>>119482
Quest needs more Speeps.

no outissa that is how you end up eating spiders

Do noxans dream of edible sheep?

The entire thread is a dream O_o

That's a cute Outissa though :P

Duke 2018/01/13(Sat)01:58 No. 119539 ID: e1c8f7

Outissa is always cute 👌🏽

Really? You’re railroading us just because we didn’t want to go with the strange noxan we knew nothing about? And you’re gonna just blame it on “that noxan must’ve had an ability that did this”? Come on, don’t be like that, Raptie.

Posted this in the wrong disthread, so I’m reposting it here in the correct disthread.

>>119830
That wasn't railroading, that was a timed event.

Basically, if anyone had suggested anything in terms of actually escaping instead of literally having Astarte just stand there, it would have gone differently.

>>119848
We never told her to not do anything. We told her to not go with the strange noxan and stay with the tour group. Which we thought would clearly mean “Turn around and go back towards the people in the building.” But apparently we didn’t make that clear enough.

Also, how were we supposed to know that we were going to get kidnapped in front of a bunch of people? Normally, kidnappers don’t do that when there’s a bunch of witnesses!

>>119862
Also, there was no way we could’ve known about Melinoë‘s power to break minds ahead of time. And even if we did, a power like that would allow Melinoë to kidnap Astarte, no matter what we told her to do!

So, yeah, it’s kinda hard to not feel like that was a forced event that we had no way of avoiding.

>>119863

Aren't most events in quests foisted upon the character? They decide what to do in response, which is not the same as having total control over the narrative.

Honestly I don't agree with Astarte's interpretation of "just stand there and do nothing" either.

>>119864
True, but Melinoë‘s power to break minds makes it feel like no matter what we could’ve done, Astarte was going to be kidnapped.

How do you escape someone with an ability to break your mind to knock you out and then erase the memories of the people who saw that person kidnap you, leaving no trace of the kidnapping ever happening?

.....also I kinda wanted Astarte to stay “changed” a little longer. We never got to see any benefits of her changed form! And we never got to see her attempt to do cartwheels while in that form! So many hilarious opportunities have been missed.

>>119869
The benefits of a Noxan's changed form are as follows:
Stronger power (in her case, stronger lust aura)
a form suited for taking advantage of that power (in her case, a body with heightened Noxan sexual characteristics. Other Noxans would consider her to be very attractive)

>>119863

Thank you for the feedback. I'm still learning a lot about questing, and I'll undoubtedly make more missteps.

But! I'm doing my best to learn from them, and feedback like yours really helps!

It's clear that you're invested in this quest, and I want to assure you that I really appreciate that, and I appreciate you taking the time to let me know when something didn't work for you.

It seems like this is gradually becoming less of a quest and more of a bizarre, multi-layered roleplay. A large amount of what we've been told or shown has been deemed false by the next character we follow. I'm afraid to post sometimes because there's a great chance that anything I suggest will either accomplish nothing or confuse me more.

I'd like to have participated during the segment when the suggesters were given avatars, but I expected something awful to happen. There wasn't any gurantee that the perspective wouldn't immediately change yet again or it wouldn't be revealed that Penelope was just another fabrication. There's no gurantee this won't happen in the future.

In short, I want to enjoy your quests, but they feel almost dangerous.

>>120077
Have you considered being more carefree?

>>120077
just post during Astarte segments?

>>120077
It is not my intention to nullify any decisions that suggesters make.

There's never any harm in posting, honestly - at worst, I might not use your idea, but I'll at least read it.

I'm not going to punish anyone for participating... that would be antithetical to the very point of me running a quest.

I sincerely apologize if you feel unsafe participating in my quest. Thank you for letting me know. =(

Also, maybe this'll help people feel better:

I can't really hurt any of my characters.

Like - the stakes for this are surprisingly low, honestly. I tried to kill off a character in a quest before and it gave me a nervous breakdown. I can't do it.

It's intended to be a silly quest with some moments of "fuck yes" or "ooo creepy" but no actual, real danger.

>>120221
>I can’t really hurt any of my characters.
Yay! That means Amaranth is still alive!

>>120272
Yes and she's here (in one narrative path, anyway)
>>/graveyard/836091

>>120221
No worries! Your quests are good.


...I still want to drop a piano on Melinoe though.

I think both Khoros and Melinoe need to be placed in protective blankets and made to attend counseling. They're wayyyyy too screwed up to be allowed to run around with their super dangerous powers without getting some help.

Wait so, if Melinoe can screw with memories, and powers are known to affect their wielders sometimes, maybe she's so erratic and paranoid because she's wiped out her own and isn't aware that she herself is the cause of some of the crap she's flipping out about? Is she even aware of the extent of her own powers, if she's been abusing them? It'd be real easy for me to think a boogieman was chasing me around if I was constantly mindwiping myself from knowing I was mindwiping myself.

Also, Khoros is at best being super lazy here.

>>120367
Lazy in what way?

>>120367
Mel is actually giving herself nightmares with her power which is her drawback for using it. and the nightmares she is giving herself is causing her to use her power and give her more nightmares.

Poor Melinoe. Blaming someone else for her own actions, believing fiction over real events. I'm guessing her power is the ability to induce "mental illness" in other people(amnesia, multiple personalities, narcolepsy), but the drawback is she loses her own mind gradually the more she uses the power.

Duke 2018/02/06(Tue)18:07 No. 120378 ID: 56e50f
File 151796923113.gif - (1.79MB , 428x290 , giphy.gif )

Confound these Noxans! They drive me to drink!

jk, keep up the hard work, Raptie<3

Well, you lost me.

What are the SUPPOSED factions (including fake ones)? I lost count.

>>120379
Factions?

>>120380
Who is on what team? Those kinds of factions.

Then again, Kome is the one asking, so I’ve got no idea if that’s what they meant or if they meant something else.

I wanna clear up something:

Melinoë does NOT have the ability to make people fall asleep.

She explicitly can only remove all or part of memories. That's it.

Also, the drawback to her power is that every time she uses it, she has nightmares (this was hinted at but not explicitly stated).

Hey, everyone! Ask questions and I shall answer to the best of my ability!

>>120398
If Melinoe can't make people fall asleep why did Astarte fall asleep twice when Melinoe wanted her to?
Or is it that Melinoe is able to remove memories so quickly that she can cause someone to "black out" while still remaining conscious? Like, still standing around but not being able to "remember" what is currently happening so they can't respond to anything? That's the only way I can think of for her to be able to abduct Astarte aside from knocking her out. That would also explain why the tourists didn't stop her I guess. That could also fit with her being able to go "invisible"- constant erasure of the "memory" of being seen before the victim's brain can process it. The definition of memory is being stretched pretty far here though.

Still, doesn't explain why Astarte passed out while using her full strength lust aura. What's up with that?

>>120399
It's more that she removed the memory of the intervening trip from the concession place to the hotel.

Here's the thing - she very well could have just asked Astarte to come with and then removed memory of the event.

As far as the invisibility thing goes - our entire sense of a coherent "present" is actually just anticipation + short-term memory. It's not a stretch of the definition, it's how it actually works.

The reason Astarte passed out was because she was exhausted from engaging in vigorous physical activity for a long period of time. :D

The brain is weird. Sounds like Melinoe did the magical equivalent of a roofie: perpetually wiping short term memory to make Astarte more pliant and less able to asks questions like Why and Who.

>>120423
Soooomething like that! I won't be revealing any of the specifics ahead of time, though.

>>120398
Is neckwear popular with Noxans? Is it more common to see them with or without neckwear?

Why is Khoros completely uninterested in sex?

>>120427
It's pretty common, at least among noxans who don't wear clothing... which is a lot of them, especially ones that live outside of cities. Neckwear allows for an easy and comfortable way to look nice!

>>120429
He doesn't really see the point in it - it makes him uncomfortable, and combined with Khoros being asexual, he's just not aroused by others very often!

It's worth pointing out that while he is asexual, he is not aromantic. Khoros is only into ladies when it comes to romantic relationships.

>>120430
Well if Khoros isn’t a romantic, then how can he get into romantic situations?!

Khoros 2018/02/08(Thu)00:26 No. 120434 ID: ed67d9
File 151807837344.png - (177.25KB , 800x800 , xq11.png )

>>120433

I hate you so. Much. Right now.

Astarte what is your favorite story?

>>120434
Khoros why do you have no markings?

>>120434
Hey, it’s not my fault that your god/goddess (aka Raptie) created you like that!

