As she made her way through the sandy labyrinth, Pithy could not help throwing the occasional concerned glance over her shoulder. So far, the blades of ice combing the path before her had turned up nothing of note, beyond the occasional bone buried in the dust, and the only sound that reached her was that of her boots sinking in the sand, a sound that seemed to rake at her ears no matter how carefully she stepped forward. Not even the magelight floating ahead had managed to draw the attention of any beasts that might dwell in this darkness.

For all intents and purposes, she was alone in these tunnels, but she still could not keep herself from seeing sudden, fleeting movement in the shadows ahead and behind. Imagining, not seeing, she told herself. That was more likely, but it did little to dispel her concern. If she was forced to retreat down this maze, she was not certain she would be able to retrace her steps.

She almost did not notice when the light of her magelight began to merge with the warm, flickering light of fire, but when she did, she warily drew it back to herself. Because fire often means life. It could not have lit itself.

Pithy paused, listening for any sounds that might clue her in to another’s presence, but only the sound of her own breathing reached back. After a moment, she nodded to herself and, with a steadying breath, allowed the magelight to vanish. The corridor was immediately plunged into darkness, held at bay only by the fire coming from the room ahead, and by the faint light coming from the runes on her rapier. With a thought, the blades of ice ahead of her slid out of the sand and rejoined the weapons that hovered behind her.

Pithy approached the passageway slowly, cursing the awkward footing she had in this sand and the shuffling sound that inevitably rose from her footsteps.

Soon, she found the source of the rotting scent she had followed within the room opposite to the flame. Corpses of… things. Much too large to have made it into the tunnels normally, which meant that whatever had killed them had taken the trouble of reassembling the carcasses once it had brought them there. As for the purpose of that, she could not tell. If they were to be food, keeping them assembled meant little. If they were to be bait for different prey, the stench would be just as powerful if not more were the innards carelessly expose to the air. It was this focused analysis that prevented her from retching at the sheer smell of rot, but she could not get rid of the rancid taste in her mouth.

Having enough of the sight, she inched closer to the passage from which light poured out. She peeked into the room and blinked.

At most, she had expected a bonfire in an otherwise empty room, but what greeted her eye was proper furniture and mounds of scroll and paper. It seemed that she had chanced upon someone’s studio, one that reminded her far more of her own world than the offices of the Citadel.

Just then, her own blue eye met the piercing gaze of the creature sitting within. Pithy froze when she realized the room’s only occupant had noticed her, had likely been aware of her presence long before she became aware of his. Pithy reflexively licked her lips and found them dry.

Rather than show hostility for her intrusion, however, the beast spoke.

“Good evening.”

Politely, at that.

“I mean you no harm, I assure you. I thought I detected a new aroma on the breeze, one far more refined than the malodorous repugnance of those bloated spindlelegs. Welcome to the humble lair of Actaeon. You must be here for the tournament. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Its body reminded her of the werewolves she was familiar more with, but rare among them were those that managed to string together a coherent sentence in their transformed state. This one, however, was quite talkative. It was likely something else entirely.

Thinking it best to play along, she stood at the door’s frame, allowing the creature—Actaeon, it said. Treat it as a mindless beast at your own peril, for it is clearly not one—to get a good look at her. Her blades of ice held still, hovering outside of the room where Actaeon could not see them.

Had she not seen its like among those called by the College? She realized she could not quite recall. The memory felt muddled. Had something happened when she was transported to this strange city? Pithy shook her head. She had held the impression only participants and College staff would be within this city, and as far as she had seen that staff had been entirely composed of humans.

“Are you not a participant?” She answered the question with a question.

Giving no evidence of being offput by his visitor’s standoffishness, the hunter shook his head. “No. I do not know why, but these catacombs and I were whisked here out of the blue some time ago. It felt like a dream—a dream of blood and hunger, and when it faded away, I was here. The spindlelegs were here before me, but I exterminated them. If I had the proper chemicals I could make better trophies of them, but alas, I’ve been more focused on shadowing the personnel of that institute when they’re in the area.” Unprompted, Actaeon treated Pithy to a torrent of information, perhaps seeking to establish himself as personable and—despite his appearance—not a threat.

Pithy grimaced as she sifted through the creature’s words, latching on to the most important part.

Namely, that this tomb had been transported here separately from the Crucible’s contestants. That would account for the sudden shift in the architecture between the Justice Hub’s building and this crypt. Had the Justice Hub itself been brought over from a different world as well, then? Too soon to tell, even if this one speaks true. In that case, he could have learned of the Crucible when stalking the College staff.

Whatever the thought, she knew better than to put words into the mouth of one she hoped to interrogate, so she continued, “How did you come to know of the tournament?”

Actaeon’s gaze did not deviate. “During my frequent trips throughout this citadel and its surroundings, I have encountered people from the institute a handful of times, and they mentioned the tournament often. I expected it would only be a matter of time before others started arriving.”

Word of mouth will sell a battle royale even in a deserted city. Pithy grunted, mildly annoyed by the idea. Still, if the beast spoke true, he could prove valuable as a source of information. The woman took a breath, deciding diplomacy would yield the best results.

“Actaeon, you said?” she began, “As you have deduced, I am a participant in the College’s tournament. That said, I only recently arrived in this city, so I would ask you of your time spent here, and about these tunnels. Will you speak to me, even if I have little to offer in return?”

A moment of silence passed between the two, and the hunter’s expression changed. If a ferocious fanged maw could be said to be smiling, his was, without a doubt. “The company alone is reason enough. I would be happy to talk to you.”

With those words, the dim light faded from her rapier’s runes, and the rustling sound of something sliding into the sand came from outside the room.

“Good,” Pithy said as she moved past the arch.

Hunter and cryomancer spoke for some time in the musty half-light of Actaeon's transplanted domain. Though as it turned out his excursions from the sandy tunnels did not range as far as Pithy might have hoped, he offered some useful tidbits about the surrounding areas. In this manner, he expounded upon the places which Oren, the announcer and a persona hitherto unknown to Actaeon, had named. The Governance Hub was a place where numerous civilians worked and lived, many in service to the city itself. Rather than a king, lord, or other such sovereign, the City of Echoes once had a council of notable citizens who saw to the metropolis' affairs. Numerous departments, each with their own function, designation, and so forth, filled the place, and it sported a higher degree of affluence than the surrounding city. In the other direction, the coastline awaited with its many stores, apartments, warehouses, and shipyards. Actaeon, with some relish, described the great abandoned boats as being like giant, bloated corpses looming above the docks.

As for Pithy's inquiries about a vault and College personnel, he was less certain. Actaeon could rattle off a few names that alone meant nothing to her, and he didn't know anything about a storehouse of treasures—though he postulated that, if his catacombs had been by some arcane method interposed into a new world, they might have overwritten what previously occupied that space. To him, the whole situation was fascinating. For the sake of conversation, the hunter attempted to steer the talk towards his new acquaintance's own origin after his knowledge dried up, but Pithy politely rebuffed his questions. Following that, the two were at a loss, and even if somewhat put-out by the Lady in White's secrecy Actaeon offered her advice as to the best place to stay nearby. He, perhaps needlessly, accompanied her in order to guide her back the way she came, and bid her farewell under the insane dance of light in the generator room.



Within the unusual building, Bonesword found nothing out of the ordinary. A sort of pirate playground, doubtlessly meant for the entertainment of the younger generations, dominated the place. An immense hole carved into the pier, with wooden walls and numerous ropes, rock walls, and staircases, allowed energetic visitors to descend all the way down to the water to enjoy a self-contained saltwater pool. Perturbingly, though, the center of the pool sported what appeared to be a dead mascot slumped over on a large, plastic facsimile of a sea spire. Considering the skeleton's last run-in with a dead body, and how the rush of blood seemingly beckoned a freakish occurrence, leaving this one alone was surely the preferable option.

Beyond those things, all that Bonesword acquired was a rain-proof place where he might be able to spend the night, even if he did not need sleep.



A terrifying display of fire and hatred—yet with nobody to watch and applaud. With the certain death of their devoured comrade, the platoon of soldiers had decided to depart with great haste. To cover their trail, they dropped a few grenades, and like lightning the soldiers were out of there. Fear gave them wings to fly fast and far, unhindered by a fascination for the supernatural or an excess of respect for the fallen, and with their task already complete nothing remained to hold them back. A garble of unknown language into a handheld radio led to the arrival of a pitch-black transport chopper with two rotors, and into it the squad disappeared. In no time at all, the flying machine vanished into the rising storm. They left the peace permanently shattered, stained by blood and flame.



Whether their guesses were right or not, the ladies kept them to themselves, clearly less than happy about Teller doing his best to take over their operation but not caring enough to argue. Following his direction as best they could, Amelia and Guðrún embarked on their hunt for ghosts.

Blythe Towers, when the trio came to it, certainly fit the bill in terms of spookiness. In an entire abandoned city, an isolated location needed something special to stand out as particularly neglected and derelict, but this condo in particular went above and beyond. Coated in dust and festooned with webbing, stuffed with broken down, strewn-around furniture, and offering ambiance to spare, it put Amelia on edge in particular. If Guðrún was feeling frightened, she buried it beneath a scowl while the trio explored. Still, they encountered nothing extraordinary until they reached the top floor. Even in the stairwell, a red flag confronted them in the form of a carpet of ash. A layer of the black powder blanketed the upper floor completely, and one door at the end of the hall was open. Within was an apartment with snuffed-out candles and, despite all the soot, only one thing out of place: a lit cigar on the coffee table, and a symbol burnt into the wood. It was a clawed left hand with the pinky and index fingers extended overlaying a circle of feathers.

On the way out, however, the College ladies were startled by a rat running across the floor, and on instinct Guðrún immediately warped herself and Amelia away in a vortex of dust and ash.



Out of the bank of fog, Oren's drone appeared. The frenetic, high-pitched hum of its rotors served to disturb the heavy quiet that inundated the Settlement following the Queen of Terror's decapitation. For the second time in less than ten minutes, it projected a two-dimensional image of the announcer, but this time his indelible grin looked rather bemused, like the face of a teenager whose brother had turned off the television in the middle of a show he was trying out. He held up his hands in congratulation. “Well, well, well! That was fast. Guess you assassin types don't mess around. Even got a sense for the theatrical. Lemme tell ya, -and this is purely instructive- if people went to the movies and paid full-price for some tickets, but the credits rolled right after the intro sequence, doncha think they'd feel robbed? No matter. Your next opponent isn't a dumb brute, that's for sure. Here, kid. For you!” A wooden box detached from the drone's bottom with a loud clack, and it smacked into the moist grass by Jin's feet.



The look on Oren's face, even before he continued speaking, indicated he wasn't quite done yet. “Now that I mention it, you'd be better off bunking down for the night in one of these cabins rather than looking for Round 2. There's a stupid heavy rain coming that'll just ruin your day. TTYL!” As the first few drops began to pour from the sky, and lightning flashed through the clouds, Oren's flying machine beat a hasty retreat. All around Jin, the Settlement's cabins and trailers lay scattered in a random pattern, with numerous soon-to-be-useless fire pits all around. Most of the makeshift abodes bore locked doors, but such a mundane obstacle could pose no issue for a trained assassin. If Jin took his time deciding where he'd spend the night, however, and happened to glance skyward, a massive black shadow in the air could be glimpsed a couple miles away. For about a quarter hour it remained before the storm grew too thick to see it, and the rain began to pound on the Settlement's wooden roofs.



Raining cats and dogs was one thing, but during the night following the Crucible's first round, it practically rained lions and wolves. Lightning split the heavens and thunder shook buildings to their foundations, all amidst the uproarious deluge, though that wasn't to say it didn't serve as the perfect sleeping aid for some. Even still, the inferno that had been the Forest King in the middle of upper-left region of the City -known as the Park- did not die out, sustained by the chemicals soaked into the wood by the efforts of Seraphim's opponent. The hours drifted by, long and peaceful enough despite the inclement weather for all who needed it to get some sleep, those who hungered to scrounge up some food, and those plagued by excessive curiosity to toy with their new items. At around four in the morning, the downpour ceased, but it left its mark behind. Throughout the entire City of Echoes, enough water had accumulated to badly flood certain areas of it. Urban areas with proper drainage systems fared the best, but the Governance Hub's somehow deficient ducts left it in a sorry state, and the Historical District sported spots that were positively swamped. With the death of its tentacled ruler, and the riotous churning of the ocean, the phantasmagorical city of Rl'yeh sunk back beneath the waves.

