Lugubrious

World of Light

<Snipped quote by Lugubrious>

Better?

@Isaac

That's fine. The parens are unnecessary; not taking certain actions makes it implicit that others can follow up.

World of Light

That sounds fun. Let's talk if everyone's open! Plus, It's a good way for me to get XP and start to catch up with the others!

@Isaac

Cool. You have my permission to include that in your post. The others can choose whether or not to have their characters join in beating up on it alongside the Adventurer.

World of Light

I can change the number of them. What do you mean by free ticket? I can just cut it out entirely and have him get there safely. If worst comes to worst, I'll just make it a smaller group and deal with it myself then catch up. Sorry.

@Isaac

Just that if you really wanted to keep the horde attack, I would allow it this time but not next time. If you're okay with changing it, you can just reduce the numbers so it's less of a horde and just more of a bunch of them emerging from the bottom of the room to fly around and be bothersome.

I suppose now that I think about it, my last update ended on something of a not-too-exciting note for those in the crossroads, since it's just finding the map. If you like, we could work together on a pivot. There's an enemy called the Gruz Mother that could conceivably be sleeping nearby. If the Adventurer got to the bottom and killed some Gruzzers in the Gruz Mother's vicinity, it does possess enough awareness to attack. It's somewhere between the size of a hippo and rhino, but its body is soft and its only way to attack is by slamming itself around in a predictable manner, so the team could still dispatch it with relative ease before going about their business for the week.

World of Light

@Isaac I'd generally prefer new players to be around a while longer and build up trust before they introduce new plot points / encounters, especially without permission first. In this case, there are Gruzzers in the crossroads cavity, but not in numbers anywhere close to what you described. You could have had the Adventurer fight a few or even group of them without bringing in a swarm big enough to create a 'wall' which now must concern all the other characters in the area. It also doesn't make total sense because Ms Fortune already made a huge noise when she fell, which would have alerted the Gruzzer swarm already if it existed at the time and if the Gruzzers are violently aggressive, which they are not, instead being kind of bumbling and mindless.

As for 'why', I limited the number of enemies in this area because for the sake of progression we don't want everyone to spend more time in the crossroads or Temple of the Black Egg, but instead find and decide on a way forward. Maybe after Bowser rallies the two parts of the group back together with a few words like 'we should stick together', then decides on a path using the map and just forges onward leaving everyone else to follow him.

This isn't that big an issue right now because Gruzzers are weak and we have a bunch of characters in the area, so we could probably just include some fly slaughter in our posts before continuing and not, say, spend a full week on a new big encounter. But it would have been if you chose stronger enemies. So you don't need to change it this time, but consider your 'free ticket' spent, and please keep this in mind for the future.

World of Light

Hmm. Sorry about the confusion. Maybe I can clear things up.

Your last major post was fourteen days ago, which included Adventurer talking to Omori. This occurred after the player team had already gone down into the Under and had a fight with monsters. Since you wanted to join the group, travel, and interact with us we worked under the assumption that the Adventurer followed the group to the lift and rode it with them into the Under, which ended in a long fall. Then the fight against the Volfoss monsters happened. It was at that point that you posted for the Adventurer, waking up from the fall to try and make sense of the situation he found himself in. I guess Majora and Draco were both convinced that Adventurer was talking to Bowser Jr. In Draco's post, the one after the one after yours, Draco had Bowser Jr and Kamek try to answer Adventurer's questions.

After that was the sequence in the Temple of the Black Egg, at which point some group members split off to scout in different directions through the Ruins. Most of them ended up in the 'crossroads cavity'.

World of Light

Yeah, he would need to be pacified in some way and/or freed. Someone might be able to help with that during their posts this week.

World of Light

Kunad Highway

Level 11 Tora (91/110) Level 11 Poppi (91/110)
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit’s @Yankee, Blazermate and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Sakura and Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Raz’s @TruthHurts22, Bede’s @Crimson Flame, Roxas’ @Double, Benedict’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 2552

Belphegor’s Mabufula went off like a set of firecrackers, loudly and messily detonating over the convoy. The icicle-like spikes flew like miniature lances, piercing and sharp as winter itself, but despite the prospect of grievous stab wounds Tora’s body moved like it had a will of its own. The rotund Nopon threw himself over his partner as she wallowed in the pits of despair, squeezing his eyes shut as he clamped his ears down over his head. When the ice fell upon him, however, their tips barely penetrated any deeper than the head of a pencil into an eraser. With Poppi’s Wind Core not currently in use, Tora’s absurd constitution reduced the pointed flurry into ice-cold acupuncture.

Of course, he still wasn’t happy about it. “Ouch, ouch, ouch!” he cried, bouncing back and forth as he flapped his wings. “Get it out, get it out, meh!” After dancing a lively jig he managed to get the icicles out, which clattered to the roof of the truck and quickly flew off to the scrubland floor.

Taken aback by his attack’s ineffectiveness, Belphegor gaped at the silly-looking but tough-bodied creature before him. “What!?” he bellowed. “An immunity!? Of all the rotten luck!”

“Tora not immune!” The Nopon turned and braced himself on the rocking truck with his Variable Saber clutched tight. Poppi still languished behind him, and he wasn’t about to let any of these monsters hit her while she was down. “Tora just super toughiepon, meh! Withstand getting stomp on by giant dragon days ago! Climb freezing mountain higher than clouds just yesterday! Compared to that, pottypon ice feel like bonk with popsicle!” He fixed the demon with the most smug expression he could muster.

Belphegor ground his teeth, completely incensed. “That was just a taste, fuzzball! Let’s see how you like Bufudyne!”

Before he could conjure any more cold, Karin sent a present his way from the truck running parallel to his own. Her grappling hook anchored itself to his right pectoral, delivering a painful pinch that left him howling as he looked over to see the buffalo-headed mage zooming his way. The limp body of Morax slammed into him, nearly yanking his fellow demon from atop his ivory throne. It tilted precariously, and with his other hand Belphegor grabbed onto the rim for dear life as he cursed and yelled, but with Morax barely conscious after getting his ass handed to him it all fell on deaf ears.

Laughing, Tora stepped forward to take advantage of the chaos, but the herky-jerky movement of the truck beneath him proved to be too much for his stubby legs and the Nopon sat down hard. He thought about getting up, but the view of the drop off the bridge to the canyon floor just a couple feet to the right gave him pause. “Meeeh,” he grumbled, uneasily looking back at Poppi as he wondered what to do. In doing so, he realized that one of the trucks just ahead seemed to have an open rear door. Just moments ago, someone had slid it up from inside, and it just so happened to be someone that Tora knew. “You!?” Tora exclaimed at the sight of a sleek, black-armored cyborg with distinctive platinum-blonde hair. “Where you been!? We thought you abandon us, meh!”

Raiden sighed. “Good grief. And here I was hoping for a peaceful truck ride to Midgar.”

Tora glanced back at Belphegor, still tangling with Morax as the trucks made their way over the precarious black-drip bridges, then back at Raiden. “Well, it little late for that! But Tora forgive sliceypon if help RIGHT NOW!”

Shrugging, Raiden repositioned his scabbard and drew his signature high-frequency blade, then tensed up for a jump, filling his actuators and artificial tendons with lightning. The halves of his visor clicked shut. “...Might as well.”

The cyborg launched as if fired from a cannon. With electricity arcing around his legs he performed a ninja run along the side of the truck behind the one in which he hitched a ride, not even using his hands. He sprang to the truck opposite, ran a few deft steps along the sheer surface, then sailed up and struck Belphegor like a bolt from the blue, nailing him with a metal knee to the face with such force that he instantly broke the demon’s jaw. As the monster reeled backward Raiden flipped and came down with a heel drop to the front of the toilet bowl. The blow both took a chunk out of the bowl and tipped it forward, which in turn ejected Belphegor. Raidan cartwheeled backward as the demon belly-flopped onto the roof of the truck, squashing Morax beneath him. Before Belphegor could rise, Raiden dealt a football kick to his head that bent him backward as it lifted him off the ground. He smacked into his floating toilet, and when he fell again his opponent activated Blade Mode. Time slowed to a standstill as the cyborg subtly adjusted his aim, and when his blade flashed forth the perfectly-aligned slash carved through the heads of both demons in one deadly instant.