It’s their fault that you’re not a romantic! XD

>>/quest/867244
For now we've assumed that noxans have only one special ability. This is why it doesn't make much sense to encounter a noxan that seemingly has more than one.

But there may be several possible explanations why this is the case. Here's a few I've considered:
-The assumption that noxans can have only one ability is false and the noxan simply has more than one. Maybe such noxans are simply very rare.
-The noxan has an ability which allows him to borrow abilities of others, thus having more than one at the same time.
-The noxan has only one ability, but it looks like it has multiple because we don't understand it.
-The noxan abilities can be trained to be used in more than one way.
-Noxans all have one unique ability. But there also exist general noxan skills which all noxans can learn through training, such as creating an energy blade. It's just that Outissa hasn't heard of them or learned any.
-This is actually just Outissa playing a VR simulation and the noxan is an imaginary training opponent.
-This is just a dream.

>>120674
You missed other possibilities too
-The Noxan is some kind of experiment of attaching two together.
-It's actually two or even three Noxans stacked ontop of eachother in a sneaky disguise.

>>120674
>-The noxan has an ability which allows him to borrow abilities of others, thus having more than one at the same time.
Or steal. The abilities could’ve been stolen!

-one or more "ability" is being spoofed or faked
-one of the abilities is actually the weakness / downside being used in a clever way
-there's other magic besides noxon abilities in play (a ring of teleportation, a magic beam sword, etc).

>>120674
>assumed
No, we've been told.

>>120685
Yes but the narrator for any part of this quest is so unreliable as to be worthless

>>120686
There’s no need to insult Raptie.

If you don’t like him/her as a narrator, then you don’t have to read the quest.

>>120687
I think that was referring to the "unreliable narrator" trope, not Raptie as a narrator. Raptie doesn't narrate the quests, characters do. It's always been first person or second person, hasn't it? If it's ever been third person then I think that was when another character was literally telling the story.

>>120686
I am sorry to hear that you feel this way.

Who is the narrator that you're speaking of, though? So far it's almost exclusively through inter-character interactions. At least, until very recently with the Outissa chapter.

> >>/quest/868535 >she's a one-trick noxan.
So it turns out that it's one ability, we just don't understand it very well. No. Unless the Analyze is perfectly accurate, it could still turn out to be several abilities, it's just that one augments the other.

>>/quest/868531
>Teleports only in a straight line.
It would be strange if teleportation was done in a curve. I don't see this as a downside. Altho I suppose it means she can't teleport through walls.

>Her sword appears to be charged by teleporting.
I'm also assuming that she can't teleport and use the sword at the same time.

But this information now makes me ask myself several questions.
How much does she need to teleport to charge it?
How fast can she draw it after teleportation?
And most importantly, is a blade the only weapon she can create from the charged energy? I wouldn't be surprised if she could, you know, make something else, like a whip, or even a bow. It could be that her actual fighting style is long range! Using teleportation to stay away, and then attacking from a distance seems like a really good combo.

>>120787
The Analyze is accurate.

Welp. Looks like I was wrong about not harming my characters. D:

>>120831
Not that I mind too much, but is there any reason to think we can trust statements in or about your quests at this point?

>>120833
Stakes are still surprisingly low.

Character just got an arm and leg cut off, and she's fiiiine.


I'm not setting out to deceive anyone or trick people. I just wanna tell a fun, compelling, and engaging story.

Yes, my quests sometimes have things not always be what they seem, but that's because I'm trying to reflect how I see the world, and how my own thought processes work.

>>120838
Do you have problems telling what is real and what isn't? Do you have trust issues? Memory problems?

>>120849
Yes, yes, and yes.

I have a whole host of diagnosed mental illnesses (ADHD, gender dysphoria, autism, PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, delusional parasitosis, moderate depression, and occasional hallucinations. As well as diassocation and panic attacks.) I was abused as a child by my mother, father, stepmother, and stepfather - physically, emotionally, verbally, psychologically. Sexually abused when very young, and basically my entire life has been one gigantic shitshow after another.

I didn't even get DIAGNOSED with anything until a few years ago, in my late 20s, so I also have a lifetime of maladapted behaviors and therapy shit I'm working through.

I'm on medication for basically all the stuff that meds can treat, and that has made an entire world of difference for me... but, that doesn't fix everything, you know?

>>120880
I don't think I can really say anything to that that won't come across as patronizing or awkward so I won't.


>>120838
So when reading the quest, it's hard to tell what is real and what isn't, it's hard to trust you/the characters(partially due to the first point), and... well, the "memory problems" thing is present as well due to the canon being all nebulous and sometimes contradictory due to threads being independent yet referencing eachother anyway.

So I guess you succeeded. Seems like not everyone enjoys that sort of story though.

>>120880

Woah I suddenly just learned 20% and Xenoquest now makes 53645% more sense. I think I'm the only one who really over-analyzed this:

"I remember what has never been and you remember what never shall be. Together we remember."

This makes much more sense and everything makes much less sense at the same time. Thanks Raptie! >3

>>120077

Actually for the whole suggesters given avatars thingy? Yeah, it kind of felt like we didn't really do much on our own. I doubt any new suggesters could of possibly changed much without either A: figuring out a complex detail and applying it I missed or B: voting retreat for the poll for "Run or Fight"

Xenoquest itself is pretty confusing, and while the first Xenoquest definitely isn't 100% accurate I still believe looking through the other parts that there is still information and such in there that is valid and/or hidden. AKA I'm confused and my brain will never figure this out assuming there is something to figure out. Through, uhhh.. I do know something.

A: The Future of XQ2/XQ3 is a future never to happen... apparently. I actually doubt its impossible for it to happen.
B: XQ however, is up for grabs. On one hand, Khoros states he remembers what has never been, but actually, he doesn't actually remember XQ that much I believe. While we know Outlissa wrote XQ by canon, how Melinoe actually believed it is pretty weird. Like... If I was in XQ and I opened up Tgchan and read Xenoquest I'd in no way ever believe it would be real. There is something deeper to this mystery and obviously someone made Melione with gaslighting and incomplete information. Melinoe couldn't of got this information from the source, nor from Outlissa, so therefore they must have told this information from someone else who has an agenda. Basically, a new character that is definitely evil or crazy or none of those and all of those at the same- Warning. Overload on logic. I've run dry of information to predict. Hope I didn't predict too much.

Also, another thing we know is that Melinoe hasn't read Snoots and Shadows, and possibly XQ2 and XQ3... since Snoots and Shadows reveals the fact that "Khoros isn't Laertes"... Which makes no sense since there's a direct link to XQ2 and to XQ3 to Snoots and Shadows, further reinforcing the misinformation theory. Even if she was insane or nightmare haunted to death the facts would of still exist and she would of not believed that Khoros was Laertes. Thanks AMARANTH.
C: Snoots and Shadows isn't canon unless Khoros is playing double triple secret distraction complicated mask and is acting to prevent Mother information, and has failed since we basically stated everything that has happened in Xenoquest 1/2/3 + Snoots and Shadows in the quest by now. Khoros did not recognize Laertes when we told him, doesn't matter if its in the future or the past he would of recognized the name any time.

Really, XQ is "Something Something Confusing Cannons"

>I can't really hurt any of my characters.
> I tried to kill off a character in a quest before and it gave me a nervous breakdown.

Its Amaranth that is this "Character" isn't it. I mean, its the only character eligible for this kind of mention anywhere in XQ with a definitive death onscreen.

Also, last thing, I believe those verses in those songs mean more than just "Names are her Power" because they've all are kind of similar. "Confusion Cannon" is my new favorite canon pun in other news.

Oh. I didn't see anchored. FAIL

The way I try to structure it all is like this:

Main Canon 'Verse - We only glimpse it for the first part of XQ2 and the beginning of the second part of Snoots and Shadows. This is the "primary" canon storyline of everything - in it, Outissa and Beatrix live together on Station. In this 'verse, the other quests are basically works of fiction (in the case of XenoQuest, it's a story that Outissa told; for XQ3/Snoots & Shadows/Anchored, it's a roleplaying game that Beatrix is running). This is ALSO the same 'verse that Aardvarks Need Love takes place in. (And XenoGals!). AND it's where my upcoming comic projects will happen!

Rebooted XenoQuest 'Verse - This is where the current quest is taking place! This is designed to be able to be read without knowing ANYTHING about ANY of my other quests, and the only things canon to it are things that happen in the quest itself. Here, it's explained that the first incarnation of XenoQuest was basically a nightmare that Melinoë has been having.

Old XenoQuest 'Verse - AKA, the Grimdark XenoQuest. Oh man. Take everything that happens in this quest with several grains of salt, and realize that it's like double-un-canon.

