Lugubrious

Pilgrim's Caravan: An Open-Ended Fantasy (with Worldbuilding!)

The excitement and feeling of community here are wonderful to see! I personally don't use fancy headers just to save on space, but I respect the effort you went to, Magus. And that's an interesting height chart too, it seems like our average would be on the larger side if not brought down by Cricket, who I didn't quite realize was *that* tiny.

Pilgrim's Caravan: An Open-Ended Fantasy (with Worldbuilding!)

Hoo goes there?

Hoogarth ‘the Hooligan’ Mysliwy

Race, Age, Time in the Caravan: Hoogarth is a strigiforme, a somewhat rare variety of demi-human beastman who arose several centuries ago in a murky, magic-blighted region known as the Velvet Wood, where the aftermath of a legendary magical disaster known as the Hypnagogia left the entire forest valley irreversibly changed. With their obvious resemblance to owls, strigiformes are also called ‘hoomans’, and they have a reputation for being quaint, folksy naturalists, being both skilled hunters and oafish buffoons. Extremely light on their feet, keen of eye, and silent in motion, they are pure carnivores, and more dangerous than most people give them credit for, perhaps purposefully so. Their lifespan is shorter than humans, so Hoogarth is considered an adult at 14 years. He’s only been with the caravan for five days

Appearance: A proud member of the strigiforme race’s Great Horned Lineage, Hoogarth stands tall at 6’6”. The fluffy feathers that adorn his body are a desaturated dark brown with a slight mauve sheen in the light, a tint which persists on the bare gray skin of his five-fingered hands and two-toed feet with their short, sharp talons. His most prominent features are his big, expressive eyebrow tufts, which he uses to convey most of his emotions, although at rest their diagonal angle make him look surly. His eyes gleam like golden coins

History: Above the trackless pine expanses of the windy northeastern highlands tower the remote Samotny Mountains, which in turn shelter a forested valley once known to very few. Following the Hypnogogia, however, that place changed, the earth and forces of nature themselves forever altered. As if its bottom had simply fallen out, the valley became a massive pit stretching miles into the earth, where gravity extends omnidirectionally from the center. The result was a forest in the shape of a gargantuan tunnel, with plants and trees that grow at odd angles, and giant redwoods capable of twisted all the way from one side to the other. This Velvet Wood, clad in eternal twilight, is the home of the strigiforme race. The clans who remain here have hunted down the worst of the monsters and other threats that arose after the Hypnogogia, solidifying the woodland’s gentle silence, and with it their quiet dominion.

Many strigiformes emigrated from the Velvet Wood over the centuries, however, and Hoogarth’s clan is among them. Borne to Whoodrow and Mathoolda, he’s the oldest of three brothers, and from childhood he, Hoobert, and Hoosea were thick as thieves. Strigiformes found outside of their ancestral home often put on airs of sophistication and importance while styling themselves ‘Nobles from Afar’ as they settle into lives as merchants, clerks, and officials, but others serve as messengers or hunters, and Hoogarth’s family fell into that latter group. From an early age he got used to a fast and loose way of living, traveling from place to place propelled by the winds of fortune. Rather than go their separate ways like most strigiformes who came of age, however, the three brothers decided to stick together as the memorable Hooligans. Using gliders they ranged far and wide. Together they got into all sorts of scrapes and mischief, never thieves but always earnest practitioners of ‘finders keepers’, making plenty of friends and a couple enemies along the way. Sometimes they ate richly, sometimes they went hungry, and more than once they got chased out of town, but through ups and downs the brothers always had one another’s backs.

Still, after a while the trio yearned for something different, and they decided to split up to see what they could get up to on their own. Before parting ways, however, they swore to meet up again every six months, always agreeing on the next place to meet when they reunited to swap stories over a hot meal and strong drinks. During their most recent reunion, Hoogarth caught wind of the Pilgrim’s Caravan, and he decided to see what sort of adventures he could embark upon with that renowned motley crew.