However, risen waters weren't all that awaited those who woke at the break of dawn.

At six o'clock on the dot, the four explosive payloads planted beneath the heart of Downtown Commercial District by an unknown black ops squad detonated. The noise -and tremor- that followed were nothing short of cataclysmic. Not a soul was too far away to hear the guttural krakoom, and the quake shook clocks off walls as far away as the Settlement. In the area surrounding Main Street, however, the apocalypse had surely come. The earth itself tore apart, and into a great yawning blackness an entire city block plummeted noisily. For more than an hour afterward, the dust in the region blotted out the sun, and afterward the City of Echoes bore a gaping wound. Yet, the implications of the calamitous blast were perhaps more terrifying than the explosion itself. In any normal city, the devastation would have been immense, but only here did the earth open up and the buildings crumble down into dark. Far beneath the Commercial District, it seemed, the ground was hollow, and even after the dirty clouds blew away the air was thick with questions. What could possibly be down there to warrant such a brutally direct, uncaring approach to accessing it? Who had blown the ground open in the first place?

One thing was for sure—the City of Echoes wasn't quite so abandoned anymore. Black helicopters zipped through the white, cloudy sky far above the reach of any contestant, and unidentified flying objects far more strange-looking hovered between buildings as if searching for something. Even they paled in comparison to a great black shape above even the clouds, not unlike a monstrous bird, casting an inky black shadow down as it hovered over the chasm that separated Uptown and Downtown.

At six-thirty, each remaining contestant's phylactery came to life, its internal microphone abuzz with a familiar voice.

“Good morning! Your friendly, neighborhood announcer here! Before you ask, lemme just say: we don't know what the hell that explosion was for sure. Honestly, a lot of weird stuff is going on, and the grand old Inquisitional College has let me know that we're not standing idly by. Starting today, roving College teams are gonna by going around the city, trying to get a lead on everything that's going on. If you see's 'em, feel free to say hi, but play nice. Furthermore! There have been a few discoveries that the College has seen fit to share. For a while, the top nerds have been studying these things called 'Echoes', which appear to be places that don't belong 'phasing in', so to speak. As far as they know, it's places only, but who knows what's going on? There are also what we're calling 'Factions'. All we have are photos and radar data, but there are new movements all throughout the city, especially the sky. So, keep an eye out for anything weird, and feel free to report to me or any College teams you find. If you help out the nerds, the nerds will help you with artifacts. You know those things you got from my boxes last night? Well, the College has loads of them, and they're sharing with anyone who's caring.”

“Anyway, now that the prelude's out, on to the main announcement!”

There came a sound of rustling papers, and Oren clearing his throat. “First off, Round 2 is now is session. All of ya need to find and beat your second opponent by the end of the day. Your world has grown larger: your first foe was in your zone, but Round 2 is intra-zone, so get ready to explore. Now, ya might ask me: oh brilliant and handsome Oren, I wanna kick some ass so bad, but how am I gonna find some ass? Well, allow me to introduce my new subsystem: phone a friend! Starting in thirty minutes, ya can call me for some help up to three times, and I can steer ya in the right direction or give ya the low-down on your surroundings. Oh, and if ya like, ya can ask me to permanently link your and your opponent's phylactery coms for a nice (or not-so-nice) chat prior to the main event. Sounds fun, right? You betcha! Get out there and give it all you've got, folks, or you'll regret it!”

The microphone clicked off, leaving each contestant with a boatload of new information, a reminder of his or her mission, a handful of boons to help attain it, and a deadline in which to do so.

For Gaben's Chosen, however, his mic gave a slur of feedback, as though his communicator was too close to the transmission's source.

The skeleton 'woke' up from his 'nap' to the sounds of explosions, which he quickly disregarded because of the announcer saying that nobody at the Inquisitional College knew what was going on with that. Bonesword had been in his fair share of chaotic situations, so this wasn't out of the ordinary. The skeleton calmly listened to the announcer give out information until he brought up that there would be college staff roaming around, that they needed information about the weird anomalies that were occurring in the City of Echoes, and they'd be willing to give away things like the Watch that Bonesword got in exchange.

The zombie Klowns came to mind, and the Watch gave the skeleton the perfect way to explain to the College how they acted and what they were.

Bonesword prepared to leave the museum, when he took a moment to take the place into his mind for a minute. If new places were showing up everywhere unexplained, this had to be one of those places. The captain didn't look like he came from this world, and this told his entire story as best as it could. What if these places - Echoes - were memories of people in the city, specifically ones that held phylacteries? It would explain why this place was here pretty decently, even though Bonesword expected something more along the lines of a pirate ship.

The skeleton left the building into the outside air and climbed onto the stump which had waited for him that entire night. The stump roared to life as Bonesword gave it a command. "Take me to the nearest College Staff." They needed to know what Bonesword had figured out.

The Spoils of War, and Other Consequent Shakeups

'I have no sexual interest in her,' Motley told the drone. 'And I assure you, she was never in a good spot to win.' He wasn't certain the announcer had heard him, and alas wouldn't have the opportunity to proceed with future questioning, as he was already flying away, once more out the door. Nonetheless, that left him alone with his foe and the box, which when opened revealed something that looked very much like a lighter, with, what else but, a light switch on the side. And yet when he flicked the top open and pushed the switch up, what he was presented with was... well, in place of a fuel nozzle, what almost appeared to be a light-emitting diode, rising and falling, turning on and off, as he flicked the switch in the corresponding direction.

But something like that was sure to be more than just an overcomplicated torch. Weren't these meant to be artifacts of significant strength? Or at least esoteric powers - much like Stands, now that he considered it. So who knew? Perhaps turning it on and off was summoning and unsummoning some form of powerful spirit... or secretly encouraging a burst of flame? He couldn't say without testing it... outside, of course, just in case, for the threat of rain was no issue for him.

So first, Motley tried to get it to shoot fire, in some form or another. No dice.

Next, he wondered if perhaps it would act as a magic wand of some sort. Though he succeeded in looking somewhat foolish for a few minutes, this also bore no fruit.

And after that, he went back to pure offensive possibilities, this time the firing of immense light beams, or ice shards, or bullets, or even just rubber balls, anything and everything he could think of. Still nothing.

At this point, Motley decided to take it back inside, not wanting to overfrustrate himself on dead ends. Though it represented quite the riddle, it was certainly one worth figuring out, whether by the light of the Sun or by that of the television, currently showing a news story about a war somewhere or other. And that sparked another idea: could it turn electronics on and off remotely? Such a widespread possibility would certainly be useful, of course... especially if one of his foes possessed some electrically-powered device.

And upon pointing it at the television and willing something to happen, the lights in the device went out, seeming very much like they'd been sucked into the object in his hand. Success at last, perhaps. He quickly closed the lighter, just in case it automatically undid his progress, only to realise that though it refused to show an image, the TV still emitted sound. Which meant it wasn't off... at least, not until Motley turned it off, and then back on, only to find it still lacked an image. Which meant... what?

Think through the possibilities, Motley reminded himself, falling back on the knowledge of quite a few fights with Ripple bearers and Stand users alike. Very rarely was everything as it seemed in those cases, particularly when it came to Stands. The television has no image, but is otherwise fully functional, so it's not a device to turn other devices on and off. It looked like it took the light from the television, so does it absorb abstract concepts? No, that seems a bit too off-the-wall... but it did get rid of the light. So what if...?

Casually, he flicked the device open again, observing the LED at its tip. Then he aimed it back towards the television, willing the device to... he supposed to return the light it had stolen to its rightful place. Lo and behold, there was light once again. And all back in the right place, to boot - he seemed to recall televisions having large numbers of tiny pixels lighting up individually rather than being a single projected image, so that was at least quite impressive. Again, he willed the light to be stolen from the television, only to put it back once again. And then from only half of the pixels in the telly, such that it appeared there was but one news reporter discussing something with a black void, before the lights representing his partner were returned.

And lastly, he strode outside, just to make sure he could test his theory on something more definite. Say, the convenient light pole a few meters away from where he and his recent opponent had been. Again, he willed the light to be taken, and again it vanished, an orb of it seeming to ride out of the lamp and into the lighter, only to return, be stolen, and return again as he commanded, so long as the object remained open.

He'd done it, then. He'd figured out how the artifact worked... and in only an hour or so. Not his quickest feat of deduction, but considering he'd had exactly no hints on how to use it in the first place, it was still very impressive.

But now the question presented itself: what in the Hell would this possibly be useful for? It was hardly- well, he supposed he could try to steal the light of the Sun itself, but all things considered, that was no more than a fool's hope. Other, smaller, closer sources of UV light, however, would be great targets for the lighter... yes, that would certainly throw off his foes.

But until then... well, he would continue to watch television. And perhaps work on improving his tactics - he didn't want to be caught out by his next foe, after all, under the assumption that they were less dangerous than they truly were.

---

Throughout the night, his former opponent remained unconscious, or perhaps merely asleep for much of the night time. Regardless of physical injury, having one's life energy drained certainly required rest more than anything else. And, it occurred to him as he recalled the moment, she surely had much more of it than any usual human... perhaps a form of immortality, but it wasn't stolen time, the way his life had been artificially extended. No, judging by her hatred of undeath, any longevity she had would be purely natural. But of course, he'd have to ask about that... and she seemed to be recalcitrant when it came to questioning.

He might have mused until she awoke, if the entire city hadn't suddenly begun shaking with the sound of four separate, and very loud explosions, though even this was barely enough to get her to stir in her sleep. And not long after that, the noise of... invasion, perhaps. Helicopters, it seemed, as well as far stranger entities prowling the streets even in Oldtown. And if he looked in the right direction, above the cloud line... something huge and ominous lurked.

The fox-girl awoke just as the tournament's announcer began describing- from their phylacteries, no less- how they were dealing with the problem at hand. Problems, actually. Not just the force finding their way into the city, but the existence of something called "Echoes", phasing in where they didn't belong, as well as "Factions" that Motley was barely interested in. Though the idea of new artifacts to play with... if they were better than the one he currently possessed, they'd certainly be worth utilising.

And then, of course, the next step of the game: finding and defeating his next opponent. From the sound of things, he'd already been assigned somebody, who he had to find within the span of the day, or else... well, he presumed death, or at least being escorted off the premises by the city's staff. And that meant travelling elsewhere, possibly a great distance. Good thing, then, that they had the opportunity to get help from the announcer, up to three times before the lifelife was exhausted, up to and including linking his phylactery with his opponent's until they met. (And as it happened, it was almost literally one of the lifelines from Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, replicated thrice over. Even the given name was the same. Who could have known?)

'Sooo... I guess I lost, huh?'

Oh, right. He had that to think about, too. 'Yes, you did,' Motley confirmed, turning to face the girl. 'To my understanding, that means you are now my thrall, as it were. Therefore, I would like you to fight alongside me.'

'Damn. And here I was, thinking I'd finally get that unlimited cooking skill I'd always wanted.'

...well, at least she knew what she wanted, even if what she wanted was peurile and unambitious. And from the sudden expression on her face, followed by a sudden escape from the building, what she wanted right then was... probably more private than Motley wanted to listen in on. Oh, that was right, mere mortals needed to excrete waste, didn't they?

Oh, fucking shit. They also needed to eat and drink, which meant Motley had to feed the girl, not least because he'd taken some of her energy mere hours ago. His plan for gathering to himself a small army of allies to assist in fights was already going awry.

She returned from whatever bush she'd gone behind sooner rather than later, by which point Motley was already out in the morning's light, his breathing as steady as necessary to keep up his shield of Negative Ripple against its rays. From the look of things, most of the area was badly swamped with water by now. Lucky for him, he had the capacity to walk atop water with relative ease, or even float in the air if he focused. He hoped the fox-girl could fly, though, else he'd need to carry her everywhere. And on that note, he couldn't just keep calling her "fox-girl" either. Who knew how effective the phylactery's hold over her was?

