Hugo Fairbanks (AU Hugo Fact) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
luredbypower) wrote2007-09-18 12:20 am
luredbypower) wrote2007-09-18 12:20 am
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OOC Information:
Name: Nadia
Age: 33
AIM: Prefer not to post publicly
MSN: N/A
Y!M: N/A
E-MAIL: ladynadiad at gmail dot com
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Leonhardt (eyesofstrength)
IC Information:
Name: Hugo Fact
Fandom: Ys Origin
Timeline: End of Blighted Blood area in his path, after chatting with Dalles, before fighting Pictimos.
Age: 17
Appearance:
Normal appearance
Demonic appearance (which also shows the Eyes of Fact pretty well)
Abilities:
Eyes of Fact- Probably one of the creepiest weapons a normal person will ever see. Basically Hugo can summon what appears to be two eyeballs that float beside him. They also act as conduits for his magic in some circumstances. When he is boosted he gets 4 of them, and when his demonic powers are active, there are six. He has full control of their positioning. Basically with them and his wand, it makes it so he basically fires magic bullets for his normal attack. And he's pretty fast with them too. Also of note, his wand is summonable as well.
Magic- As the successor of House Fact, Hugo has quite a bit of magical power and it is stated numerous times that he is a magical prodigy as well. He's still young and lacks in some areas, but he does overall have a great deal of power and skill for someone his age. Most of his skills are offensive and defensive in nature because of the threat of demons.
In game he is shown with three specific skills. Each one has two different styles depending on charged or not. The first is his wind shield. When not charged it protects against the next hit he takes. It also can damage an enemy, though it is not as strong as his weapon and does about half damage. It is a greenish color and smaller this way. When charged it is larger and blue and protects against two hits. Either way, it also slows his descent when jumping or falling as well. The second is a trap mine that is basically a thunder bomb. When not charged he sets it and it goes off after a set period of time. When charged he can set it off as he pleases and it makes a larger explosion and does more damage. It appears to be about 10 feet wide when charged. The last one in game is his fire skill. When not charged his Eyes of Fact change to large fireballs and circle around him. When charged the Eyes of Fact also shoot fire as shown here. The range on that is likely about 20 feet, and it is tricky to aim. He does have limited MP, but it also recharges pretty fast. Mostly it is to prevent constant use of magic, but still makes him able to use it pretty often. Usually takes about a minute to fully recharge from nothing, then another about 5 seconds to charge a spell, charging doesn't start until he has enough MP. He can get two uses of the trap mine and fire magic before he runs out, and one of the wind barrier. the wind barrier also has a limited time and at his current level about when it runs out is about when it can be charged and used again, so there's only about a second or two where it won't be active.
Also shown is that he has the ability to detect magical power and can sense the overall nature of the magic, basically whether it is demonic or not. And while it is not outright shown, it is likely he has the capability to use shield magic to create a very hard to destroy barrier much like Dalles and Cain Fact did. He'll need more practice with this, but it likely is easily destroyed if he does this.
Also, it is shown that with his use of the Eyes of Fact and in other official art that he has the capability to levitate small objects. It is shown that in time he will be able to levitate himself, but for now he's only capable of things that he can easily lift with one hand. In a pinch he may be able to use this to slow a fall or lift himself a small amount, but will take more time and practice to get to the point his father is at.
He also does have some items he got in the course of the game that give him abilities. Most won't be all that useful, but still worth a mention. First is a crystal that is used to teleport to purified goddess statues. Canon shows that it can be used to teleport elsewhere, but that was a serious blunder done by another character. Knowing Hugo, with time and study he'll figure out how to make that predictable. He also has an item that lets him hold his breath underwater for longer, one that allows him to kill undead creatures that revive, a mask that reveals hidden objects, and claws that allow him to walk on slippery surfaces and a cloak that heals him while he's standing still. He does also have a Lila Shell which allows long distance communication much like an old fashioned magical telephone, but without another to communicate with it's rather useless.
And one last thing to keep in mind is that physically, Hugo is pathetic and useless. He's not much for running, would suck at using a weapon to actually beat someone up. He only can use magic to defend himself and would be utterly screwed without access to it.
Demonic Power- Hugo has accepted part of the demonic essence from Dalles at his current canon point. Dalles, however, is a sneaky asshole who put in a hypnotic command to not make it become active right away, and when it does, Hugo will go completely insane. The command is set to go active when he is in mortal danger. When he is like this, his overall power increases about three times, he has 6 Eyes of Fact as well. His defense increases and his attacks do a lot more damage. However, the power has a massive drawback. In this state, Hugo is definitely insane and slowly becomes an empty shell with a lot of power and a wish to kill everyone who is weak. Because of how dangerous this is, it will be saved for a player plot and will keep him away from danger as best as possible until then to keep him sane. He can be talked down from this by someone who can push his buttons just right and he has some respect for, even if he hasn't admitted to it yet. In canon Epona talks him down, and in Toal's path Toal snaps him out of it by kicking his ass in a fight. Once he's talked down, it won't come out again. Hugo doesn't like hurting people and doesn't like what he becomes in this state.
Also, anyone who can sense demonic power would definitely sense it even with the power not being active. When it is active, it will be obvious. His eyes change from blue to red and there is a demonic aura surrounding him.
Dash- With one of his magical items Hugo is given the ability to moves quite fast without tiring so easily.
Double Jump- Hugo also has an item that grants him the ability to double jump, which is basically jumping again while in the air to reach greater heights. Very useful especially with his wind ability to slow his descent.
Boost- Basically after a certain amount of time or after taking a decent number of hits Hugo can use what is called boost. Basically this allows him to use four Eyes of Fact, which highly increases his attack power, he has a higher defense and his magic recharges much faster. This has a limited timeframe, however.