Personality: One need only spend a couple hours with Hoogarth to realize that the stereotype of owls as stoic, wise, and mysterious is almost entirely off-base. He is emotive, outspoken, bombastic, short-tempered, and hot-blooded, not quick to fight but quick to say exactly what’s on his mind, and quicker still to poke fun at people, including himself; if he had a sleeve, Hoogarth would wear his heart upon it. Like most strigiformes, he thinks he’s a lot smarter than he actually is, and is a shameless boast with a boatload of confidence especially when it comes to tomfoolery, even if he constantly ends up putting his foot in his beak afterward. That said, he will also shamelessly bail on situations he feels bad about. He loves hype and adventure, so both the exciting journey and the rewarding destination keep him moving, especially because he tends to squander his money on fine dining and luxury the minute he gets his claws on any. There isn’t a great deal of depth to a freewheeling owl without two brain cells to rub together, but he does see himself above the rules, regulations, and norms of human society, reasoning that if he’s determined to be an outcast by birth, he’s not going to give a damn about what anyone else thinks of him. Life’s too short to give a hoot!

Motivation: Live life to the fullest!

Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:

• + Hunting: Hoogarth is an expert hunter, with a great deal of knowledge and experience when it comes to hunting small to medium animals for food and basic materials. He is familiar with common creatures’ traits and behaviors, including where to find them, how to kill them, and how to make the most of their remains. His knives are all he needs to do so, but he can also use traps pretty well
• + Jerky Afficionado: Preparation is everything, and Hoogarth has mastered the craft of preparing the ultimate food. Tasty, protein-rich, and long-lasting, jerky is his ration of choice for the road. He has a kit that takes the form of a knapsack, which contains pouches of salt and whatever spices he can get his hands on, a miniature smoker, a tinderbox, and a couple other odds and ends that allow him to marinate, cure, and dry meat into jerky so long as he has enough time
• + Stealth: Though not quite to the immaculate standard of real owls, partially because they cannot fly, strigiformes are uncannily good at silent movement. Their natural instincts translate well to sneak attacks and even assassination. Some tools that play into Hoogarth's roguish ways are caltrops, bolos, spare throwing knives, and smoke bombs
• + Mobility: Physically fit strigiformes are fast and light, great jumpers and acrobatic maneuverers. Moving around especially in vertical environments comes easy to them, and they’re naturals when it comes to hit-and-run attacks. One extra tool Hoogarth possesses is a glider that he can unfurl after leaping into the air, allowing him to coast along at a good clip until he reaches the ground again
• + Vision: The gift that strigiforme kind supposedly sacrificed half their brain power for, according to jokers and critics. Their night vision is excellent, bordering on magical, and thanks to necks that can rotate 270 degrees, not much can escape from their sight
• - Weak: Even the biggest and most martially skilled strigiformes are not good at traditional fighting. They’re too light, without the sturdiness or muscle for a sustained brawl, so they can’t take much damage especially from blunt force that could break their hollow bones. They also can’t lift or carry as much as humans of comparable size, which includes weapons and armor
• - Pigeonholed: Due to being on the weaker side physically, strigiformes are limited when it comes to combat. They cannot reliably take on any defensive roles, and even the strength it takes to draw bows is beyond them, forcing their rangers to use shortbows, hand crossbows, bolas, and boomerangs. Many strigiformes pursue their innate magical arts as a result, but Hoogarth never bothered to cultivate that talent, so the tricks and traps of a dextrous rogue are all he’s really got
• - Dumbass: Enough said. Outside of his areas of expertise, he’s pretty much a country bumpkin

Extra Details

Greatest Desire: To live forever!
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Three Likes: Red meat, good snoozes in soft beds, ego trips
Three Dislikes: Getting wet, heavy loads, staying up late
Driving Organ: Heart
Worst Fear: His own mortality!
Favorite Color: Gold
Most Like The Animal: Some kind of bird, maybe…?
Favorite Time of Day: Just after midnight
Style of Dress: Like most strigiformes Hoogarth prefers to wear loose, baggy clothing that does not tamp down his feathers, so his garb is a set of ruddy brown hide supplemented pads that incorporate a dense weave of mint-green fibers, light but thick and tough to help dispel blunt force that could otherwise take a toll on his hollow bones. There are no extraneous elements that could make extra noise. Two knife scabbards cling to his belt, and tied to his left forearm is the skull of the largest Dire Rat he’s ever killed as a makeshift shield. Overall, his clothing gives gives him a look that lands smack dab in the center of a three-way Venn diagram between hunter, bandit, and shaman
Favorite Season: Winter
Beliefs: The strigiformes of Velvet Wood have a quiet reverence for the entity they call the Quiet, whose near-awakening formed the crux of the infamous Hypnogogia hundreds of years ago. While the band of heroes who quelled that threat and prevented untold disaster destroyed the Hypnogogic Order responsible for that event, with even the very name of their eldritch deity scrubbed from the annals of history, a faint vestige of its unfathomable glory remained in every root, leaf, and briar of the Velvet Wood, seared into the hearts of the first strigiformes who awoke amidst the arcane fallout. They both fear and revere their ‘creator’, assured that someday it will awaken in a world ripe for change. So they watch and wait, making the most of the lives granted to them, until the Quiet comes

Pilgrim's Caravan: An Open-Ended Fantasy (with Worldbuilding!)