Dragon Romance 'Verse - This is where the DR version of Outissa lives! Yes, it's its own canon place!




tl;dr: The XenoQuest reboot stands alone basically but draws inspiration from earlier versions and other quests I've done.

>>120778
Hi yes sorry for not responding, I got rather busy. I say unreliable narrator because despite it not being literal we have been repeatedly shown things that then turned out to be highly inaccurate or just flat out wrong. This isn't a problem per say, it is simply the way the quest is presented to us, but it does mean that it is a tad difficult to trust anything you don't explicitly tell us OOC

>>120941
I think unreliable narrator works as a term for it- even when a specific character isn't narrating there's an implicit narrator. Especially in a medium like this one where that includes not just text but images as well (images that are rarely 1st person shots, even in instances where the text is).

There is a "Lying Creator" trope, but that refers to when the author of a work shares untrue information about a work outside of the work.

I have mixed feelings about the last few updates. On one hand, the horror elements are pretty interesting and mysterious, and well executed. And the hallucinations do explain why Penelope has sometimes been seeing Outissa in other characters. But on the other hand, I'm confused over how it connects to certain plot elements.

Firstly, how did Astarte learn about Penelope's power to possess? I find it unlikely that Penelope would just randomly tell her that, considering how painful the memories about that were. And if Penelope did tell her, it would mean she was fine with it. But if she was fine, why the painful flashback?

And secondly, we've been told that Penelope's power has been to turn ethereal.
> >>/questarch/860975 >Your power was to be able to turn some or all of yourself ethereal.
But now it's written that her power is to be able to possess others. This is much different than turning ethereal. It basically crossing over the "two powers" line.
Is this perhaps why Mitera was introduced? To show that a noxan can have one power that works multiple ways? But then, Mitera's power is never explained. I'm not sure how teleportation and energy blades could be considered a single power, just as I'm unsure how turning ethereal and possession could be.

Another thing that I'm confused about is how you'd further separate your body and your mind like in the flashback. If you're already a ghost who can pass through everything, it doesn't make sense to become two ghosts. Or that one of them would get hurt. And if one did get hurt, then I'd expect it to be the mind one, not the body one.

Do we know what Penelope's drawback is?

>>120971
Us.

>>120968
Penelope turning ethereal means she becomes a free floating thought form, which is what allows her to possess others because she enters their memories. Astarte just guessed that the cool ghost lady can possess people. In other words Penelope has one power but she can use it well enough to do many things with it.

Melinoë's power over memory allowed her to cripple Penelope in a more serious and breaking way because in a sense she was pure memory.

side note from the update where Penelope has a flashback to trying to possess Outissa it is stated that her body usually stays with her while ethereal, however when trying to possess others without permission she becomes stuck outside it.

Penelope's drawback was her ability to eat was lost when using the power but has since found a workaround through feeding off emotion.

another side note large parts of the story may seem confusing largely because the author is conveying how she would see the world, confusing and disorienting as that may be.

>>120976
Thanks for the explanations. Altho I wonder how much of it is canon or just speculation.

Here is how I would explain how the possession works.
Penelope turning ethereal allows her to possess others by turning non-ethereal on top of that other person. By having Penelope's body take the exact shape of the body of the one she's possessing, the two (exactly the same) bodies can be merged into one. And then both people are able to use this shared body.
The permission to possess plays a critical role here because it gives Penelope access to the exact form of the one she's possessing. So if the one being possessed doesn't agree with it, Penelope's body won't be able to take the exact same form, the merging will fail, and Penelope's body will be forced out while taking damage.

As for Astarte guessing Penelope's powers.. maybe she heard it from others, or read it in a book (Khoros said he studied it). I think that would make more sense.

About the drawback, I wouldn't think that "not being able to eat" would be the drawback. That's kinda implicit and not really related to the power itself. If I would have to guess, I'd imagine that every time Penelope would become ethereal, it would become a little harder to turn back to non-ethereal. Eventually, she would get stuck being ethereal. Like she is now D:

>>121040
Penelope's possession works by entangling her consciousness with that of the person she's possessing. Getting into more specific details about the mechanics behind that would spoil some stuff.

The reason she needs permission is because the individual has to be actively aware and willing - "open-minded" in a literal sense.

--

Astarte just guessed, because she's a lot more clever than people may realize.

--

The drawback/flaw for her power is explicitly that she's unable to consume food while any part of her is ethereal. This is relevant because her ability wasn't all-or-nothing - she could make just her arm or leg or whatever ethereal.

Nowadays, of course, that's all sort of irrelevant - for all intents and purposes, she's stuck this way.

Anonymous 2018/03/09(Fri)09:58 No. 121300 ID: b1b4f3
File 152061831511.png - (156.60KB , 800x600 , First.png )

Alright since Dylan is doing the thing again where different suggesters see different images, here's the ones I see.

First image.

Anonymous 2018/03/09(Fri)09:58 No. 121301 ID: b1b4f3
File 152061832999.png - (188.52KB , 800x600 , Second.png )

Second image.

>>121300
I'm seeing the same ones

Anonymous 2018/03/09(Fri)11:20 No. 121305 ID: 05ff2f
File 152062322336.png - (416.38KB , 800x600 , 152057580564.png )

Here are the images that I'm being shown.

First image.

Anonymous 2018/03/09(Fri)11:20 No. 121306 ID: 05ff2f
File 152062324481.png - (463.48KB , 800x600 , 152057580934.png )

Second image.

>>121306
I don't suppose the text mentions it at all?

>>121307
It does, but is the text in >>/quest/872472 different for you and others from what I saw? For me there's a description of the blue tentacle thing and how it's pulling something from Penelope's Pattern and pushing something back in to replace it.

Here's the full text I saw in that post, formatting retained: "You activate your ability and you see a sight that is horrible beyond description. It looks like... some kind of thing is attached to you somehow. As you watch, it pulses your color away and pumps a color into you, as if feeding on your Pattern and giving you something to keep you from noticing."

EH?! WTF ARE THOSE THINGS! HOW DOES HE DO THAT? We see different things?

>>121312
She, and thanks to the hard work and knowledge of the site admin, Dylan. =)

Anonymous 2018/03/09(Fri)17:18 No. 121321 ID: b0788c
File 152064471748.png - (246.22KB , 800x600 , 152057580564.png )

I was exposed to this horror.

First image.

Anonymous 2018/03/09(Fri)17:18 No. 121322 ID: b0788c
File 152064472825.png - (285.04KB , 800x600 , 152057580934.png )

Second image.

I need a hug.

>>121323
*applies hug*

>>121309
Yeah the text is different for me. Looks like Dylan upped his game! Last time it was just images. Here's my post (associated with nothing suspicious happening):
"You do not see much different from before, although there is an almost… itching… sensation this time. There are the Patterns of Astarte, Khoros, Outissa off in the distance, and that unusual fourth one that you don't recognize. It appears that there are no ethereal creatures nearby."

I think the blue parasite thing is real, but the Astarte-scorpion is not.

ANOTHER ONE?! MY BRAIN! I DON'T UNDERSTAND. IS THAT ASTARTE? WAS SHE JOKING ABOUT LOOKING LIKE A SCORPION?! Raptie how are you doing this?!
Are we in an interdimensional space?! What kind of JoJo's shit is this?

>>121313
OH didn't see that post, and sorry about misgendering you ma'am. Still, this is freaky shit!

Raptie, you done real good with this one. It's giving off horror vibes in just the right way for me. And bravo to Dylan for making the meta-fuckery possible on the tech end.

If anyone has seen any other image sets besides the three we've already recorded, please copy and post them here along with the accompanying text.

>>121321
>>121322
Would you be so kind as to post the text that goes with the images here as well for the rest of us to read? With the formatting intact as well, if you could.

>>121325
Oops, I forgot to put the bold text in as well as the italics. Here's the text I saw with the correct formatting:
"You activate your ability and you see a sight that is horrible beyond description. It looks like... some kind of thing is attached to you somehow. As you watch, it pulses your color away and pumps a color into you, as if feeding on your Pattern and giving you something to keep you from noticing."
Dunno if the text that's bold in both the texts has some interconnected meaning.

I was starting to wonder why the suggestions were all over the place! Hah, this is really cool! Nice work Raptie and Dylan!

>>121333
Right, sorry.
I might suck at formatting so let's see how it goes.


First image:
You activate your ability and you see a sight that is horrible beyond description. It feels as if part of your mind is being torn away almost by the entity in front of you.