Personality: Epona really summed up the first impression Hugo tends to give before their battle quite well. He's "...a regular stuffed shirt, too. Probably the dull and humorless type." and "...all stoic and moody, acting like you’re so much better than everyone else!" Hugo definitely does seem that way when a person first meets him. He does tend to be more of a quiet loner at first and to have no sense of humor at all and he does tend to be uppity towards anyone he deems to be lesser than him. Whether it be a lack of intelligence, talent, or anything else that places a person below Hugo's own standing, he will think less of them until proven otherwise.
Dull, however, turns out to not be a very apt description. True, he is smart and studious, but he also is very blunt and forthright which can make things interesting very fast. Hugo tends to annoy people real fast because of this trait. At the same time, one can definitely trust him to be honest and know he will not be veiling the truth or keeping secrets. He is willing to ask the questions that others would not ask because he values logic, intelligence, and dealing with things quickly over protocols and respect. This isn't to say he's not respectful and breaks rules for no reason, because he tries to be a good person. It is more that he's willing to be less respectful and ask the harder questions that no one else would ask. Basically, he's not going to be blindly loyal to someone just because of who or what they are. He's going to respect them for their words and actions. Though he is blindly loyal to his father, but his father has shown himself worth such loyalty, at least in Hugo's eyes.
He also does actually have a sense of humor, though a darker one. His interactions with Epona especially show this because he has no problem outright insulting her and laughing at her own insults. He also has no problem adjusting a first impression of someone as he gains more information about them. For instance, at first he took Epona to be an unintelligent savage, then as they got to know each other and she helped him at risk to herself and they got to know each other more, he came to respect her because she was a smart girl and he owed her. She just had a different sort of intelligence, one that came more from dealing with people and knowing what made them tick and she is a skilled warrior. He also adjusted his view of Toal and realized that his blind loyalty to his father was not correct in that case and that his father had even warped his view of his older brother.
However, Hugo's biggest faults are with his own self image. He wants to be respected and for people to look up to him. As his father says, he's like a puppy performing tricks for a master, and he likes being that because he wants that praise and adoration. He wants the people around him to like him for being Hugo Fact, not because he's Toal Fact's little brother, or Cain Fact's son. He feels he deserves this sort of respect and does think highly of himself, but he goes about earning the respect of others in ways that actually seems to create more distance. He also has a dangerous and unquenchable thirst for power because he was taught that power is what he should seek and he equates having power to earning respect. After all, the most respected people in Ys have a lot of power. He's starting to understand that no one person can do everything, not even his father or brother can. He's starting to see that his thirst for power is dangerous, but he hasn't quite reached the conclusion that he would soon reach in canon, and that was what caused him to accept Dalles' offer even though he knew he shouldn't.
History: I apologize in advance for the length of this considering his path is about 10 hours of playtime.
To start with, anyone familiar with the main Ys series, especially the first two games should be aware that Ys Origin takes place 700 years before the first game. So if Adol's world seems pretty backwards, Hugo's is even more so, though he's from a time that is later spoken of in legends and from a place that few people in the future have ever seen and many don't even know it truly exists. Ys is a place where magic is commonplace and the people live alongside their twin goddesses. They lead an overall sheltered life and aren't even aware of the fact that people live in places outside of Ys. Because of the recent demon invasion, their land is no longer inhabitable and they had to raise their shrine into the air to have a place to live still. This happened about six months before the canon starts.
And now on to Hugo's own history. Hugo is the second son of one of the Six Priests, Cain Fact. As the second son, he wasn't supposed to be his father's successor, that should have been his older brother, Toal.
But at one point while Hugo was still a child, Toal made the decision to join the Holy Knights instead of being his father's successor and left that to Hugo. Toal knew Hugo was far more talented at magic and would do far better in that position than he would. At this time, Hugo was about six years old from the best estimate of the images given from this time, and he really doesn't remember his brother all that much. We know from Toal's own path that Hugo really adored his big brother before he left, so the hatred Hugo feels now appears to stem from the fact that the big brother he loved so much left him and never came to visit and then on top of that he basically had to live in Toal's shadow. Hugo's father likely didn't help these feelings one bit. The interesting thing is that Toal was actually a bit jealous of Hugo's own accomplishments and felt he was overshadowed by them because he wasn't as good at magic.
So Hugo grew up not seeing much of his brother who was disowned by his father for daring to join the knights instead of studying sorcery like any respectable member of House Fact would. Hugo did prove to be a magical prodigy and while his training was hard, he eventually grew in power enough to be officially named his father's successor. Due to this intense training that lasted for many years, Hugo had pretty much no friends. He's familiar with most of the sorcerers of Ys, but only a passing acquaintance with them.
He was taught to try and seek power where he could because those of the Fact lineage had the greatest magical power. Hugo wanted to please his father and show he was going to do well in his place, so he was happy to seek power to be able to serve the goddesses and Ys as best as he could. He wanted to make a place for himself, and not be a shadow of his brother. And he nearly had accomplished that.
Then one day Ys was attacked by demons in force. Even the powers of all their magic could not do anything to stop the attack. So the Six Priests raised the land around the Solomon Shrine to protect the people. Toal and his commander, Saul Tovah, opted to stay behind and buy them some time to raise the land. Saul died in combat, and Toal was missing and thought to be dead. He was praised as a hero, and yet again Hugo was standing in his brother's shadow and only known for being the younger brother of a hero.
Life was normal enough for a time on the floating island, as normal as it could be anyhow, but then one day the goddesses vanished. After they didn't return for days, the Six Priests decided to send a search party made up of the most skilled remaining among their sorcerers and Holy Knights. Among this group was Hugo.
Except Hugo had another set of orders along with finding the goddesses and aiding in their safe return: he was to find the traitor to Ys and kill him. The traitor that was his brother, Toal.