Tora could only blink in slack-jawed bewilderment as the demons burst into tarry ash, and Raiden returned his sword to its scabbard. To him the whole sequence had been a blur, but one thing was clear: this mostly-machine man hadn’t lost his edge after fighting Red Eye.

At that point Blazermate arrived from the front of the convoy to restore Poppi, having already cured Peach of her despair, and while she worked Tora took a quick look around in case he missed anything else. Roxas and Raz faced off against Benedict and Atropos toward the rear, while above their heads Trumpeter rained down nuclear power on Midna and Sakura in their Warthog in an attempt to run them off the road and into the rocky ravine far below. The street fighter fought with the four-wheeler’s machine gun almost as much as her assailant, but she managed to land a few streaks of bullets, which together with Midna’s sand blasts kept the harbinger from raining down destruction as they pleased. Closer to the front, the doctors, Peach, and Giovanna stood firm. Geralt and Bede were doing their best.

Not a moment too soon, the series of bridges came to an end, and solid ground stretched out before the Seekers. Of course, their troubles were far from over. With the appearance of the wild trucks stampeding toward the convoy, everyone shifted gear in a hurry. Roxas and Raz quickly began to move up from the rear, the latter of whom managed to find an inventive way to bring Benedict along for the ride. They left behind Atropos and Trumpeter, but the two shadows suddenly had bigger things to worry about than a couple of grunts all of a sudden, too. Pit went toward the front as well. On the way up the boys passed by Karin on her way to the back. That exchange struck Tora as oddly funny, though he knew that might just be the adrenaline speaking. Maybe Karin meant to leave the trucks at the front to get wrecked while the ones behind could skate around unharmed, while Raz and Roxas meant to stow away with their captive on a lucky truck that might manage to break through the chaos and leave the carnage behind. “Front or back, front or back,” Tora jittered, scared stiff by the sight of a dozen wild trucks on a collision course with the convoy. “Meh-meh-meeeeh! What Tora do now!?”

Poppi, restored from despair at the brink of oblivion by Blazermate, grabbed his wing in her hand. “Time for Plan C!” she announced, pulling her masterpon into her arms as she took to the sky after Susie. Peach jumped after them, floating through the air with the aid of her momentum.

Behind them, Blazermate unleashed the rippling magnificence of her Medabeam upon Trumpeter. Bombarded by the beam’s unrelenting force, the shadow dove down to grab hold of the bus beneath it lest its flight get cut short, but the grip of its skeletal fingers wasn’t enough. “This isn’t…the end!” With a final cry the harbinger lost its grip and hurled backward through the air. Its giant, bony body narrowly missed Atropos, then Midna’s Warthog right after, its robes fluttering in the wind as it tumbled along the dusty road and got unceremoniously left behind.

Sadly, the Seekers couldn’t savor their victory. The two fleets of trucks drew closer and closer. All at once the Bridges personnel smashed their horns in a nerve-steeling war cry, and like a pack of wild dogs the incoming trucks bayed in reply. Pit bravely took up pole position on the truck leading the convoy, hopefully with some strategy in mind. Looking down at the scene from the safety of his flying companion’s embrace, Tora struggled to come to terms with this actually happening; he counted his lucky stars that he didn’t need to be in the thick of it, unlike most of the others. “Good luck, friends,” he squeaked, swallowing nervously. Just a moment later the two fleets of trucks came together. Despite the drivers’ best attempts at last-second swerves, the result was utter pandemonium. Trucks toppled, twisted, and tumbled. Some of their rear ends lifted off the ground, more than one flipped end over end. For all the staggering forces at work, the trucks on both sides somehow weathered their collisions remarkably well, deflecting or crumpling rather than exploding into scrap metal or compacting into slag, but that same durability led to awe-inspiring sights of truck acrobatics.

And yet, there was a method to the madness. Giovanna led the charge, moving with incredible agility and poise. She could dash, airdash via magic sigils, double jump, use Rei for course-correction, and even slow her fall without compromising speed thanks to jets of air from her shoes. The doctors, being secret agents worth their salt, deployed gadgets. They skated across the trucks and sailed over the chaos on sporty hoverboards, using the empty space between the trucks rather than the trucks themselves. Raiden made the disaster into his personal playground, easily ninja running, vaulting, and flipping across and between to the trucks. He and Giovanna not only found what they were looking for, but also actually made it; from the pandemonium emerged two lucky trucks, breaking free from the pileup to carry on toward the ravine. One of them had pushed through totally unscathed thanks to Pit’s intervention with the Guardian Orbitars. Poppi aimed for them, cruising in to land on the one with Giovanna to the tune of the drivers cheering their lungs out both for Pit and just in general. The doctors stuck to their hoverboards, not concerned about running out of power with their objective so close at hand. Peach landed a moment later behind Raiden, and the rest of the Seekers couldn’t be far behind.

A couple other trucks might make it out of the pileup, but the damage had been done to this section of gorge. Any more G-men reinforcements from Gutsford would take a while to make it past that roadblock, if at all. No more enemies, at least for now. Giovanna sighed in muted relief, and sank to the roof of the truck, laying down on Rei once the wolf spirit materialized behind her like a cushion. “Looks like we made it,” she said, her tone oddly nonchalant. Her eyes rested on the cargobob as it flew over the ravine. She waved her arm, directing it to the side of the road. “No need for any more heroics, eh?”

The chopper kicked up a lot of dust as it set down, its bay doors sliding open, but Giovanna pushed through with her face shielded, so Tora and Poppi did the same. After hopping in, the agent beckoned to the rest of the Seekers, scattered across the ravine slope by their various methods of getting through the pileup. “C’mon!” Then she left the rest of the encouragement to Tora, Poppi, and the doctors, instead making her way to the cargobob’s cockpit. She plopped down in the copilot’s seat and put on a headset. “Don’t get comfy, Duke, ‘cause we’re goin’ the second they’re all in.”

“Now, now, Miss C,” the bowtie-wearing pilot chided her, his voice every bit as unflappable as his appearance. “Shouldn’t you be calling me ‘Mr. U?”

Giovanna rolled her eyes as she dusted herself off. “If not even Goldlewis cares about the damn codenames, I sure don’t. Just get us outta here.”

“Righty-O.” As a series of bright blue explosions went off among the wrecked trucks, the pilot prepared for liftoff. The cargobob rose off the ground and hovered just long enough for the Seekers to get inside. Even if Midna managed to bring her ‘Hog through that mess, she didn’t need to worry about attaching the cargo hook beneath the chopper when she could stash it in the Twilight Realm. In just a few moments more, the helicopter took flight, sailing away toward the city while a handful of G-men, left stranded and leaderless in the scrubland, looked on.

---

As the cargobob flew, the steady whir of its propellers quickly becoming the only sound as the chaos of the scrubland fell away into the distance, the Seekers could finally begin to decompress, giving their frenzied hearts a chance to take it easy. The closer to Midgar the vehicle got, the denser the scrubland became beneath, and the more well-developed the roadway, until finally the paved route gave way to the real Kunad Highway: miles upon miles of dilapidated freeway layered on top of and winding around one another like a nest of gargantuan serpents. Full of rubble, wrecked cars, and disused dividers, the highway had plainly seen better days. In fact, much of it appeared to be overgrown by a curious mix of huge, bulbous baobabs and pale pink sakura trees. In fact, one green-blanketed sakura tree towered so high above the highway that it might as well have been a skyscraper, with blossoms that nearly stroked the clouds.

Of course, a big tree was one thing, but the biggest city was another. ‘Sprawling metropolis’ truly did not do the place justice. To Tora and Poppi, it seemed as though if every single Titan meandering Alrest clustered together to form a single mass, it still might not be as big as this metallic colossus. Looking down on it from an aerial approach provided just too many details to make sense of all at once, but one thing Tora could try to wrap his head around was that the whole thing not only seemed to be elevated, but double-layered. The upper layer appeared to be divided into sections, just one of which could have been a city by itself, but he counted eight, and all sported their own unique flavor. What lay beneath, at ground level, Tora couldn’t see.