Second image:
What do you see, Sister?


Y̕eS ̨P͏E҉neLO͜P̶e wh҉a͡t́ D͘O̢ YOU͘ See̴ ̵ȨH̵ ̸HEH҉ HE̷H͡ h͝éh

>>121335
Interesting, it's like the ethereal beast's "drug" is only partially effective in this instance. The update shows something is wrong, and "part of your mind is being torn away" has a parallel with what the beast is actually doing.

Duke 2018/03/10(Sat)22:37 No. 121369 ID: e1c8f7
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This is what I see this update. Not sure if it's still different for people.


The ethereal creature - which you are now certain is some kind of parasite - doesn't respond to anything you're saying. You figure that it must be mindless, and just feeding off of you because you're the strongest source of ethereal energy around. You believe that this parasite is responsible for why some fragments see nothing, and why some see their terrifying fears reflected back on them.

I wonder if it's feeding off the fear of the fragments that see the Astarte-monster?

Anonymous 2018/03/10(Sat)23:18 No. 121371 ID: 09e13b
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I'm seeing the big green scorpion-looking thing stab Khoros in the glow-y center bit with it's stinger. Here's the text:


>I w͡il̸l͟ ͟po̷is̕o͏n y̢ou̵r ̷b͝roth͟er҉ ąnd̡ ͘fe̸e͢d̛ ͢o̵ń ͞h̢i̧m.͞ ̕I̢ hav̢e he̴l͘d͝ ͏d҉own͞ ̧yoųr͘ s͟is͏ter ͘Ơu͞t̨i̸s͘s͏a ̀and͏ fe͢d̷ ̀on ͡he̶r̵ s͞oul ̕aņd ͞s̡h̨e ͘i̧s̢ de͞ad. Your͠ pŗeci҉ou̶s̴ ͞A͜s̵tart͏e͝ ͠i͞s̢ ͘gone.̧ Th͏er͏e̡ i̢s͡ ̛onl͜y m͠e. ̸I ͞a͢m ̧y҉óur ̷m͠a̴d͝ńe̸s̕s͡ ma̛de ͝ma̵nif̢e҉s̡t҉.̸ ̡

>A͝n̸d͘ ͢I̸ a̵m҉ co̸m̷ing҉ for ̵yo̢u ̢n͘ex҉t̸, Pen͜el͘ope͟.

Your sanity feels like it is fraying, being drawn away and devoured by this creature. You are transfixed and cannot look away. You are suspect (sic) that the other fragments are blind to the immediate danger right here.

Dunno if this is because of a mistake on Raptie's part or if it matters in some way, but the glow in the lower right of the images is a different color in the "scorpion horror" set of images than in the "parasite" and "nominal" sets of images. Compare >>121321 with >>121305 and >>121300, and >>121371 with >>121369.

>>121371
Did Khoros and Astarte both speak in the posts you saw? In mine Khoros said "Hold on. You are not making any sense. You are contradicting yourself, Sister." then Astarte said "Look! I am near the ceiling now!" then after the block of text posted in >>121369 Khoros said "Sister, please - can you come to a consensus among your fragments as to what is happening? I want to help but I need to know what is going on."

>>121375
I can confirm that it is not a mistake.

The glow is the same color as Astarte's aura in those images. In the others, the glow is the unidentified brown/orange that was first seen during the first use of ethereal sight stuff.

>>121371
Well the green hallucination is obviously lying since we can see Outissa's color. She's not dead.

also,
>being drawn away and devoured by this creature
here's another reference to the parasite.

>>121375
Yeah, here's my text.

">Astarte being silly; nothing ethereal
>A blue creature with tendrils in us
>Astarte is a HORRIFIC GREEN MONSTER
Hold on. You are not making any sense. You are contradicting yourself, Sister.

Look! I am near the ceiling now!

You study Astarte's Pattern a bit more closely and, aside from that itching feeling, you don't notice anything unusual. You are suspect that the other fragments must be mistaken, and are probably just hallucinating based off of echoes or expectations. Again.

Sister, please - can you come to a consensus among your fragments as to what is happening? I want to help but I need to know what is going on."

Hmm, the no-threat text is definitely wrong. There's no expectation about there being the equivalent of an ethereal mosquito, and we've never seen ethereal stuff before so it's not an echo.

Oh, and "You are suspect" as a recurring phrase might be on purpose. Rather than "You suspect".

>>121375
The scorpion version has the same text from Khoros, but nothing from Astarte.

>>121379
The problem is that it could just be a potential hallucination brought upon by a new thing we've never really used. Thus our fragmented mind is causing us to see dangers we've never really had previously.

The fact that we've had no issues or feelings of "itchness" until the ethereal sight means that we've never really felt such things before, why would such feelings show up upon use?

Also "Pretending to be idiots" is not a good way of telling people to be open to new idea's if that's how you intended it to come upon.

>>121380
The "you are suspect" is a typo.

Given the new stimuli to our senses due to the ethereal sight, it is quite possible that our mind is putting in dangers that it believes such ethereal sight to possess. Either that or this whole parasite thing might not be as big of an issue as some are playing it out.

Now that i am more calm about it, becouse i'll admit it, i was fleping my shit with all this, could it be that we still are not 100% in control of this new power, and thus, making us see things?
OR, that all that we are seeing is indeed there, but fractured becouse of our shatered psique?
I mean, we are seeing into the ethereal world, so chances are that it is filled with other ethereal creatures that normally we wouldn't see.

>>121384
The posts I quoted were obviously people playing the role given by the bolded text, rather than trying to deal with the situation in any way.

As for the itchiness thing it's easily possible that Penelope experienced it before, but lost the memories of it. Remember, we're dealing with some amnesia issues. Heck, maybe a similar ethereal beast is the cause of the amnesia? Penelope could have been frequently preyed upon since she couldn't see the beasts.

>>121396
One of those was me.

So yeah, I just truly believe that this issue may just be another issue of our fragmented mind and that people need to calm down rather then freak out about it. I just felt like doing it more in character rather then assuming meta knowledge, but I suppose I should have discussed it more.

>>121389
>other ethereal creatures that we wouldn't see
Did you miss the part where we just upgraded ethereal sight so that we COULD see them?

Okay okay how about this?

If the parasite is a hallucination and we try to fight it, at worst we'll look silly flailing about at nothing.
If it's NOT a hallucination and we do nothing, then at worst we could be severely weakened (I don't think we'd actually die because it is basically a giant ethereal mosquito) or maybe even lose more memories, or pass out. Or maybe the scary monster-Astarte hallucination (because that is definitely a hallucination) will get even worse. The text associated with that mentions sanity fraying? I don't really want to see that progress further tbh.

The worst choice is to just wait it out. Turning off ethereal sight or looking away would be preferable to that.

The problem is, as Khoros explained for us earlier on.

>As an ethereal being, you are sensitive to thoughtforms and echoes. It sounds like Melinoë is trying to convince you that Laertes is real. That would make him manifest in a way. At least for you.

If they are real, then we are going to get hurt. If they aren't our belief may cause them to manifest and actually be able to hurt us because we've been treating them as real.

>>121414
Hmm, I don't remember that at all.

Let's just say that I gave ya'll some chances, so if things end up getting weird(er) in the quest, you have no one to blame but yourselves. :D

Weird is good!

ok this is odd, first I only saw the images in >>121300 and >>121301 but now they've been replaced by the images in >>121321 >>121322
and >>121371

>>121469
the images are different based on IP so if your IP changed thats why.

>>121466
If it wouldn't spoil anything you have planned to come, could you say what the clues as to what was actually happening were and how they would fit together? And did anyone get spot on or close?

>>121480
I can say that I was surprised you guys voted to ignore stuff.

Especially given that this disthread pretty much figured it all out. :D

>>121484
What, we did? ...It was the parasite, right? Nuts, that was my first choice, but then >>121414 brought up what Khoros said about things becoming real for Penelope if she believed they were real and I was unsure. I changed my choice to... Not full ignore, but to getting a view from another. Will we get another opportunity to kick the parasite out at some point?

Well when we get more info about parasites from Khoros we can look again. If it's still there we'll smack it.

Anonymous 2018/03/17(Sat)19:10 No. 121602 ID: b1b4f3
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Ok here we go again. Here's the image I see, and the text:

"You decide to activate Spectral Seeing anyway. This time, instead of closing your eyes first, you leave them open.

The itching returns.

You can see the Patterns overlaid over the people making them. That makes sense. Outissa’s is still far off in the City, and the brownish-orange one appears to be in the same direction, albeit much closer.

