Ammokkx

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Apocalypse Rescue Team

The barracks of Songstream Hall were pretty barebones in all honesty. Several Bunk Beds were set in rows, in varying sizes, with small bags and chests sat at the foot of each of them in a large rectangular room. Many were unclaimed, but it was easy to tell which bed belonged to whom. Whether it was the small decorations that sat on or around them, or the state of some of them, such as Squegg's unkempt blankets and crumbs of food littering his bed, or Rio's bed being surrounded by flowers and brightly colored dresses.

The barracks were empty, with the exception of one lone figure in the dim lights. It was none other than Pandora, who was busy polishing a crystal orb the size of her head to a perfect sheen. She sat near her bed on the floor, surrounded by several other strange objects. There was a deck of cards with strange pictures on them, a map of various constellations, a pair of bent copper rods, and other various fortune telling and divination paraphernalia stacked neatly on the chest by her bed.

Her being the only other Pokemon down there made it all too easy for Gale to find the Absol. One small issue still had to be overcome though; the matter of drawing Pandora’s attention. She seemed preoccupied to put things mildly, as well as Gale not being the most assertive mousey creature around. A light tap probably wouldn’t do; at best he’d be looked at funny, but at worst he could startle the woman. Well, she didn’t look like the easily startled type, but if she WAS, then Gale had no intention of paying damages for the crystal ball he might or might not end up being the cause of breaking. In the first place, Gale would need to-

-focus, and remember why he came here rather than get lost in his musings. "Uhm, excuse me?" he’d try to reach out. "Are you Pandora, by any chance?"

The Absol flinched ever so slightly at the sound of Gale's voice and touch. She looked around, somewhat confused, before looking down at the little yellow and blue creature. She set down the cloth she was using on the chest next to her, amongst the various other tools that laid there before turning back towards Gale. "Yes, that's me, who are… " she cocked her head to the side, eyeing up the small creature in front of her, seemingly taking in every detail. "Ah, you're one of the new recruits. Gale, was it? Do you require my services? If you've lost something I might be able to help you find it. Or I may be able to illuminate what lies ahead." As if for emphasis she looked over and put her paw onto a nearby stack of cards.

Gale shot it a quick glance, then back at Pandora. "...Yeah. Gale. I’ve come here for…" he’d voice, his words petering out as Gale took a hard look at the reason he actually came down here for. Sure, he came to get his fortune told. And, truthfully, he’d appreciate any clues to his personal goals- to finding his sister. His first instinct was even to ask about it, just now. However… he couldn’t do that, not now. Both Ting and Fio were preparing for the mission and Gale couldn’t just be selfish when others were relying on him. Hurricane always did teach him to be a good brother to Breeze like that. "Actually, I’m going out on my first mission soon," he’d say, "and I’m not doing it alone. I’m going with two other recruits, Fio and Ting. I wanted to know our fortune for the road, if it’s not too much to ask."

The Absol smiled gently at the seemingly shy boy's request. "Of course, of course. A little illumination for the road ahead. I'll tell you what I can. Now then…" Turning her head once more, Pandora’s eyes began to glow a soft violet hue, as the cards she had her paw on began to slowly shuffle themselves, turning in various directions and rearranging their positions for but a brief moment, until the cards were once again still. "Just a little trick I picked up during my travels. Only works on light objects like cards, though."

In one swift motion, Pandora swiped the top card off of the deck and onto the floor, face down. "Let's see what fate has in store for you today." She flipped the card over. The card had a picture of a cart, pulled along by two Rapidash in full gallop, the cart containing a thin, featureless bipedal figure holding some sort of golden staff under a starry sky. Although to the young Minun, the picture was upside-down. "The Chariot, in the reverse position. The Chariot in its reversed position usually represents opposition, or roadblocks of some kind. Perhaps you will run into a 'bump in the road' as it were. Or perhaps…" the Absol's voice trailed off as she seemed to explore her thoughts momentarily. "You may encounter a problem you cannot face head on, and you may have to approach from a different angle." She looked up from the card to Gale. "If I were you, I'd be wary of trickery, and try not to focus too much on things out of your control. Focus on the how and why, as you may be focusing your efforts on the wrong problem." She picked up the card and slid it into a random spot in the deck sitting on the chest.

"I wouldn’t be too worried, all things considered. If anything terrible were to happen to you, Kick would be on the hunt to bring you home safe personally. But otherwise, is there anything else I can help you with?"

Gale put his paw to his mouth. "Anything else…?" he repeated after her, pondering the offer over. The offer was tempting enough, but he felt like he shouldn’t take too much of the Absol’s time. "Well… maybe not now, no. I’d like it if I could come by again later, though. I might want my fortune told again for something else..."