The group is sent to the surface via a transport spell. But the spell is interrupted by Dalles and the group is separated on the surface. Hugo finds himself at the base of a large tree that can speak to him, the Roda Tree. The tree tells him that the goddesses are in the tower that the demons built nearby. So Hugo sets off to the tower, leaving a message with the tree that if any others from the search party come by that they should be sent that way and he is safe.
He arrives at the tower and is greeted by some of the search party, Father Shion, Eolia and Dino. All three of them are in service to the priests and skilled sorcerers. Hugo offers to go and scout ahead while Dino searches for the rest of the missing search party. Father Shion grants him permission to do so and he takes off into the lower levels of the tower, called the Wailing Blue.
He explores around a bit, gets caught in an annoying teleport trap and then eventually meets one of the bad guys, Epona. They trash talk each other a bit and then battle and Hugo wins. He gets the Mask of Eyes from her and wanders around some more to find a way past that trap.
He eventually finds it when he finds Rico hiding in a hidden room. Rico gives him the blue necklace which protects from evil and that allows him to get past the trap at last. Here he finds more of the search party has arrived as he meets up with the other two sorcerers, Cadena and Miuscha. He wanders some more after talking to them and sending them to help Rico and eventually comes to confront one of the six demons that attacked Ys. He is able to defeat it and continues onward to the next area, the Flooded Prison.
The demons are growing stronger, and he also has to contend with a great deal of water flooding the area. A few places are even off limits to begin with because they are completely immersed and he'd drown. He keeps exploring and eventually runs into Epona again. Epona, of course, wants a rematch. Hugo goads her and tells her that she's just setting herself up for a loss by repeating things. So she takes the bait and ends up surprising him by summoning two demons.
Hugo definitely knows he's in trouble then and was starting to regret goading her, but then the demons turn and attack her. Epona is fearing for her life and in desperation asks Hugo to help her in exchange for her giving information. She'd mentioned previously about someone who resembles Hugo greatly, he's curious enough to agree. So he deals with one of the demons, and Epona deals with the other. She returns and tells him about a man they call "The Claw" who looks a lot like Hugo. Epona mentions her suspicion that they are brothers or something, which hits a bit too close to home and Hugo basically tells her to shut up and leave. She does leave and he continues onward, finding the blue dragon's scales to deal with the rest of the area.
The rest of the area is pretty uneventful, he trudges through it, gets new magic and then finds a room with a pillar and a giant centipede to fight. he wins that and heads off to the next area, the Guilty Fire.
Here, he finally finds one of the Goddesses, Feena. They have a short chat and then Epona and the man called "The Claw" arrive. It does truly turn out that The Claw is Hugo's older brother, Toal. The two of them fight, and while the battle is an optional win, going to assume a loss here for Hugo because it makes more sense with the rest of his path (that and he still loses even if he wins). Another of the enemy, Zava, arrives on the scene then and they take Feena into their custody. Zava orders Toal to kill Hugo and he moves to do this, but the Holy Knights and the sorcerers arrive to put a stop to that. They aren't in time to prevent Feena from being taken away, however, just to save Hugo's sorry butt. Everyone heads back to their base and discuss how to deal with all of this. The search party is also finally fully assembled with the last member being found and Dino returning with her. Father Shion then reveals that the Black Pearl had gone missing as well and everyone then moves out to find Reah, figure out a way to free Feena and to also protect the Black Pearl that is likely with Reah.
Hugo continues on and finds another artifact of Ys, this one with a fire element, and it happens to be the sword of Commander Saul Tovah who died in the battle Toal was supposed to have died in. Saul's ghost appears as Hugo is draining the artifact's power and expresses his concern about Hugo's lust for power and warns him that he still has time to choose the path of the righteous. Hugo doesn't listen to this and tells Saul to basically shut up because he's dead and obviously was too weak to win the battle. He continues onwards and finds a creepy area called the Devil's Corridor. Epona happens to overhear this and Hugo gets mad at her and asks if she is wanting to continue their fight, but she ends up leaving without a fight, how strange.
The Devil's Corridor is a nice little trap the enemy made. It transmits a creepy sounding music that literally will drive anyone who isn't a demon mad and then kill them. Hugo is stuck for a time here until he finds a Roo who gives him a hammer and gets a hint about how the Devil's Corridor works from Epona. He's finding it rather strange how Epona seems to now be helping him while still giving threats and saying how she'll happily kill him next time they meet. Hugo even asks her outright why she's doing this and she says she doesn't know. Actually, in Toal's path he comments that Hugo and Epona would have made a great couple if they met under different circumstances, and he's right, they do.
Anyway, Hugo deals with it just fine from her hint, shuts the music down, and gets past the demon boss in this area and moves on to the next area: Silent Sands. On his way up, he runs into Toal again. This time, they don't fight, though Hugo is more than eager to fight his brother again. Instead Toal basically berates Hugo saying that power he doesn't understand is worse than having no power in reference to what Hugo stole from Saul Tovah's sword. He leaves, but Hugo is very confused what he means because power is power, right?
Anyway, he continues onwards, gains the nice handy double jump ability and then finds Reah and the Black Pearl at last. He asks some questions of her about why they left and about Toal, but isn't too satisfied with her answers. He thinks she's hiding something and Toal did something to her to make her think a traitor should be let go. She has to go, but before she does she gives him an item to deal with the undead in the area. After that, he's contacted by Eolia via the Lila Shell and told of Feena's location, which is nearby.
He heads to the place where Feena is being held, a smaller tower called Rado's Annex. Inside he finds it is a trap and meets Zava. Zava taunts him a bit and then eventually sics one of her familiars on him because she wants to see the Eyes of Fact in action. He fights and wins and she's quite impressed and says he really should meet their leader Dalles. That doesn't go over well and eventually Zava leaves. Hugo goes to try and find Feena and only finds a very ominous looking door sealed with pure hatred. Hugo, being the moron that he can be, tries to use brute force to open the door. Well, brute force in the mind of a sorcerer, which basically means throw all his magical power at it. The door then throws it all back at him, knocking him backwards and he falls unconscious.