It appears that there are no ethereal creatures close by."

>>121602
The corrected text changed "Outissa’s is still far off in the City, and the brownish-orange one appears to be in the same direction, albeit much closer."
to "Outissa’s is still far off in the City."

Anonymous 2018/03/17(Sat)19:45 No. 121606 ID: 10c408
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"You decide to activate Spectral Seeing anyway. This time, instead of closing your eyes first, you leave them open.

You can see the Patterns overlaid over the people making them. That makes sense. Outissa’s is still far off in the City, and the brownish-orange one appears to b—

YOU KNEW IT!

Just as you had suspected and feared, Fierce-Stalking-Death is the orange pattern! It looks like she is about to strike! What will you do!?"

Sooo, thanks to whoever decided to chide Astarte because now Khoros isn't listening to us.

Duke 2018/03/17(Sat)21:16 No. 121608 ID: 56e50f
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>>121606
Hold the phone! On my end I see the parasite and we know that the parasite feeds false information to make others hallucinate their fears. I think the huntress is a product of that. Below is the post text.


You decide to activate Spectral Seeing anyway. This time, instead of closing your eyes first, you leave them open.

You can see the Patterns overlaid over the people making them. That makes sense. Outissa’s is still far off in the City, and the brownish-orange one appears to be in the same direction, albeit much closer.

The thing that you assume to be the parasite is still there. Even worse, it’s managed to attach TWO MORE tendrils to you! It continues to drain you and fill you, in the most viscerally horrific sense possible.

Other than that, you see no other ethereal creatures.

>>121608
Ethereal sight wasn't on when we got fierce-death-stalker's attention. She's real. So we either do something about a supposed threat or do nothing and MAYBE not watch the hugging pair get surprised by an invisible predator.

>>121608
Great. This is probably the true vision again. We really need to get Khoros to help us with the parasite.

Remember people, whenever Fierce-Stalking-Death went invisible/teleported through shadows, we could still see her eye/eyes. She is NOT there. Hell, the first "everything is fine" vision is partially wrong too! The orange signature is not in the right spot, even the scrubbed vision has a hallucination in it now. Or maybe the hallucination in the scrubbed vision is because it's a false/weak/unskilled use of Ethereal Sight and the echoes/normal hallucinations are acting up?

a leaf flutters

near purple fog

see it see you

No, no NO! I didn't meant to hurt Astarte! God damn it! Shit, i feel like shit right now.
Ok, i going to have to fix that later.
I have the image that shows no danger. But that one is probably not correct.
I am pretty sure that the true vision is the one with the parasite, is the only one that has "evolved" by adding another tendril on us. The one with the orange creature is probably false as well, becouse we have never seen the orange color, only the brown.

Dammit, we were so focused on the obvious in the images that we missed the subtle! Look in the upper right of all three images. Compare it to the previous update images (>>/quest/874048 onward,) and where Fierce-Stalking-Death's eyes showed up (>>/quest/873893) before she appeared and remained after she'd faded (>>/quest/874047.) That's Fierce's eye glowing up there and she's about to appear on the branch! She's real and not some ethereal hallucination! Which makes sense 'cause we weren't using ethereal sight when we saw and spoke to her.

Also notice that Raptie lightened the area up there between >>/quest/874051 and >>/quest/874211 so that the eye would show up, so I really doubt that it was unintentional to leave a eye-like mark there. But to be sure, I stuck the image from >>/quest/874051 into Paint.NET and fiddled the contrast and brightness to check if there was a eye-like mark that'd come out on lightening the area and there wasn't.

So, I'm thinking that Fierce-Stalking-Death's teleportation power doesn't come from her being able to turn ethereal. That was just something one of us threw out there as speculation. But I also think that there is a parasite feeding Penelope's fears back into her, and since she thought that Fierce may move ethereally the parasite integrated it into its fear illusion, replacing the "scorpion" from earlier.

In short, Fierce-Stalking-Death is real, she's going to appear on that branch to the upper right where her eye is and the one of her that appears in our ethereal sight is a parasite induced illusion.

>>121612
And Siphon's hint aligns with what I thought and laid out in >>121615. A leaf flutters in the trees, near the purple fog of Outissa's pattern, eyes seeing us seeing it. It's Fierce-Stalking-Death up in that tree!

Quick note: The appearance of FSD's eye in 373 is an art error. She doesn't teleport.

>>121622
I don’t trust you. This entire quest is all about you misdirecting us and making us second guess ourselves.

How do we know that you’re not trying to fool us into letting our guard down?

Oh, and I just noticed another thing that backs that Fierc-Stalking-Death is up on that branch: Between >>/quest/874206 and >>/quest/874209 her eye appears. It shows up before Penelope uses her ethereal sight, so it's not a ethereal hallucination or illusion.

>>121623
Raptie isn't writing that there was a art error in the current update, she's writing that she made a art error back in >>/quest/873892. Raptie had Fierce-Stalking-Death up on the hotel awning at the same time as her eye was floating down by the pillar, putting her in two places at once when she shouldn't have.

>>121623
I am pointing out where I made an error, since that seems to be affecting the conclusions people are making. That's all. Whether or not you believe me is up to you.

Khoros suddenly disbelieving absolutely everything Penelope has to say is... hard to believe.

He's the one that said the ruins were dangerous, he's the one that said the brown signature might be a trap, he's the one that said maybe he did need Penelope's help after all. Now suddenly he has no faith whatsoever in our ability to warn him about danger and little sense of self-preservation.
Is he unaffected by Astarte's power now, as well?

It feels like we've lost agency in general. Three updates have gone by with us trying to warn Khoros about FSD and absolutely nothing has come of it. We may as well not be there.

...Oh, no. No. I... I thought Fierce-Stalking-Death was split seconds from pouncing on Astarte and Khoros. It's why I chose to shout, to get their attention up there immediately. ...But in my haste completely forgot about the situation, and it spooked Fierce off before they saw her eyes and then they wouldn't listen to us. And now they're captured by FSD and her pack, all because I didn't think to just whisper to them! ...It's my fault...

>>121627
Everything that has happened these last several updates is as a direct result of /quest/'s actions.

You've been given lots and lots of agency - just... sometimes that results in stuff happening that's too late to fix.

>>121632
I did convince people to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to potential parasite issues, I know that feeling! Though buck up, we can fix things and nothing is past the point of no return just yet.

Also just imagine this from the point of view from Khoros, half the time we are speaking random things before, and now we are seeing various things and having issues articulating problems, one of which is about to effect them. We could use that as potential to get him to believe us more again.

>>121632
If it helps at all, if anyone had suggested a more quiet approach, then I would have chosen that instead.

Since nobody, I went with the only option available.

Honestly... it's thanks to you that a much more tragic situation was averted.

>>121633
We've had more effective "agency" interacting with god damn FSD since the hotel room than we've had trying to warn the duo about her.

>>121638
Ah, right. It does help to be reminded that if I hadn't spotted Fierce-Stalking-Death and alerted Astarte and Khoros that she'd have pounced on them. If I hadn't, one or both of them would have been maimed, crippled or even killed. We all would have felt devastated if that had happened. I averted that tragedy, and knowing that I feel somewhat better.

However, it feels bad to know we've blundered so much that we ended up right at the edge of such tragedy in the first place. One we were only barely saved from tumbling over by my late-night realization and flawed execution. And it's a edge that we're still right at. Knowing that one confluence of bad suggestions, one missed observation, misread of the situation or some vital knowledge being forgotten or misremembered, will send us over that edge is making me feel afraid.

>>121641
Blame E-sight. I am, shouldn't have voted for picking it now that it's been established that not only is competely unreliable because of that weird parasite thing that may or may not be real but it's effectively gutted any trust khoros and astarte have when it comes to telling them stuff.

>>121642
If the suggesters had dealt with the ethereal sight instead of voting to just ignore things... well, this would have played out VERY differently.

Also, despite knowing it was unreliable, you guys chose to use it again. During a crisis situation.

What is happening is the inevitable result of many choices that were made, and many warning signs ignored.

>>121643
There were three votes to turn E-sight back on. Four if you count the very first suggestion who put his or her vote in parenthesis. Aside from the other random suggestions like possessing astarte, there were four to warn khoros about FSD or five is you also include the one who chided astarte and upset her.

That's not a consensus. And I wasn't aware that we're suddenly being judged for uniformity amid all involved parties, which would require such cooperation that everyone involved would have to be on the IRC channel (spoiler: we're not)

>>121646
I choose suggestions based on whatever makes the most sense at the time. This isn't a strict-majority quest.