Gale would’ve been lying if he said he hadn’t got other things on his mind, but they could wait at least a little bit longer. He shouldn’t hold up his team or his senior any longer. Further, he needed time to think about what that prediction meant. From the sounds of it, this first mission wasn’t going to be nearly as routine or simple as Gale had hoped. ”Thank you for your time," he said with a quick bow of respect, turning to rejoin his teammates.

"Of course," The Absol mirrored Gale's bow. "Feel free to come back any time."

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

What is everyone else playing?

@SleepingSilence

I have been playing so much 7th Dragon III: Code VFD. It's a hella good RPG on the 3D's.

It has this class, Duelist, that's just one giant YGO reference. If you know me, you know I love my YGO. But it's also just mechanically cool: It works by having a maximum hand size of 6 and starting with anywhere from 2-4 cards in hand (default 2, upgraded to 4 with skill points). You've got 3 types of elemental cards you can draw between fire, electric and ice. These cards in hand are used to cast your skills; a basic fire spell costs 1 fire, a field nuke costs 2 fire, etc.. But the interesting part is the traps, which need ice + lightning, ice + fire and fire + lightning respectively. Later in the game you unlock a skill where, if you set up all three traps in a row, you activate Judgment and deal massive amounts of damage to every enemy. Then there's also X Burn, which is a 3 turn "at the start of your turn, deal damage" fire skill. THe zinger is that this damage at the start of your turn increases for every fire card you've played while it was active, so you can set it up, then on the next turn burn 3 fire cards and suddenly you're oneshotting most things in the game at the start of your turn, for 2 turns.

Duelist ended up being my major boss killer up until the final boss and the bonus dungeon where One Turn Kill strategies stopped working.

Secundi Lux

---

Two figures walked along the desolated and abandoned landscape of the training grounds where the girls' usual exercises took place. The sight of the broken, worn-out buildings felt as gloomy as ever to Chie. She didn't have much she could do other than look about the environment while she tailed behind her instructor: A tall, pink-haired Ars Magi with a placid expression on her face. She hadn't said much for the entire journey; in fact, Chie only knew her name was Lies because she'd been told beforehand.

"Out here's far enough," the older woman finally spoke up, a slight accent to her speech. It was somewhat similar to Selma's, so she must have been from Hasta. The senior Ars Magi hadn't bothered to look back at her examinee, instead fixing her gaze skyward.

Chie had already been transformed for a while now, waiting on her exercise to start. She timidly asked: "Uhm... miss Lies, what's going to be my test?"

And, as soon as Chie asked, Lies turned on her heel and drew her Gladius; a small handgun. She fired a shot from it without warning, point-blank at Chie who didn't have any time to react. She tried to dodge, too late, as the beam of energy that had come from it hit the girl square in her forehead. Strangely, it hadn't actually hurt her, or made any kind of impact at all. Then, when Chie blinked, Lies had vanished without a trace.

"Consider that your only hint," the instructor's voice resounded from no clear direction. "If you land a scratch on me, you pass."

It didn't take long for Chie to catch on to what that meant, quickly dodging to her side. Her movements were followed by several of those same shots from earlier, each now punching a very real hole in the ground where Chie had stood just moments prior. "Good, you think quickly," her instructor's voice echoed again. The first thing Chie needed to do was pin-point Lies' location, a feat made slightly harder by the fact that those first few shots were clearly just the warm-up. Chie had to rely on some kind of miraculous 6th sense because, as far as she could tell, the next ten, even twenty shots all came from different directions. The girl dodged to the side, ducked, jumped and did all kinds of maneuvers to dodge the veritable bullet hell.

"What are you doing?" her senior's disappointed voice resounded. The onslaught of attacks briefly paused. "Did they teach you to run instead of fight?"

Chie didn't have much time to ponder the question, for more shots were fired in her direction. This time, though, she couldn't dodge quite as easily; one shot had been a feint at her feet, meant to make Chie freak out and cause her to dodge backwards. All it ended up accomplishing was make her dodge straight into the actual attack meant to hit her. Chie would've gotten hit, if not for the fact she got lucky- her arms swung just right to end up deflecting the shot with one of her chakrams. And, in doing so, Chie realized what her senior was trying to do. The next barrage of bullets had Chie remaining rooted in place, parrying them with her gladius. From this, she learned a couple of things:

1. Not every bullet was real. Some vanished mid-air without a trace and she felt like she was slicing through thin air on others.
2: Even though she couldn't see Lies, sometimes a flash of her appeared in the reflection of Chie's chakrams.