He wakes up and finds out Epona was watching over his dumb unconscious ass. Again, quite strange because she's the enemy and all and he'd think she would slit his throat while he was out cold. She claims she didn't because she's not that much of a sicko, but it's becoming more obvious that she likes him. Of course, Hugo is too much of an idiot to realize this and Epona is too afraid to admit to it, so she just says she doesn't know why and when he says they should just continue their fight, she laughs and says she's not too much of a sicko to attack someone who can't do anything more than mouth off. Really, Hugo just needs to learn to shut up at times. Epona asks Hugo why he hates Toal so much, and Hugo talks a bit about his childhood. From this, Epona figures out that Hugo actually does care about Toal a lot, but he's too afraid to admit to it and he's struggling to find his own place, and she understands this quite well since she has a big brother too, Kishgal. Hugo, of course denies all of this as he always does when someone is completely right about him and he doesn't want to admit to it. So he instead tells Epona she should just go like she was ordered to, and she does.
Hugo then consults with Cadena and Miuscha about opening the door, eventually they figure out how to open it and find Feena trapped within a barrier. The Holy Knights arrive as well and they all discuss some things. Feena then asks them to find Reah and the Black Pearl and to protect them.
Hugo then leaves, as he does so, Miuscha comes out and offers to be an ear if he ever wants to talk. Everyone seems so concerned about him, but he won't listen and ends up yelling at Miuscha and causing her to cry and run away. Cadena comes out and basically berates him for being an idiot. Poor Hugo really is feeling down at this point and realizes all he can do is just go on and help find Reah.
So onward he goes, beats another boss, and off to the next area: the Blighted Blood. Really, one can easily forget this place is a tower with these weird areas.
After some exploration, Hugo has yet another run in with Epona. She tells him Dalles is finally on the move and to be careful. Yet again she opts not to fight Hugo, claiming that they area is a bad one for a fight. He continues on and eventually runs into Yunica fretting over the other knights who were just petrified by a man in black robes, who has to be Dalles since we haven't met this one yet.
Yunica begs Hugo to help, but Hugo just doesn't know curses well enough to know how to break this one, only that it is a curse, and a powerful one. He tries to convince Yunica to get Cadena's help, but they end up saying things and Yunica gets very mad with him and ends up running away after telling him what good was all his power and that he's just basically a greedy asshole. He could have worded things better, but he did have a point that it was better to defer to an expert.
He continues onward since there is little he can do about the knights, and eventually he runs into Toal again. They chat, Toal gives him a replica Black Pearl that he claims will help the knights and leaves.
Then Hugo heads back to Rado's Annex and finds Yunica and the others fretting about how to power an idol that would help the knights. Then he sees what Toal meant and gives them the Black Pearl replica. Yunica runs off to help the knights and Feena thanks Hugo for the help. He leaves to go check on the knights, they are fine and give him the key needed to get to the guardian demon of that area and Yunica apologizes for her fit of anger and Hugo says he could have been more respectful. Overall, the knights all agree that they are in his debt and they will let bygones be bygones as far as his earlier behavior that made them mad and work together as best as they can towards their common goal.
So Hugo goes forward and as he's about to unlock the door to the guardian demon he finds a strange man in a black robe there, Dalles. Obviously the head honcho had to come out at some point and he's quite interested in Hugo.
Dalles offers Hugo something he just cannot refuse: power. He says he is willing to let Hugo try demonic power to see how it works with him, since Hugo declined the initial offer of just taking it. Dalles surmises that Hugo doesn't quite trust himself or understand the power and eventually wins Hugo over. True, Hugo is an idiot here, but one cannot help but realize that Dalles is quite the charismatic man at this time and he knows every single one of Hugo's buttons already and pushes every them all.
Roleplay Sample - Log:
Finally he could get a break. All that running around in this creepy tower was getting exhausting. True, he couldn't stop and rest, but at least for now he could slow to an easy walk and worry a bit less about running into any demons.
Though thanks to earlier, he knows even here on one of these catwalks, there may be no demons, but there was a chance of Darklings coming to bother him. At least the area was small so the chances of a fight were slim. He still had his wand and Eyes of Fact ready, because he'll be going back to that strange place. Every twist and turn of this tower brought something even stranger than before. Water like blood that hurt to walk in, shifting sands, deep water, fire and lava, and much more. Not to mention the demons that were getting stronger and stronger.
And the leader of them all was on the move, he had been warned as much. And the next time he met Toal it was likely to end in a battle. But did he want to kill his brother still? And could he? Hugo wasn't so sure any longer than his father was correct about Toal being a traitor. It appeared that way, but there was something more.
All he could do was keep going. He wasn't at the top yet, and Lady Reah was still missing and not in the hands of the enemy. What he would do with Toal could be determined when the time came and upon what evidence was seen.
Roleplay Sample - Journal:
[The video is quite disorienting considering that it is upside down and not pointing at any person directly. In the corner a hint of blond hair shows the person who is failing at the use of even a communicator.]
I hope this is correct. It is like no Lila Shell that I have seen. [And then the video turns off, the voice still remains.]
Is it even working?
This game includes horrible mental and physical torture of your character. After reading the rules/faq for clarification, how do you expect your character to handle this and continue to function? Hugo shows later that he is capable of overcoming outright insanity. He's pretty strong-willed when it comes down to it. Also he handles himself pretty well in some tough situations, like nearly getting killed by his own brother and fighting enormous demons. Even if he is scared, he's not going to show fear, and he even mouths off to his enemies in a hilarious way.
He's going to totally have trouble with anything technological in nature though. But should fit in well with his tendency to make cracks about people.