The psychics among the group could see one other strange detail, all but invisible to those without any such mental abilities. Above the city floated a jumbled and surreal mishmash of buildings radiating in every direction. The strange projection just hung there, a little distorted as if filtered through television static, beneath an oddly oily-looking sky.

Most remarkable of all, though, was that nothing attacked the Seekers throughout the entirety of their flight.

The group wound up at a rooftop helipad where the cargobob set down. Everyone piled out, Giovanna at the forefront to usher them along. “Inside, quick. No time for sightseeing.” No sooner had the newcomers cleared the way than the chopper took off again, bound for somewhere that it couldn’t be traced thanks to eyewitness testimony back on Kunad Highway. Tora just plodded numbly along, held by Poppi wing-in-hand as she followed Giovanna, a serious look on his face. They went down a flight of stairs and ended up in the hallway of an office building, which in turn led them to a spacious, yellow-tinted conference room with windows that looked out across the city. Upon entering, the heroes also couldn’t help but notice a titan of a man standing there, who to some was an old friend.

“...Mr. Goldlewis!” Poppi exclaimed, her face lighting up. Even if Jesse, Sectonia, and Raz had, like Tora, didn’t quite recall his name, they no doubt remembered him from Al Mamoon. After all, how could anyone forget that splendid beard, that amazing pompadour, his cow skull and horseshoe accessories, or the suit jacket with matching chaps instead of slacks. Sure enough, that enigmatic coffin of his could even be found close at hand, propped up at the table as if it were just another participant in the meeting. Also at the table sat a well-dressed woman, but she did not say anything just yet.

Goldlewis rose from his chair as if it had a tack on it. “Howdy!” he greeted them, his gruff Southern voice equal parts professional and genial. “Hoo-whee, I was just about hangin’ off the edge of my seat here, waitin’ to see how things’d turn out.” He nodded at Giovanna as she and the twins filtered in, holding Benedict between them. “Mighty fine job ya did, Giovanna. I knew ya’d pull through.”

“It was a pretty close shave,” she admitted casually as she seated herself, then leaned back in her chair. “We got followed out there by a Turk, and he flushed us out right after these people showed up.” She tilted her head at Benedict, who received a concerned glance from Goldlewis.

Whistling, the secretary of defense rubbed his head as he made his way around the table to approach the group. “We’re gonna have our hands full with that one. Here’s hopin’ ya made that right call. I’ll be lookin’ forward to your report later on.”

“Better grab some popcorn,” Giovanna muttered.

Peach approached Goldlewis, a little daunted by his sheer presence but happy to shake hands with him. “My name is Peach. I guess you could say I’m the leader of this group. Mr…what was your name again?”

“Goldlewis Dickinson, ma’am. Pleasure’s all mine.” He shook, his hand so massive that the princess’s disappeared inside it. “Just Goldlewis is fine.”

“Then…are you in charge here, Goldlewis?”

He shook his head. “No ma’am, that’d be Vernon. Vernon Groubitz. Sadly, he ain’t here at the moment. Out with Salvador meetin’ a VIP over lunch. Mr. P I mean, out with Mr. P.” He gave a resigned shake of his head, then held his hand out toward the unknown woman. “This is Jessie, by the way.”

“Jessica McCartney,” the lady corrected. “Pleased to meet you, though I’m afraid I must question the wisdom of speaking so openly in front of an enemy. Or bringing one here in the first place.” She narrowed her eyes, not at Benedict, but at Giovanna. “We’ve only survived this long by flying under the radar.”

As Goldlewis ran his hand through his whiskers, the field agent shrugged. “I’m sure he’s smart enough to realize the kind of situation he’s in. We’ll figure something out.”

“Ah…” Still a little shaky from everything that had happened, Peach put her hand on one of the seat backs. “Sorry, there’s just a lot to take in.”

Goldlewis gestured at the chairs. “Please, take a seat. And don’t you worry, ma’am. Plenty of folks could live their whole lives and still not know a doggone thing about Midgar. Luckily, ya got us here, and I reckon ya couldn’t do much better when it comes to intel.” After seating himself, Goldlewis looked around at the faces of all those present. “So, this here’s yer big chance. If we’re gonna be workin’ together we gotta have everythin’ on the table. So whatever questions ya got, we’re gonna answer ‘em, best we can.”

“Goldlewis is the guy to ask about the government,” Giovanna supplied. “Who’s in power, how everything’s organized, all that jazz. You can ask the twins about the problems the city’s facing from outside, what we call the Ever Crisis. M for what we’re up against, and N for Midgar’s armed forces.”

“Other way around,” one of the twins told her. “Although, we pool pretty much all the intel we get, anyway.”

“Whatever.” Giovanna reclined to the full extent that her chair would allow, her braid dangling below the headrest as Rei lounged beneath her.

Jessica clasped her hands together. “If you want to know about current events, as well as problems plaguing the city from within, I can be of assistance.”

“As for me…” Giovanna scratched her nose. “Well, I’m not the biggest talker, but I guess I could tell you about the city. Which plates are which, where important stuff is, getting around, you know.” She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, but before anyone asks, no, we don’t know who, what, or where the Guardian is.”

Goldlewis nodded, his expression grave. “That’s right. But once y’all know everythin’ ya need, we can start puttin’ together a plan to find out. And maybe save every soul in Midgar while we’re at it.” He heaved a sigh and leaned forward, putting his arms on the table. “So get askin’!”

The Ruins

Level 10 Nadia (57/100)
Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Omori’s @Majoras End, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Adventurer’s @Isaac, Ganondorf’s @Double
Word Count: 1578

Therion’s jibe went unheeded as Nadia plummeted down through the bug-filled chamber, her heart racing at about a million miles an hour. She did not fail to realize that this constituted the second time she’d thrown herself into uncontrolled freefall today, and unlike her little misstep in the Alcamoth atrium, this time she could barely see what was going on. Everything passed by in a blur of light and shadow, mostly shadow, with wrought-iron supports and platforms arranged without the slightest hint of regularity in every direction. Just when she managed to compose herself enough to nearly get her bearings, she smashed into and through a hapless Gruzzer fly, splattering it into a pulp of chitin chunks, squirmy little legs, and malodorous guts that left the poor catgirl’s mental state even worse than it had been before.

“Gaaaaaah!” she cried, desperately wiping at her face as she tried to come up with a patented Nadia Fortune clever solution. Unable to see -or for that matter, think- far enough ahead to throw out her limbs in hopes of snagging a handhold or two, she could conjure up only one other plan of action. Nadia spread-eagled like a skydiver as she built up pressure in her legs, then let it loose to cannon her through the air with rockets of blood. Oblivious to Jesse’s saving throw, she made for the cavern wall in order to dig her claws in and slow her descent. Unfortunately, she barely got a couple meters before a passing strut beaned her on the forehead. “Owww!” she yowled. Her numbness and overall durability reduced what would have been a knockout blow or worse to a painful blow, but it still hurt enough for her to clasp both hands to her head as she tumbled through the air back in freefall. By that point the floor of the vast chamber had gotten too close for comfort, let alone any more harebrained schemes, and with no other options Nadia blasted blood from all four limbs and her neck to slow her fall.

Just a second before she made impact, the vial of Elastic Ooze shattered on the ground beneath her, and rather than go splat the feral rebounded into the air, flailing wildly in confusion but totally unharmed. She turned her momentum into a series of flips, and after a brief moment of hangtime, landed on her feet. Arms outstretched like an acrobatic, she just stood there for a second, hyperventilating with eyes as wide as saucers. “...Hah!” Then she promptly collapsed, dizzy from revolution and blood loss.