'I need to know your name,' Motley stated before she could say anything. 'And don't try to come up with anything absurd. My Stand lets me sniff out lies like that.' Technically not true, but he was sure he'd be able to figure out whether or not she was lying from the context.

'I wasn't gonna lie!' the fox-girl protested, before striking what was either meant to be an honest or dramatic pose. 'I NEVER lie, or my name isn't Erina, the Itinerant Exorcist!'

'Motley Crue. Charmed. And an exorcist, eh? That explains the flames and paper sheets.'

'Yep! I hunt ghouls, ghosts, goblins, and trolls, and other undead beasts!'

'Goblins aren't undead. Neither are trolls, at that,' Motley mused. 'I think you're lying about those last two.'

'Well, whatever you think isn't going to change reality. Like the reality that even though you are a ghost-possessed vampire, I can't do anything to you if I'm a thrall... so I might as well make the best of it, right?'

'Whatever makes you happy. I imagine finding my opponent might take a while, though. Do follow on.' With that said, he began walking off, leaving her to catch up at whatever pace she felt was appropriate. He had places to be, and if he was to get to his foe on time, he'd need to keep moving almost constantly throughout the day. If she couldn't keep up... well, he'd still have to carry her, or risk losing an ally in the city. Damn. He hoped she was fit enough that that wouldn't be necessary after all.

She sighed with relief as the buzzing of wings could be heard ascending into the sky. The big one was leaving and had presumably taken Clotho with it. So why wasn’t the big thing hadn't left yet, so she sneaked a peek round the tree and saw the tree thing staring right at her. Her heart caught in her throat, pounding madly in fear. She stared right back, their gazes locked as she waited for it to attack.

But it did not, instead she watched in confusion as it left behind a strange glowing orb right between her and her knives, then ascended to the sky. Finally after what seemed like an eternity the big bird left, emitting an chilling shriek as it climbed towards the heavens and was almost immediately lost in the stormy clouds above.

She half expected the strange glowing orb to lash out in some way as soon as she emerged from her hiding spot, but fortunately whatever it was it didn’t appear to be some kind of psychic sentry turret. She was still going to give it a wide berth up until the point Geromory decided to knuckle walk right past the thing. Seeing that it was apparently harmless she followed suit and ended up stopping for a moment to examine the strange orb and to rest. _{”touch it”} she reached down with her human hand and gingerly reached into the glowing mote.

The energy seemed to notice her presence and suddenly raced towards her, embedding itself harmlessly in her body. After a brief moment of panic she noticed nothing bad had happened. In-fact she didn’t feel any different at all.

”That… could have gone worse I suppose.”

---

After retrieving her fortunately undamaged knives she ended up trudging through the forest looking for somewhere to rest for the night. She was exhausted and had no idea where her next opponent was, so now was perhaps a good time to get some rest. In the end she found a rocky outcropping which was preferable to sleeping in when compared to the ashy slop that was the forest floor. Her power armor made sleeping basically everywhere the same(warm and dry but still uncomfortable) but she would rather not have her jetpack get clogged up with mud if she found fuel for it. She was pretty sure that the vile growth had not compromised the internal pressure of the suit, the twisted growth having interwound with the metal as it broke free, so theoretically she did not have to worry about drowning in the mud either. Also, sleeping out in the open acted as something close to a shower, washing the ash, blood and sap from her armor and revealing it’s original white coloring beneath. And so shere she sat, legs crossed, and waited out the night along with the weird mutant Geromory.

---

Dawn came and with the ending of the storm of the previous night it really did seem like a new day rather than simply a continuation of the previous that had been briefly interrupted by night. Even from within the charred corpse of the forest she could see some of the activity now occupying the city with her binocular vision. It was ridiculous, the place was supposed to be abandoned apart from the college's research staff, who the hell was flying choppers around. Worse, the massive bird of Clotho’s companions was still in the city, hovering far above. As far as she was concerned the announcements of the second round and its associated participant's threat paled in comparison to that thing which almost certainly wanted her dead. At least she assumed it would, but it appeared that the green orb might have done something after all, because overnight her wounds had healed. It was bizarre, what possible secret agenda did the wooden angel have? Apart from the mutation and lack of supplies it was as if the previous battle had never occurred.

Speaking of supplies, she need more if she had any hope of surviving the next bout and so made the arduous trip back through the burnt woods to the forest king. It wasn't hard to find, the great tree still burned, a giant funeral pyre for its Queens ambitions. After the long trudge, made longer by her attempts to be stealthy lest Clotho’s minions were still alive. Reaching the remains of the supply drop she found that, apart from a single melta fuel cell found by Geromory, everything had been destroyed by the fire. She loaded the cell and, assuming that the cautious walk and their scavenging attempt had taken about half an hour she decided to use her first phone call.

She retrieved Clotho’s phalecary from where it hung round her neck, hoping to avoid having to pull her own out from under her helmet and tried to get in contact with him. If that failed she would begrudgingly fish hers out from her armor, actually examining the two souls for the first time. They were disturbingly similar.

”Good morning. Care to hook a sister up with another supply cache? Also I have a small amount of info about that massive bird in the sky if you're interested. It’s with Clotho, who is somehow not dead, plus a bigger more heavily built creature like her and a winged wooden creature shaped like an angel. The other two came down, revived Clotho and then returned to their massive bird. My guess is they are either going to be looking for revenge against me and/or are going to be coming in last second to try and take the wish by force once there’s less competition. That’s what i would do in their place, but who knows what the twisted minds of those xenos will lead them to do."

@Lugubrious

Not too long after Runch managed to fall asleep inside the vineyard he had found for shelter, a loud crack of thunder jolted him back up.He could hear the pitter patter of rain against the rooftop and windows, lightly at first but growing in intensity and frequency. Soon the rain had become a pounding behemoth upon his doorstep and water came leaking in through the cracks. "Oh, this does not bode well." The pirate captain had to interrupt his rest to rush to the leaks. If his shelter ended up flooding, well, he wouldn't even get to meet his next opponent. Darn curse of the devil fruit. Working quickly, he found the leaks as they made themselves known and sealed the cracks with a highly absorbent cereal. One after another he plugged them up and up and up, sealing off more and more liquid death. That's when the door busted open, unleashing the torrent from outside.

"Juicy huckleberry!" His ankles had already been submerged, the water level quickly rising. Considering the lower level a total loss, Runch darted up the stairs to the attic. He sealed off the stairway with an especially large wall of cereal, then breathed a sigh of relief. That relief had been short lived, as the windows cracked against the mighty blows of falling water, and the ceiling began draining like a colander. He had to think fast, or he'd be fish food! "Bori bori bowl, dry bones recipe!" Twisting his body around and raising his arms, a blue-orange dome of cereal wheat formed around the captain, about eight feet in diameter every direction. What was once a deafening downpour had been muffled to a mere light pounding. His dry bones recipe was a strong water repellent, giving him some measure of respite from Mother Nature's onslaught.

Breathing out another sigh of relief, Bartholomew K. Runch curled himself up, and allowed himself to drift back to sleep...

---

The ground violently shook, rattling Runch from within his safety dome. "BOPPIN' BLUEBERRIES, WHAT WAS THAT?!" Rushing perhaps a bit more than he needed to, feeling the intensity of the situation in his shaking bones, Runch kicked an opening in his protective dome. What he found was an incredibly wet, but thankfully not flooded, attic floor. Wiping the sweat from his brow, the pirate captain sauntered to the nearest window and stuck his head out, careful not to cut himself on the broken glass. The whole area had seen better days, by the look of it. Oldtown wasn't totally flooded, but even from a cursory glance he could tell that the districts had not been built for such a downpour. Still, that didn't explain what that enormous blasting sound was. Did a building flood and subsequently collapse? No, couldn't be. No building in the area was nearly so large as to make that much of a ruckus...

Well whatever it was, a new day had been born, with new opportunities, and new challenges. Runch would need to start the day off right, with a healthy and nutritious breakfast! He spent about half an hour producing, and devouring, his special energizing and healing cereal. That's when the Cereal Killer's phylactery came to life and spoke in a familiar voice. Runch immediately recognized it as Oren, the man that was on that... Drone, did the journal call it? Right, drone. Oren explained that the college, the folks that had invited all the contestants out to this strange city, had as much of an idea what that explosion was as he did. Well, that was comforting, he thought sarcastically. At least there would be college officials out and about investigating the event, so they were quick to act. Runch had to give them that. The announcer further went on to say that new places were just sort of showing up. It was a bit above his head, so Runch didn't pay it too much mind. As far as he was concerned, that just meant more possibilities to explore and new adventures to be had! Along with these "echoes" were something Oren called "Factions." Runch guessed these were people moving in that were not invited by the College, and Hell, why shouldn't they? The College didn't own the city, they just studied it. The more the merrier, why not?

Of course, then Oren got to the most important information. Well, at least the most pertinent to Runch and the other fighters. Today was round 2 of the tournament, and they had until the end of the day to find and defeat their next opponent. The punishment was not explored, but he hardly noticed or cared. What was truly fascinating was what Oren said about the phylacteries, about how they could call him for advice three times, or link to their next opponent. Such technology! Even the world famous Doctor Vegapunk would be envious of such achievements! With the last of the information imparted to Runch, and to the other tournament fighters he reasoned, the speaker on the heart-shaped device cut out, leaving the pirate with just his thoughts once more.

Calling Oren for advice on how to reach his opponent, or linking to his opponent directly, didn't have such great appeal. With his powers it would be fairly trivial to make a beacon in the sky to signal his position. A literal explosion of flavor, if you will, to draw in whoever he was to fight next. He just hoped whoever he would be fighting next, would have good taste. There was something he could use some help with, though. Placing his hand on the phylactery hanging from his neck, Runch called up the game's face man.

"Oren, my pun loving friend! Cap'n K. Runch here! I don't need directions to my opponent, but uh, I would like your perspective on something. Is there anything interesting near my area? Places your college wants to investigate, or stud but hasn't been able to yet? I figure I got all day to get to my fight, and I like to be helpful. Course, getting anything like this journal is a mighty fine incentive! Omnomnomnomnom!"

Mountain shut the door behind him and looked around the building. As far as he could tell, the entire place was pitch-black, lit only by flashes of lightning outside. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a large flashlight that doubled as a lantern and switched it on. The bright LEDs contained in the light illuminated the entire building. He did a quick sweep of the entire place, noting the interior's bareness, before setting it down by its feet. From there, Mountain walked around the area, silently disappointed by the fact that there was no loot anywhere. However, his hopes were soon restored when he caught sight of a fresh backpack sitting by the foot of a wooden cot, which next to small makeshift firepit in the middle of the room. Rushing over to it, he swiftly unzipped it, keen on finding out what goodies were stored inside, only for his hopes to be crushed once again when he found completely normal camping supplies inside, which he didn't need.

Rather annoyed, he took his anger out on the cot, first picking it up and throwing it at the wall, which caused it to break into several pieces. Then, he tore the pieces into smaller pieces, before tossing them all into the firepit. Following this, he took out a bottle of lighter fluid and poured some onto the firewood, glanced at the bottle, shrugged, and tossed the entire thing into the pile. He rummaged through his pockets and fished out a plastic BIC lighter, flicked it several times to get a small flame, and threw it into the pit. The wood instantly ignited, bathing the area in a nice orange hue and providing some warmth. It was getting pretty cold with the rain outside, after all.

Now with a brighter source of light, Mountain was free to pick out all the details in the building. There was a staircase by the opposite wall, and he could pick up the sharp scent of finely-aged wine as he neared it, though he also could smell... something else, and it didn't smell good, either. He assumed there was a wine cellar below. Walking up the staircase, he found that the upper level was blocked by a locked hatch. Frowning, Mountain wondered if he had to get a thousand points to unlock it. Other than that, there really wasn't anything else. After inspecting it for several minutes, he descended back down to the first floor, feeling somewhat tired now that the effects of caffine had worn off.