Questions? Comments? Crazed and creative statements? Those go here.
Name: Nadia
Age: 33
AIM: Prefer not to post publicly
MSN: N/A
Y!M: N/A
E-MAIL: ladynadiad at gmail dot com
Are you new? If not, list your current characters:
Leonhardt (
eyesofstrength)IC Information:
Name: Hugo Fact
Fandom: Ys Origin
Timeline: End of Blighted Blood area in his path, after chatting with Dalles, before fighting Pictimos.
Age: 17
Appearance:
Normal appearance
Demonic appearance (which also shows the Eyes of Fact pretty well)
Abilities:
Eyes of Fact- Probably one of the creepiest weapons a normal person will ever see. Basically Hugo can summon what appears to be two eyeballs that float beside him. They also act as conduits for his magic in some circumstances. When he is boosted he gets 4 of them, and when his demonic powers are active, there are six. He has full control of their positioning. Basically with them and his wand, it makes it so he basically fires magic bullets for his normal attack. And he's pretty fast with them too. Also of note, his wand is summonable as well.
Magic- As the successor of House Fact, Hugo has quite a bit of magical power and it is stated numerous times that he is a magical prodigy as well. He's still young and lacks in some areas, but he does overall have a great deal of power and skill for someone his age. Most of his skills are offensive and defensive in nature because of the threat of demons.
In game he is shown with three specific skills. Each one has two different styles depending on charged or not. The first is his wind shield. When not charged it protects against the next hit he takes. It also can damage an enemy, though it is not as strong as his weapon and does about half damage. It is a greenish color and smaller this way. When charged it is larger and blue and protects against two hits. Either way, it also slows his descent when jumping or falling as well. The second is a trap mine that is basically a thunder bomb. When not charged he sets it and it goes off after a set period of time. When charged he can set it off as he pleases and it makes a larger explosion and does more damage. It appears to be about 10 feet wide when charged. The last one in game is his fire skill. When not charged his Eyes of Fact change to large fireballs and circle around him. When charged the Eyes of Fact also shoot fire as shown here. The range on that is likely about 20 feet, and it is tricky to aim. He does have limited MP, but it also recharges pretty fast. Mostly it is to prevent constant use of magic, but still makes him able to use it pretty often. Usually takes about a minute to fully recharge from nothing, then another about 5 seconds to charge a spell, charging doesn't start until he has enough MP. He can get two uses of the trap mine and fire magic before he runs out, and one of the wind barrier. the wind barrier also has a limited time and at his current level about when it runs out is about when it can be charged and used again, so there's only about a second or two where it won't be active.
Also shown is that he has the ability to detect magical power and can sense the overall nature of the magic, basically whether it is demonic or not. And while it is not outright shown, it is likely he has the capability to use shield magic to create a very hard to destroy barrier much like Dalles and Cain Fact did. He'll need more practice with this, but it likely is easily destroyed if he does this.
Also, it is shown that with his use of the Eyes of Fact and in other official art that he has the capability to levitate small objects. It is shown that in time he will be able to levitate himself, but for now he's only capable of things that he can easily lift with one hand. In a pinch he may be able to use this to slow a fall or lift himself a small amount, but will take more time and practice to get to the point his father is at.
He also does have some items he got in the course of the game that give him abilities. Most won't be all that useful, but still worth a mention. First is a crystal that is used to teleport to purified goddess statues. Canon shows that it can be used to teleport elsewhere, but that was a serious blunder done by another character. Knowing Hugo, with time and study he'll figure out how to make that predictable. He also has an item that lets him hold his breath underwater for longer, one that allows him to kill undead creatures that revive, a mask that reveals hidden objects, and claws that allow him to walk on slippery surfaces and a cloak that heals him while he's standing still. He does also have a Lila Shell which allows long distance communication much like an old fashioned magical telephone, but without another to communicate with it's rather useless.
And one last thing to keep in mind is that physically, Hugo is pathetic and useless. He's not much for running, would suck at using a weapon to actually beat someone up. He only can use magic to defend himself and would be utterly screwed without access to it.
Demonic Power- Hugo has accepted part of the demonic essence from Dalles at his current canon point. Dalles, however, is a sneaky asshole who put in a hypnotic command to not make it become active right away, and when it does, Hugo will go completely insane. The command is set to go active when he is in mortal danger. When he is like this, his overall power increases about three times, he has 6 Eyes of Fact as well. His defense increases and his attacks do a lot more damage. However, the power has a massive drawback. In this state, Hugo is definitely insane and slowly becomes an empty shell with a lot of power and a wish to kill everyone who is weak. Because of how dangerous this is, it will be saved for a player plot and will keep him away from danger as best as possible until then to keep him sane. He can be talked down from this by someone who can push his buttons just right and he has some respect for, even if he hasn't admitted to it yet. In canon Epona talks him down, and in Toal's path Toal snaps him out of it by kicking his ass in a fight. Once he's talked down, it won't come out again. Hugo doesn't like hurting people and doesn't like what he becomes in this state.
Also, anyone who can sense demonic power would definitely sense it even with the power not being active. When it is active, it will be obvious. His eyes change from blue to red and there is a demonic aura surrounding him.
Dash- With one of his magical items Hugo is given the ability to moves quite fast without tiring so easily.
Double Jump- Hugo also has an item that grants him the ability to double jump, which is basically jumping again while in the air to reach greater heights. Very useful especially with his wind ability to slow his descent.
Boost- Basically after a certain amount of time or after taking a decent number of hits Hugo can use what is called boost. Basically this allows him to use four Eyes of Fact, which highly increases his attack power, he has a higher defense and his magic recharges much faster. This has a limited timeframe, however.