Jesse, Therion, and Sectonia appeared a couple moments later, although it took the dazed Nadia a moment to put two and two together based on fur color and mocking expression. “Yeah, yeah, yuck it up why don’tcha,” she told them, pulling herself together as best she could with her head figuratively spinning. “I’m just…woozy from all the blood that got uh…vaporized in that fight.” Once back on her feet she hopped up with her body in a spin cycle to get rid of the partially-dissolved bug muck, her head momentarily detached so as to not get any dizzier. After soaking up as much of her spent blood as she could, she put her hands to her head, rubbing her eyes as Sectonia lectured her. “Ugh. I’m gonna have to be a lot more careful down here, that’s fur sure..”

After finally reaching the bottom in one piece -or in as singular a piece as the cut-up feral could ever be, anyway- Nadia put her sharp eyes to work taking a good look around. Peering around the gloomy lower reaches of the crossroads cavity, she counted not one, not two, but four means of egress, and each offered a vague hint of what might be in store down those different paths. The farther along the eastern tunnel went, the more the mix of purple stone brick and blue-black shells gave way to compacted dirt, grass, plant sprigs, and beds of moss. To the east, meanwhile, the masonry seemed to give way to carpentry, with wooden supports like one might find in a mineshaft. Above the eastern route lay what looked like a tunnel leading back the way the part came through the Ruins, albeit at a more middling elevation. And last but not least, Nadia eventually realized that this crossroads seemed to extend farther down as well thanks to a couple holes in the floor.

She found herself quite spoiled for choice, but since she didn’t plan to make any decisions by herself and go off on her own without the others, she didn’t waste any time agonizing over this way or that. Instead Nadia attuned her ears to a curious sound, quite distinct from the low whine of Gruzzer wings, the clicking of cave cricket limbs, or the pitter-patter of countless feet. Instead, it sounded like someone humming, and in a male voice as well. After taking a few steps in different directions to hear how that affected the sound, she zeroed in on the location in one corner of the huge room. When she spotted a roll of spare paper, she knew she was on the right track. Bingo. She scampered over, hearing the humming grow louder, and paused at the top of a small flight of stairs to see none other than the long-nosed cartographer drawing in a corner near a clutch of eggs.

“Over here!” she told the others, figuring that the fellow must have been too absorbed in his work to pay much mind to the noise. Nadia made her way down the flight of stairs only to stop short at the bottom, where a gaping pit in the pavement stared back at her. She could see what looked like mushrooms down there in the light of a yellowish haze. “This place is getting ‘under’ my skin,” she muttered. After making a mental note of a fifth direction the team could explore, she carefully maneuvered around the hole and continued on to the mapmaker. “Hey there!” she greeted, coming to a stop a few feet away from him to find that she stood about a head higher than he. She squatted down to talk to him, wearing her friendliest smile. “Are you Cornifer?”

“Hmm?” The bug looked up from his maps, his nose drooping like a great mustache. His voice possessed the same odd ‘insect’ quality as Iselda’s, but he also seemed to affect the tone of a sophisticated gentleman or scholar. “Ah, hello there, and yes, yes. Come down to explore these beautiful old ruins? Don't mind me. I've a fondness for exploring myself. Getting lost and finding your way again is a pleasure like no other. We're exquisitely lucky, you and I.”

After what had befallen her so far, Nadia didn’t feel particularly lucky, but she didn’t mind laughing at herself from time to time. “It’s been purr-etty crazy, I’ll admit!”
Cornifer chuckled. “Quite. I'm a cartographer by trade, and I'm working on mapping this area right now. Would you like to buy a copy of my work so far? Just thirty Geo.”
Nadia grinned and opened her mouth, the words ‘you read my mind!’ on the tip of her tongue, only to realize that she was currently penniless. Her ears fell flat as she clenched her teeth in embarrassment. “I, I’d like to, but, uhhhhh…”

Cornifer’s expression fell. “You don't have enough Geo? Ah, I understand. I'd give you the map as a gift, but I don't think my wife would be very happy if I did. "All our food is made of Geo", as they say.”

Nadia looked over her shoulder at Jessie and Therion. Sectonia hung back, letting her minions handle this like usual, so she wouldn’t be of any help. “Could either of you handle this? I’m sorta broke right now.” Her gaze settled on the thief, now back in human form. “What about you, cat friend? Once I get some money I’ll pay ya back. Purr-omise!”

Therion begrudgingly accepted, forking over the ill-gotten sum to Cornifer. Easy come, easy go, as they say. In exchange he received a map of the Ruins, revealing all its ins and outs as well as any links to nearby areas.

“A map can be a useful thing,” Cornifer told the trio. “But it alone won't show you where you are. If you've not the head for directions, I suggest purchasing a compass from my wife, Iselda. She's just now opening our new map shop in Dirtmouth, selling all sorts of useful things to wanderers like yourself. She'll even sell some of my old maps from time to time. I pop back to see her whenever I finish mapping an area. She's always so excited to see me.”

Nadia waved at him. “We’ll be sure to pay her a visit when we get back there! See ya around sometime!”

Cornifer waved back. “I’ll be happy to sell you my maps of whichever areas in which we meet again if we do!”

Ah, useful. With that, Nadia stepped over to Therion to look at his map. It didn’t seem to show much beyond the Ruins, but it would certainly allow the team to make the most of it. “Well,” she said after a moment. “I guess we’ve got a lot to talk about!”

---

Beyond the Temple of the Black Egg, a short purple-stone passage led to the liminal area between the Ruins and the Hollow Bough, and though already desensitized to the idea of woodlands underground by what Ganondorf said, Primrose could not have anticipated what she found. After exiting the mouth of the tunnel, she bore witness to an open cavern filled with thick pillars like the trunks of primeval trees and carpeted with grass. An ethereal mist filled the place that possessed a subtle luminosity, growing brighter the farther into the distance Primrose looked. It also cast everything in black; even her garb seemed to lose its color when she stepped inside. If she didn’t know better, the dancer could easily have believed that she no longer stood beneath the earth, but the sheer depth of the Chasm convinced her beyond the shadow of a doubt that she must be.

Then again, maybe this transitory space didn’t imitate a forest as well as it first seemed. Something about it wasn’t quite right. It was quiet, and eerie. And so very, very still. There wasn’t any wind at all, and nothing moved, from the blades of black grass below to the leaves of black boughs above that obscured the cavern ceiling a couple hundred feet up. Instead there came a noise more like television static, though Primrose wouldn’t know that sound. It might remind her more of the buzz of insects, a great swarm just far enough away that she couldn’t be completely sure what she was hearing. And the more she looked into the mist, the less it looked like swirling vapor, and more like static tapestries of gossamer fibers, stretched in layers upon layers between the bushes and trees to create a landscape of enveloping softness.

Edinburgh MagicaPolis

Level 8 Big Band (33/80)
Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Red’s @TruthHurts22
Word Count: 1506

The monster hunter didn’t have much to report, which made sense. His mission, if it could even be called that, had only been to outfit himself for the chilly weather after all, so Band couldn’t fault him. “Don’t fret none,” he told the Cadet. “Even if I did say anythin’ about keepin’ your eyes out, everyone in our merry band plays to their strengths. Scrapin’ for clues is a detective’s job; we’ll need what you got when the local cops come knockin’.”

Wonder Red kept quiet. Band hadn’t really expected a costumed superhero to turn up a treasure trove of information either. Hopefully he would heed the detective’s encouragement too.

After a server dropped by to give Lucia her beer, the policewoman took a long drink, wiped the foam from her lips with the back of her hand, and chipped in. “Speakin’ of, might as well tell ya know, so ya know whatcha lookin’ foah. Iyahns stuck some real bastahds on the case, so listen up.”

She held up one hand with her index finger extended. “Fahst is Iyahn’s top dog, Kahtis Strykah, and lemme tell ya, that guy’s enough of a problem by himself. He ain’t got any crazy powahs or anythin’, but he’s tough as nails, hits like a truck and keeps on comin’ no mattah how much damage he takes. Look up ‘police brutality’ in the dictionary and you’ll see his pichah. He even says it out loud when he’s on the job, can ya believe that crap?”

Lucia shook her head, took another drink, and cleared her throat before holding up two fingers. “Anyways, next is Byte. He’s a robot, one hundred percent loyal to the foahce, so there ain’t any reasonin’ with ‘em. Fights with stretchy ahms, and his little robot pal, Bahq. Got a tricky tag-team soahta thing goin’ on. If they put theah heads togethah, they can punch through a brick wall and then some, so watch out.”