Making his way back the blazing fire, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a miniature red and white bed. He then tossed it onto the floor, and suddenly, the bed seemed to expand until it was nearly ten times its previous size. It looked like a regular super single bed now. Mountain sat on the bed and absorbed the heat, eating a bag of Doritos and a bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red to wash it down for dinner. However, try as he could, he couldn't take his mind off the hatch. Something about it seemed awfully suspicious, and he had played so many horror games and watched enough horror movies to know. Tossing the remains of his Doritos and Mountain Dew into the fire (which caused it to glow red and green for a second), he stood up and walked towards the hatch. He stared at it, half expecting it to suddenly open or for a knock to come from the other side, but nothing came. Still feeling paranoid, he took out a Dew grenade and tied it to a piece of string, before tying it to the hatch. If anything opened the hatch, it would receive a nasty electric shock.

Finally satisfied, he walked back down and lay down on the bed, taking out a joint filled with the dankest marijuana from Snoop Dogg's Garden of Weeden itself, and lit it using the fire. He gently puffed on it, feeling high as fuck and relaxed, before tossing it away and crawling underneath the covers and closing his eyes. Soon, he was fast asleep and snoring, undisturbed by the thunderstorm outside, rocked to sleep by the soft pitter-patter of rain on the windows.



Distant booms jolted Mountain awake the next morning. So startled in fact, that it caused him to teleport to the top of the room in shock. Blearly-eyed, Mountain blinked and looked around, noticing that he was several metres above the ground. "Aw, crap." And then he fell for a much longer time than what was normal for someone falling from that height, before smashing into the ground, missing the bed by just an inch. Grumbling, he grabbed the wooden supports and pulled himself up. Rubbing the pain out of his back, he yawned and stretched, smacking his lips together to get the foul taste of a night's sleep out of his mouth. He then blinked several times, finally noticing that it was daytime, which confirmed the time as six-thirty in the morning when he checked his G-Shock watch.

"Huh, I haven't felt that rested in a while." Mountain muttered, before pushing the door open and walking out, curious to find out what that massive explosion was. Walking out, he noticed that the sun was just beginning to rise, given that it was only slightly above the horizon, which shone through the distant clouds and glistened off puddles of water from last night's storm. The city was pretty peaceful during this time, too. Birds were chirping and the air was nice, and there were no annoying cars honking their horns, clueless pedestrians who caused the drivers to honk their horns, and the toxic fumes of carbon monoxide. The sun was then blotted out by a rising cloud of dust from what Mountain presumed was where the explosion came from.

Above, several black helicopters zipped by, followed by odd flying objects. Mountain raised an eyebrow, before the area he was in was suddenly bathed in shadow. Confused, Mountain turned around to the sky, and his eyes widened when he saw a massive black shape hovering in the air. "You have got to be kidding me. It's fucking Independence Day now?" He almost shouted.

Suddenly, Mountain's heart thingy came to life. Out came the cheerful voice of the announcer, joyfully informing each contestant that teams from the College would start moving in to study the area. He then went on to say that the nerds from the College had discovered things called 'Echoes', apparently places that didn't belong in the city 'phasing in', so to speak. Mountain turned around and stared at the watchtower, wondering if it was an Echo. It certainly didn't look like it belonged, and it had seemingly risen out from the ground, given the cracked concrete around its base Mountain had missed during the storm. What really caught Mountain's attention, however, was what Oren said next. He spoke of things called 'Factions', a term Mountain knew all to well from his years of gaming. NPCs milling around, each one belonging to a certain group. He wondered if they were hostiles to each other, but he guessed he would just have to find out.

There was the sound of rustling papers over the mic, before Oren cleared his throat and informed each contestant that Round 2 was now in session. He said that it was intra-zone, so everyone had some exploring to do. Then he said that everyone could call for help if needed for up to three times, for directions or information. Excellent. Mountain always got lost during certain quests. Once that bit of information was relayed, Oren hung up. When he did, there was a slur of feedback and burst of static on Mountain's end, causing him to rear back. "AUGH! Dammit, man, get a better mic for fuck's sake!" Mountain angrily cried. So, his opponent was going to be in a different zone, which meant he probably had enough time to go hunting for loot before rekking his opponent's ass.

His stomach suddenly rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten yet. He couldn't rekt on an empty stomach, after all. Walking back into the relative safety of the watchtower, Mountain pulled out his regular breakfast: a weed sandwich and Mountain Dew Kickstart, along with a Taco Bell waffle taco. He devoured his meal, feeling rejuvenated and full. That done, he punched his bed, which caused it to shrink into its original size. He stashed it away in his pocket and walked back out, sparring the tower one final look before getting into the Range Rover he had parked in front of the building last night. He switched on the engine and sat there for a bit, combing his messy hair into something was somewhat less messy, before driving off, following the road wherever it went, though it was in the general direction of the explosion.

Mountain connected the phylactery to the car via Bluetooth (which it had for some reason) and gave Oren a call. "Hey, man." He began. "I kind of need your help for something. Can you tell me if there are any quests available with epic loot rewards nearby?"

Saria sat on the sandy shore, the details of her last fight coming back to her. She felt the familiar insanity, the alien architecture surrounding her, seemingly closing in on her as the brawl went on, and the little girl who transformed herself into a towering, bulbous mass of wretchedly terrible flesh and sinew.

Who knew that transforming into an even bigger, slower monster was a bad idea? Saria could practically read Cythla’s attacks like a book, and could attack the monster with ease. The only downside was that killing her took upwards of half an hour, slicing at the flesh and dodging attacks, eventually making so many cuts to the thing’s head and eyes that it simply died.

After killing her, Saria recalled stumbling out of the massive room and back into the alien city, tripping and falling on the non-euclidean stones. She didn’t recall how long she was there, but she remembered her mind starting to turn on her, wanting her to turn the red blade on herself. She resisted these urges, and persevered until she miraculously ended up back at her boat.

She had never rowed so fast in her life.

By the time she’d gotten back to shore, her mind was still scrambled; the only thing carrying her along was the drive to get away from that… place. The puzzling part was, however, the fact that once she had gotten back to shore, she turned to look at the city, but it simply wasn’t there. Not even a shimmer.

Expectedly, this whole ordeal only heightened Saria’s fear of the water.

Now, with the phylactery buzzing to life, Saira heard the familiar voice yapping through its microphone, talking about such things as “explosions”, “echoes”, and “factions”. The voice also mentioned artifacts the other warriors received, but Saria never received any such artifact.

Most likely landed somewhere in the water, or maybe even the strange city. Oh well, I’ll have to make do without one, I suppose.

She also noticed that the beach was now positively flooded, the docks only about a foot above water. She turned towards the city, its massive buildings higher than anything Saria had ever seen back in her time. The roads were flat, not a speck of dust present. Bright colors flashed out at her, various signs and posts advertising pointless things.

She heard the announcer say something about “linking” phylacteries so that the warriors could talk to each other preemptively. Saria couldn’t pass up on such a tempting opportunity.

To know an opponent was to take control of them, and using the information gained, the warrior may commence building their battle plan.

Saria recited the quote from the Silverlocke War Manual, a book ingrained into the fibers of her very being. It was, in essence, the Silverlocke Bible because they had studied it so much to the point of it being their entire belief system, unable to be shaken from her soul.

She clicked the Phylactery, hearing another buzz.

“Link my phylactery to my opponent’s.”

The word “phylactery” seemed to dance on her tongue, but at the same time twisted it. She waited for an answer, but at this point, there was only one thing to do, and that was to go deeper into the city and explore. Most likely, her opponent walked the streets, the same as her.

"Oh, great, scared off by a mouse, glad they were so confident in me."

That Night

Teller sighed and killed the external speakers as another entry from his own music playlist came on. Teller kicked it up to a jog to leave the building, considering his recon mission to be effectively over. He picked a home from the village at random, deciding to again try and settle in for some rest. Just like every house before it, and the Blythe towers in full view of the college girls, Teller pied off the door after opening it before breaching in, and as ever looted the kitchen, finding little of use in this one. Teller this time took the moment to purloin some bits of string from about the house and use them to rig a trap with one of remaining three frags. He then came to rest on the bed in one of the bedrooms, opening his faceplate and setting the armor to alert him in either eight hours ("Gotta get enough sleep or I won't be worth shit.") or if the armor detected possible hostile motion (Meaning anything above the height of 4'0 that does not possess a recognized IFF tag). With a resigned sigh, he closed his eyes, somehow sensing his dreams were going to be rougher than usual.

January 11th, 2066, CPT. James Teller, UASD Team 6

"Make every bullet count boys and girls! If they mean to kill us, let's bleed em for it!" Captain Teller barked his order as he took big, clunky steps to the nearby window. This heavy assault armor didn't move nearly as fast as normal battle armor, but it hit hard and could go toe to toe with an IFV, so Teller would love nothing more for his last stand. Outside, thousands of Muslim and Catholic soldiers stood ready to kill the small team of Rangers held up inside. Yukiko lay on the roof, ready to eliminate officers, Enrico and Bjorn had the North, Salvador West, Teller and the rookie, Matthias had the South, while Siegfried and Vasily had the East. Team Six had been compromised during a raid behind the lines of the Crusade, and with CAS an hour away and any hope of an extraction equally as far, the operators had resigned themselves to death.

Yet, they were Rangers, they were humanity's most stalwart guardian against supernatural threats, and now they had become the stalwart guardian of the forces of Hell (as surprising as it was) from unwarranted aggression. Deltas were, it turned out, people too, though their species were what caused this apocalypse. Wolf ordered they would defend them, and so the Rangers would. As such, Teller looked down at the heavy rifle in his hand, gently exhaled, and looked out at the rowdy mob of warriors facing them, psyching themselves up. Teller had no intention of letting them pick their moment, and so keyed his SQUADCOM, solemnly intoning "Its been an honor and a pleasure working with all of you...weapons free, fire at will." Enrico cued, for what Teller thought would be the last time, his choice of combat music and with the resounding thunder of guns, Team Six engaged.

The Next Morning

Teller woke to the sound of his armor alarm, a quick glance at his armor clock confirming he'd been down for eight hours. He figured he'd skim the logs to see if anything interesting happened while he was down later, but it did have a record of a COM signal the suit's simple AI had detected. A quick listen, however, revealed it had been Oren's open broadcast, referencing an explosion he'd apparently slept through, as well as the ability to request a COM to his opponent ("Why in Sam Hill would I want that? They could listen to the shit in my background and figure out where I am.") or request directions to his opponent. However, for the moment, Teller had no desire to find his opponent until he had picked his battleground. What he did do, however, was say aloud "Hey, Oren, as I recall ya'll promised me some intel and an artifact. Ya mind deliverin on your end of the deal so I can get rolling?"

Waiting for an answer, Teller's mind was drawn back to the dream of the night before. That stand had cost him several good men, but he hadn't had a choice really. They had no way of knowing they were compromised until it was too late, and they couldn't have realistically escaped. Applying any conventional logic or tactics, there was no way Teller could have predicted what happened. And yet, he still had those nightmares, he still saw the faces of the brave Rangers he lost. Teller shook his head hard to clear those thoughts from his mind and popped open his faceplate. Grabbing the elf's flask from before, Teller uncorked it and took a brief swig, shaking his head again as the unfamiliar taste of the strange booze hit him. He recorked the flask and hung it back where it was originally, on his chest rig, mumbling "Least I can start my day off right, with a drink."