Armed with this knowledge, Chie took a gamble. She broke straight through one of the attacks, not even bothering to cut the shot in half. Like predicted, it harmlessly phased right through the girl. Chie readied her chakrams to toss them, but instead of straight ahead, spun around to throw one to her diagonal in the back. The spot Chie threw it in looked empty, but from behind thin air, Lies suddenly emerged. She'd jumped to the side to avoid Chie's much-too-slow attack, but at least it served to flush the senior Ars Magi out of hiding. For Lies' sake, she merely pulled down her hat with one hand while casually unloading more rounds Chie's way. They weren't hard to dodge, though. For some reason, Lies just remained rooted to the ground and followed Chie's movements with her handgun, lazily shooting blank after blank. It gave the Calcarian girl the perfect chance to counterattack.

Taking stock of the area, Chie found Lies to be standing underneath a shaky lighting pole. All Chie had to do was increase the gravity, which would both root the instructor to the spot and cause the object to fall on top of them. Chie focused her magic on the spot she saw with her eyes. Clutching her hand, she created a gravity well to root whoever was standing there to the spot- and immediately as she did so, noticed what had gone wrong. The gravity beneath Chie's feet suddenly intensified, pulling her down on her knees as she heard the creaking above her. A shadow formed underneath where Chie was standing and, looking up, she could clearly make out the same lighting pole coming crashing down on her. The girl had no time to get out of the way, the only thing she could and did do was hurriedly reverse her magic. The increased gravity turned to zero gravity, just barely managing to stop the hunk of metal from crushing her.

"Your movements are predictable!" Lies chastised her again, this time landing a clean hit on Chie's side. She let out a yelp in pain. "Is that all those powers of yours can do?" the instructor continued to berate her. Chie panted and grit her teeth, getting back on her feet. She looked around to try and flush out her target again. "If you lack ambition, then get out!"

The sound of snapping fingers signaled a disorienting experience for Chie- in the quite literal blink of an eye, her world had turned sideways. The buildings were all stretching out horizontally across her field of vision, rather than reaching out to the sky. No- even the sky itself was to Chie's side. She moved her body, but it felt like it was going in a completely different direction to what she actually saw happening before her. With the sound of more gunfire ringing out, Chie knew she had to do something fast. She looked to her new 'down,' finding a building 'below' her. Taking an all-or-nothing gamble, Chie quickly anchored a gravity well to that building, sending her hurling straight to it. It allowed Chie to dodge the next few shots, sure, but at the price of her slamming straight into a brick wall.

"You're slow!" Lies continued to taunt. Chie barely had any time to scramble to her feet, managing to just barely jump backwards from another bullet that scraped her by. But there was one trick Chie now had available to her; even though her world had briefly turned sideways, her newfound location made it stand up straight again. Though in reality the girl was probably standing horizontally against the wall of a building, the fact she could anchor herself that way made her visual feed match up to what her body actually felt. Adjusting her field of gravity as she danced across the building's side, even jumping over the broken windows, Chie managed to easily dance around every shot fired back at her.

It finally dawned on Chie what kind of power Lies had been using up to now, but she didn't yet have a way to counter it. She knew she couldn't rely on her eyes; after all, that's exactly what her instructor had been misdirecting her with the entire time. Chie took a deep breath and shut them tightly, making her world go black. At the same time, Chie released the grip her gravity had on her. The area around her had returned to normal and the girl fell to the very real, actual pavement she'd decoupled herself from earlier. Chie wasn't used to fighting blind, so she ended up getting clipped by quite a few of Lies' shots while readjusting. Chie took a calm breath, assessed her situation and let the Nox flow through her.

"I figured out your trick," Chie said to buy herself some time. As she'd hoped, her instructor took the bait and briefly halted her assault.

"Tell me, then."

"It's... the light. You're refracting light!"

If Lies had been altering the direction of the ambient light surrounding Chie, then she could make Chie see anything she wanted. The bullets were never disappearing, they were mirrored images. Lies didn't jump out of thin air, she was jumping from behind a fake projection. Chie's world hadn't gone sideways, the light had hit her eyes from another direction. If Lies had really wanted to, she could have taken away Chie's ability to see anything at all. And if Chie couldn't rely on her senses... she'd need to rely on her magic.

