The Betrayed

The Betrayed is a stray wandering vagabond and occasional contestant in DBA. An old senile drunkard, The Betrayed is often seen as a loud nuisance to others. It's hard to believe that this man was once the strongest warrior in the Land of Eleven Swords. Many centuries ago, The Betrayed was the final strongest member of the Elusive Eleven, who governed and protected the land as its elite samurai. However, the other ten feared The Betrayed and his incredible power and mastery over the sword. So they devised a plan to defeat him through every trick they had, and after a horrible grizzly fight they managed to defeat him, becoming The Almighty X. However, they knew this betrayal would bring horrific karma onto them, and to escape such a cycle they used a powerful ritual they found to create an epithet within him and bind him to the living, forcefully keeping his soul out of samsara and weakening him into a frail and pathetic form. Even after their own deaths, the X attached their souls to the epithet and torment their once friend for the rest of eternity. Over time The Betrayed went insane from his damnation, and the details of his past were forgotten. The names of the X and even his own names he has long forgotten, simply referring to them with pseudonyms.
The Betrayed spends much of his time drinking, accidentally stabbing himself in the spleen due to his epithet, rummaging through garbage, babbling about nonsense, attempting suicide, yelling curse words really loudly, wandering the earth in a haze, and occasionally managing miraculous feats of swordplay which glimmer with a fraction of the glory he once had. He also maintains "The List", which is a massive collection of things which has pissed him off at one point or another, which he swears karmic vengeance on whenever he finds a way to die for real.
== Powers ==
The Betrayed's epithet is haunted by the spirits of The Almighty X, those that betrayed him and continue to make him suffer. Each of them had their own unique epithet and fighting style, which manifests into various parts of The Betrayed's kit. Most importantly, they can "incarnate" into people in a combat at random. This gives them powerful boosts, often made stronger when used against The Betrayed. This can often make fights significantly more difficult if granted to enemies. If by some miracle The Betrayed manages to defeat someone with all ten of the Almighty X within them, he gains a random, potentially large amount of stamina and proficiency. In addition, he can focus to force the Almighty X to incarnate into a new person, healing himself at the cost of forcing them into a random enemy and adding another spirit into the mix.
# The Actor - A mysterious figure who is known for their deceit. They grant their incarnation the ability to disbelieve attacks against them to weaken them.
# The Honorable - A straight forward warrior who prefers a duel. They grant their incarnation advantage when attacking The Betrayed, and visa versa. If The Betrayed doesn't land the final blow to defeat them, he permanently loses stamina, but if he manages to defeat them he permanently gains stamina.
# The Burnt - Not much is known about The Burnt other than their affinity for fire. They grant their incarnation resistance to flames and grants them a powerful fiery explosion technique, while making The Betrayed vulnerable to fire.
# The Excellent - A wealthy collector of many tools and rare artifacts. They grant their incarnation bonuses to wielding their items, increase their speed, and improve their wardrobe with the rarest of fabrics.
# The Luxurious - A trickster who could charm their enemies. They grant their incarnation the ability to bewitch enemies with strange controlling pheromones and command them to their bidding, which The Betrayed is especially weak to.
# The Learned - A studious fighter with an impossible wealth of knowledge. They grant their incarnation knowledge of The Betrayed's fighting style and pitfalls to capitalize on, and can occasionally bless them with flashes of insight or other knowledge.
# The Brash - A silver tongued warrior who could kill with words before drawing a blade. They grant their incarnation immunity against mental effects, and allow their insults to literally cut targets.
# The Foreigner - A strange fighter from another land. They grant their incarnation altered internal physiology, making them immune to poisons and diseases, and allowing them to modify their attacks to inflict statuses of their choice.
# The Mirror - Not to be confused with Inev The Mirror. They grant their incarnation access to all of The Betrayed's skills, without the downsides of his curse.
# The Assassin - The Almighty X's strongest. They grant their incarnation complete invisiblity, multiplying their damage especially against The Betrayed. They also cause another Almighty X to be incarnated with them. However, if The Betrayed lands the final blow on The Assassin, then they not only grow in power but can temporarily steal the incarnations of the person, gaining their benefits.
The epithet Decemvirate acts as less of a power of his own, and more like a curse. The Betrayed is significantly less likely to succeed at any and all ventures he does. His every action is hampered by his epithet. In gameplay terms, this means he rolls d10 exploding die instead of d20s, making his roll average half a usual person's result, making him twice as likely to critically fail, and five times less likely to critically succeed. There is still a small chance there that his die can explode multiple times, meaning that hypothetically The Betrayed can naturally do better on any action than anyone else, but this is such an incredibly small chance that it rarely shows. Luckily, he has found a way to weaponize this property against enemies, allowing him to utilize his epithet to cut people's success metaphysically and force them to use his dice instead of their own.