As the bloody and pulpy remains of Angel's head ran down the fat fingers of Tyrant, he looked at the rest of the larger than human body and wondered if this would serve as a proper treat for the hard-fought battle. The giant's body was still fresh from the several wounds that he occurred, multiple spots of damage from both those electrifying spears and the recoil from his Sound Eater, but nothing that his body couldn't rest off for a time. Anyhow, surrounded by destruction by himself, he sat down with a heavy thump, dropping the body near his grasp as his bloodied hand started to rub the mush across his body. This was simply as a matter of his rituals, usually Tyrant would be covered in other people's blood from head to toe while feasting, but with only one measly morsel rubbing this paste upon himself had to suffice to appease his hungering god. A bit of stinging was felt, rubbing blood onto fresh wounds especially when they were still lightly sizzling was hurtful but through these wounds Tyrant felt the first taste of victory within the tournament... And it tasted good. Finished with his barbaric ritual, the ogre grabbed the lifeless corpse by the leg, yanking hard enough to rip off an entire leg with a large hunk of meat to follow. The feasting soon commenced, eating the vampire's body with small bites trying to savor his victory and taste of this new specimen as the taste was far different from his universe's vampires. Alas, even when taking small bites, the Tyrant had quickly finished his meal leaving him unsatisfied for the time. So, as Tyrant sat around covered in blood with strips of only metal as Tyrant had munched on the bones as well, a familiar voice entered his ear holes.

It was Oren, the annoying announcer from before the fight had started, Tyrant was barely listening as he picked off blackened strips of skin from his various burns. The person didn't provide much else besides altering him of some prize among ruin of the amphitheater and that a storm would soon be dropping on the land. It seemed that Oren had to announce that a storm was coming meaning that it would be pretty heavy hitting... For humans. The Ogre Kingdoms don't care much for weather, they lived in the mountains that were cold enough to give most frostbite in minutes, lived near volcanoes in which some ogres drink from time to time, and their entire homeland in general is a landscape known to be one of the most dangerous areas in the Old World. Tyrant did not care for finding shelter for some might as well be drizzle, but was interested for the prize that he gained from eating his competition.

Scrounging around for a bit, the ogre managed to find his mark, yet it was completely underwhelming. The object was no bigger than his hand, and it seemed to have a large grinning face chiseled into the pot. After turning the thing around the green pot for a bit, Tyrant seemed to hear something else inside of the object yet the opening seemed to have nothing from the inside. The ogre found it... Interesting, as he shook the pot towards his opened palm for two random coins falling onto his hand. Tyrant looked at this currency, not recognizing these coins, he simply threw them away and looked at the pot with slight disdain for its uselessness. The Ogre simply jammed the thing into a various small pocket of his large pants finding the trinket basically a useless item, maybe it could be used later, but to him it might as well be with the rubble of the amphitheater. Still, Tyrant just sat around, he was going to stay in the ruins trying to conserve his strength and focusing mainly on getting heal these wounds to the best of his abilities. And so, time goes forward into the next day as Tyrant waited around the destroyed ruins of his battleground.


Before the night began, Tyrant had constructed some sort of make-shift tent out of the various rubble and torn out earth with his massive strength. It would satisfy something that resembled his old bed, but the storm soon began as it seemed that the rain was actually similar to that of his homeland... Heavy. The construct made out of heavy stone stood against most of the time, the rain was no problem, but the thunderous shocks gave the structure a shake causing it to fall down multiple times forcing the ogre to rebuild several times. It didn't even matter though at a point, ogres can march several days without being tired, but the Tyrant himself had grown accustomed to his mobile tent, so he had grown into the more luxurious forms of being a blood-thirsty rich power hungry warlord.

So, as Tyrant laid in a shitty rubble stacked to be some form of structure, the storm seemed to fade away allowing peace for a short time before another disturbance inconvenienced the Tyrant. A familiar boom was heard in the distance, something akin to his Sound Eater at a much larger scale, but the Tyrant himself could feel the small tremors that it carried which impressed the ogre. It seemed something was happening, but in this grassy expanse, the giant couldn't see much from where most of the action was taking place. Though, what Tyrant could see made him gurgle out a low laugh as above the sky was tainted with a inky black monster that enveloped the sky. It was quite impressive, to say the least, what Tyrant wanted simply was to figure out a way to eat it, but that come later as Oren once again decided to show his presence once more to Tyrant's disdain.

What he gave was a relative importance, rather than being transported like last time to his opponents it seemed that he would have to find something else in this large space. It seemed that whoever he fights it will be in the open, this could be good or bad, but it all depended on the mystery opponent for the overgrown ogre. Though it was no matter of scheming in the future, brute force usually works, so if that doesn't work the Tyrant shall wing it as always and win! However... He needed to know where to even head in this land that seemed to be an endless expanse of grass. The Ogre tried to scan the landscape to no avail, he had a day to win, a large time if he somehow went in the right direction towards his opponents, but nothing at all would indicate which direction the opponent would be! So, the Tyrant tapped his foot impatiently for a bit, shaking the rubble around him, before getting the idea of asking the annoying disembodied voice for help to find his next victim. With a clumsy action, trying to work the thing, he called for Oren on his Phylactery, "I order for your aid, lead me to my next meal before my gut wonders what you taste like."

Jim was sucking in lungfuls of air as he recovered from his fight with the little miss lightning dragon when the drone from earlier descended. The same announcer dude appeared with a weird look on his face. He made a small speech about finishing fast and Jin rolled his eyes. "I'll make sure to keep that in mind the next time my neck is being crushed by a fucking dragon girl." The drone clicked and dropped the box it was carrying with a loud crack! Jin picked up the box and opened it, looking through the hole in the box with an annoyed expression. "You gave me a box with a hole in it. Thanks man. Really, I don't know how I could've lived without this." The dude then announced a storm that was coming and Jin sighed as drops of rain began to fall. "Thanks for the warning. Couldn't live without you." The hologram disappeared and the drone flew off, leaving Jin with a box with a hole in it and a heavy rain. He broke into a nearby cabin and decided to mess around with the box, really hoping and praying that the dude didn't literally just give him a broken box for killing a dragon.
The
After about ten minutes Jin got pissed and threw the box at the wall as hard as he could, shattering it into a million pieces. Then the hole fell and landed on the floor, creating a hole. On the floor. "What. The. Fuck?"

---

Jin passed a fair amount of time testing out the weird Hole, he had dropped some mud down to see how far the tunnel went and after a minute of waiting to hear something he just assumed it went to the other side of the world. He later figured out he could peel it off of surfaces and place it on other surfaces, instantly creating a hole wherever it was. It seemed to work on literally everything, Jin was now wondering if it worked on people as well. It would be pretty fun to just slap that hole on someone and watch their organs fall out. He went to sleep after putting the hole on the floor, away from his bed so he didn't accidentally fall in when he woke up and rolled out of the bed.

---

Jin woke up to the sound of an explosion, a big ass explosion. Jin jumped out of his bed and activated the Tsubaki, looking around nervously for attackers. After finding nothing he let out a breath he didnt realise he had been holsing and deactivated Tsubaki. He grabbed the Hole and headed out to investigate, first thing he noticed was the massive... thing in the sky. Lots of helicopters too.

About half an hour later after Jin got finished charging his Beam Katanas a voice began playing from the Phylactery he received from the College professors. It was everyone's favorite asshole and he called specifically to tell everyone he had no clue what was going on and he would reward anyone who helped out College staff figure out what was happening. Also fighting time was starting again and in half an hour people could call to ask where their opponent was. Or they could just call their opponent. Either or really.

Jin waited half an hour as he looked around for food and stuff, he found none because he was a city boy with no expericen foraging. Goody. He shook his head and began to speak into his Phylactery. "Operator, I'd like to place a collect call to whoever I'm going to be killing today." He said in the voice he imagined people from the 60s sounded like. You know the one. "On a more serious note though, what am I supposed to do about food? Because if you're expecting me to eat dragon girl, I don't know how I feel about that. It kinda feels like cannibalism, but at the same time she has a tail so I think it's technically ok."

Cyril woke to soreness in all sorts of places all the time, but this morning in particular a new pain greeted him. The instant he tried to move his foot, a lance of pain shot through his whole leg, not much better than the agony inflicted by the throwing knife responsible in the first place. Groaning, he pulled himself into a sitting position, then tried to stand. Altogether, the task of moving from recumbent to the closest bathroom took several minutes. There, he washed the wounded foot in the tub, having been able to figure out its function due to the existence of similar furnishings in his own world. A slow but thorough search of the cabinets revealed no medical supplies, but a roll of perforated paper hanging beside what he guessed to be an advanced toilet would work decently as bandages. “Ahhhh, ah ah!” He grimaced, his bushy black eyebrows two ridges of sheer anger, while uselessly fuming at his former self for not taking the time to treat the injury the day before. Even at a slow and steady pace, he was halfway through putting his armor back on (a time-consuming and tedious task for a knight bereft of a squire) when a massive explosion in the distance simultaneously startled him and threw a pauldron from his hands.

In half a minute he stood on the commandeered house's doorstep, armor mostly equipped. “What in the world?” To his knowledge, only the destruction of a gunpowder storage or a magical disaster could cause such devastation. He did not have time to ponder it, however. Oren the announcer powered on his phylactery's hidden microphone and proceeded to yammer his ears off, though the information he did offer was by no means useless. More pieces on the table, Cyril mused at length. Looks like the city won't be abandoned for much longer. Holding his rubbery techno-heart in his hands, the Knight Sylvestre debated on whether to call Oren straightaway. After an entire fight and the following night, a little actual help would be great. Still, if he had only three calls to make, it would be better to save him until he was in a real bind. Nodding his head at this conclusion, Cyril tucked the phylactery away, attached his shield, reluctantly grabbed the weird screw, hoisted is halberd, and stepped out the door into a new adventure.

Even in broad daylight, the ticky-tacky houses of the suburb all looked much the same. The sun's arrival did allow him to peer into the distance for the first time, and after using his Sheen to boost onto a roof, Cyril scoped out the horizons. More buildings lay in every direction for some way. The closest variations in architecture were not that far away, but they didn't seem especially remarkable. Big, colorful signs spoke of merchants' advertisements on a larger scale, and while Cyril decided he would visit one, he didn't think that an opponent with a chance to dig in would make such a small-time place his or her hideout. Far, far away were buildings of a size nothing short of astronomical; the vanguard caught his breath to see such monolithic structures just standing there, however many miles away. In another direction, he could spy a hazy green mass that could only mean a forest. Despite these, the middle ground caught his attention. To the east-southeast -judging by the sun- the buildings became more city-like, and among them stood a giant white facility with a curved roof. “Gotta try that,” he declared, feeling sure that was the place to be.



The plant, sentient thanks to its spawner's power but not omniscient, could only mill around in circles after receiving Bonesword's command. How, after all, was a poor stump to know a mobile entity's location? The skeleton's phylactery, however, hung ready and waiting from its cord. Using it meant spending one of Bonesword's three allotted calls for help if he needed something of Oren, but announcing to the announcer his knowledge of the invading clowns did not require Oren to do anything, and could thusly be accomplished for free.

By now, the sun had arisen over the cityscape's horizon enough to make the sea glimmer with reflected light. A light coat of mist hung over the ocean, a final hurrah of last night's deluge, but it meant little to any contestant. In front of Bonesword sprawled the City of Echoes, only a few steps away off the end of the wooden pier that supported the Amusement Mile, and within lay the secrets and souls that would define his quest for the wish even he didn't know. While he was thinking, the microphone hidden within his phylactery came online, but only the sounds of crashing waves and seabirds came through at the moment.

(Your character's phylactery has been linked to RoughDragon1's character's. From now until otherwise noted, you both will be able to hear whatever the other says, as well as sufficiently loud noises in their surroundings)



A dark shape hurtled over the coastline toward Saria's current position, radiating a steady whine that grew louder as it grew closer. It burst from a grove of coconut palms only a few hundred feet away and swooped down as it closed the remaining distance, slowing itself as it did. Though as unknown to the warrior of a bygone age as when she'd first seen it, the four-rotor flying contraption now sparked a hint of familiarity. Without further ado, Oren's image popped up from its front, suspended weightless in the air as a two-dimensional projected sheet of light. Today's smile spoke of personal guilt, though not one that troubled him too badly. “Top of the mornin' to ya! Sorry 'bout last night. Scouting drone got smashed in the fight, and your first prize went into the ocean. Boy, was the College not happy about that! No more enclosed spaces for me after losing two drones and an artifact. Still, as a show of good faith, I got you something special anyway. Here it is, better late than never.” From the undercarriage of the drone, a wooden box fell to plop in the sand, ripe for the opening.