Instead of altering the gravity around herself, Chie reversed her magic. It was something she hadn't tried before; rather than changing the gravity around her, she'd feel the changes in gravity. Every object, no matter how small, had its own center of gravity, its own pull. So, if Lies shot a bullet, Chie could feel the ripple. She could feel the new force of gravity, hurtling through the air- and sliced clean through it. Not just the bullets, even, as Lies herself was also a center of gravity. She was running around, shifting the net of gravity around herself. Obviously, she was running about to hit a rooted Chie from different angles. With her newfound trick, however, the girl had an easy enough time turning to parry each and every single shot. There was just one problem with this approach- it was とても difficult to maintain such a completely alien trick. She wasn't used to the technique, having only come up with it on the spot and it made it incredibly inefficient from a Nox-expending standpoint. Additionally, the concentration required of Chie made it all but impossible to create new gravity wells to root Lies in place with.

So, only one option remained open to the girl. Taking careful note of her instructor's position, Chie bet the farm on an all-or-nothing attack. She dashed forward, straight at Lies, cutting through any and all bullets in her path with one chakram. The other, Chie tossed straight ahead. At the last possible second, Chie's concentration broke. She felt her grip on the gravity net slip, suddenly losing all sensation. Mere moments after that a cold, metallic object was pressing into her chin- alongside an arm having firmly wrapped itself around her waist.

"Your test is over, kleine meid."

Chie opened her eyes, finding Lies to have shoved the gun right into her face. To make matters worse, the senior had Chie in a firm grip. If that trigger was pulled, Chie was dead- a clear sign she'd lost the duel. Lies released the girl from the lock, causing the young thing to drop to her knees. Chie scraped her fingers across the pavement, balling her hands into fists and biting her lower lip in frustration. "I... failed, didn't I?"

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself and look at me."

The instructor's harsh, aggressive words made Chie jump a little. She looked up, as instructed. Lies was clutching her side, the hand doing so being covered in blood. "Your last attack hit me."

"Then...?"

"I said if you could land a scratch, you'd pass. Now get up," she commanded, desummoning her gladius so her now-free hand could somewhat forcefully help Chie to her feet. Lies' expression was foul like usual, meaning a lecture for Chie was coming up.

"Stop relying on the same few tricks. You'll fight all kinds of enemies out there. Both our elementium- my Light and your Gravity- can't attack any of them directly. Your Gladius isn't there for show; crushing your enemies with magic may have worked for you to now, but for me, my only way of fighting has always been my handgun. I was forced to learn how to use my weapon for its own merit- now you should figure out yours."

Chie cast her gaze downwards. "I see... I'd never-"

"And further," Lies cut off the girl before she could continue. "Stop doubting yourself. You're smart, I've never seen anyone figure it out as fast as you have. I kept changing my tricks to confuse you, but you also kept quick on your feet and always found some way to fight back. You need that kind of snap judgment- if you let self-doubt cloud your mind, you'll end up dead. Or, worse..." the senior Ars Magi berated Chie, with a brief pause at the end as she looked up to the sky. "...your negligence causes one of your friends to die."

The last bit had a hint of melancholy to it. Chie couldn't bear the thought. "No... I won't- I'm not going to let that happen, miss Lies."

Her expression passive, still, Lies lowered her head to meet Chie's gaze again. "Is that so? Then we're going to practice those new tricks of yours some more."

"Huh? But, your wound-" Chie tried to show concern, but Lies' Gladius had already been drawn. Unlike before, Chie managed to dodge backwards and parry the warning shot- very much a real one, this time.

"Zwijg, and focus."

"...Right!"

Chie may have passed the initial test, but her evaluation was far from over.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Apocalypse Rescue Team

Figured it'd make the most sense to do both; that being, getting a small post out and then doing a small collab for Gale getting his fortune told. So, small post made.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Apocalypse Rescue Team

"Are you sure, Fio?" Gale would ask of her, considering she turned down Gale's intended offer of joining them in shopping. He wasn't aware himself that he'd made it sound otherwise. "Hm... if you think you can handle it, then I'll leave it to you two."

Gale gave both Ting and Fio a nod. He scanned the guild hall, trying to find the exit. "Hm... I think we should meet up right on the exit of town when we're done. Then we can depart for the orchards after."

It felt a little weird to the Minun to be giving out orders like that, but the party had been held up long enough. "I'll see you two later then," Gale said, gave his team a goodbye wave and made his way down to the barracks to go see Pandora.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Apocalypse Rescue Team

fuck it, gale's getting his fortune told. How can one resist Fio?

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Apocalypse Rescue Team

slight bit non-committal, but non-committal *was* the conceit of Gale's character, so.

