Lugubrious

World of Light

Well, that does make things somewhat difficult. But I'm sure we can manage when the time comes.

World of Light

The hero shtick is kind of the driving force behind the plot of the RP. I would be happier if nobody struck out on their own, since that would mean I don't have to write out another scenario just for him. He could go down the mountain and join the reserve at Tostarena Town no problem, but if he essentially quits the party things could get dicier.

World of Light

Tora, Poppi, and Big Band

Location: Sandswept Sky - Graveyard of the Peaks
Level 9 Tora (135/90) Level 9 Poppi (135/90) Level 5 Big Band (73/50)
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Fox’s @Dawnrider, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Laharl’s @Dark Cloud, Raz’s @TruthHurts22, the Phantom Thieves, Braum, and the Scout
Word Count: 1847

As if the snowy slope dotted with weathered gravestones as far as the eye could see wasn’t bleak enough in and of itself, a certain someone -or perhaps more accurately, something- just had to drift into view. For the few among the gathered Seekers who shared the misfortune of meeting Master Hand prior, its appearance had been less a question of ‘if’ than ‘when’, but that hardly lessened the tension of this encounter. Even as the snow scraped their faces and the wind whipped at their hair, Tora and Poppi Alpha reacted instantaneously, readying their Drill Shield and spectral claymore for a brawl. As much as the Nopon would have liked to crack Master Hand’s knuckles with a Boom Biter, however, Tora did not open fire. He and his companion knew what the Phantom Thieves and the Scout with their firearms quickly found out; a bubble shield flared to life around the entity before them to protect it from incoming fire, and it showed no sign of damage. “Don’t waste ammunition!” the artificial blade warned them. As infuriating as it was, the heroes could do little but try to endure the battery of both otherworldly voice and buffeting snowstorm, dreading what Galeem’s servant had in store for them this time.

Master Hand’s brief speech managed to take Tora and Poppi by surprise as much as it did Big band. Not only did the entity offer them congratulations, but it even dropped a hint at what their teammates were up to all the way across the continent. A handful of faces flashed through Tora’s mind, most of them vivid as the moment when the two teams parted ways. It had been a minute since he thought about Sakura, Link, Geralt, the intrepid Hat Kid, or even Bowser and Blazermate, who’d been right there from the very beginning. He hadn’t been afraid for them, necessarily, but who wouldn’t worry about friends half a world away, who must surely be on a quest as dangerous as this? The knowledge that the others weren’t just okay, but actually at least half a day ahead of Yellow Team on their quest to eliminate the boss of the Deep Blue Seaside, fanned the sputtering flames in his heart.

Of course, the enemy that loomed before them seemed determined to extinguish any such hope. It proclaimed that this final stretch of the mountain would be the Seekers’ undoing, a statement that it made with such conviction that it saw fit to manifest no additional opponents to bar the way. Then, after urging the climbers to soldier on, it disappeared as unceremoniously as it came.

To say that a moment passed in silence would be inaccurate, given the howl of the wind across the peak and into the heroes’ ears, but a few seconds went by while those who stood before the gate took in what Master Hand told them. Midna averted her eyes from the path ahead, and in her search for alternatives discovered an edifice in the distance that looked promisingly like the abbey that poor Gemino in his arrow-studded husk of iron described. It took a few moments for Big Band to follow her gaze, and when he did spot the place she described, he shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a hell of a long way off!” he practically shouted, fighting to be heard over the ambient weather. The detective extended a pneumatic arm to point out a potential route with his finger. “‘Less you can fly straight there, we’d have to go up a ways, then backtrack farther down than we are now! If we turn up empty-handed, we’ll be even worse off for a longer climb than we already got” He wasn’t going to argue that a brute force solution seemed unlikely at best, but the whole team couldn’t possibly go that far out of their way and still hope to proceed, unless the place ‘where the frozen and the burning embrace in communion’ could offer them a king’s ransom of rest and warmth.

Optimistic even in the face of a brutal ordeal, Raz dispensed some ideas for how the struggle upwards might be made less severe. His suggestions, unfortunately, met with enthusiasm from neither Braum nor Mona. As much as the very big man appreciated the very small man’s willingness to help, he was forgetting a crucial factor. “I am sorry, little Raz, but I don’t think that would work!” he told the Psychonaut, kneeling behind his shield for protection from the wind. “The bigger the surface, the more the wind can push against it. That quickly becomes a problem even for one as mighty as me!”

Mona shook his giant head, his eyes sad. “Uh huh. I probably don’t even have the tire grip to push through the wind and snow uphill, let alone the horsepower.”

As for his other observation, Poppi couldn’t shell out much hope. “You may be on to something, but then again, it might just be here. Lots of stuff in World of Light not there for any good reason.” Having heard about if not experienced firsthand the random weekly generation of the Land of Adventure, ostensibly manmade structures and all, she could corroborate Primrose’s suspicions about things just being places.