The picture of Oren showed him tapping the side of his forehead, just above the rim of his glasses. “Now, I know what you're thinking. Your request, right? Never fear when the Genie's here. You're live in three, two, one...” He made a big show of lifting up his hand, twirling his fingers, and then extending his index to press a button with utmost ceremony. The projectile blinked out and the drone, having recovered from the flight problem that ensued following its sudden loss of weight, ascended. Saria's mic remained on, however, and from it too issued the sound of ocean waves.

(Your character's phylactery has been linked to Banana's character's. From now until otherwise noted, you both will be able to hear whatever the other says, as well as sufficiently loud noises in their surroundings.)



The sound of Mountain's car dangerously hydroplaning all over the place was, for a moment, interrupted by the announcer's reply as the sharpshooter's phylactery mic switched on. His voice contained no trace of static or other interference, and was seemingly confined to the anomalous tower in which Mountain Dew sheltered the night. With a noteworthy degree of coffee-induced pep Oren told his caller, “Well flyboy, lemme start with some sage advice, free of charge: you're on a crash course with the boundary of your zone, and leaving it before you finish Round 2 is a no-no. Why not let the College nerds look into the big boom? If your ADHD's kicking up, though, I have just the ticket. There's an anomaly the good Dr. Barnaby was unable to track down, originating from the northeastern end of the Governance Hub. I've been trying to keep an eye on it with a drone, but any time it gets near...well, it's hard to explain. It just gets sent back. Barnaby bets the culprit's an artifact, and we're all very interested, so if you'd find it and bring it back to my tower, we'll reward you handsomely. Capiche? That's a 90 degree left turn at the next intersection if you're in—that is, if you can find any traction! It's a miracle you're still in one piece, huh?” Oren's voice sounded incredulous.



Dutifully the Crucible's announcer answered Runch's call for help. “Hey there, happenin' cap'n! Your friendly neighborhood Genie here, in with the hottest scoops for the brave hero of breakfast! I'm here to let you know that yes, there is in fact something going on nearby that I'd classify as interesting! And with that 'bran'-d new, bite-sized bit of knowledge, I'm outta here! Remember, only two calls left!”

Click

A smattering of birdsong in the distance cut through the ambiance of wind, bright and clear as the risen sun that shone through the windows of the building in which K. Runch had taken up residence. Enough seconds went by for the sapphire-blue singer to complete an entire stanza, were his warbling a ballad.

Click

“Aw, ya know what, since I'm such a 'nice guy' I'll be a pal and tell ya where too, free of charge. But be careful whatcha wish for next time. We genies tend to be the literal type. According to the handy-dandy GPS locator hidden in your phylactery, you're near...” The rapping of a mouse's buttons filled the announcer's pause. Oren spoke again soon, but in a low voice rather close to reverence. “Ooh, the Old Basilica. South beyond the Cold Monastery -you'll know it when you see it- then east near the Three Rivers' Mosque. I just know you get a kick out of what's inside.”



From the moment that Sophia removed Clotho's phylactery from her neck, it became obvious that it wouldn't be of much use. While an ordinary heart would have rotten, this organ-shaped device went stiff and gray, its rubbery exterior less malleable and its insides still as they were dark. Everything about it screamed 'inert', and finding her own phylactery became necessary. Its embedded microphone read her loud and clear and, after its alert signal was replied to be the operator himself, came online with a tone.

Oren attempted to answer 'good morning to ya!' to Sophia's own greeting, but she steamrolled over him, and getting the impression that his first caller of the day had something worthwhile to say, the announcer held his tongue. He readied a nonchalant response to her request for more supplies only to find himself at rapt attention when she continued. Greedily Oren absorbed every tidbit the woman had to offer, and after she went silent, he abstained from breaking it a few moments while his mind raced. The seconds ticked by while he, seated in his sick swivel chair with elbows on the table and hands clasped, pondered what she'd said. Oren's eyes drifted to his recording equipment, pleased on the inside that his setup served more of a function than broadcasting the Crucible live for streamwatchers all over the world to see. Not for the first time, he was reminded of his wish to have more announcer-like, entertaining things to say, but this new revelation swept all that aside.

“Is that...soooooooo?”

His snicker was audible through the communicator. “Well, well, well. Miss Monster Arm's made quite the breakthrough! Guess ya can say you're giving us a 'hand'? Neheheh...a flying beast, carrying a bunch of strange but powerful beings, and they're linked to that bug woman. Sounds to me like the College bringing Clotho over triggered some kind of reaction, summoning a place with which she was familiar, and now they're on the scene...just a minute!”

The mic clicked off, and a few minutes of radio silent slogged by like molasses. When his voice returned to Sophia's phylactery, it held unbridled excitement. “Sophia my girl! That's super good intel. Everyone's going nuts. This is what we glasses-wearing folks call a 'game-changer'. Wrench in the works, yeah, but also turning a corner on all the eggheads' theories. But look at me, going on and on when you couldn't care less. Have I got news for you! First off, there's a supply cache wedged in the top of a long, narrow ravine about 2 kilometers to your northwest. It's not the wrong direction to your next opponent, either. Even better: a little gift for your service to the College. And call it recompense for Clotho ruining your round-one reward, too. I just sent a drone on its way, E.T.A. half an hour maybe?”

“But look, there's one more thing. The College wants a better look. My drones can't fly too high. Signal gets weak, air gets thin, nothing works. If you can fly up near the big bird carrying my incoming drone, and get a good view at its whole deal, we'd be very grateful. You in?” A buzzing noise entered the mic, and Oren muttered something under his breath. “Hold that thought, I've gotta take this one. Some time to mull it over, 'kay?” Click

A minute or so passed before the channel became active gain. This time, however, there was not one, but a pair of voices.

“Hello again, Sophia! I know we're thick as thieves right now, but I've met someone who's just dying to have a chat with ya. Say hello to Jin Sunrise! ...I, uh, hope this doesn't affect our little deal?”

(Your character's phylactery has been linked to FloodTalon's character's. From now until otherwise noted, you both will be able to hear whatever the other says, as well as sufficiently loud noises in their surroundings)



“Right you are!”

Oren's response came several minutes late, long enough to agonize anyone who cared about punctuality—or anything except exploring the bottom of a stolen flask of elven hooch. Judging by the announcer's tone, he wasn't too banged up about his tardiness, but he did go to the trouble of explaining why. “Shoulda known that I'd get a buncha calls right when the line opened up. Um, had to set a couple of your competitors straight. Ya know, if I were any less of a cool dude I'd charge you a call point, which it technically costs to contact me at the moment, but just this once I'll let you off the hook. Anyway, I dispatched two drones 'bout five minutes ago, and one's headed your way. Don't turn up your nose at the plainness of the goods: if the best things come in unexpected packages, then unexpected packages themselves are surely the best things, right?” True to Oren's word, a drone arrived not long after, carrying a large but lightweight payload to drop on the near-dry sidewalk next to Teller if he opted not to catch it mid-air.



The radio silence that followed the present's delivery indicated that Oren had better things to do than wait on a single tournament fighter, though that did not prevent Teller from ringing him up again.



A dark laugh, quintessentially pleasant but at the same time soaked with the putrescence of absolute confidence, answered Tyrant's demand. It carried on for six seconds straight before Oren paused, but he did not keep his lips still for long. “Not from there, it won't. But just so ya know, ya ugly oversized sacka lard, even if we were face-to-face, I'd wipe the floor with your sorry ass in one second flat. If ya survive long enough, ya can visit my tower in the Governance Hub and try me. In the mean time, waddle west until ya find the lake. Your next fight's there.”



Morning's arrival in Jin's neck of the woods, with its collection of lonely cabins upon an island of grass in a sea of murky conifers, riddled with mist, did little but to lighten the sky's shade of gray. Looking more like winter clouds than rainclouds, the heavens gave no indication of a followup downpour, but instead hinted that for this eerie place there might never come the light of day.

“I can guarantee ya she's a monster, but if my local hatchery raised chickens that looked just like toddlers, I'd go home hungry. Maybe that's just me.” Oren snickered, more than aware thanks to his surveillance drones that Jin appreciated neither his unique perspective nor distinctive brand of human. Silly city slicker—didn't the guy know that showing distaste for someone's antics painted a big target on him for future harassment? “Maybe before calling for food, ya shoulda searched all the cabins? I bet they got more than campfire swarms. Doughnuts, cereal, O.J., expired milk, you name it.” The sound of a swivel chair creaking came through the mic. “Still, gotta give ya props for thinking about it at all. Some of the contestants haven't even considered food or drink. Betcha ten to one someone collapses before the day's over. Anyhoo, I don't like twofers much, but whatever. Matchmaker Oren's gonna setcha up!”

(Your character's phylactery has been linked to DracoLunaris' character's. From now until otherwise noted, you both will be able to hear whatever the other says, as well as sufficiently loud noises in their surroundings)

“Hello again, Sophia! I know we're thick as thieves right now, but I've met someone who's just dying to have a chat with ya. Say hello to Jin Sunrise! ...I, uh, hope this doesn't affect our little deal?”

That announcer and his infuriating joke making where instantly making her regret contacting him again. If it weren't for the fact that her very soul was in the communication device she would probably have crushed it in anger at her making light of her circumstances. At least he actually listened to what she had to say before disappearing without answering her question.

”what an asshole”

In the time between the announcer vanishing into the ether and his return Sophia and her mutant assistant scavenged the area around the base of the burning tree. Braving the heat she managed to find an Myrmidons corpses that was not chard to a cinder and managed to get something approximating a cooked meal out of it with her chain knives. Unlike her next opponent, she was far less concerned as to the morality of her food source having possibly been sentient. As Long as it wasn't human, then who cared.

By the time he got back she was far enough away from the fire that they could hear each other again. She politely stopped eating while they talked again.

In good news, there was indeed more supplies to be had, a 2k walk to the northwest wasn't to bad. Then there was the ‘gift’ and the requested work of getting the cam up high enough to take a look. She would mull that last over, but it really depended on how much fuel was at the supply cache.

”Thanks for the directions. I hope this gift is more helpful than the last one. I’ll give yom my answer when I get to the cache” After he signed off to take another call she pulled out the sealed bag from where it was sitting in her holster and examined the small pill inside. Such a pointless thing. Who would be so stupid as to take unlabeled medicine. She put it back and began her her march northwest, with the creature that was that stupid flowing alongside her. It was an odd looking kind of a walk, with the mutated arm acting as a kind of third leg, she had found that walking with it was better than trying to drag it along the ground or hold it aloft. It still disgusted her.

She was still in sight of the tree when she was contacted again about her opponent having linked coms with her. Hopefully that meant that they did not yet know where she was, giving her time to reach the supplies. That should take about 25 minutes or so.

(linked)

”That depends if they are human. I’d rather not have a xenos screaming in my ear the whole time.”

”Also before you go, you mentioned Clotho brought somewhere with her when she was summoned, do all the other monsters you summoned have fortresses full of minions like she did?”

That would suuuuuuck. She didn’t consider that she might have one too as she was from this world, whereas most of the things she had seen in the starting room had most certainly not been.

She gave a small laugh as the man appeared, seemingly nervous for no real reason about him having to treat her.

"Oh? Then pardon the intrusion."

Juniper sat on the gurney, which creaked under her weight. He didn't seem like a man who would like conversation. A pity, he looked like he came from her world, disfigured as he was. She was taught long ago the shrine was neutral and treats everyone the same; even one of those gang members would be welcome in her shrine as long as they sought nothing but guidance and help from the shrine.

Seeing that she wasn't about to lie down, the man hurried over to her side, inspecting the makeshift bandage. Grunting, he motioned for her to lie down, before he took out a few tools and started on treating the wound.



A loud explosion and subsequent shaking woke her up from the gurney immediately, as she dashed outside reflexively to counter any enemies. Expecting some sort of large monster from the shaking and explosion, instead her phylactery blared from inside her clothing.