Finally, she extended her ring finger. “Last is a guy named Nightingale. Don’t know much about him, he’s kinda new. But he’s got a screw loose oah somethin’, a real obsessive and vengeful type. He’s a loose cannon, but the kind Iyahns likes. If he’s comin’ aftah ya, all bets ah off.”

Band filed away the new information carefully. “Got it. Much obliged, Detective Morgan.”

“Ah, just call me Lucia,” the policewoman smiled, brushing off his formality as she took another big drink.

“That just leaves the question of what to do next,” Band began. “I don’t know about the rest o’ y’all, but I ain’t skippin’ town before I get a read on this whole skeleton-at-night situation. I keep tellin’ myself the odds of it bein’ the Skullgirl, but it just don’t sit right with me; I gotta find out for myself. If we’re gonna be in town for the long haul, though, we’re gonna need a little cash in our pockets. Lucia?”

His fellow detective nodded, and withdrew a paper from the inside of her coat covered in illegible scribbles. “On the way we stopped by a Hello Woahk and checked out some moah o’ those job postin’s ya mentioned, red,” she told Ace. “Figyahed we could kill some time and make ya some money at the same time. Two bahds, one stone, y’know? Most of it wasn’t suited foah a crew like ouahs, but heah’s what I got.

Help Wanted:

• Mortuary Assistant/s: Help urgently needed at River Fields Mortuary. Must be able to follow simple written and recorded instructions. Not suited for squeamish, nervous, or panicky individuals
• Exterminator/s: Signs of Swarm infestation reported in neighboring condo. If left unchecked it could spread to our wine cellar within a day, but pest control is already booked for weeks in advance. Minor combat ability recommended
• Demolisher/s: Additional personnel requested for the ongoing demolition of an apartment building condemned for Swarm infestation. The site has already been gassed, so the likelihood of encountering Swarm is low, but applicants should possess strong constitutions
• Assistant/s: The ‘All Round’ Spheal Show needs your help! Most of the team ended up getting sick, so we need five people to cover for them during today’s performance: two security guards, and the rest to handle the Spheals. All this means is encouraging them and giving them fish when they do their tricks, so if you have a heart for our blubbery buds, please apply!
• Dredger/s: City management has dispatched a dredge barge to the site of yesterday’s bicycling accident to remove all the bikes from the canal before they have a chance to deteriorate and affect the water. Any extra hands would be fairly compensated for expediting the process

“Hmmm…” Band pored over the list with the others as he listened to Lucia’s thoughts on the options, trying to figure out the terrible handwriting. “Well, I guess I wouldn’t mind most o’ these, ‘cept maybe the first one. Mortuary work ain’t somethin’ I’d ever want to do if I could help it, and given the whole walkin’ dead thing, ehh…might be better to let sleepin’ dogs lie.” He considered the other options. “I’m thinkin’ about the third one, though. I ain’t crazy about animals, but with everythin’ we been through lately, it might be a nice change of pace to take care of some critters. Could do with a smile.”

Lucia nodded, wearing a wide smile. “Sounds like a plan to me! Spheals ah just the cutest li’l things, you’ll love ‘em! I wanted to go see one of the shows this week myself, but I got stuck at my desk.” She gulped down the rest of her beer and stood, slightly red-faced, to beckon the others to follow her. “Let’s go!”

---

@Majoras End

A short while later, the four arrived at an open plaza, surrounded on three sides by buildings and on the fourth by a canal. In its center stood a big fountain, enchanted by magic to stay warm and flow freely even in freezing temperatures. There, they found a parked van, a trio of sublimely spherical seals playing in the water, as well as two women, one heavier-set in her mid twenties with longer hair and a caring aura about her, and the other a younger, very slender girl in white, seventeen or eighteen years old. As they approached, the girl held out her arms for a fourth Spheal to jump into from the back of the van, which she carried over to the fountain to plop in.

Band approached the other woman first. “Good afternoon. You in charge of the All Round Spheal Show?”

“That’d be me, actually!” the girl called out, jogging over from the fountain. She quickly took stock of the four wildly mismatched newcomers with big eyes the color of wenge wood. “Well, I’m not in charge of the company, but I am running this show. Are you here about the job?”

The detective nodded, giving an apologetic bow. “That’s right. Saw the ad sayin’ your staff took ill, and we didn’t wanna let all your hard work go to waste.”

“Wonderful!” the girl declared, breathing a sigh of relief. “I’m Sierra, and this is Frisk! She’s been helping me for a couple days, and she’s just the best. Everyone loves her, and I’m sure they’ll all love you guys, too!” She introduced the Spheals in turn, pointing them out one by one. “That one’s Glenn, he’s basically a giant marshmallow. If you hold your hand out for him, he’ll come over and put his head under it to be pet! Those two are Happy and Sadie, they’re sisters, and they’re crazy energetic. You’d be shocked at how fast they can roll around while playing tag. And the last one there is Dumpy. She’s lazy and stupid, but she know’s she’s cute.”

Sierra turned back to the newcomers with a smile that quickly faded, even if the shine in her eyes persisted. “Well, the show’s gonna start in half an hour or so. We’re still setting everything up. When the time comes, I’ll need two of you with me and Frisk on Spheal duty, while the other two are security. Both to keep the crowd away, and an eye out. We don’t want anyone distracting the Spheals, and…” she looked around, then lowered her voice slightly. “Between you and me, we’ve caught wind of people saying they want to steal or even poach the Spheals. I don’t think anyone actually would go that far, but it’s best to take precautions.” Shrugging, she put her hands on her hips and looked around again. “So, go ahead and get started helping with the equipment. And get to know the little guys, too! First impressions are everything.”

With that, Sierra returned to the van to haul out a couple heavy-looking buckets of fish.

World of Light

@Isaac two things if you don't mind. One is that you can write your character going down to the bottom of the crossroads cavity and then doing whatever else you had in mind down there. Otherwise, if there's so little to say in a post that less than 50 words is the result, it may be better to hold off until you have more material.

The other is that being immune to fall damage is not implied by default if the source game doesn't have it. Remember what I said about WOL running on generalist logic? It needs to be its own Strength; saying something like 'being from a game with X' to excuse new supernatural abilities IC is a no-go. Otherwise people could completely handwaved things like food, rest, statuses, stamina, and more.

World of Light

Kunad Highway

Level 11 Tora (88/110) Level 11 Poppi (88/110)
Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit’s @Yankee, Blazermate and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Sakura and Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Raz’s @TruthHurts22, Bede’s @Crimson Flame, Roxas’ @Double, Benedict’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 2139

Rays of nuclear power shone down across the mobile battlefield, and in their wake a handful of uncanny, unnatural explosions -more like sustained energy fields than fiery blasts- wreaked havoc for both trucks and Seekers alike. Tora and Poppi, not recognizing the element at work, made themselves scarce the moment it reared its ugly head. Tora jumped into Poppi’s arms so that both could abandon ship, jetting away from the spot where they bid Sandman farewell to an untouched truck closer to the front.

Of course, that also gave them both a good view of Blazermate and Susie sound asleep the second before Mafreidyne fried them. Their futuristic and cutting-edge technology, bereft of radiation hardening, left both woefully vulnerable to the brutal combo executed by Sandman and Trumpeter together. “Oh no!” Tora cried, reaching out his wing as the machine girls stirred, their circuitry melted and their metal warped by the esoteric blowout. “Friends okay!?”

They might not be okay, but they were still functional, and nobody could patch the two of them up like Blazermate herself. Together the duo fought through the debilitating pain admirably in order to resume their bombardment, although to the Medabot’s continued misfortune a giant pothole in the road jostled her truck so severely that the Engineer’s sentry toppled off its roof to smash to pieces by the wayside. With them doing the best they could, Tora turned his attention -and Poppi her revolvers- to the source of this chaos: the Trumpeter.