Sometimes all it takes is one suggestion, sometimes a majority, sometimes just a few are enough.

>>121633
"too late to fix" shouldn't mean we're blocked from doing anything constructive for the rest of the thread! A reasonable author would have let us talk to him about parasites immediately after that because we had no idea he knew anything about ethereal parasites until then! Instead you immediately threw Fierce-Stalking-Death at us and gave us absolutely no safe period to do anything but try to warn Khoros until the end of the thread.

>>121647
>what makes sense at the time
You mean whatever you feel like doing at the time. Every single time you make a quest it's like we're being dragged around between whatever idea you suddenly have for something that needs to happen next. Occasionally we get a really obvious choice situation so it's not exactly railroading, but otherwise we're along for the ride and it is really frustrating when the ride is going somewhere nobody wants it to go.
In this case you decided that since we ignored the parasite there needed to be consequences, and getting captured by a tribe of cannibals was what you decided upon(for some reason). You accomplished that by cherrypicking suggestions and outright ignoring an entire update's worth of suggestions by switching focus without notice.

Fucking seriously, half an hour of hugging and Khoros ignoring any signs of danger in the middle of a forest in the ruins that he already knows are dangerous? That's absolute nonsense!

Every time you make a new thread I'm like "maybe Raptie won't pull the same bullshit this time" but no, it's always some meta bullshit and trying to turn the suggesters against eachother alongside scatterbrained plot points strung together and then the thread gets abandoned half the time. I'll admit this thread was an improvement but you just slid back to your old tricks.

>>121650
To be honest, you're totally correct.

I mean, I am flattered that you have such a high opinion of my storytelling prowess. I honestly am.

But... you seem to be under the impression that I'm some sort of accomplished storyteller, and thus you have expectations of me doing things in a logical, clear, focused fashion.

The reality, of course, is that I'm not really any good at this. I'm actually pretty shitty at storytelling. You said so yourself - scatterbrained plot points, meta bullshit, cherrypicking, and illogical character actions.

My only real defense here is that I'm still learning how to tell stories. I really, really, genuinely wish that I could meet the standards you're holding me to, but I'm only going to disappoint you.


Anyway, I appreciate you putting up with me and being willing to give my work another try. Maybe if you come back in a couple years or so, I'll finally be the author that you're looking for?

>>121650
Actually, one more thing:

If you're looking for quests that have straightforward narratives, lots of options for interaction, and rational characters...

... then why do you keep reading my quests?

I figure you would have gotten scared off a couple quests in, but by your own admission, you keep reading them!

If you're lacking for stuff to read, I can recommend things. You don't have to keep punishing yourself by dealing with my shitty quests. Like... you have yourself to blame for that one.

>>121650
You can say that you don't like the meta stuff, but isn't this simply your personal preference? My opinion here is that such features make the quest more unique and actually increase participation.
I don't know what you mean with "scatterbrained plot points". That's not very constructive.
I will agree that there are some rare instances where the character actions are illogical, such as Khoros and Astarte, two strangers, suddenly hugging for half an hour. Well, this may simply be due to my own (non-)expectations.

Anyway, for one reason or the other, things didn't go the way we wanted them. So what? I don't think it's the end of the world.
But I really don't think that you have any right to say which suggestions should be taken into account and then call the author unreasonable when she doesn't. As she said, she's the one that picks which suggestions she's gonna go with, and I see absolutely no problems with this "cherrypicking" that you mention. If your suggestions aren't getting picked, well, then try to write them more interesting and don't expect that the majority/consensus is going to be followed. Needless to say, I don't see any railroading because she does, in fact, follow suggestion(s) every time. Sometimes yours, sometimes others.

And even if Raptie always and only went with a consensus, trust me, she could spin the story in such a way that we'd end up in an even worse situation. So either way the author would seem unreasonable to you. Lastly, I wouldn't worry about it because Raptie did say that the stakes were low.

>>121657
I've been reading them because your art is very good, the stories and characters are interesting, and I can *usually* have fun with what's going on. There are ups and downs to your quests, the ups are way up there but the downs are way down there. I'll admit there's been times when I seriously considered giving up. I've never felt as conflicted about any other quest/quest author, and yet the positive aspects are enough for me to keep coming back.

Honestly though you are improving rapidly, it certainly won't take years for you to improve enough that I won't get so mad about it. Oh and when I said "this thread" was an improvement I meant "this quest"-- last thread was better too.

I'm sure you can rationalize the end of the thread in some way. The damn parasite made us go numb and unresponsive, and Khoros felt too awkward to stop the hug because Astarte fell asleep standing up or something.

>>121662
I wouldn't be surprised if Astarte's just really liked the hug. It didn't help that Khoros was just starting to cry a bit and seemed really depressed.

..That makes me wonder, could Ethereal stuff affect normal people as well? Or Khoros? Since he knows of Ethereal stuff.

>>121664
Eh... I guess it could just be from Noxans being kindof weird.

>>121662
Thank you for answering the question. Feedback like this really helps.

I'm going to be as... direct... as I can without giving too much away:

1. Khoros and Astarte hugged for a long time because I've been in similar situations where I had to comfort someone and be comforted and time slipped away. It's less crazy than one might think.

2. There is an actual reason for why certain suggestions get chosen. And why sometimes it feels like there's reduced agency.

I literally cannot say anything more on that - even that much risks spoiling.

Hey guys, i am having some trouble with the story line. Could someone give me a quick rundown of the story? I kind of started when we where creating Penelope. But the rest is all confusing. Or maybe i should just read the other quests?

>>121676
Noxan Quest is non-canon.

Here's some of what we know about Penelope in regards to the current quest:
1. Penelope and Khoros are twins. Penelope had a male body but liked being female so it's safe to think of her as being MtF. She enjoyed possessing Outissa, and they're friends.
2. Khoros and Melinoe were in a relationship. Melinoe shattered Penelope's mind when she was ethereal. That forced Penelope into a fully ethereal state alongside the fractured thought processes she holds.
Khoros said it was because she was jealous of Penelope and wanted to eliminate the competition. I have NO IDEA why Serpens thinks it was due to sleep deprivation.
There's a gap in time here. At some point Outissa went to the city, but Khoros and Penelope did not.
Khoros decided he wanted to move to the city as well then something happened to make Penelope lose her memories (maybe a parasite or predator wounded her? or she went hungry too long?)

other assorted facts:
Penelope's ethereal powers used to run on food like other noxans but now they run on the emotions of herself and others. They're evolving and we chose the Ethereal path which resulted in gaining advanced Ethereal Sight but that also opened us up to more side-effects from having an ethereal parasite.

Anything else you can read the damn thread for. It's not even that long.

>>121678
>Penelope had a male body but liked being female

I may have read that section wrong but I thought she was saying that she had an issue possessing Khoros because he was male?

>>121680
"Being in a female body always felt somehow right to you. You love your brother Khoros dearly, but being his identical twin definitely had its drawbacks when you were mentally female."
They're identical twins. That means same sex, same appearance. I'm not sure why the fur and eyes are different in this case, it's possible Noxan powers can alter eye color and they're not genetically determined, plus Khoros might dye his face black.

>>121678
Ok, i see now. Some of this i allready knew, most of it actually. I got kind of lost when Khoros and the rest appeared, like they where allready introduced before, and i didn't knew from where. I actually was the one that suggested Penelope's original powers, so yeah, THAT thread i readed. When i asked about if i should read the others quests, i meant about the otherones where Outissa is the protagonist, not us, To understand this thread, but if it not canon, then i guess is not necesary.
Thanks.

Did we ever established who that white noxan in the beginning was?
Penelope's boyfriend or something?

>>121685
If you're talking about Noxan Quest, that wasn't a noxan! That was Joy-of-Dreaming, a character that can be seen here in this NSFW link: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/25864286/

>>121686
Oh, ok then. But unfortunately, i can't see it. The site doesn't let me see the image "due to the content filter settings". What ever that means.

>>121689
Here, have a direct link to the image (NSFW): https://d.facdn.net/art/caedere/1514325887/1514325887.caedere_joyofwalking4.png

>>121694
I... can't see it either...
You know what, don't worry about it. I will get the chance of seen it some other time, i don't want to be a nuisance.
Thank you Raptie, you are too dedicated!

Edit: So I forgot to account for the fact that Khoros can't be mind wiped or whatever, but Astartes is, so Astartes was mind wiped to be very not-serious and get very sad, therefore Khoros would become overprotective, assume what we said was false cause we hurt Astarte's feelings accidentally, into ignoring us.