I'm glad you like my owl! I'll get him ported over.

Pilgrim's Caravan: An Open-Ended Fantasy (with Worldbuilding!)

Hoo goes there?

Hoogarth ‘the Hooligan’ Mysliwy

Race, Age, Time in the Caravan: Hoogarth is a strigiforme, a somewhat rare variety of demi-human beastman who arose several centuries ago in a murky, magic-blighted region known as the Velvet Wood, where the aftermath of a legendary magical disaster known as the Hypnagogia left the entire forest valley irreversibly changed. With their obvious resemblance to owls, strigiformes are also called ‘hoomans’, and they have a reputation for being quaint, folksy naturalists, being both skilled hunters and oafish buffoons. Extremely light on their feet, keen of eye, and silent in motion, they are pure carnivores, and more dangerous than most people give them credit for, perhaps purposefully so. Their lifespan is shorter than humans, so Hoogarth is considered an adult at 14 years. He’s only been with the caravan for five days

Appearance: A proud member of the strigiforme race’s Great Horned Lineage, Hoogarth stands tall at 6’6”. The fluffy feathers that adorn his body are a desaturated dark brown with a slight mauve sheen in the light, a tint which persists on the bare gray skin of his five-fingered hands and two-toed feet with their short, sharp talons. His most prominent features are his big, expressive eyebrow tufts, which he uses to convey most of his emotions, although at rest their diagonal angle make him look surly. His eyes gleam like golden coins

History: Above the trackless pine expanses of the windy northeastern highlands tower the remote Samotny Mountains, which in turn shelter a forested valley once known to very few. Following the Hypnogogia, however, that place changed, the earth and forces of nature themselves forever altered. As if its bottom had simply fallen out, the valley became a massive pit stretching miles into the earth, where gravity extends omnidirectionally from the center. The result was a forest in the shape of a gargantuan tunnel, with plants and trees that grow at odd angles, and giant redwoods capable of twisted all the way from one side to the other. This Velvet Wood, clad in eternal twilight, is the home of the strigiforme race. The clans who remain here have hunted down the worst of the monsters and other threats that arose after the Hypnogogia, solidifying the woodland’s gentle silence, and with it their quiet dominion.

Many strigiformes emigrated from the Velvet Wood over the centuries, however, and Hoogarth’s clan is among them. Borne to Whoodrow and Mathoolda, he’s the oldest of three brothers, and from childhood he, Hoobert, and Hoosea were thick as thieves. Strigiformes found outside of their ancestral home often put on airs of sophistication and importance while styling themselves ‘Nobles from Afar’ as they settle into lives as merchants, clerks, and officials, but others serve as messengers or hunters, and Hoogarth’s family fell into that latter group. From an early age he got used to a fast and loose way of living, traveling from place to place propelled by the winds of fortune. Rather than go their separate ways like most strigiformes who came of age, however, the three brothers decided to stick together as the memorable Hooligans. Using gliders they ranged far and wide. Together they got into all sorts of scrapes and mischief, never thieves but always earnest practitioners of ‘finders keepers’, making plenty of friends and a couple enemies along the way. Sometimes they ate richly, sometimes they went hungry, and more than once they got chased out of town, but through ups and downs the brothers always had one another’s backs.

Still, after a while the trio yearned for something different, and they decided to split up to see what they could get up to on their own. Before parting ways, however, they swore to meet up again every six months, always agreeing on the next place to meet when they reunited to swap stories over a hot meal and strong drinks. During their most recent reunion, Hoogarth caught wind of the Pilgrim’s Caravan, and he decided to see what sort of adventures he could embark upon with that renowned motley crew.