Anyway going to pass out now as I stalled on writing that all day and it's now 11PM and honestly this probably shows in the writing quality-

well, anyway, I promised a post today so today it SHALL. BE. POSTED.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Apocalypse Rescue Team

The input from the other two was taken into account by Gale. Apparently, neither had many funds, nor much interest in going to get their fortune told. A bit of a shame on that last part... Gale wanted to go see what that was all about. "Hm..." he started to ponder, retreating into himself again. He could still go get his fortune told, but it'd mean dragging his fellow recruits around for no reason. On top of that, he really did want to shop for some supplies. Gale should have enough money to cover the three of them for at least the one trip. He could try to get both his fortune told and shop, sure, but that would take too much time. The road to the orchard sounded long, so the earlier they departed, the better. The party might, at that point, even make it before sunset.

"I... thiiink..." Gale slowly started to form his thoughts, still mulling it over. Fio already had her fortune, but neither Gale nor Ting had theirs, did they? For safety's sake, the three should at least check it out. But, then again, the time issue was still present. Fortune or shopping, fortune or shopping... that was the dilemma Gale was faced. A dilemma, he realised, was causing him to space out and totally forget about the other two for a moment.

"...Oh. Sorry," he quickly apologised, shifting his little feet paws in place. "I think I know the way to cloud street, at least... do you two want to go shopping?"

A decisively non-decisive answer, but it was the best he could do.

Yu☆Gi☆Oh!: Soul Mirror

Silence hung in the air for an uncomfortably long time. The smoke on Kei's field slowly cleared and, behind its veil, revealed himself to still be standing, though unsteady. ”Not... yet!" he groaned. His LP counter appeared next to him, the number on it reading a solid 2400. Next to Kei was a trap card that had been glowing brightly ever since the smoke cleared. ”Before you attacked my monsters... I activated... Nutrient Z! With another 4000LP, I survived your attack...!"

"So you survived huh? Seems like we are not the only ones with tricks up their sleeve to survive death against the odds. Good job, kid." Haruo spoke, giving a thumbs up that was mimicked by his monster. The two were in perfect sync with each other. "The effect of our Pride of the Weak Activates. Since we destroyed one of your monsters by battle and we have no cards in hand, we draw 2 cards. Turn end."

”Ngh... It's not kid, it's Kei!" he yelled, drawing his card to mark the start of his turn. The boy was breathing heavily from the exhaustion that had slowly been intensifying, reaching a breaking point when this new monster had appeared. The way it and his owner moved in perfect harmony was downright unnerving. It reminded Kei far too much of that Red Ogre duelist. If this guy was the same as him, then Kei absolutely could not afford to lose this duel...!

The boy looked down at his hand. He didn't have many options, but he knew one thing: he needed to do something about that monster, or he had no hope of winning this duel. ”I activate Block Attack!" Kei shouted, desperately activating the card. King of the Skull Servants was forced into defense position, switching its grand 4000ATK for a nonexistent 0DEF. ”I'll break through with this... let's go, Partner! Silent Severing Slash!" Kei instructed LV5, who dashed forward and cleanly sliced through the skeleton. But unfortunately for Kei, it wouldn't stay down for long. Just as the King crumpled into a pile of bones, those selfsame bones begun reassembling themselves. Before long, the King of Skull Servants stood proud and tall on the field again, his 4000ATK staring the boy down again.

"Sorry kid, but we can't afford to fall that easily," the king and Haruo both said, each opening the palm of their hand and shaking their head. "The little ones count on us to protect them... and we inherit their wishes. By banishing a LV1 monster in our graveyard, our faithful Skull Servant, we revive from our destruction."

Kei grimaced, staring down at the last card in his hand. He paused, a hesitant ”..." as he looked down at his one remaining option. ”I'll set one card, and..." Kei trailed off, looking up at his monster. Silent Swordsman just kept his eyes focused on the king.

...Kei didn't want to end his turn. No matter how exhausted he felt right now, his partner had been through much worse. Once again today, he was facing down a 4000ATK monster. During the next turn, the king would attack Silent Swordsman LV5, definitively destroying it. Kei would have another 700LP and live to the next turn, but he couldn't do a damn thing to protect his partner. He clutched his fist in frustration and bit his lip. ”...I..."

"It's okay. I'll protect you."

That same voice, again, reached out to Kei. He looked up, but his partner was still staring straight ahead. Kei was sure of it this time, though- sure of who that voice belonged to. The boy looked up at Haruo. ”...Hey, you." he addressed him. ”'Not harmonious, or parasitic.' That's what you said, right?" Kei asked, determination in his eyes. ”I think... I know what you mean now. I've been hearing his voice for a while now..." he said, looking down at his hand. Then the young duelist clutched it, threw it to the side and stared straight at his opponent. It seemed he caught his second wind, brimming with fighting spirit. ”After this duel is over... tell me everything! Tell me about my partner! I end my turn!"

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Apocalypse Rescue Team

bit dry on inspiration today, so I'll look to post tomorrow instead.