Translation: I erased memories and planted fake memories, and made them ignore you via manipulating Astartes. Khoros said he would be fine about hearing what we saw with Ethereal Sight. This is all your doing and its ridiculously obvious.

Look at these two quotes directly said by Khoros and Astartes.

"Okay. Sister, if you insist that this is the case then I trust you. You can always ask me—

—or me!

...if you have questions about ethereal things. I know that there are many kinds of entities. Some of them are predators. Some are parasites. Some are harmless."

Look at the later quote.

"There is no danger. But I know you are going to use it anyway. Just please keep it to yourself this time."

Direct Contradiction. Makes no sense. No reason to change their opinions over 5 minutes.

This makes no sense, both said they were completely fine with answering questions. Another thing Melione is doing is reinforcing the validity of the Hallucinations, therefore giving her more power.

>>121699
I don't think that's correct, but the fact of the matter is we can't really trust anyone's behavior (except Khoros I guess) while Melinoe is anywhere nearby.
I wonder if the city has a ward against mind bullshit.

>>121701
You mean like some sort of ability nullifying ward? Wouldn't that have negated Astarte's ability as well?

>>121702
The city. We have not gotten to the city yet. We're still in the "ruins".

>>121707
OH. I guess it should, it would be kind of problematic if Noxans could use their powers whenever they like.
The city should have some sort of control over Noxans abilities.

>>121699
>Translation: I erased memories and planted fake memories, and made them ignore you via manipulating Astartes.
You've gotten that wrong. Melinoë's power can not create memories, it can only destroy memories. That's what Khoros said, if I remember correctly.

>>121697
That's odd. Direct linking usually gets around Furaffinity's mature content restriction. Are you on a network that restricts access to certain sites, like a school's?

Didn't Raptie say all noxans hate vanilla?

Melinoë's explanation for how she was able to follow Penelope, Khoros and Astarte close enough to listen in to their conversations by continually wiping their memories doesn't hold water because Khoros is immune to Melinoë's power. Thus, Khoros should have been able to see Melinoë. Dunno if this inconsistency is intentional or if it's a mistake or oversight on Raptie's part.

Also, Melinoë is not trying to keep her voice down when she said her reason for not wanting Penelope to go is because of a worry of invisible members of Fierce-Stalking-Death's pack hiding nearby doesn't make sense. Melinoë is blabbing her whole plan and her powers out for anyone in earshot. One pack member slinks off to warn the rest of FSD's pack before the rain starts and there goes the plan. They'll know to hide in ambush where they're sheltered from the rain so Melinoë can't target them. Is it a mistake on Melinoë's part or for some reason does it not matter to her that they hear?

>>121713
Penelope isn't immune, Melinoe already demonstrated the ability to wipe our memories of her presence. We couldn't see her at all in the hotel. I think she was close enough to see where Penelope was to target her/us but far enough away to remain unseen by Khoros and Astarte. Which is really difficult. Maybe she has practice in stealth. Or maybe Khoros is unobservant.

If Khoros was right and she talked to us with those notes in order to try to make us create a Laertes figment, then that means she was actively trying to harm us and we can't trust her. ...however that doesn't make sense. Khoros knew Melinoe was afraid of Laertes, which is why he put on the mask. Why would Melinoe try to make us create a figment of someone she thought was real? Did Khoros lie to us, or was he just confused?
I'm thinking Melinoe really did believe in Laertes.

>>121717
>Penelope isn't immune, Melinoe already demonstrated the ability to wipe our memories of her presence. We couldn't see her at all in the hotel.
Yeah, I wasn't solid on that so I went back to check and saw the update where Astarte "lust bombed" the room and Melinoë appeared 'cause she couldn't focus enough to use her "perception filter" memory wipe on us. Then I posted a revised text and deleted the incorrect post right before you posted yours.

...I am going to have SO MUCH FUN with Melinoë's answers to the questions in the quest.

Eeehehe

Aw man, I realized there's no way Melinoe is on the level. She knew where FSD was because we loudly pointed her out, and had no reason to doubt us. She could have fucked with FSD's head to get her to go away or at least not bring her entire tribe back. She wanted this to happen, so she could play the hero and/or get Penelope alone.

Khoros routinely thinks he's smarter than he is and can't be trusted. His judgement can't be trusted. He's inflexible when confronted with information outside of his expectations.

And then Melinoë's claims are super shifty. If we assume that Khoros wanted her around as an insurance policy, despite the mechanism of it being a continuing violation of Penelope's perceptions which he should know better than to encourage, then his decision to stand around in a hug for half an hour makes no sense. The extended embrace is entirely out of keeping with the kind of attitude of caution and wariness that would inspire the truly inappropriate plan they allegedly hatched together.

It doesn't add up.

I wonder. Can these pack noxans see us?

If yes, then, how were we able to stay behind? In >>/quest/874373 they clearly said that we need to come with them, or Astarte get hurt.
If no, then why not? Astarte, Khoros, and many others have demonstrated that they can see us. Even we can see ourselves in a mirror. So why wouldn't these noxans be able to see us too?

Or is it that we can control how transparent we are?

Raptie 2018/04/05(Thu)15:05 No. 122110 ID: 4ccc6a
File 152296594851.png - (92.68KB , 800x800 , qatissa.png )

Hey, everyone! In anticipation of the first page of my new comic going up tomorrow on https://outissa.com , I'm answering questions about XenoQuest and other quest stuff!

I'll do my best to answer, although some things that may be spoilers I will have to defer on. <3

While we know that Noxan's can tend to eat near everything (except for Outissa and her dislike of Vanilla). What do they primarily grow/eat on a more daily basis?

WHAT WAS THE SECOND NOTE

>>122110
Are the frilly webs between your fingers sensitive?

>>122110
patterns.

What are the non noxan people at the entrance to the ruins?

>>122120
So! The dislike of vanilla is universal to all noxan, not just Outissa.

As for what they grow/eat - pretty much whatever! They're extreme omnivores, and noxan cuisine is varied even moreso than that of humans. It's also a bad idea to eat noxan food if you're not a noxan.

>>122121
touch a snoot

>>122122
Sensitive for some noxans, sure!

>>122123
Checkerboard, paisley, argyle, pinstripe.

>>122127
Kyrtrae is populated by many species, not just noxans!

Pff, so Melinoe decided to lie to us about her breakfast. Amusing. I wonder if she's a compulsive liar.

>>122132
Hey - some people have a taste for things that most people would consider to be abhorrent-tasting!

How well do noxans see in the dark?

>>122144
About as well as cats do! They're not nearly as good at navigating in extremely dark places as cats, however, due to lacking the sensory array of whiskers.

>>122131
Can we get a quick run down on the other races? Or are they not fleshed out?

>>122152
That's a tough question to answer! Noxans don't really just inhabit a single setting or anything, so there are a looooooooot of potential other races!

naileD 2018/04/08(Sun)01:19 No. 122189 ID: 2251c3
File 152317555192.png - (281.84KB , 800x600 , illusion.png )

I missed two updates, but still.. I wonder if the green stuff in the middle was a coincidence.

>>122189
Is that a image taken directly from the quest thread or one you took out and put through image adjustment?

Also, I don't see the "green stuff" you're writing about.

>>122191
It's the image from >>/quest/877715 with some adjustments. The green stuff in the middle (between the doors) slightly resembles Laertes' mask.

>>/quest/877782
This is some serious shit that's suddenly going on. Poor noxans :(

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this event. Wasn't Laertes supposed to be fictional? Someone's definitely getting mindf*cked here.

It could be that Laertes is real. A person or a manifestation of something.
But there's also a slight chance that Khoros did this. He was the one that had the mask, and until a few minutes ago he considered them to be hostile.
It could also be Melinoë. Who knows what she's like if she panics or goes crazy.
The strange thing is that.. it seems this happened when Melinoë's pattern came close to the Khoros' fragment.

Aside from terrifying implications of the latest update.... I find it equally dark that Penelope's (temporary) return to physical form was because all of the herbivore noxan were, presumably, brutally fucking murdered off-screen.

...Oh no, I know who it is. It's an alternate version of khoros that went bug fucking nuts insane. We're dead.

>>122194
That's not all either, mixed in with the pain and panic was the intense feeling of joy. Given that the Feed and Hunger was what Penelope was feeling due to the intense emotions, the only one that is unaccounted for is the Joy.

Melinoe could have a massive hardon for murder. She could've erased memories to hide her killings.
Or yeah it could be Khoros and he's secretly been evil this entire time. I don't think the extra Khoros signature was near the hallway though.