After what happened, most of their allies were naturally thinking along the same lines, too. Midna escaped through the darkness, slithering through shadows of stone, tree, and brush to reach a spot up ahead where she could set up a high-caliber ambush. With Trumpeter floating above the rearmost trucks in the convoy it got a heaping portion of lead, and though not weak to Gun the airborne demon did not appreciate her barrage. Before it could retaliate, though, Geralt’s bomb detonated in its skeletal face, prompting a cheer of encouragement from Tora. “Show that boneypon what-for, Geralt!” he cried.

“Hnnngh…” the Trumpeter groaned as it found its magic suppressed by the bluish slivers that now studded its bone and peppered its robes. The Witcher followed with his crossbow, expertly adjusting for the rattle and roll of the truck beneath his feet before firing to add onto his arrow damage from before. Tora and Poppi boosted over to join him in what looked like a good middle-of-the-pack position, the former wielding the Variable Saber in shotgun mode and the latter her two new plus-size revolvers. Even if they landed only one shot in three, their efforts joined with Geralt’s to form a barrage that Trumpeter could not ignore, forcing it to block.

The Witcher’s Yrden trap wouldn’t see much use, however, since the other four demons that remained were facing staunch opposition of their own. Back at the school bus, while Midna gained on it from behind in her appropriated Warthog, Roxas took his scissor-wielding adversary to task. His Firaga missed as Atropos swerved away from it, putting her Dodge Fire skill to good use to avoid her weakness, but soon after the keyblade wielder’s acrobatic prowess brought him into melee range. She went on the defensive without even trying an inelegant cut or stab, with her scissors, but still took a flurry of blows Knocked down to the roof of the bus and forced to hold on for her life, Atropos could only withstand Thundaga as best she could until Benedict intervened.

Once given a little space, however, she pulled back from the fight with Roxas to cast a new spell. “Mediarama,” the twister of fate decreed, and at her incantation all her allies received a burst of healing.

Her support couldn’t have come a moment too soon for Morax, who Karin had been outboxing since the beginning. He exhaled a shuddering breath of relief as the bruises and breaks across his inhuman body mended themselves. Gritting his buffalo teeth in a fearsome scowl, Morax answered the girl’s question with Maragi, then Maragi, then Maragi once again. With his life very much on the line, he poured all his SP into a constant firestorm in an effort to blast Karin into oblivion, going as far as to neglect his footing as he stood at the back of the truck for his all-out offensive.

Poppi clicked her tongue as she saw Trumpeter get healed, and holstered her weapons. With her stock of bullets depleted, there would be no more potshots until her new arms could manufacture another batch of twelve. Tora ceased fire too, knowing (and frustrated by) how little damage the Variable Saber’s shotgun blast of lasers did at this range. If the two meant to make a difference, they’d need to move up, but both of the trucks between them and the rearmost pair harbored a furious fight in progress: Karin versus Morax, and Giovanna versus Ippon-Datara. She also spotted Sakura weaving between the trucks on her motorcycle, and did not envy the brunette’s position. It’d be tough for a brand-new biker to maneuver along a highway at these speeds at all, let alone in circumstances like these. The truck drivers to either side of her didn’t seem too happy about yet another problem for them to deal with, either. “That’s super dangerous!” she yelled down to Sakura over the rushing wind. “If you need help, please don’t hesitate to call Poppi!”

In regards to the one-on-one fights, though, the smith and the secret agent were really going at it. Once forced apart by the fallout of Mafreidyne, the two came together again in explosive fashion. Giovanna dashed in and drove her knee into Ippon-Datara with blistering speed, then launched into a triple side kick while leaning on Rei for support, and finished with a spectacular Sepultra spin kick. Her foe staggered back, but just as quickly hopped forward again on his single leg, undeterred. One Sledgehammer was all it took to blow open Giovanna’s guard, preventing any sort of punishment on her part. “Uh huh.” She dashed back to deftly avoid a follow-up haymaker. “Offense it is, then.” Ippon-Datara rampaged toward her, slamming the ground over and over again like a wind-up toy, and Giovanna chose her moment.

She flipped backward with Sol Nascente to counterhit her foe as he barged in, then dashed in to pummel him with a storm of kicks before he could get started again. He kept trying to mash her with his hammer while getting up, only to be struck down again or trade at best, and just when he finally learned his lesson Giovanna dashed in for a grab instead. She vaulted onto his shoulders and rammed her fists into his head to give him an electrifying Temple Massage with the tasers in her gloves. Enraged, Ippon-Datara grabbed her with his tongs to try and throw her off, and when her leg lock around his neck wouldn’t be dislodged he swung his hammer up to loosen her grip with a concussive blow. He threw Giovanna off the truck, only for Rei to manifest beneath her and give her a boost back up. She tumbled across the roof into a crouch, her face tightened from pain as she held her shoulder. Ippon-Datara charged again, but this time the duo cut him short ahead of time with a low sweep. “Hmph!” Giovanna linked that into Burst Time, striking the ground with a lightning wave followed by a quadruple flaming backflip kick to finish the brute off.

While that happened, Raz pulled off his own gambit. As Tora and Poppi looked on, he used his regained power to daringly snatch Trumpeter’s titular trumpet right out from under its nose-hole. It wouldn’t be much use to the psychonaut except as an impromptu bludgeon, but Trumpeter was none too happy even after its heal. Silenced and disarmed, it could do little more than glower as the Seekers seized their chance. Bede bid his Pokemon attack, and Tora did the same for his partner. “Poppi, now!” he called.

“Going all in!” The artificial blade took the Variable Saber in hand and boosted up past Giovanna to deliver a lightning-fast aerial combination. She finished with a backflip slice into a shotgun blast that propelled her away, only for Tora to fly up after her thanks to a team jump with Peach and spike one of the princess’s Grenaducks into the harbinger’s face. Its blast threw him into Poppi, who caught him so both could land back down on the trucks safely.

Soonafter, however, the dimeritium shards had lost their potency. Despite the theft of its instrument, Trumpeter unleashed Abyssal Surge. Suffocating darkness swaddled the Seekers in a wide range around it, inducing a medium chance of Despair. Crippling mental anguish pierced those afflicted, leaving them unable to act beyond clinging to the trucks. Bede’s Aromatherapy and Blazermate’s status cure wouldn’t just be blessings, but lifesavers, for if allowed to persist too long that despair would leave the afflicted unconscious.

Unfortunately for the heroes, they had more than despair to worry about. A chorus of honking arose from the trucks, prompting their riders to look ahead. Having been going uphill for a few moments, the convoy now neared a series of the dripping black bridges that spanned some of the scrubland’s many canyons, these ones featuring frothing rivers at the bottom. With the bridges in better condition but narrower than the road, the trucks packed in tight to fit, forcing Sakura to pull back, and putting everyone else in close proximity. “Meeh!” Tora cried, holding his partner in a deathgrip as the two nearly fell off. “Poppi,” he begged. “Please to snap out of it!”

“Existence is meaningless,” Poppi deadpanned, her eyes lifeless. “Happiness is fleeting…death is a certainty…”

“Meh meh meh, this bad!” Tora looked up as Trumpeter began to cast, but its focus seemed to be elsewhere. It let loose Mafreidyne behind the convoy, trying to bomb Midna and Sakura. This was his chance! With no other option, Tora whipped out his tools and took Poppi offline for an emergency reboot.

Unfortunately, he failed to account for one leftover demon, wounded but very much alive. Leering evilly, Belphegor arose to assail the united team. “Grahaha!” he guffawed as he cast Mabufula, capitalizing on the pandemic of despair with a widespread deluge of ice. Tora threw himself over Poppi to shield her with his own body.

After another few moments, the trip across the bridges came to an end, putting the fleet of trucks back on solid ground among the ridges and canyons. Up ahead lay the ground continued to slope upward toward the massive ravine, with Midgar more clearly visible than ever on the opposite side. When Giovanna squinted, however, she made out a welcome sight slowly getting bigger: a beefy Cargpbob twin rotor tandem-engine helicopter, the very one she called in for extraction earlier. It sported an undercarriage-mounted hook perfect for carrying one vehicle, and it cruised her way at a crisp hundred miles an hour, which still wasn’t as fast as Giovanna would have liked. By her best guess, it would reach the convoy about the same time as they reached the ravine, which sounded like a recipe for very brave and stupid ideas.