Personality: One need only spend a couple hours with Hoogarth to realize that the stereotype of owls as stoic, wise, and mysterious is almost entirely off-base. He is emotive, outspoken, bombastic, short-tempered, and hot-blooded, not quick to fight but quick to say exactly what’s on his mind, and quicker still to poke fun at people, including himself; if he had a sleeve, Hoogarth would wear his heart upon it. Like most strigiformes, he thinks he’s a lot smarter than he actually is, and is a shameless boast with a boatload of confidence especially when it comes to tomfoolery, even if he constantly ends up putting his foot in his beak afterward. That said, he will also shamelessly bail on situations he feels bad about. He loves hype and adventure, so both the exciting journey and the rewarding destination keep him moving, especially because he tends to squander his money on fine dining and luxury the minute he gets his claws on any. There isn’t a great deal of depth to a freewheeling owl without two brain cells to rub together, but he does see himself above the rules, regulations, and norms of human society, reasoning that if he’s determined to be an outcast by birth, he’s not going to give a damn about what anyone else thinks of him. Life’s too short to give a hoot!

Motivation: Live life to the fullest!

Skills, Strengths and Weaknesses, and Tools:

• + Hunting: Hoogarth is an expert hunter, with a great deal of knowledge and experience when it comes to hunting small to medium animals for food and basic materials. He is familiar with common creatures’ traits and behaviors, including where to find them, how to kill them, and how to make the most of their remains. His knives are all he needs to do so, but he can also use traps pretty well
• + Jerky Afficionado: Preparation is everything, and Hoogarth has mastered the craft of preparing the ultimate food. Tasty, protein-rich, and long-lasting, jerky is his ration of choice for the road. He has a kit that takes the form of a knapsack, which contains pouches of salt and whatever spices he can get his hands on, a miniature smoker, a tinderbox, and a couple other odds and ends that allow him to marinate, cure, and dry meat into jerky so long as he has enough time
• + Stealth: Though not quite to the immaculate standard of real owls, partially because they cannot fly, strigiformes are uncannily good at silent movement. Their natural instincts translate well to sneak attacks and even assassination. Some tools that play into Hoogarth's roguish ways are caltrops, bolos, spare throwing knives, and smoke bombs
• + Mobility: Physically fit strigiformes are fast and light, great jumpers and acrobatic maneuverers. Moving around especially in vertical environments comes easy to them, and they’re naturals when it comes to hit-and-run attacks. One extra tool Hoogarth possesses is a glider that he can unfurl after leaping into the air, allowing him to coast along at a good clip until he reaches the ground again
• + Vision: The gift that strigiforme kind supposedly sacrificed half their brain power for, according to jokers and critics. Their night vision is excellent, bordering on magical, and thanks to necks that can rotate 270 degrees, not much can escape from their sight
• - Weak: Even the biggest and most martially skilled strigiformes are not good at traditional fighting. They’re too light, without the sturdiness or muscle for a sustained brawl, so they can’t take much damage especially from blunt force that could break their hollow bones. They also can’t lift or carry as much as humans of comparable size, which includes weapons and armor
• - Pigeonholed: Due to being on the weaker side physically, strigiformes are limited when it comes to combat. They cannot reliably take on any defensive roles, and even the strength it takes to draw bows is beyond them, forcing their rangers to use shortbows, hand crossbows, bolas, and boomerangs. Many strigiformes pursue their innate magical arts as a result, but Hoogarth never bothered to cultivate that talent, so the tricks and traps of a dextrous rogue are all he’s really got
• - Dumbass: Enough said. Outside of his areas of expertise, he’s pretty much a country bumpkin