“Fox!” Joker called all of a sudden. His masked friend turned to him quizzically, but for once the Phantom Thief wasn’t referring to him. Instead Joker was calling out toward the back of the pilot who even now drew farther and farther away from the group, proceeding alone and without a word up the slope. “Fox!” the teen called again, but there came no answer. “Ugh…” he groaned, releasing the hands cupped around his mouth to pull the parka from Deportes Bienes around his shoulders. “This is bad.”

Panther shivered despite her winter coat, its hood pulled so tight around her head that only her red mask could be seen. “W-what about our fire?” she asked. “Carmen and Lamia can keep us warm as-as-as long as we have the energy!”

“There ain’t anythin’ ‘round here we c-could light!” Big Band bemoaned. “And even if we did have torches or s-somethin’, they’d get blown out in an instant!”

As best he could, Skull put his thinking cap on. “Well, what about castin’ fire on each other? I know it ain’t a great idea, but it’s better than freezin’ to d-d-death…right!?”

At that, the Scout spoke up. “Whoa, bad idea, mate! That’s liable to c-cause thermal shock, if ya don’t burn our damn clothes off first, so unless agonizin’ death sounds like a jolly g-good time, I’d say think o’ somethin’ else!” Skull sagged down with a hang of his head, his curses lost to the wind.

In the midst of the team’s deliberation, Tora took his eyes off the radiant cleft in the mountain above to face and address his teammates. “F-f-friends! Why all doomy and gloomy, meh? Don’t you see? It not so far at all!” He pointed a wing finger up to where the radiance of Split Mountain’s summit shone through the snowstorm, a beacon of hope that not even this cruel blizzard could quench.

It definitely looked close–tantalizingly so. Yet Poppi’s optics told her otherwise. A combination of size, distance, weather, and wishful thinking conspired to warp perception, creating a mirage that only empirical hardware could pierce. As always Poppi’s first impulse was to correct her Masterpon, but as she looked out over the faces of the Seekers, she fell silent. Things were not looking good. Nobody wanted to trudge upward through this frozen hell. They didn’t think they could make it.

They needed a guiding light far closer than the mountain peak.

“Jerkypon hand taunt us saying we don’t have what it takes to be heroes,” her Masterpon was saying. “Tora say meh to that! It b-b-being here mean that we close to boss! If friends j-just huddle together and push onward, we can make it!”

A handful of wry laughs and groans steamed out with the team’s breath. For his part, Big Band looked incredulous. “Look kid, I like seein’ a hero beat impossible odds all the time. See it every Saturday on Peacock’s cartoons. But this is life or death, we’ve gotta be realistic!”

Tora gave a solemn nod. “Yes. That why if things go wrong, we can slide down with wind at back and glide all way to T-t-toasty Town. But we cannot turn tail just yet because this look tough, meh! I-I-It job of heroes to try very, very best! And just as Primrose friend say and Fox-Fox show us, there no time to lose, meh-meh!” He looked to his companion for support. “R-right, Poppi!?”

After a brief moment, Poppi nodded her head. “That what Poppi believe.”

Braum gave a booming laugh. “Ahaha, well spoken! I could not have said it better myself!” He stood to his full height and regaled everyone with a heartwarming smile. “I believe it too. I believe we can all make it! And if you should fall…” the Freljordan flexed his muscles. “I will carry you!”

“Ugh. Too much TV is bad for ya,” Band groaned, rolling his eyes before he gave a windy sigh of resignation. “But if you’re doin’ this, I sure ain’t gonna let ya do it alone. H-here, we’ll go with your idea,” he told Therion. “And I got an idea who oughta be pole p-position.”

So saying, Band turned to face the wind. He breathed deep of the frigid air and began to play. A simple but strident tune blazed forth, loud enough to be heard over the wind for a decent distance. He pushed forward into the snow, propelled by sonic energy that trailed behind him in bands like sheet music. The detective made for the memorial obelisks, and after reaching them deployed both giant mechanical arms to wrench two free from the snow-covered earth to use like skis. “Sorry to disturb your rest, but we’ll be carryin’ your memory with us,” he told the frozen ashes before raising his voice for the others. “F-form up on either side of me! Half on one side, half on the other. I’ll be your anchor and your center, so if s-somethin’ goes wrong, make sure you f-follow the sound o’ my sweet, sweet jazz.”

Tora jumped to it, although Poppi beat him there. The artificial blade positioned herself on Big Band’s left, a hand affixed to one of the caps on his coat, and Tora took hold of her shoulder on her left. Braum took the lead on the detective’s right to start the other branch of Therion’s proposed v-formation. Wherever the Phantom Thieves ended up all four of the teens would invariably be in sequence, while Mona rode on Braum’s shoulder. Though the storm had already laid waste to Fox’s footprints, everyone kept an eye out as best they could as they set off, hoping to induct the pilot into their ranks. Heart in heart and hand in hand, the Seekers with the will to push forward began the final climb.