As it turned out, the group did not have the luxury of choice. For the second time that trip, Giovanna heard the sound of an engine out in the scrubland, although this time it came from in front, and it sounded like more than one. A lot more. She winced as she saw a white truck plow onto the scene up ahead, flying up from a lower valley in a cloud of dust. More trucks drove out behind it, clustered together like herd animals, and just like the first they all lacked drivers. More warning honks resounded from the convoy trucks in reply, coupled with panicked shouts from the Bridges personnel driving them. The motors, swears, horns, and road sounds created a frightful cacophony of noise, but Giovanna didn’t need to ask to know what was happening. “Wild trucks!” she yelled back at the Seekers as the clamor died down, replaced by a focused silence as the drivers white-knuckled their wheels. “Forget fighting, we need to move!” Clenching her teeth, she turned to face the incoming stampede, the ravine beyond, and the incoming Cargobob, then sighed. “Goldlewis is never gonna believe my report,” she said flatly. Rei whined, obliging the secret agent to pat her, before the both of them got underway.

The Ruins

Level 10 Nadia (54/100)
Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Omori’s @Majoras End, Rubick’s @Scarifar, Adventurer’s @Squashedquatch, Ganondorf’s @Double
Word Count: 1463

Once Nadia made her request, Ganondorf took a moment to mull it over. The fact that he seemed to be contemplating what to tell her implied that he indeed possessed some pertinent information on the subject to share, so the feral left him to it. His pensiveness also gave a couple other Seekers a chance to trickle into the Temple of the Black Egg, including Rubick. Though the battle back at the flowerbed didn’t go his way, he seemed to be okay, or at the very least less focused on his own condition than on the bejeweled stranger before him. The sorcerer apparently perceived some sort of magic in Ganondorf, and while Nadia didn’t see any energies at work when he staged his breakout a couple moments ago, she didn’t doubt that he possessed some sort of supernatural ability. Despite their paltry size and simplicity, even a pair of handcuffs turned out to be astonishingly hard to break, as Nadia could attest. Luckily, as with most things, she had her own ways around such problems. She could scarcely imagine what strength it took to snap chains like rubber bands. The way the man snapped at Bowser was only a little less impressive.

Ganondorf’s deliberation lasted only a few seconds. Then, he fulfilled his end of the bargain. Since he made the offer in the first place Nadia expected him to, but she did not expect just how valuable his response might be. He informed her, and by extension the other Seekers, that their objective lay tantalizingly close at hand, but just beyond their reach. Nadia looked at the great obsidian globe with newfound appreciation, her eyes resting on the intriguing indentations just above the spot where the prisoner had been bound. Three masks, huh? That made sense! Just like the Qliphoth roots in the Dead Zone, it seemed like the perfect number for important things. “Good grief!” she grinned, fresh excitement flowed through her veins. “That’s purrfect! Egg-zactly what we needed!” It wasn’t like this region’s Guardian had been handed to her team on a silver platter, but already this was a much, much better foundation than the Seekers got in the Deep Blue Seaside. A concrete objective did away with so much uncertainty, after all!

She turned to Bowser and the others, her eyes shining. “Hear that? The start and finish line are one and the same! That means all we gotta do is make one big circuit around the underground, get ourselves a three-course meal of masks, and find our way back here to give the Guardian its just desserts! Piece of cake!” Would it be that easy? No way in hell. But as she’d already learned in her adventures thus far, a paw-sitive attitude went a long way when it came to working in a team.

The good news didn’t stop there, however. Ganondorf proceeded to volunteer for tour guide duty, or something like that. Fantastical folks always tended to mince their words a little, but Nadia got the message loud and clear: he was offering to join them on their campaign, and in so doing would make their subterranean journey all the easier. She spun around, a big smile on her face. “Sounds good to me!” she chirped without a second thought. “The more the merrier, right? Leatherback here made it sound like you’re some kinda bad guy, but if we’ve already got one, what’s one more? Accordin’ to the Consuls we’re all bad guys anyway, seein’ as we’re tryin’ to destroy their world and all.”

One of the other new arrivals, Sectonia, then chimed in too. Nadia wasn’t paying enough attention to realize what happened to the Loox, so she only heard that Sectonia also favored cooperation with Ganondorf, although her phrasing earned her a sideways glance from the feral. “Psst! Hey!” she hissed at Sectonia. “Ya can’t just call people ‘dark’!” The big bug probably didn’t know any better, but right now Nadia didn’t want to risk getting on the newcomer’s bad side; if the Seekers didn’t want to go back to the original plan of languishing in the darkness down here, they needed his guidance.

In the minutes that followed however, the swordsman provided just that. In as few words as possible, he outlined both this area and its immediate surroundings according to the information he’d gleaned during his imprisonment. The Ruins, being directly beneath the Chasm that formed the Under’s primary entrance, served as a sort of crossroads for the whole region. Continuing on east past the Temple of the Black Egg would bring them through a nameless, eerie subterranean forest to Hollow Bough, a biome of petrified wood and dried grass rather than stone and stalagmite, infested by thorny red vines and many-legged carpenters. Back the way the Seekers came, a huge basin-like room provided vertical access through much of the Ruins. Its bottom level offered a westward path to the lush Lawn and an eastward one past an abandoned village, though beyond that Ganondorf couldn’t offer much more than some sort of lake around the roots of the Hollow Bough’s trees. Below the Ruins, they could descend into the Dream Canyon, the Fungal Wastes, or the Basement, but without any other concrete knowledge about those places from Ganondorf the Seekers would have to learn more by venturing there themselves.

Therion mentioned the map-maker, and Nadia nodded. “Yeah, yeah!” she agreed. “I think he might be at the bottom of that big open chamber. If the rest of ya wanna scout around a little, a couple of us can scamper down and find him.” The feral waved as she turned to jog back out of the temple, pitter-pattering through the quiet, misty tunnels as she retraced her steps to the big opening from earlier. After a few moments, she stood at a precipice overlooking the Crossroads Cavity.

Sure enough, Nadia could still see the scraps of paper scattered around the carven balconies on the walls and the platforms suspended on their wrought-iron scaffolding, but now that she took a moment to really get a good look at the place out she could pick out less savory details, too. A great many Gruzzer flies the size of exercise balls bumbled blithely around those heights, carelessly bouncing into anything in their path with their fat, round bodies thanks to their comically undersized wings. After a moment, Nadia also glimpsed a sleepy Gruz Mother closer to the bottom, elephant-sized and with a trunk to match, much to her chagrin. Still, nothing that Nadia wouldn’t see coming.

“Alright, bud,” she said to Therion, flashing him a competitive smile. “Time for a crash course in bein’ a cat. Try and keep up!”

Without further ado she tensed up and jumped down, soaring through the air for a brief moment, to land on the first big platform. It rattled beneath the impact, sending a sudden jolt of panic through her, but that was nothing compared to what she felt when a four-eyed cave cricket climbed up from where it had been hanging off the other side.

“WAAAUGH!” As the huge, freakish bug skittered her way Nadia instinctively veered backward, only to nearly fall off the edge . The cricket jumped at her, but Idea sprang into existence and snatched it out of the air. As Nadia watched, equal parts horrified by the insectoid jump scare and exhilarated by her new assist, Idea flung the cricket up, snatched it with its seven tongues, and slammed it back down into the platform before vanishing. Unfortunately for the feral, her new archenemy did not go splat. It began to get up to attack again, but Nadia gathered herself faster. “Cat Scratch Fever! She charged forward with a series of slashes, carving through one surprisingly tough leg with each to leave her foe immobilized. With half its legs gone, it could only struggle as she pierced its abdomen with the final hit, lifted it into the air, and revved up her arm like a drill to scatter the pest to the four winds with the centripetal force.