“Good morning! Your friendly, neighborhood announcer here! Before you ask, lemme just say: we don't know what the hell that explosion was for sure. Honestly, a lot of weird stuff is going on, and the grand old Inquisitional College has let me know that we're not standing idly by. Starting today, roving College teams are gonna by going around the city, trying to get a lead on everything that's going on. If you see's 'em, feel free to say hi, but play nice. Furthermore! There have been a few discoveries that the College has seen fit to share. For a while, the top nerds have been studying these things called 'Echoes', which appear to be places that don't belong 'phasing in', so to speak. As far as they know, it's places only, but who knows what's going on? There are also what we're calling 'Factions'. All we have are photos and radar data, but there are new movements all throughout the city, especially the sky. So, keep an eye out for anything weird, and feel free to report to me or any College teams you find. If you help out the nerds, the nerds will help you with artifacts. You know those things you got from my boxes last night? Well, the College has loads of them, and they're sharing with anyone who's caring.”

She had no idea what some of what he was saying meant, but she did understand that the rosary she was wearing wrapped around her wrist was some sort of artifact. That, and three calls for help for anything. Speaking of help...

"Doctor."

Dr. Bill, in the middle of trying to clean up all his fallen equipment, froze at the sound, before relaxing when he realized it was Juniper.

"Y-yes? Did the wound reopen?"

"No it's not that." She bowed deeply. "Thank you for your help, Doctor. Without your help, I would have perished."

He looked back, most of his features obscured by his hat, before nodding and started picking up his tools, slightly faster than before. Oh? It would seem that the doctor was shy. Beneath that exterior it seems, a pure heart lies within. A rare sight for her, especially where she came from.

Smiling to herself, Juniper started on another ritual, controlling her breathing as she called upon the kami around her, asking for guidance on her next destination. Surely the local kami would know where to find some sort of clue about this wish granting machine.

"A cardboard box huh? Guess you can call me a legend on the battlefield now."

With a wry smile, Teller casually folded the box and put it in his rucksack. It wouldn't be close at hand for emergency response, but oh well. Not like it'd do him much good if they already knew where he was anyway. A sad lament of a song came out on Teller's system as he began his slow march deeper into the city towards nowhere in particular. Before long, however, his stomach rumbled its anger at having been neglected for the last while. With a sigh, Teller tucked into a back alley and grabbed a can of food out along with his matches, and then began foraging around for things to use to light a non-toxic fire over which to heat the canned food. Teller found this in the form of a nearby home's furniture, hacked apart with his hatchet and used as fire wood. It was signposting his position, to be sure, but he needed breakfast so there was nothing to be done.

After a minute of cooking the can's contents, some form of veggie he didn't recognize, he allowed it to cool before beginning the process of eating, looting utensils from the same house whose couch had cooked his breakfast. Of course, cutlery was a luxury, but no reason to deny it to himself for the moment. That in mind, a few spoons, knives and forks went into his back, bundled together with a piece of string. After eating what passed for his breakfast ("Not as bad as some MREs I've eaten."), Teller picked up his rifle and continued on his way, deeper into the city. Once again, he was struck by how profoundly empty it was, though now the occasional distant sound of fighting reached his ears. A familiar sound to the grizzled trooper, he kept his march going for well over an hour, but before long a thought occurred to him. A district, clearly different from the residential district he had been wandering through, now stretched out before him. Picking a three story structure, Teller began humming a gleeful tune as he cleared the structure's first floor. There, he copped a squat to begin preparing his gear, saying loudly, and even keying his COM to an open frequency, "Hey Oren, give me a link to whoever is my enemy of the day eh? Gotta trash talk my opponent, y'know.""
Meanwhile, in his mind, a plan was already taking shape to kill whoever came at him, from that mech pilot, to the woman who seemed to wear a main battle tank to the towering ogre, this oughta get any of em.

The Fungal Knight

Damn, it normally worked for the stump to go and find these people. Bonesword guessed the City of Echoes caused it a bit of confusion. In any case, riding around on the stump was rather fun, and from the looks of the sky the thirty minutes the skeleton could wait for had been used up, so he could call Oren at any time now (for at least 3 times), so this seemed like one time that would prove useful to him.

The skeleton held up his phylactery and called up Oren, preparing to inform him of two questions he had. "Hey Oren, I have to ask you something real quick. I have some information to tell College Staff, and I need to find some to tell this information too. Can you point me in the direction of some staff so I can talk to them about these clowns? I need to get my hands on some relics, and preferably some defensive ones."

Unbeknownst to the skeleton, however, his opponent could hear everything Bonesword just said. What they could use this information for, nobody could know.

@Roughdragon1

Sleeping through rain and thunder was one thing. Where once it may have caused concern, and worry as to whether or not you could stay dry, now it served the purpose of a calming backdrop. The pitter-patter of rain on the window and ceiling, coupled with the flashes of light and distant booms, were contradictorily calming. Something that would once have terrified her, and made her fear for her own health, was now something that served to calm her in her sleep. All in all, Lily had had a peaceful and restful sleep, but as fate would have it she was not destined to wake up on her own.

Waking up to a cataclysmic explosion, however, was something else entirely. It came as the rumble that was felt more than it was heard, sounding much like a thunderclap. It was a jarring experience, the sound making adrenaline pump into her blood as soon as her eyes flew open. Yet, she didn't jump to her feet. Rather, she strained her senses to investigate the immediate vicinity, and only when she judged that there were no newcomers present, did she lithely rise to her feet. Her eyes scanned the outside through the window, but saw nothing. Even with her eyes being able to pierce the near-dark twilight outside, there was nothing - nothing that was dangerous at least. At worst puddles of water that she would have to avoid to keep her tails dry. And, of course, the giant dust cloud rising up behind buildings in the distance.

"What in the hell was that?" Brucie asked.

Lily, lips pursed, turned to face him. "I don't know," she replied. "An explosion of some kind, but by whom?" She shook her head, kneeling down to pet the dog. She had woken from the explosion as well, but had stayed crouched and silent. During the night she had eventually moved from his isolated spots by the fire, to curling up buy Lily's tails where it was not only warmer, but softer as well. It seemed that a little kindness had gone a long way, to earning the trust of the little thing. That and letting him taste "dog treats", by licking her hand, of course. Animals were simple, in that they can only for a few things: Safety, food, and a place to sleep. If you could provide any one of these things, there was a good chance that you could earn the trust of any creature.

And speaking of food, the Lily hadn't had anything to eat ever since leaving home yesterday, something with a growling stomach was all too happy to remind her of. "Brucie, go look for something to eat. This is an office building, so I expects there to be something somewhere."

The shark nodded, saying "Roger, Boss-lady," and headed off.

That left Lily alone with her new companion, and the sound of rotor blades outside - helicopters zipping to and fro in the sky as if looking for something. Nevermind them, there were even stranger things afoot in the City of Echoes. Some two hundred paces from the building they were in, visible through the window, hovered a strange object that appeared to be more like a drone or an autonomous scout, than any kind of manned vehicle. Nevermind the fact that it was too small to house a human. What was most peculiar about it, however, was that it floated back and forth between the windows of nearby buildings, almost as if search for something. She could see no visible weaponry on them, but that did not mean that they were safe to come near. I will most likely want to incapacitate them if I ever get near one.

Content there were no immediate danger Lily turned her attention to the dog, allowing herself to feel a small bit of happiness that's such a sweet creature had come to her, and now seemed to enjoy her company. Even if I said enjoyment came from the fact that she was willing to scratching behind the ears. Selfish little thing, perhaps, but still a pleasant occurrence for Lily, too.

That, of course, was fated to last only for a short time as well. Sometimes, Lily wondered as her phylactery sputtered to life, if there was some external force similar to Fate or Destiny, that had made it their life's work to get in the way of small, pleasant moments for her. The voice of Oren sputtered to life from her necklace, the new voice drawing the attention of the dog - she really had to find a name for him - and began to relay whatever message their commentator had for them.

So the explosion was not the college's doing, nor are the helicopters and drones, it sounds like. Question is, then, who are they? How did they arrive? And, more important, why are they here and are they a threat? She thought, running through the new information while scratching the dog, and waiting for Brucie to find and bring back some food. With luck, there would be some abandoned cans or maybe something else. Really, they just needed something to eat - it didn't matter what it was, so long as it didn't poison them.

She would also have to decide on what she wanted to do next. According to Oren's announcement, her next opponent would be nearby. Not in the same building, but still relatively close. She didn't yet know anything about them, and so couldn't come up with a strategy quite yet, but even then she could still decide on a basic strategy. She had seen lots of people - and not people - who had ranged weaponry, so if she ended up against someone like the firearms-wielding contestants, she would need to stay unseen, and keep moving. I can't afford to stand stil. I don't know how much firepower they have, and I risk having my cover destroyed if I underestimate them. So in case of guns - keep moving, distract and frighten.

---

Time snailed away, passing annoyingly slow. Even with Mouse, as she had decided to call the dog, the time it took for Brucie to return was still longer than she would have preferred. He had brought with him a small handful of old candybars, a few cans of... something and - how did that even get here? - a single can of dogfood. She could understand the candybars and the left-over cans of old beans and whatnot, but why in the heck had a powerplant stored dogfood of all things? She doubted that there were any dogs here. Nevermind how dangerous it would be to have an animal like this run around in a powerplant facility, but this really didn't feel like the type of place where anyone would keep a pet.

Well, no use thinking about it. Best just to accept it. She stood up and took some of the cans from him, using her tails to pull together a few more pieces of wood for a new bonfire. The old one had gone out during the night. "Found anything to drink?" She asked, looking around for a knife or something else to open the cans.

"Bottle of water," he announced, tossing it to her, having stored it in the compartment in his left leg. "You keep that. I'll deal. Got my saltwater."

"Better than nothing." She unscrewed the cap and drank deeply, emptying over half the bottle before she stopped and knelt down. There she slowly poured water into her cupped hand, allowing Mouse to drink some as well.

"So what now?" Brucie inquired, sitting down on the floor with a heavy thump of metal on stone and opened one of the cans with a metal claw, dumping the sticky contents into his maw.

Lily sat down opposite Brucie, the wood pile between them, and ignited it again, placing a can of beans amidst the wood. She felt Mouse lay down beside her, having nosed his way under a few of her tails. "Now, we eat, and then I want to get a good look on our surroundings. According to the announcement I just got through this phylactery-" she made a show of by holding it up by the chain in front of her "-my next opponent will be somewhere nearby. Not in the same building, but somewhere in the area, I expect."

Brucie nodded, tearing open another can and downing the contents. "And how'll you fight them?"

"Depends on how they fight. I prefer to be a reactionary fighter, like how I knew you were trigger happy and used that to give you a lot of targets, wasting much of your ammo and distracting you."

He pressed one large, metallic hand against his breast and hung his head. "You hurt an old man's feeling," he said, mock hurt.

"But it's true, is it not?" She countered, a sly smile dancing on her lips. She let her eyes fall closed and let out a small chuckle, tucking her knees up against her chest. "Do me a favour and open my can when it's done."

"Sure thing."

ID: Ryan Harper
Location: Grassy Expanse
Time: Error
Opponent ID: N/A

A powerful rumble jolted her awake. Her hands clasped around the controls on instinct and she frantically scanned her surroundings for the source. She soon spotted the pillar of smoke and dust rising from the city and allowed her body to relax the tiniest bit, concluding it not to be an immediate threat.

The Sentinel’s gaze made another pass over the horizon, this time slower, so Ryan could actually get her bearings. She had spent most of the night in that same spot near the lake, having ignored the drone’s advice to find shelter. Repairing the mech was a more important task. She spent a good few hours sitting on the floor, reconnecting the gun’s circuitry, while the heavy rain assaulted her outer shell. She’d tested it on the nearby cliffside and it had worked fine then, but she made a note to keep an eye on it in the upcoming days. When that was done she resolved to head for the building she’d spotted in the distance at her arrival, beyond the meadows sprawling out to her side.