Extra Details

Greatest Desire: To live forever!
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Three Likes: Red meat, good snoozes in soft beds, ego trips
Three Dislikes: Getting wet, heavy loads, staying up late
Driving Organ: Heart
Worst Fear: His own mortality!
Favorite Color: Gold
Most Like The Animal: Some kind of bird, maybe…?
Favorite Time of Day: Just after midnight
Style of Dress: Like most strigiformes Hoogarth prefers to wear loose, baggy clothing that does not tamp down his feathers, so his garb is a set of ruddy brown hide supplemented pads that incorporate a dense weave of mint-green fibers, light but thick and tough to help dispel blunt force that could otherwise take a toll on his hollow bones. There are no extraneous elements that could make extra noise. Two knife scabbards cling to his belt, and tied to his left forearm is the skull of the largest Dire Rat he’s ever killed as a makeshift shield. Overall, his clothing gives gives him a look that lands smack dab in the center of a three-way Venn diagram between hunter, bandit, and shaman
Favorite Season: Winter
Beliefs: The strigiformes of Velvet Wood have a quiet reverence for the entity they call the Quiet, whose near-awakening formed the crux of the infamous Hypnogogia hundreds of years ago. While the band of heroes who quelled that threat and prevented untold disaster destroyed the Hypnogogic Order responsible for that event, with even the very name of their eldritch deity scrubbed from the annals of history, a faint vestige of its unfathomable glory remained in every root, leaf, and briar of the Velvet Wood, seared into the hearts of the first strigiformes who awoke amidst the arcane fallout. They both fear and revere their ‘creator’, assured that someday it will awaken in a world ripe for change. So they watch and wait, making the most of the lives granted to them, until the Quiet comes

World of Light

Suoh

Sector 3 Upper
Level 1 Goldlewis (9/10)
Goldlewis, Peach, Raz, Roxas, Bede, Sakura, Karin, Midna
Word Count: 2076

For a moment or two Goldlewis just stood and watched as his new allies dispersed to begin the operation. Raz took off running toward the right side of Main Street with Roxas in tow, while Midna, Sakura, and Karin favored the left. They all moved like they had a plan in mind, even if that plan just happened to amount to ‘idle away time until the Others descend’. That went for Goldlewis too, but how to kill time never came easily to someone as punctual as himself, a man so particular about his schedule that he went as far as to meticulously time each and every one of his fights with the help of his wristwatch.

His eyes roamed over the many businesses and attractions before him, all of them fighting tooth and nail to capture and preserve the attention of the cityfolk who frequented these streets. Even without the ability to see Visions, he got the picture; it was the same in back places like New York City and Las Vegas in America, after all. And here more than anywhere, the old veteran could feel how little he fit in. “I’ll never understand folks nowadays. ‘Specially kids,” he muttered. “All these trends, movin’ a mile a minute. The minute ya jump on the bandwagon, it rolls right outta town. Just tryin’ all this newfangled stuff takes a lot outta me. Last week, I tried somethin’ called a ‘gyoza’ that exploded when I bit it!” He ran his hand through his hair, closing his eyes as he did. “In the army or the government, they kept me too busy to worry about society.” Goldlewis chuckled, shaking his head in resignation. “Bein’ a civvie ain’t easy. How d’ya suppose they all manage it?”

“I guess they just go with the flow.” Peach wished she had an answer, but she couldn’t even call herself an expert on her own world, let alone the mashed-up World of Light. Then again, Goldlewis probably asked that question rhetorically. “Where I’m from, things rarely ever changed. We’d sometimes find new areas or inventions to spice up sports, or to travel to, but looking back on it, the status quo reigned more absolutely than Bowser or I ever did.” She and Goldlewis stepped back, then watched in amazed silence as a young couple passed them by atop a purple, tentacled brain, riding it like a horse. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think any of us will be getting used to Midgar any time soon.” Goldlewis gave a grunt of affirmation, and Peach smiled. “Is there anywhere you want to go around here while we wait?” Her eyes landed on the nearby restaurant. “How about there? ‘Musubi’s’.”

Goldlewis furrowed his brow. “No thanks ma’am, I’m not hungry. In fact, I’d like to stretch my legs.” He turned around toward the apartment complex behind where he parked, referred to as ‘Kong King’ by a plate on the wall. “Let’s give that a try.”

The soldier and the princess moseyed on over. While clearly not the highest-class apartments around, the dwellings here had to be expensive, given their proximity to Suoh’s economic and cultural center. Most Psych-OSF soldiers slept in the citadel’s barracks, and its upper crust could afford far better housing than this, so the movers and shakers of Main Street’s business probably called this place home. Many of those here seemed determined to make use of Kong King’s most notable amenity, as well: the multi-tiered plaza. With its central gazebo, its planters of exotic eye plants, and selectable nature Visions that could turn the whole plaza into a grassy meadow, flower garden, or lush forest, and even an overarching Vision sky, it offered a place of community for the psychic populace fortunate enough to call this otherwise stark apartment complex home.