The Betrayed has forgotten much of his old fighting styles, but the basics of swordplay are still etched into his body and soul so deeply that nothing could remove them. He can use this alongside his epithet, which allows him to instantly conjure one of the Almighty X's swords into his hands. Unfortunately their powers are sealed away, only facsimiles of the originals. Only a hint of their original grandeur is accessed while that spirit is currently incarnated nearby, granting the swords some additional powers. The Betrayed has adapted to these swords, able to chain all ten of them in a string assuming his curse doesn't stop him. He can also perform an incredibly quick dash with a blade to both move and attack at a second's notice.
# The Actor - The Actor's blade is a kendo sword. Usually meant for training, it is actually more lethal than a regular blade, seeming to resonate with The Betrayed's curse.
# The Honorable - A katana which becomes stronger when fighting its own incarnation.
# The Burnt - A blade with a smoking pipe built into its base. Allows The Betrayed to spray a smoke screen of ash.
# The Excellent - A finely crafted sword that literally costs the enemy to be struck by. This blade is not only stronger, but takes strength from the enemies it hits.
# The Luxurious - This blade allows The Betrayed to calm his senses by briefly pausing, increasing his focus on his next attack.
# The Learned - A sword somehow forged from paper. It cuts through flesh well enough to make targets bleed significantly.
# The Brash - This sword cuts not just at a person, but at a person's heart, making them take emotional damage and become disheartened.
# The Foreigner - A rapier made of the stars themselves. This not only deals extra damage but bypasses all forms of resistance.
# The Mirror - A gladius which gains the stats and properties of its current incarnation's weapon.
# The Assassin - A dagger, which will kill targets instead of knocking them out on critical hits.
The Betrayed also obtained a sword of his own from Ridbi Gambi. It is not as strong as his original sword that he lost long ago, but it's designed to cut away at those with forms of immortality to deal extra damage. At base it's also much stronger than any one sword from his epithet while sealed.
There is one powerful technique The Betrayed has managed to hold onto through his eternal pilgrimage, though it has grown weaker due to The Betrayed not understanding how it works anymore. In his prime, The Betrayed discovered that within every second, there exists another second. Time itself had a second dimension, and through accessing that dimension one could do so much more at one time. By channeling this, he is able to take a random amount of actions in an incomprehensible blur, one that no one can interfere with.
The Betrayed cannot die. The primary function of his epithet is to resurrect him on death, keeping him tethered to the mortal plane. Should he die, he will return to this world with all of his stamina and proficiency completely reset. This somewhat helps him as well, as he can not only bring himself back from unconsciousness, but will then refuse to go down by anyone other than an incarnation of the X if one is present.
Through great effort, The Betrayed can also force the "shadow" of a member of The Almighty X onto a person. This allows him to keep track of that person's general condition from seemingly anywhere, and likely grants that person power or boosts relating to that member. The specifics of this ability are yet to be understood fully.
== Destruction Bench Agreement ==
=== A Notable Bounty ===
In The Betrayed's first appearance, the party fought in a data bounty against all of Ballast's player characters. Thanks to the help and support of the party, The Betrayed was able to not only coalesce all of the Almighty X into one person, but landed the final blow on them. For the first time, The Betrayed felt something other than the desire to die. Because of this, he pledged eternal fealty to the members of the party. He was taken in by Donovan, who lets him crash at his place.
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=== Episode 146 ===
The Betrayed wandered into the party as they investigated disappearances in a corn maze. The Betrayed was immediately put on edge due to the presence of Lord, but was otherwise his same, crazy, half paying attention self. Due to an enemy attacking him through the corn as he attempted to make a path, he misread the situation as him being attacked by corn and put it on The List. He later fought these enemies head on, but failed to succeed at a single action of his and was defeated.
== Trivia ==
* The Betrayed was created by Ballast in an adoptathon. He is inspired by Sekiro from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, the entirety of the game Furi, and Yoshimitsu from Tekken. He was explicitly designed around the idea of playing fundamentally differently than any other character, hence the d10 exploding system. He is also meant as a "hard mode" character who has the potential for greatness but has massive weaknesses to overcome.
* The Betrayed is utterly dripping with lore and that's cool.