Now she was surrounded by open fields. She assumed she’d fallen asleep in her seat. Luckily not on top of anything important. There wasn’t a speck over the grass that suggested anyone in her immediate vicinity so her hands cautiously released their grip. Ryan rubbed her eyes furiously, trying to fight away the morning drowsiness and took a look around the cockpit, checking for anything out of order that she might have missed last night. Everything seemed to be working properly, aside from the digital clock that had been blinking odd shapes at random ever since she passed through the storm. Her eyes stopped on the hole in the floor for a moment, then gradually moved towards the box containing her reward. She hadn’t opened it yet, only exiting the mech to collect it once the downpour had gotten particularly nasty. She picked it up now and curiously examined the device within it. It looked like a toy gun, but weighed more than anything plastic could. Her fingers gingerly turned it over, examining the handle, the barrel, carefully passing over the dial…It had the shape of a weapon so she assumed it was one, but not much in its appearance suggested what it did exactly. Ryan figured she’d have to test it.

Oren’s buzzing voice startled her. She lifted the phylactery up to hear better. The new information was unsettling. Up to this point she thought she’d only have to worry about the other contestants. Knowing that an explosion of that magnitude was caused by someone other than the parties involved in the tournament sent a shiver down her spine. She looked up at the mention of the sky. A gargantuan shape masked out a good chunk of it. It choked the breath out of her lungs.
The Sentinel’s heavy footsteps echoed through the field again, determined to reach some sort of shelter and perhaps reinforcement. The building in the distance slowly grew closer.

@Lugubrious

Runch had to wait patiently before Oren responded to him, which he didn't mind. Most likely there was going to be quite a few of the contestants calling in for directions, advice, or to be linked to their next opponents. Once the pun loving man chimed in though, the pirate found himself... Dissatisfied and disenchanted. Oren confirmed that yes, there was something interesting nearby, and that was it. The connection closed and that was one of only three calls he had available all used up. With a heavy sigh, Runch glanced over to the window to find a bird had taken perch. Through the sweet songs it sang, he found some relief from his frustration. He had to admit, it was strangely comforting. The winged creature reminded him of his first mate's bird collection back on the Guppy. His thoughts drifted to what the rest of the crew were doing, and wondering how Joanne was. Smith and Hachirou were patient men, they could sit on that dock for days on end waiting for him to return from this tournament. Dr. Ken was... Less predictable. He was just as likely to pass out in a coma on the ship as he was to defy orders and head out into the City of Echoes to find more alcohol.

Runch's musing were interrupted by the sound of his phylactery's speakers kicking back in, and Oren providing some additional information. Clutching his left fist and shaking it in excitement, his eyes drifted upward as he mouthed the words, "thank you" silently. “Ooh, the Old Basilica. South beyond the Cold Monastery -you'll know it when you see it- then east near the Three Rivers' Mosque. I just know you get a kick out of what's inside.”

Runch nodded, either uncaring, or oblivious, to the fact that there was no video so Oren wouldn't be able to see his body language. "I thank ye, Oren! And I appreciate the extra push. Now that I have a firmer understanding of your rules, I'll be sure to play by'em and be more specific in the future. Omnomnomnom! And as thanks, I think I'll make a new recipe in yer honor! Once I win this contest, you and me will be able to chow down on my new 'Oren Berry' surprise! Or maybe I should call it 'Oran Berry' to give the impression of oranges? Well I'll let you decide, omnomnom!" Runch terminated the communication, but for some odd reason he couldn't shake the impression of electric mice from his mind. Well nevermind to that, he had a new adventure to shove off to! And better yet, a destination in mind! It would require a small bit of backtracking, though.

Runch approached the window and shooed away the bird, albeit reluctantly. With the portal outside now clear, he clambered on up to the rooftop of his shelter in order to get the lay of the land. He hadn't seen the place too well in last night's darkness, and the landscape had changed with the subsequent flooding. Navigating the place was more of a nuisance, but not terribly difficult. Rooftops were still walkable and he could manifest bridges of cereal wherever needed. It he were attacked by this day's opponent in such an environment though, it could prove disastrous. He shook his head, freeing the mind of such concerns for the time being. That was later's problem. The task right now was finding this Old Basilica. Keeping up a good pace, but making sure he didn't tire himself out, Runch set off to get back to the Holy Grounds.

Last night's rain was truly a terror to behold. Runch had heard that such weather was commonplace in the Grand Line though. If this was true, he couldn't afford to shy away from the dangers that the City of Echoes would heap upon him. If he couldn't deal with a little massive flooding then-Flooding! Crap! Runch's mind raced back to yesterday's opponent, the assassin with the unpronounceable name, and how he had left him stuck in honey and buried beneath a pile of hard cereal. Had that cathedral flooded through too? Did Serhan drown because of Runch's actions? The captain altered his course slightly. The cathedral would be on the way to his new destination, so it wouldn't take much time out of his day to go check up. If Serhan was alive, he'd ease his conscience. If the man was dead... Well, he was needlessly cruel and a massive sadist, so Runch wouldn't be shedding any tears over it, but he'd prefer nobody died due to his own negligence. The adrenaline kicked in and Runch picked up the pace, firing out a stream of cereal behind him to propel forward faster.

---

Nearly half an hour passed, and Bartholomew K. Runch found himself back at the wondrous cathedral he had found his nifty amulet and had served as the battleground with Serhan. Upon his approach he breathed out a sigh of relief. The torrential downpour had not damaged the outside of the massive structure. Of course, that didn't mean that the water didn't somehow find itself on the inside. K. Runch strolled into the front doors, shoving them aside. Inside his shoes made contact with small puddles of water, splish splashing and spreading around mud in the hallowed halls. This was not something the pirate had concerned himself with. On the far side, near the main altar, stood a mountain of cereal, engorged on water to a significantly larger size than when he had placed it there. He couldn't help but chuckle at the sight, mentally comparing it to an enormous pile of sponges. "Omnomnom."

Runch's eyes darted to beneath the pile where Serhan should have been. The expanded pellets of wheat covered up where the assassin's face would have been. If he hadn't been crushed beneath the increased weight, chances were that he had suffocated. Things didn't look good. Well, either he was dead, or found a way to survive. There would be no point in hurrying himself, it would only waste energy. The spoonsaber unfastened from its sheathe with a little frumple sound from the buttons holding it in place. With expert hands, utilizing techniques unique to himself, Runch began removing the mountain of bloated, soaked cereal. Splat, splat, splat went the pieces as they hit the floor, columns, and walls. A few seconds later and Runch uncovered the original floor position of Serhan. Only there was no Serhan.

Click.

Runch froze in place. Something cold and round was pressed against the back of his neck. The barrel of a gun.

"Your sentimentality is a great weakness, infidel," came a hushed voice with a strong accent, practically breathed into Runch's ear. "The rain softened your wheat and washed away your honey. After going to such lengths to save my life, it was an easy prediction to surmise you would check on me after the rain."

Runch breathed out deeply, letting his spoonsaber list to the floor, using it to support himself.

"I should take your little bauble and reclaim my soul. I should ensure the suffering I impart unto you is second only to the torment Allah will command upon your soul. Then, and only then, should I end your life." The pirate closed his eyes and tightened his grip on his trusted weapon. Thoughts raced through his mind as to how he could get out of this lethal situation. He could swing around and swipe with his blade, but that wouldn't be fast enough. He could drop Hellfire recipe on the floor, but that'd hurt him as much as his assailant. Ah, the gun was placed directly against his skin. An idea, a plan, well a small fraction of a plan, began to form in his brain. He could generate a plug into the gun directly from his neck. If Serhan shot, the bullet would be blocked. That carried the risk of the gun exploding though, and that meant it was his head versus Serhan's neck. But it might not explode, right?

"So why can I not bring myself to do these things to you?"

"... What the fruit?" Runch took a chance and spun around to meet Serhan's eyes. He was greeted with the barrel of the gun rising up to be placed directly against his forehead. The assassin glared at him with a look of death that could never be mistaken for anything else. Yet there was something else in those dead, unfeeling eyes. It wasn't hesitance per say, but something was clearly keeping him from acting on those impulses. "I really think you should put that down, before either of us gets hurt." To the captain's surprise, Serhan did exactly that.

"Um, ok. Well. Uh... I wasn't expecting that to work?" Runch shrugged sheepishly, feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

"Neither was I. I feel compelled to follow your words." His voice was fairly monotonous, yet the loathing lay just beneath the surface.

"Really? I need to look at something." Runch pulled out the journal he had won from yesterday's battle and leafed through the pages until he found the entry that had been made on Serhan. He hadn't read through it comprehensively, only skimmed before. The Bashibozuk stood in place, silently waiting, while he attempted to comprehend everything that was on the two pages. Fact of the matter was that it was incredibly detailed, so the writing had to be very small to fit it all in. Finally he found something that caught his eye, something that explained this phenomena. "Oh, here we go. It says, 'Due to having his soul removed, this specimen is currently enthralled to the owner of said soul. He cannot bring himself to harm the bearer of his life force, and must follow all actions dictated by that individual.' Huh. That's..." He gave pause, feeling uncomfortable as he allowed his eyes to peek up ever so slightly above the book to meet Serhan's. "Grim. I'm not entirely amicable with that, to be frank. Slavery is not good."

"You are pathetic. Civilizations are raised on the backs of slaves, even if they do not realize they are what they are. You are a pirate, yes? I would expect you to understand such harsh truths to life, and now I am in your reluctant service." This man was clearly insane. He despised Runch for his defeat, but now he called the man pathetic for not wanting to keep him enslaved through some mystic soul mumbo jumbo?

"There is simply no pleasing you." Runch snapped the journal shut and pocketed it, then waved Serhan to follow. "Well I would rather keep an eye on you so you don't go around wantonly murdering people, I suppose. Your skills are fantastic, so I might as well keep you around. When this whole affair is over, your soul, and the others I take on the way to my wish, will be returned. That is my word."

"Then I will take advantage of your insolence," the assassin mumble, just barely loud enough for Runch to hear. Shaking his head at the sheer obstinance of this man, he chose to ignore it. Together they would travel to the Old Basilica, by the route dictated by Oren.

Runch thought hard about the instructions, trying to recall them. South beyond the Cold Monastery. Cold Monastery. He didn't have much of a frame of reference for that landmark, but Oren assured that he'd know it on sight. Hmm. "Matey," Runch called out, and Serhan looked up, not showing his irritation. "Did you see anything that could be described as the 'Cold Monastery' when you explored around these parts?"

"Yes." The answer came bluntly, and off hand.

"Well let's move our eggplants, matey! Lead the way! Omnomnomnom!"

---

The journey took an hour, through the flooded streets and complicated windings of holy sights. Finally the duo came upon a sight that could certainly only be described as the Cold Monastery. A great structure on a hill, surrounded by a mystical swirl of snow and ice. The pirate captain desperately wanted to explore inside such a stupendous building. The urge was great, but he reigned himself in. He could easily get lost in such a place, and didn't know how much time he'd be devoting to this Old Basilica, so focused he remained. South from the Cold Monastery, to the Three Rivers Mosque. It took Runch a moment of pondering, but he realized that he actually had no idea what a mosque actually was. Unlike the monastery, there was no indication that he should know this one on sight.

"So matey... Do you know what a 'mosque' is?" he asked, rather innocently.

"You insolent infidel! How can you offend the people of Allah with such a question?!" For the first time Serhan's time had risen beyond something calm, and low key. He was half shouting. Apparently this was a sensitive topic. Unfortunately Runch had absolutely no idea why.

"Eh... Sorry for offending you? I'm genuinely ignorant. Can you just answer?"

"Hrm. A mosque is a holy house of Allah, like your 'churches.' It is where we of Islam gather for prayer and worship."

"Oh," replied the captain, genuinely appreciative of the information. "Fantastic. And what would one look like?"

"Guide your eyes to the left and you shall see."

Indeed, there was a splendid mosque just to the left, surrounded by water that had overtaken the riverbanks, no doubt thanks to the flooding rain.

"Oh my berries. Wow. Your faith makes some amazing buildings! Omnomnomnom! Well I'd hazard a guess to say that's the Three Rivers Mosque I'm looking for. East now, near here. The Old Basilica. Oren said there was something 'interesting' inside that I'd get a kick out of. Let's go, me matey!"