After wandering around for a few minutes, up and down the flights of stairs in a big, complicated circuit of the plaza’s various levels, Goldlewis parked himself on a bench overlooking the central area. With the Other Forecast fewer people were around than usual, although even on a good day Goldlewis knew that the sight of children playing would be a rare one. “Kids get sent over to Gutsford at an early age for safety,” he told Peach once the princess sat down beside him. “The Extinction Belt don’t go up that far, and Gates rarely ever open. So Midgar acts as one big shield between the Ever Crisis and the li’l ones.”

“Hmm.” Peach watched a man with a goatee jog past with his dog, which looked like a Golden Retriever but, judging by his curly tail and white socks, had to be a mix. “Well, that’s just what everyone’s made to believe, right? By Galeem, or…whatever. Since the World of Light has only existed for two months.”

Goldlewis blinked. “Huh? How d’you reckon?”

For a moment his response left Peach taken aback. “Well…I only have memories in the World of Light going back two months.” She stared into the old man’s eyes. “Isn’t it the same for you?”

Slowly, Goldlewis shook his head. “It’s hard to remember exactly, but…I’m pretty sure I’ve been in Midgar for the better part of…three years.”

Before the princess could fully process that statement, an unfamiliar voice from in front of her drew her attention. “Excuse me!” She and her new ally looked forward at the same time and saw a teenager standing there, his group of friends a little farther off. “You’re Mr. Goldlewis Dickinson, right? The Secretary of Absolute Defense!”

“Y-yeah, that’s me,” Goldlewis replied after a moment, surprised yet again in the span of only a few moments. “What can I do for ya, son?”

“Oh, nothing! We were just hanging out in my apartment, and I happened to see you down here, and then…” The boy waved his hands, only to realize that yes, he did in fact want something, and held up a finger as he reached into his backpack. “Oh! I mean, if you don’t mind, could you sign this?” He held up a large red sleeve with a rock-and-roll design, holding a big black vinyl disc inside it. “I’m a huge fan! Got your LP back when Vernon was in office!”

Just a tiny bit bashful, Goldlewis gave Peach an apologetic glance, then pulled out a pen. “Sure thing, son. I ain't with the government anymore, but anyone who likes the classics is good in my book!”

Little did he know, doing that opened the floodgates. The boy’s friends and a few random pedestrians crowded around, full of excitement for the unmistakable man whose distinctive appearance, character, and achievements once earned him the popularity of a hero.

“Oh, Mr. Goldlewis, can I get a selfie with you?”

“Is that THE coffin? The one with an alien inside!”

“Please sign my hat! A-and my baseball!”

“Can you say one of your famous lines? Give us a ‘down with the system’!”

“Whoa, whoa!” Goldlewis leaned back, his hands held up in surrender. “Did I really say it that often…? And that ain’t an alien, by the way! In fact, it’s still classified, so I can’t tell y’all nothin’!”

A new, louder voice cut through the commotion. “Mr. Dickinson!” It belonged to a quad-rotor drone, zipping down from above, and the voice that issued from the machine sounded composed and professional, like a newscaster. “If it isn’t Goldlewis Dickinson, the former Secretary of State! What brings you to Suoh today, of all places!”

“A damn Crow,” the veteran grumbled under his breath before replying. “I’m just on vacation! Ain’t a man entitled to a little privacy?”

The drone did not budge one inch. “Of course, of course! And yet, you are no ordinary man. The first active-duty soldier to become the Secretary of Defense in Midgar history, more popular than even the president at that time, Vernon Groubitz. The man who’s personally aided Psych-OSF and Desperado in the field on more than one occasion, saving countless lives! But what is the illustrious ‘Secretary of Absolute Defense’ doing nowadays? What are your thoughts on the Administration that replaced yours? In what direction do you think Midgar is heading?”

As Goldlewis searched for the right words to defuse the situation, the people around him suddenly flinched, looking in all directions. The next moment, an alarm rang out through Suoh. BOO-WOM! BOO-WOM! BOO-WOM! In a flash the citizens were on the move, yelling and screaming as they fled. Goldlewis heaved a sigh. “Perfect timin’.” He then stood up in a hurry and raised his voice. “Other Alert!” he barked. “All of ya, get to the nearest shelter on the double! Move, move, move!”

Peach had jumped to her feet as well. “It’s happening, right?” she asked, scanning the sky. “What do we do?”

Goldlewis grabbed his coffin’s chain and hoisted the whole thing over his shoulder. “You’re comin’ with me. We got some business to attend to.”