It's not like Raptie wants to tell us anything actually useful right now though.

>>122189
There's no green in the original image you ridiculous person. Boosting the brightness in the way you did it also boosted the color saturation, so some areas that weren't a perfectly balanced grey (due to the gradients or some other reason) showed up as greenish or blueish or purpleish.

Also Raptie isn't the kind of person to hide a secret in a way where we can't tell what it is once we find it.

We should hug our FEARs. The only way to conquer a fear is to confront it and come to terms with it or to avoid it forever, and I doubt that this fear is willing to leave.

>>122194
Ah, you called it.

Not entirely sure how we're supposed to deal with an evil version of Khoros, actually. His power is very dangerous, both in combat capability and ambush potential. Plus he's about to bring Laertes into this universe, or already has. Either we need to break the gate so he can't do it, or we need to just avoid both of them until we regain full control over our ethereal power and then kill Laertes with it.

It'd be easy. We already know Penelope was able to turn part of her body ethereal, so what we do is leave all of her body ethereal except for a single claw, then shove it into his heart.
Killing Evil Khoros would be much more difficult.

Maaan, we still don't know who/what the orange signature is. Maybe it's Laertes? You'd think his signature would be green though.

Also now we know why Raptie wouldn't let us tell Khoros there was a second signature associated with his color. That would've revealed the twist too early.

>>122203
Honestly? I had it written out for the last interaction with Khoros and forgot to put it in. It was basically, "I did not split off any fragments" but I don't think it would have revealed anything.

>>122204
Well I dunno about anyone else but it would've made it clear to me that there was a second Khoros, which meant it was an alternate-dimension Khoros, which meant he probably killed everyone.
Then I would've suggested to tell Khoros that, and asked which direction the exit was so that we could warn Melinoe.

Oh, so we are THAT much fucked.
We need to get your body back permanently ASAP.
I am still kind of lost with this, about this new Khoros and Laertes. But, could it be that he is an ethereal being? I mean, we are one, kind of, and we know that there is a ethereal world with creatures in it. So somehow Laertes existed there all along?

>>122207
Well, being able to control someone against their will is sortof like possession, which we can do just by being Ethereal.
I guess it wouldn't be too far off base to think that "Laertes" could be an ethereal creature able to possess people so long as he knew their name. It's not the long distance mind control attributed to Laertes but it's close.

On the other hand, maybe we don't have to worry about mind control at all. This evil version of Khoros isn't the same one from the original XenoQuest thread, so maybe his version of Laertes isn't as powerful? Or maybe he doesn't even have a version of Laertes and the mask has a similar connotation to our Khoros's mask. It's a symbol of fear rather than a real person.

Maybe it's better to remain skeptical until we have solid evidence there's an alt-universe Laertes that has mind control powers.
Like you know, The Brokehorn? He's got the same markings Laertes had under his mask.(I wish I had saved that image...) I'm quite curious as to what his deal is.

Man it would be a really dumb twist if Penelope believed Laertes existed so hard she became Laertes.

>This evil version of Khoros isn't the same one from the original XenoQuest thread

It more or less is

>>122210
He's missing an eye, though.

Seems reasonable to assume Brokehorn had a name-related power.

XenoQuest threads seem to follow common themes so I wonder if every noxan universe has a Laertes, a Khoros, and an Outissa? Perhaps the difference here is that this Laertes was defeated before he was able to grow too powerful.

Hey Raptie, does Penelope remember her parents?

>>122214
I dunno! Do you?

>>122215
So Penelope had no memories whatsoever at the start of the first thread?

>>122217
Not really, no! She knows what you know!

You know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if Brokehorn is the Orange/brown that keeps showing up on Penelope’s Ethereal Sight.

And if I’m right, then we’ve just gotta figure out why Penelope has a bond with Brokehorn.

>>122221
So... almost yes, then. We didn't know anything outside the context of that first thread that we didn't immediately get told by Khoros anyway.

That's never been clear, you know. Once we found out we were controlling a person and weren't just fragments or whatever, I just assumed there were other memories associated with that person that we just had to think to ourselves about or something.

>>122222
But Raptie allready said that "we" are Brokehorn. If that is true, and i am no saying that Raptie is laying, then he might be from the same universe, but it has nothing to do with her. We are part of Brokehorn, we are not Penelope.

>>122244
>We are part of Brokehorn, we are not Penelope.
Duh, I know that.

I’m just saying that Brokehorn could be the Orange/brown that keeps showing up on Penelope’s Ethereal Sight and that would mean that Penelope has some kinda bond with Brokehorn.

The only way to know for sure is if we can restore Brokehorn’s memory to see if he/she/it is Penelope’s friend.

Hey! Taking a break from updating XQ for a week or so in order to let my brain recharge! <3

>>122245
That i didn't negate. I think so as well. I mean, come on, there is no way that every single person that stands in that roof is not connected somehow. I mean, it is the SAME roof EVERY TIME!

Hey, ya'll - I realize I violated a promise I made earlier, which means I have a question for people:

Would people prefer that I deploy the reset button I planted and roll the story back to a point of your choosing (to at least before a shit-ton of people died)

or

Carry on as it is right now?

>>122307
Could quest have prevented their deaths and just failed to do so? I'd say no

If it was going to happen and now you want to give quest the chance to go back and save them? I'd say yes.

>>122308
Addendum: Is Glinp involved? Definitely yes then.

>>122307
roll back to Astarte rubbing her cherry picker on the wall. (I KNOW THAT SOUNDS LIKE I JUST WANT MORE ASTARTE LOVE WITH MY TRACK RECORD BUT ITS ACTUALLY A GOOD RESET POINT!!!!)

> >>122307 >deploy the reset button
Make it so.

The reasoning doesn't matter.

>>122307
Let the dead rest, foul necromancer-slash-chonomancer.

>>122307
Having a chance to save the not-noxans would be nice, but the story progresses one way or another. Perhaps Amaranth manually winding time back would help move the story in this direction?

>>122314
As a clarification, I would vote for a reset as long as it is done in-story.

Don't stop Brokehorn's adventure though, I wanna see how things go for him.

another addendum: What I would do is move it back to a point where we can stop and get rid of evil khoros. Give /quest/ the tools to stop him and see if we can figure out what to do to fix it.

Carry on with it

Carry on

Carry on.

Carry on.

>>122307
>the reset button I planted
You planned to reset it?

Do whatever makes the tone of the quest more consistent.

>>122307
I say carry on.

But if you want to keep someone alive, then you could have Fierce-Stalking-Death Flowing-Swift-Dances as a survivor but she’s heavily injured.

...hold on, you didn't say what promise you broke or what action would keep that promise.

You should keep your promises.

>>122414
The one where Raptie said she wouldn't really hurt or kill her characters.

>>122415
I thought that was more of a couldn't than a wouldn't.

>>122422
Raptie feels otherwise.

Here is the meanings behind the name "Zelus"

"Zelus personifies dedication, emulation, eager rivalry, envy, jealousy, and zeal" (the Greek God of Jealousy and Rivalry)

Zelus the Bug - the assassin bugs - Some species have been investigated for their potential as biocontrol agents in integrated pest management. Zelus is also known for a sticky trap predation strategy. Sticky resin produced from a leg gland is smeared on hairs to aid in prey capture. This is somewhat analogous to the carnivorous plant sundew.

Zelos - An alternate spelling of Zelus of Greek mythology

Zelos, the main antagonist from Konami's side-shooter; Salamander (video game)

Earthly Strange Star, Frog Zelos - Minor? Antagonist of Saint Seiya.

Zelos the SONG -
VIXX 2016 CONCEPTION, VIXX's year-long project is themed around the gods that appear in Greek mythology and their 5th single album concept is based upon Zelos; the Greek God of Jealousy and Rivalry.

-Courtesy of Wikipedia

Completely trustworthy.

(P.S. Blame Homestuck for this research)

Also, I just noticed something crazy.

Jealous

Zelus

Zelos.

They literally sound so similiar I think the europeans ripped it off of the Greek word, made minor changes, and said "Yep, completely original"

>>122728
There’s also Zealous: having or showing zeal.

>>122728
"Zealous" is straight from Greek; "jealous" is via Latin and French. This kind of thing happens a lot in English.

so are there gonna be updates at all?
just curious.

>>126470
They'll probably be sporadic for the foreseeable future since Raptie's got a lot of other stuff on her plate right now. As far as I know she's working on her own webcomic, doing coloring and shading for Out of Placers as well as commission work. That doesn't leave much time for quests, I figure.