Go Go (Go Away) Godzilla, a story of Fae Apoc

[aldersprig]

Sometime around 2012-2013 - just after the apocalypse.

Entirely the fault of me watching Kong yesterday.

---

“Idu Intinn… kaiju.”

There were times when Cya really could not fault Leo for believing he was an anime hero.

“Okay, guys, it’s got no brain, take it down.”

Of course, times like this, it would probably be more helpful if he thought he was the hero in a Toho flick.

“Taking out its… uh.. forelimbs… watch the ground… now! Abatu Eperu έδαφος gamma.”

She was probably going to hell for thinking so flippantly about it. Then again, they might already all be in hell.

From her perch on the wall (because she was squishy and theoretically a non-combatant), Cya watched the lizard-like creature twice the height of the nearby buildings stumble into the pit she’d made under its forelimbs. It brought its neck down to a reasonable height for the others to start lopping at it and she, because she had never been all that reasonable about such things, jumped down onto its back.

“Why this is hell, nor am I out of it,” she muttered, while she sliced down the thing’s spine with her sharpest knife. “Tempero Eperu, Unutu λεπίδα αιχμηρός,” she hissed, sharpening her blade, and dug in again. “Think’st thou that I who saw the faces of gods…” She’d better watch out, or she was going to end up as mad as Leo, quoting Shakespeare in the midst of a battle.

And thinking midst. She held on to her blade with both hands while the thing bucked. “Hole coming, one, two… now! Abatu Eperu έδαφος delta!”

She rode the thing down to the ground, blood and gore splattering all over her. She’d found its spine, though, and now she could sever its spinal cored. “Do you think?” she asked, as she sawed through the thing, “that someone showed the returned gods the wrong movies? Or do you think Japan had a window into Ellehem a long time ago?”

---

The Workings she uses in this are, in order:

“Know Mind” (does it have one?)

“Destroy Earth, ground, level 3" (and later level 4)

“Control Earth-and-Worked-Objects, blade, sharper.”

Comments

[inventrix]

Omg I hope Leo got to play too XD

[inventrix]

I guess "the others" means her crew here, maybe?

[aldersprig]

TBH I assumed Leo was doing most of the heavy lifting in killing the front of Godzilla there.

[aldersprig]

Yep, probably crew-plus, for something that big.

[inventrix]

Perfect~

There's plenty of anime about killing giant monsters. 8)

[siliconshaman]

I wonder what the spell for "Tactical nuke, 0.5 kilotons" would be...

Hey, I've seen Pacific Rim. When it comes to Kaiju, there is no such thing as overkill!

[inventrix]

Meentik (Create) Kwxe (Energy) with, at a wild guess, a strength of tao or higher.

#ScienceSideofAddergoole

[siliconshaman]

Hmm... I wonder if you could add a directional modifier to that?

Because a shaped nuclear detonation might be a bit more useful in a built-up area... Just get under the beastie, and aim upwards. [and then run].

OTOH, if it's still moving after it just took a nuclear blast to the nads, you've got a problem.

[inventrix]

Oh! Definitely. Let's see, if you're saying the whole Working specification and aren't lazy and have a working knowledge of the Greek involved, there's two ways you could do that which I can think of:

Meentik Qorawiyay (Shape) Kwxe, then like, upward cone, and I guess kaiju for the target, then the strength (tao or whatever would get you half a kilotonne).

OR, you could use Tempero (Control) instead of Qorawiyay and actually direct the energy that you create instead of defining the shape for the energy to fill, which is I think more along the lines of what you were thinking.

[inventrix]

You might wanna run anyway to avoid the kaiju remnants. ;D

[siliconshaman]

Oh definitely!

I used to G.M a pseudo D&D campaign a while ago. My players successfully killed a a very old, very large red dragon [fire breather]... which weighed roughly 20-30 tons.

You have any idea how much falling damage that does from an altitude of 400+ feet? Plus the detonation upon impact...

Running is a very important part of Kaiju combat.

[clare_dragonfly]

Gross XD

[siliconshaman]

Hmm, I like the Tempero idea better... aimed shot sounds like a better idea when you're lobbing nukes.

Meentik Kwxe Tempero Kaiju επίπεδο tao, διάρκεια το ένα δέκατο δευτερόλεπτο

[duration one tenth second, because the devil is in the details.]

That is, if I understand the system correctly.