Personality: Epona really summed up the first impression Hugo tends to give before their battle quite well. He's "...a regular stuffed shirt, too. Probably the dull and humorless type." and "...all stoic and moody, acting like you’re so much better than everyone else!" Hugo definitely does seem that way when a person first meets him. He does tend to be more of a quiet loner at first and to have no sense of humor at all and he does tend to be uppity towards anyone he deems to be lesser than him. Whether it be a lack of intelligence, talent, or anything else that places a person below Hugo's own standing, he will think less of them until proven otherwise.
Dull, however, turns out to not be a very apt description. True, he is smart and studious, but he also is very blunt and forthright which can make things interesting very fast. Hugo tends to annoy people real fast because of this trait. At the same time, one can definitely trust him to be honest and know he will not be veiling the truth or keeping secrets. He is willing to ask the questions that others would not ask because he values logic, intelligence, and dealing with things quickly over protocols and respect. This isn't to say he's not respectful and breaks rules for no reason, because he tries to be a good person. It is more that he's willing to be less respectful and ask the harder questions that no one else would ask. Basically, he's not going to be blindly loyal to someone just because of who or what they are. He's going to respect them for their words and actions. Though he is blindly loyal to his father, but his father has shown himself worth such loyalty, at least in Hugo's eyes.
He also does actually have a sense of humor, though a darker one. His interactions with Epona especially show this because he has no problem outright insulting her and laughing at her own insults. He also has no problem adjusting a first impression of someone as he gains more information about them. For instance, at first he took Epona to be an unintelligent savage, then as they got to know each other and she helped him at risk to herself and they got to know each other more, he came to respect her because she was a smart girl and he owed her. She just had a different sort of intelligence, one that came more from dealing with people and knowing what made them tick and she is a skilled warrior. He also adjusted his view of Toal and realized that his blind loyalty to his father was not correct in that case and that his father had even warped his view of his older brother.
However, Hugo's biggest faults are with his own self image. He wants to be respected and for people to look up to him. As his father says, he's like a puppy performing tricks for a master, and he likes being that because he wants that praise and adoration. He wants the people around him to like him for being Hugo Fact, not because he's Toal Fact's little brother, or Cain Fact's son. He feels he deserves this sort of respect and does think highly of himself, but he goes about earning the respect of others in ways that actually seems to create more distance. He also has a dangerous and unquenchable thirst for power because he was taught that power is what he should seek and he equates having power to earning respect. After all, the most respected people in Ys have a lot of power. He's starting to understand that no one person can do everything, not even his father or brother can. He's starting to see that his thirst for power is dangerous, but he hasn't quite reached the conclusion that he would soon reach in canon, and that was what caused him to accept Dalles' offer even though he knew he shouldn't.
History: I apologize in advance for the length of this considering his path is about 10 hours of playtime.
To start with, anyone familiar with the main Ys series, especially the first two games should be aware that Ys Origin takes place 700 years before the first game. So if Adol's world seems pretty backwards, Hugo's is even more so, though he's from a time that is later spoken of in legends and from a place that few people in the future have ever seen and many don't even know it truly exists. Ys is a place where magic is commonplace and the people live alongside their twin goddesses. They lead an overall sheltered life and aren't even aware of the fact that people live in places outside of Ys. Because of the recent demon invasion, their land is no longer inhabitable and they had to raise their shrine into the air to have a place to live still. This happened about six months before the canon starts.
And now on to Hugo's own history. Hugo is the second son of one of the Six Priests, Cain Fact. As the second son, he wasn't supposed to be his father's successor, that should have been his older brother, Toal.
But at one point while Hugo was still a child, Toal made the decision to join the Holy Knights instead of being his father's successor and left that to Hugo. Toal knew Hugo was far more talented at magic and would do far better in that position than he would. At this time, Hugo was about six years old from the best estimate of the images given from this time, and he really doesn't remember his brother all that much. We know from Toal's own path that Hugo really adored his big brother before he left, so the hatred Hugo feels now appears to stem from the fact that the big brother he loved so much left him and never came to visit and then on top of that he basically had to live in Toal's shadow. Hugo's father likely didn't help these feelings one bit. The interesting thing is that Toal was actually a bit jealous of Hugo's own accomplishments and felt he was overshadowed by them because he wasn't as good at magic.
So Hugo grew up not seeing much of his brother who was disowned by his father for daring to join the knights instead of studying sorcery like any respectable member of House Fact would. Hugo did prove to be a magical prodigy and while his training was hard, he eventually grew in power enough to be officially named his father's successor. Due to this intense training that lasted for many years, Hugo had pretty much no friends. He's familiar with most of the sorcerers of Ys, but only a passing acquaintance with them.
He was taught to try and seek power where he could because those of the Fact lineage had the greatest magical power. Hugo wanted to please his father and show he was going to do well in his place, so he was happy to seek power to be able to serve the goddesses and Ys as best as he could. He wanted to make a place for himself, and not be a shadow of his brother. And he nearly had accomplished that.
Then one day Ys was attacked by demons in force. Even the powers of all their magic could not do anything to stop the attack. So the Six Priests raised the land around the Solomon Shrine to protect the people. Toal and his commander, Saul Tovah, opted to stay behind and buy them some time to raise the land. Saul died in combat, and Toal was missing and thought to be dead. He was praised as a hero, and yet again Hugo was standing in his brother's shadow and only known for being the younger brother of a hero.
Life was normal enough for a time on the floating island, as normal as it could be anyhow, but then one day the goddesses vanished. After they didn't return for days, the Six Priests decided to send a search party made up of the most skilled remaining among their sorcerers and Holy Knights. Among this group was Hugo.
Except Hugo had another set of orders along with finding the goddesses and aiding in their safe return: he was to find the traitor to Ys and kill him. The traitor that was his brother, Toal.