World of Light

Hopefully my incoming Yellow Team update will help the block pass.

Infactorium: A New 4Xpansion (Overlord RP) [DISCONTINUED]

As the subject of Anzelgard's fate continued to spark deliberation among her leader-turned-compatriot and her Overseer compatriots, the fact that Canology Mae of the Gorging Trough had been elevated to a lofty position among them still didn't get any easier to believe. Like the diver who ascended from the watery deep too quickly, Mae felt like she had decompression sickness. The whole thing happened so fast, fast enough to leave her way in over her head--metaphorically, of course. What could a humble chef, ignorant of the world beyond the walls of her oft-forgotten and only situationally useful corner of the guild, possibly offer a council of war whose arbitration could define centuries of history to come? How could such a grotesque, low-down creature possibly fill the seat of her lord Sugi the Hammer, at least in a metaphoric sense, when all she really knew of her creator was what he liked best to eat?

Yet to fall prey to such thinking was self-indulgent, and Mae indulged herself enough in the Gorging Trough. Had she not just accepted the responsibility of playing a greater role in Infactorium? That she was here meant that Lady Faetalis of the Supreme Beings trusted in her faculties and judgment, even if Mae herself doubted her own qualifications. That meant that the headless horror shouldn't put herself through the wringer with all sorts of sophistry and logic, trying to find and then justify the right answer; she'd been inducted into this illustrious Raid Council to offer her answer, whatever that might be. She needed only the courage to give it.

That was, naturally, easier said than done. To someone without the benefit of particular experience or perspective, Gammaton and Levia's answers both seemed totally and completely sound. Mae could find no fault in them, try as she might. And yet she did try, for while they made sense, their proposed plan of action left a bad taste in Mae's mouth. As the Queen of Breakage wound down, the headless chef realized that must mean her own opinion ran contrary. That was kind of intimidating in and of itself, since while Mae didn't think for one second that disagreement would result in punishment, she didn't want to kick off her fellowship with her amazing compatriots by being stupid. Still, if she was going to say anything, it would have to be now. If one or more of those yet to speak chimed in supporting the consensus so far, it would only get harder to go against the flow. Canology Mae cleared her throat.

"Well," she began, rocking her immense weight back and forth on her heels ever so slightly. "I ain't one much for economics, or politics, or populations, or anythin' of the sort, really. All I can really say is what does and doesn't sit right with me. And maybe I'm just a big softie 'cause I've never gone out from the home front, but..." Mae rallied all the determination she could muster, and since a resolute crossing her arms was a physical impossibility, she put her hands on her doughy hips. "I reckon that goin' all scorched-earth with Anzelgard right from the get-go would end up bein' a waste. I mean, we could always fall back to it if other plans don't shake out, but there's gotta be more we can make of 'em alive than dead. If Cormac's been yuckin' it up among 'em, maybe we could take it a li’l further. If we somehow got Anzelgard to do our interactin' for us, we could stay hidden ‘til the time’s right." Mae shrugged. "I dunno. Not knowin' in general's kinda the problem. Even after grillin' Riny and that other poor sucker, we got next to nothin' on this world, really. Anythin' could be out there, maybe even other Supreme Bein's, so if we commit to puttin' all our cards on the table right now and tell everyone ‘hey, we’re here an’ we’re a threat!’ we might end up in some real hot water.”

She fell silent then, hoping that she hadn’t just spouted off a bunch of unsubstantiated nonsense, and that what her heart told her was what Faetalis wanted to hear. All she knew was that when she wanted to make a dish, she couldn’t make do with unknowns. She needed to know which ingredients to use and how much to add. No matter how skilled the chef or how quality the ingredients, one couldn’t just wing it and expect to brute force a success. Perhaps the bigger picture worked the same way.

Infactorium: A New 4Xpansion (Overlord RP) [DISCONTINUED]

Yep, I'll do that within an hour or two.

World of Light

@Lugubrious So one time use correct? (I wonder if Laharl's skin would have become crystalline if he'd taken it's strength?)

@Dark Cloud

Correct.

World of Light

@Lugubrious So I'll crush Kelvin's spirit instead.

@Dark Cloud

I realized that's what you wanted from your first post, I just didn't happen to do it in that one hour. Here:

You have acquired:
Whispering Ice
A grenade that lays down several mines which burst into large icicles when an enemy comes close, or after a set amount of time.

World of Light

I don't think anyone else has claimed him, and since you wrote your previous action mistakenly, it can be edited to claim Kelvin's if you like.

World of Light

@Lugubrious Laharl also went to smash a Wendigo spirit fyi.

@Dark Cloud

They didn't drop spirits. Killing a Wendigo's body just frees the ghost to lurk around the mountain, waiting to possess and mutate a human who consumes another's flesh. So, the only actionable spirit gained from that fight is Kelvin's. In order to truly destroy a Wendigo and get its spirit you'd need something that can destroy ghosts.