so impressed that she'll simply have to give you a kiss as a reward. Cassandra, meanwhile, will be so jealous of your love as to be moved to tears. If she isn't dead by then, that is.
>>71
You spend 75 mana shapeshifting into a cloud of elemental chlorine gas. Unfortunately, you find that as you lack any sensory, locomotive or cognitive capabilities, you cannot navigate your way into Cassandra's lungs and instead simply disperse into the wind. You react with a wide range of other chemicals, forming all sorts of exotic compounds, but fail to accomplish anything meaningful.
Some would argue that this does not constitute death, because they define death as the physical process of cessation of all biological functions, which has not technically happened as the fleshy bits have simply vanished, rather than stopped working. However, you shouldn't listen to these people, because they're wrong. Also, you're dead, so you can't listen to them anyway.
GAME OVER
Deaths: 57
(Continuing from most recent saved game: >>73)
You are still standing over the giant cat's disfigured corpse, wondering whether you should maybe join the fight directly against Cassandra, when you are distracted by an odd, high pitched noise coming from the gazebo. The battle in the sky also pauses momentarily. The gazebo has risen out of the ground, towering ten metres into the air on mechanical supports. Furthermore, there is a transparent sphere, at least twenty metres in radius, centred on its zenith. Standing inside, in front of a panel of instruments and buttons, is Mecha Alexei, with Jacqueline by his side.
"Dammit Alexei, get out of the Control Tower! You don't know what you're doing!" shouts Cassandra. Without waiting for a response, she fires a barrage of tiny projectiles towards him, but they bounce harmlessly off the protective sphere. Mecha Alexei gives a sudden burst of laughter and replies "I assure you, I know exactly what I'm doing. I've reestablished contact with the portal core in the facility, rerouted the coolant and am even now ready to reverse the dimensional collapse - in this little pocket of space around the Control Tower, that is."
"The manual override that caused the dimensional collapse... that was you, wasn't it?" Cassandra says through gritted teeth. Mecha Alexei smiles. "I've been playing the long game, dear. I knew better than to try to face you directly, but I had to bring you to justice for you for what you had done to my beloved Jacqueline, and to so many others."
He at last acknowledges the rest of you. "Continue-chan, Conundrum-chan, I'm very sorry to have to leave you trapped in a pocket universe with this sociopathic bitch, but - in my defence - Continue-chan, you're already dead anyway, and Conundrum-chan, frankly, you terrify the everloving shit out of me, and it might be for the best that we don't share a universe."
He glances coolly at a dial on his console and says "We've only 120 seconds until the main engines kick in. Any last words, any of you?"
Assume your most haughty, offended expression and berate Mecha Alexei for using foul language in front of a young lady.