The group is sent to the surface via a transport spell. But the spell is interrupted by Dalles and the group is separated on the surface. Hugo finds himself at the base of a large tree that can speak to him, the Roda Tree. The tree tells him that the goddesses are in the tower that the demons built nearby. So Hugo sets off to the tower, leaving a message with the tree that if any others from the search party come by that they should be sent that way and he is safe.
He arrives at the tower and is greeted by some of the search party, Father Shion, Eolia and Dino. All three of them are in service to the priests and skilled sorcerers. Hugo offers to go and scout ahead while Dino searches for the rest of the missing search party. Father Shion grants him permission to do so and he takes off into the lower levels of the tower, called the Wailing Blue.
He explores around a bit, gets caught in an annoying teleport trap and then eventually meets one of the bad guys, Epona. They trash talk each other a bit and then battle and Hugo wins. He gets the Mask of Eyes from her and wanders around some more to find a way past that trap.
He eventually finds it when he finds Rico hiding in a hidden room. Rico gives him the blue necklace which protects from evil and that allows him to get past the trap at last. Here he finds more of the search party has arrived as he meets up with the other two sorcerers, Cadena and Miuscha. He wanders some more after talking to them and sending them to help Rico and eventually comes to confront one of the six demons that attacked Ys. He is able to defeat it and continues onward to the next area, the Flooded Prison.
The demons are growing stronger, and he also has to contend with a great deal of water flooding the area. A few places are even off limits to begin with because they are completely immersed and he'd drown. He keeps exploring and eventually runs into Epona again. Epona, of course, wants a rematch. Hugo goads her and tells her that she's just setting herself up for a loss by repeating things. So she takes the bait and ends up surprising him by summoning two demons.
Hugo definitely knows he's in trouble then and was starting to regret goading her, but then the demons turn and attack her. Epona is fearing for her life and in desperation asks Hugo to help her in exchange for her giving information. She'd mentioned previously about someone who resembles Hugo greatly, he's curious enough to agree. So he deals with one of the demons, and Epona deals with the other. She returns and tells him about a man they call "The Claw" who looks a lot like Hugo. Epona mentions her suspicion that they are brothers or something, which hits a bit too close to home and Hugo basically tells her to shut up and leave. She does leave and he continues onward, finding the blue dragon's scales to deal with the rest of the area.
The rest of the area is pretty uneventful, he trudges through it, gets new magic and then finds a room with a pillar and a giant centipede to fight. he wins that and heads off to the next area, the Guilty Fire.
Here, he finally finds one of the Goddesses, Feena. They have a short chat and then Epona and the man called "The Claw" arrive. It does truly turn out that The Claw is Hugo's older brother, Toal. The two of them fight, and while the battle is an optional win, going to assume a loss here for Hugo because it makes more sense with the rest of his path (that and he still loses even if he wins). Another of the enemy, Zava, arrives on the scene then and they take Feena into their custody. Zava orders Toal to kill Hugo and he moves to do this, but the Holy Knights and the sorcerers arrive to put a stop to that. They aren't in time to prevent Feena from being taken away, however, just to save Hugo's sorry butt. Everyone heads back to their base and discuss how to deal with all of this. The search party is also finally fully assembled with the last member being found and Dino returning with her. Father Shion then reveals that the Black Pearl had gone missing as well and everyone then moves out to find Reah, figure out a way to free Feena and to also protect the Black Pearl that is likely with Reah.
Hugo continues on and finds another artifact of Ys, this one with a fire element, and it happens to be the sword of Commander Saul Tovah who died in the battle Toal was supposed to have died in. Saul's ghost appears as Hugo is draining the artifact's power and expresses his concern about Hugo's lust for power and warns him that he still has time to choose the path of the righteous. Hugo doesn't listen to this and tells Saul to basically shut up because he's dead and obviously was too weak to win the battle. He continues onwards and finds a creepy area called the Devil's Corridor. Epona happens to overhear this and Hugo gets mad at her and asks if she is wanting to continue their fight, but she ends up leaving without a fight, how strange.
The Devil's Corridor is a nice little trap the enemy made. It transmits a creepy sounding music that literally will drive anyone who isn't a demon mad and then kill them. Hugo is stuck for a time here until he finds a Roo who gives him a hammer and gets a hint about how the Devil's Corridor works from Epona. He's finding it rather strange how Epona seems to now be helping him while still giving threats and saying how she'll happily kill him next time they meet. Hugo even asks her outright why she's doing this and she says she doesn't know. Actually, in Toal's path he comments that Hugo and Epona would have made a great couple if they met under different circumstances, and he's right, they do.
Anyway, Hugo deals with it just fine from her hint, shuts the music down, and gets past the demon boss in this area and moves on to the next area: Silent Sands. On his way up, he runs into Toal again. This time, they don't fight, though Hugo is more than eager to fight his brother again. Instead Toal basically berates Hugo saying that power he doesn't understand is worse than having no power in reference to what Hugo stole from Saul Tovah's sword. He leaves, but Hugo is very confused what he means because power is power, right?
Anyway, he continues onwards, gains the nice handy double jump ability and then finds Reah and the Black Pearl at last. He asks some questions of her about why they left and about Toal, but isn't too satisfied with her answers. He thinks she's hiding something and Toal did something to her to make her think a traitor should be let go. She has to go, but before she does she gives him an item to deal with the undead in the area. After that, he's contacted by Eolia via the Lila Shell and told of Feena's location, which is nearby.
He heads to the place where Feena is being held, a smaller tower called Rado's Annex. Inside he finds it is a trap and meets Zava. Zava taunts him a bit and then eventually sics one of her familiars on him because she wants to see the Eyes of Fact in action. He fights and wins and she's quite impressed and says he really should meet their leader Dalles. That doesn't go over well and eventually Zava leaves. Hugo goes to try and find Feena and only finds a very ominous looking door sealed with pure hatred. Hugo, being the moron that he can be, tries to use brute force to open the door. Well, brute force in the mind of a sorcerer, which basically means throw all his magical power at it. The door then throws it all back at him, knocking him backwards and he falls unconscious.