[lilfluff]

For happy fun thoughts, nuclear shaped charges have actually been proposed.

[inventrix]

Well, you don't really need a duration because creating is literally creating out of nothing - if you want the energy to vanish again, that's a whole different ball of wax.

The strength of the Working - e.g. tao, or gamma in the original story - is basically how much magical energy gets put into it. For something like Kwxe, this translates pretty directly to how much energy output you can get. So creating kinetic energy at a high enough rating - if you're powerful enough to do it without knocking yourself out or killing yourself - is all you need.

Also, grammatical quibble, I think the Tempero needs to go before the Kwxe, since you're Controlling the Energy. However, I'm a bit fuzzy on the syntax for a two-verb Working, so I'll wait until Lyn can get in on this to say for sure.

[siliconshaman]

Agreed on the grammatical point. The duration however was more of a thought regarding range, you're basically firing off a unidirectional nuclear fireball, which in the real world, would expand at a rate of 450m/s ... pretty sure you do not want your nuclear lance to go too far, so, the duration limit sets how long that energy exists for, which means it covers 45m before it goes pfft! back from whence it came. Ergo, you have a 45m long nuclear lance.

[siliconshaman]

Now all we need is some unobtainium..

[aldersprig]

Gross??

[clare_dragonfly]

All the blood and guts!

[aldersprig]

aaah!

Well, yeah. A bit of that. I mean, it’s a kaiju.

[inventrix]

Oooh, that gets MUCH trickier! You'd need to throw an Abatu (Destroy) Kwxe working after it to dissipate the remaining energy after it blows up the monster. I don't know for sure if you can put a Working on a timer, but that's the one you'd need the timer on.

[siliconshaman]

Ah, right, one working to create, one to destroy... you can't just build the limiter into the creation working.

Hmm, I'm thinking you'd need to test with a small-scale proto-type, say, something about a metre and half long, with an energy about in the beta range.

aka, a light sabre.

[inventrix]

YES.

[thnidu]

I believe you want "tau" (τ), not "tao" (☯).

But why 300, which is the numerical value of τ′? Or am I misunderstanding something?

[thnidu]

CXLIV

[aldersprig]

*grooooan*

[aldersprig]

Oooh ooh I can answer that one.

Because it’s not numerical value, it’s just alphabetical level.

So an Alpha-level spell is tiny and an Omega level spell (Working, fine, it’s early) would drain all but the most powerful fae and everything in between there is gradations.

[inventrix]

I stared at tao for like ten minutes when I wrote it and I could not for the life of me figure out why it looked wrong. XD Thanks

The power level of a Working is modulated by an increasing non-linear scale represented by the Greek alphabet; alpha is weakest, omega is strongest. I took a wild guess how far down the line you'd need to go to make a power output on a nuke level.

[thnidu]

(fifty-zero-fifty) My work here is done. (evil grin)

[thnidu]

How does one pronounce "Kwxe"?

[inventrix]

Very carefully.

[inventrix]

On a more serious note, I believe it is something along the general lines of "quick-say" or "quick-see"; the finer aspects of the specific shapes and tones of the sounds is, however, beyond my field of knowledge.

[thnidu]

OK. :-) I've been mentally saying it as it's spelled...for phoneticians. That's [kʷxɛ]: kʷ like the "qu" in "queen"; x like the "ch" in "Bach", "Loch Lomond", "l'chaim", or "chutzpah"; and ɛ like the "e" in "bet".

It suits my fancy. I'm not expecting you or other readers to say it that way, but I imagine that menu of the fae have to learn a number of languages, and they have plenty of time to practice.

[inventrix]

O...kay? I'm not sure why you asked how it was pronounced, then. >.> (I generally say it more of a küikse - ü as in German, i as in pit, e as in how Japanese say e - sort of sound in my head, myself)

Also, on a world-building note, all of the Words are based on existing, real languages. Lyn might have notes available on where kwxe is from.

[thnidu]

Most people don't follow IPA phonetic notation. It suggested itself to me here as a not-unreasonable interpretation of kwxe as a normal-text simplification of kʷxɛ. I certainly wasn't intending to correct you; I was interested to know what you had in mind, and I thought you might be interested in what I'd made of it before knowing your intention.

. http://X-Clacks-Overhead.dw/GNU-Terry_Pratchett . http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/

[inventrix]

What I had in mind? I didn't make up the word. ;)

[thnidu]

Ah, of course. I beg your pardon. :-)