Panting, Nadia waited a moment for her racing heart to slow down. “Ohh, man,” she gasped. “I’m gonna have a bad day, I just know it…” Once over the scare, she moved to the edge of her platform, hurriedly gauged the jump to the next, and leaped down. Her three hundred sixty four pounds of effective weight promptly smashed right through it and sent her into freefall among the Gruzzers and cave crickets, her face red with anger and embarrassment. “I HATE IT HEREEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee…!”

Edinburgh MagicaPolis

Level 8 Big Band (30/80)
Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Red’s @TruthHurts22
Word Count: 1599

Fresh snowflakes softly flitted down from the pillowy white wintry clouds upon the empty streets as Band plodded his way along the sidewalks. Even with the way free of snow thanks to those magic thingamajigs, his expression was stormy, and his mood quietly furious. Irons. He wouldn’t be forgetting that odious man’s name or face any time soon. As if his sticken glimpse of New Meridian deep beneath the sea in the Black Line’s Rapture Station earlier that day wasn’t enough, his meeting with the Edinburgh police department managed to stir up even more old memories, but nostalgia was the last thing the grizzled detective felt. How nice it would be if he could forget those miserable years, but no matter how far into the past they sank, they could never quite melt away into the haze beyond memory. Instead those memories were like his shadow, following behind him no matter where he went–even the World of Light.

The cruel irony of bad policemen, who served and protected only their own interests and regarded the law as a weapon to be wielded rather than a principle to be upheld, stung Band no matter where it arose. This Chief Irons might represent a different flavor of evil compared to that which Band knew during his own policing days -less ambitious, maybe- but he represented evil nonetheless. That much, Band could smell. Irons reeked of the animal fat that he methodically scraped off the underside of the hides for the taxidermy he loved so dearly, almost certainly so immersed in the craft that he couldn’t even perceive it himself anymore. The same thing could be said of corruption, not just for Irons but for the whole force, since a leader both set the example for his team and birds of a feather flock together. His audacious and brazen treatment of Detective Lucia Morgan galled Band, not just because the poor woman probably suffered unduly under Irons’ whims compared to the men around her, but also because she reminded Band of himself in those bitter, earlier days. He all too keenly recalled that horrible feeling of futility. Of clinging to one’s principles while surrounded by corruption, of being forced to abide by countless violations while struggling in futility to stem the tide. Those feelings of circling the drain that gnawed away the soul itself. Could he even tell himself that Ben Birdland died a man of virtue that fateful day, rather than subsisting long enough to become another maggot in the pile? How many times by then had he looked the other way when his fellow officers did the wrong thing, after all…?

Band exhaled deeply. He seated himself on a bench that looked like it could take his weight and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with the pads of a mechanical arm, thinking. Maybe I’m just projecting, he reasoned. Ultimately, despite the obnoxiously sour feeling that Irons and the force in general left him with, he possessed no evidence of wrongdoing. Only his gut instinct, and no matter how well his intuition might serve him, he could not create any case without proof. Maybe they’re just assholes. Most cops were surly, suspicious, and territorial. It sort of came with the territory, and if not, then it definitely came with experience. For now, he needed to focus on the scant few details he picked up during his chat with the ill-natured Chief of Police. Skeletons at night, he recollected. Don’t like the sound of that one bit. Anyone from his world could probably guess what his first guess had been, but given the sheer amount of worlds seemingly in play here, what were the odds that his fears would turn out to be well-founded?

Band stared up at the sky, feeling the gentle bite of the cold subarctic breeze on his skin. No man could be that unlucky. Not even him. Surely?

He still had some time left on the clock before his rendezvous with Ace and Red, so he sat there for a while, kept too sharply focused by occasional frigid gusts to grow comfortable. While there he considered the options available to him. Grilling every last random civilian he ran into would be an immense hassle for less-than-tangible benefits; the average MagicaPolis citizen probably knew nothing of the greater picture here. If the law enforcement here wouldn’t work with him, he could attempt to elicit the aid of some other authority figure, a mayor perhaps. The higher up the pecking order he got, however, the closer he would probably get to a Consul. Band still possessed frustratingly little information on them, but even the vaguest notion suggested that those encountered by his allies so far represented some form of organized syndicate with remarkable power, reach, and most worryingly, interest in the Seekers. If one could mobilize the entire feline populace of the Metro into a fighting force at the drop of a hat in time for his group’s arrival, it would behoove him and the others to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves. Hopefully he hadn’t done too much already.

In the midst of the detective’s ruminations, he became aware of the sound of footsteps. He glanced to his left, a handful of snow accumulated on the brim of his fedora, to see someone following in his footsteps along the side of the road at a brisk pace. The heavy, wooly white coat he didn’t recognize, but he couldn’t fail to have noticed those distinctive yellow-striped blue leggings. “Hm.” He turned to look the newcomer’s way as she approached his bench, smiling when she continued to jog in place to keep her blood flowing even after she stopped moving forward. “I wondered if they’d send someone,” he began, “But I did not expect you, Detective. You must be cold.”

“You got NO idea, mistah,” Lucia told him, her haggard breath a constant stream of mist in the cold air. “On both accounts, I mean. ‘Cause while I might be the fahst one to come after ya’s, theah’s moah comin’, and they sure as hell ain’t friendly.”

Band gave a slight, inquisitive tilt of his head. “And here I thought Chief Irons wasn’t gonna roll me out the welcome wagon,” he said drily.

Though shaking all over, Lucia shook her head in particular. “His welcome’s gonna be a whole lot wahmah than yah bahgainin’ fah, believe me. Speakin’ of…” She motioned with her head toward her legs. “I can tell ya moah, but I was kinda in a hurry gettin’ outta theah, so if ya know anywhere we can go I’d shoah appreciate it.”

Her fellow detective rose to his feet. “I know just the place. Follow me.”.

“Lead the way, mistah,” Lucia replied, her expression grateful. “And while we’ah on the way, we oughta stop by Hello Wahk. ‘Cause aftah this, I’m definitely out of a job.”

---

Some time later, the door to the pub designated as the Seeker trio’s rendezvous point swung open not only to admit Big Band, but a yellow-haired stranger behind him. After being greeted with a warm front from inside and stepping into the toasty interior, the unknown woman breathed a sigh of relief; her skin had turned almost as blue as her uniform. “God, I could go foah a pint right now,” she groaned, but she dutifully followed her escort to the booth where Ace and Red sat waiting.

“Afternoon, y’all,” Band greeted the others. For someone of his size, sitting anywhere in a bar meant for normal humans ended up being a laborious process, but he found a way. “This is Detective Lucia Morgan,” he said, introducing his guest. “Met her at the local police department.”

“Foahmah detective,” the lady replied, although she didn’t look too glum about it. “Chief didn’t take too kindly to poor Band heah,” she said, using the nickname she picked up while eavesdropping. “Right aftah he left, he rounded up the Three Stooges to keep an eye on ya. But I seen what happens to people he puts his eyes on, and…well, I just got this gut feelin’, ya know? Couldn’t take it any longah. So I said to myself, it ain’t gonna happen this time.”

Band furrowed his brow. “Not that I don’t appreciate you doin’ all this for us, ‘specially outta the blue, but I gotta ask. It seems like you’re puttin’ yourself in awful danger for someone ya don’t know.”

“Psh.” Lucia waved her hand. “I had it up to heah with that guy, anyway. Always givin’ me crap, starin’ at me weahd. Gives me the creeps. You ain’t catchin’ me stuffed and mounted in his office, no way no how.” She slid the drink menu over and scanned it for whatever looked the cheapest and strongest. “Besides,” she continued. “I could tell you weren’t havin’ any of it. You were hidin’ it, shoah, but I saw it in yah eyes. Like ya couldn’t stand lookin’ at mockery of the luah.” After nodding and tapping one of the options in the menu as if to confirm her choice, she looked his way with grim smile. “I know it, ‘cause I’m just the same.”

A brief moment later, Band smiled. “I’m glad. Welcome to the team then, Miss Morgan.” He glanced at the others. “So, before we get into the welcome wagon, you two learn anythin’ while out on the town? Any ideas for places to go? Don’t matter how small it might seem, gimme all ya got.”

World of Light

In that case, go ahead and go after me. No need to rush if you're feeling bad.