He wakes up and finds out Epona was watching over his dumb unconscious ass. Again, quite strange because she's the enemy and all and he'd think she would slit his throat while he was out cold. She claims she didn't because she's not that much of a sicko, but it's becoming more obvious that she likes him. Of course, Hugo is too much of an idiot to realize this and Epona is too afraid to admit to it, so she just says she doesn't know why and when he says they should just continue their fight, she laughs and says she's not too much of a sicko to attack someone who can't do anything more than mouth off. Really, Hugo just needs to learn to shut up at times. Epona asks Hugo why he hates Toal so much, and Hugo talks a bit about his childhood. From this, Epona figures out that Hugo actually does care about Toal a lot, but he's too afraid to admit to it and he's struggling to find his own place, and she understands this quite well since she has a big brother too, Kishgal. Hugo, of course denies all of this as he always does when someone is completely right about him and he doesn't want to admit to it. So he instead tells Epona she should just go like she was ordered to, and she does.
Hugo then consults with Cadena and Miuscha about opening the door, eventually they figure out how to open it and find Feena trapped within a barrier. The Holy Knights arrive as well and they all discuss some things. Feena then asks them to find Reah and the Black Pearl and to protect them.
Hugo then leaves, as he does so, Miuscha comes out and offers to be an ear if he ever wants to talk. Everyone seems so concerned about him, but he won't listen and ends up yelling at Miuscha and causing her to cry and run away. Cadena comes out and basically berates him for being an idiot. Poor Hugo really is feeling down at this point and realizes all he can do is just go on and help find Reah.
So onward he goes, beats another boss, and off to the next area: the Blighted Blood. Really, one can easily forget this place is a tower with these weird areas.
After some exploration, Hugo has yet another run in with Epona. She tells him Dalles is finally on the move and to be careful. Yet again she opts not to fight Hugo, claiming that they area is a bad one for a fight. He continues on and eventually runs into Yunica fretting over the other knights who were just petrified by a man in black robes, who has to be Dalles since we haven't met this one yet.
Yunica begs Hugo to help, but Hugo just doesn't know curses well enough to know how to break this one, only that it is a curse, and a powerful one. He tries to convince Yunica to get Cadena's help, but they end up saying things and Yunica gets very mad with him and ends up running away after telling him what good was all his power and that he's just basically a greedy asshole. He could have worded things better, but he did have a point that it was better to defer to an expert.
He continues onward since there is little he can do about the knights, and eventually he runs into Toal again. They chat, Toal gives him a replica Black Pearl that he claims will help the knights and leaves.
Then Hugo heads back to Rado's Annex and finds Yunica and the others fretting about how to power an idol that would help the knights. Then he sees what Toal meant and gives them the Black Pearl replica. Yunica runs off to help the knights and Feena thanks Hugo for the help. He leaves to go check on the knights, they are fine and give him the key needed to get to the guardian demon of that area and Yunica apologizes for her fit of anger and Hugo says he could have been more respectful. Overall, the knights all agree that they are in his debt and they will let bygones be bygones as far as his earlier behavior that made them mad and work together as best as they can towards their common goal.
So Hugo goes forward and as he's about to unlock the door to the guardian demon he finds a strange man in a black robe there, Dalles. Obviously the head honcho had to come out at some point and he's quite interested in Hugo.
Dalles offers Hugo something he just cannot refuse: power. He says he is willing to let Hugo try demonic power to see how it works with him, since Hugo declined the initial offer of just taking it. Dalles surmises that Hugo doesn't quite trust himself or understand the power and eventually wins Hugo over. True, Hugo is an idiot here, but one cannot help but realize that Dalles is quite the charismatic man at this time and he knows every single one of Hugo's buttons already and pushes every them all.
Roleplay Sample - Log:
Finally he could get a break. All that running around in this creepy tower was getting exhausting. True, he couldn't stop and rest, but at least for now he could slow to an easy walk and worry a bit less about running into any demons.
Though thanks to earlier, he knows even here on one of these catwalks, there may be no demons, but there was a chance of Darklings coming to bother him. At least the area was small so the chances of a fight were slim. He still had his wand and Eyes of Fact ready, because he'll be going back to that strange place. Every twist and turn of this tower brought something even stranger than before. Water like blood that hurt to walk in, shifting sands, deep water, fire and lava, and much more. Not to mention the demons that were getting stronger and stronger.
And the leader of them all was on the move, he had been warned as much. And the next time he met Toal it was likely to end in a battle. But did he want to kill his brother still? And could he? Hugo wasn't so sure any longer than his father was correct about Toal being a traitor. It appeared that way, but there was something more.
All he could do was keep going. He wasn't at the top yet, and Lady Reah was still missing and not in the hands of the enemy. What he would do with Toal could be determined when the time came and upon what evidence was seen.
Roleplay Sample - Journal:
[The video is quite disorienting considering that it is upside down and not pointing at any person directly. In the corner a hint of blond hair shows the person who is failing at the use of even a communicator.]
I hope this is correct. It is like no Lila Shell that I have seen. [And then the video turns off, the voice still remains.]
Is it even working?
This game includes horrible mental and physical torture of your character. After reading the rules/faq for clarification, how do you expect your character to handle this and continue to function? Hugo shows later that he is capable of overcoming outright insanity. He's pretty strong-willed when it comes down to it. Also he handles himself pretty well in some tough situations, like nearly getting killed by his own brother and fighting enormous demons. Even if he is scared, he's not going to show fear, and he even mouths off to his enemies in a hilarious way.
He's going to totally have trouble with anything technological in nature though. But should fit in well with his tendency to make cracks about people.
Questions? Comments? Crazed and creative statements? Those go here.