Annotated 45-6
From Flo’s script:
Now in clearer view, HR continues battle with the corruptor beast. They’ve been fighting at a standstill at some level, as the corruptor beast can absorb HR’s magicks… to an extent. They both suffer the damage, but the Corruptor beast regenerates, and HR sweats and grits his teeth and is obviously scuffed up from having been tossed around. As the beast is able to absorb his magicks to some extent, HR’s magicks can deflect the corruptors touch to a small extent. Just enough that no one is clearly winning.
But it is not a simple scrap by any means. Rough terrain abounds, eaten and burrowed through by an older, much more experienced beast.
HR is looking like he is less the man he was before… as though he has already augmented himself with traces of corruptor beast. What’s going on, essentially, IS that HR came to Cyberia to combine himself with more crazy shit to acquire more power so he can do the thing. So he has already absorbed a denizen of this realm or two, searching for the best target, now the corruptor beast. But these augments, so far, would be subtle: HR’s eyes would be berserkish, but purple instead of white. But he will seem equally feral. There may be one, MAYBE two of Byron’s melded-demon-form spikeys coming out of his chest. But again, small amounts, just enough to be present: For now, he is still mostly HR.
(This starts to change as the page concludes.)
FB: VirusScan.EXE: THREAT FOUND
Noticing HR isn’t tagged on this or the previous page, T
I wonder if HR couldn’t just have killed Frigg Syr’Nj during their first encounter. Okay, having Frigg do it for him (or having Frigg die doing the berzerker thing) might be more “entertaining”, but HR is here to achieve an objective, so I wonder why he bothered with throwing cultists at them instead of just finishing hem off. That should have been easy enough given the powers he demonstrates during said encounter with Frigg and Syr’Nj…
…and if he wasn’t able to do it then, I wonder how he thinks diminishing the control over his own actions by going berzerker is going to help. After all, berzerking is still only an incremental boost to melee combat, but HR is very much a caster. Knowing whom to hit and when would seem a lot more important to me than uncontrollably punching everyone, all the time…
I think he was still getting used to his new powers when he arrived at that time, and wasn’t sure if he COULD take them. I think that seed of doubt is what brought him here, to level up, so to speak.
Yes, sure, beat a couple of monster waves to level up, but getting infected by berzerker spirits? If he’s not sure he can beat one or two of the Five, then why is he betting the success of this whole undertaking on the fact that hosting berzerker spirits won’t impair his judgement?
I use leveling up in this case metaphorically. I don’t think HR really sees the world the same way a gamer would, but he would seem to have a pretty firm understanding of acquisition of power- and he’s egotistical enough to assume he has the willpower to overcome these so-called Spirits… because what is a spirit, to a God?
Ultimately it’s speculation any way we look at it, but I think it matches his profile.
It’s interesting that even with all these modifications HR is making to himself, even with having literal divine power in the world he inhabits, he’s still a scrawny need. Man has a strong self image to not build himself like Thor when he left sepia world