---

Within two minutes, they fell. Specks became visible up above, falling from the Extinction Belt above Sector 3 until they got big enough that even those on the ground could make them out. What appeared to be giant peach pits hurtled down toward the city like meteorites, getting closer and closer.

“...Fire!”

At the signal, the army trucks deployed from the hangars of the Otherlobe unleashed the missiles stored in the defense systems on their backs. The rockets ascended skyward en masse in a mountain of billowing smoke to intercept the Other pods before they hit the ground, destroying up to half of the monsters before they even got a chance to pose a threat. The pods that made it through, however, cracked open to jettison their bizarre contents down into the city below. With their mission accomplished, the rank-and-file defenders pulled back, and the available Scarlet Guardians moved in.

On the opposite end of main street, Yuito, Nagi, Naomi, and Kasane had burst from Musubi’s to set up a perimeter so that the other patrons could escape to the nearest shelter. All of the Visions in the area had turned into flashing alerts, urging the population to take cover. Most of the populace, more or less used to alerts like these, had already made it to safety, but here and there strokes of misfortune meant a few stragglers had fallen, been trapped, or gotten left behind, and when the Others hit the ground, the panic only grew.

These creatures were like nothing Peach had ever seen, and just looking at them made even Goldlewis’ skin crawl. They were truly alien, in that they looked like animate amalgamations of plant, animal, and object, moving in ways too unnatural to be called ‘bestial’. Bile Pools oozed around like bulbous slugs, the light bulbs atop their greenery lurching around in search of prey to batter with blasts of water. In tandem, Plateau Pendus hunted on wings of fencing, leering with doorknob heads as the green gloves of their inverted mannequin bodies dangled beneath them. Their electric bolts would ensure that any hapless civilian soaked by a Bile Pool would be paralyzed long enough for their brains to be devoured. Ungainly Buddy Rummies tottered around in groups, the torn-off arms of their comrades wielded as weapons to gather food for the fungal mouths on their chests. Worst of all, Vase Paws stalked around in packs, the bells on their spinal tails jingling as they searched for humans to dispatch with vicious, high-power kicks from their ruby-red heels.

“You two hurry and link up with your platoon!” Kasane told Yuito and Nagi.

“We can’t just leave these people. Nagi, let’s go!” The two boys took off running, the former using psychokinesis to draw his katana while the latter lifted bladed chakrams with aerokinesis. They closed in on a Vase Paws moving in for the kill.

“Kasane, they’re coming from above!” Naomi called, apropos of nothing. A moment later, two Buddy Rummies jumped off the nearby building to drop on the girls. They landed on the trap Naomi laid for them and were blown off balance. Kasane charged, surrounded by dancing blades held aloft by her own psychokinesis, and finished them off.

Goldlewis gritted his teeth as Others noticed him. “Heads up!” he called to peach, directing his attention to the three Bile Pools and two Plateau Pendus headed their way. Farther down the sidestreet, a man was trapped in his car as four Buddy Rummies surrounded it. “I’ll hold ‘em off, go!”

Detroit

Sector 8 Lower
Level 11 Tora (105/110) Level 11 Poppi (105/110)
Giovanna, Tora and Poppi, Raiden, Susie, Blazermate, Geralt, Benedict
Word Count: 898

Giovanna rather casually leaned against the railing that overlooked the extremely lethal fall to Quarantine Valley as the others shared their thoughts. Her mention of gangs in the area naturally piqued the interest of her new crew, and considering how much easier it would be to get around via the sky-lines rather than these smoke-tinged streets, finding some ne’er-do-wells that nobody gave a rat’s ass about to furnish the Seekers’ sky-hooks made sense. Raiden was on board with that plan, but he also seemingly itched to scrap some Machines. While nobody could object to an offensive against those artificial adversaries in principle, in practice it was another matter, especially considering the team’s current situation as Benedict helpfully -and curtly- pointed out.

The Turk did take the first chance he got for a metaphoric sniper shot against Giovanna, though. Rather than rise to the provocation, however, the secret agent just let the words roll off her back. “If you got some kind of problem with the SOU, you’d be better off telling Dickinson,” she said with a shrug. “I’m just a trigger. Gonna take a lot to heat up cold metal like me.”

As Blazermate and Susie described what they wanted out of today’s visit here, whether or not that related to the mission, Giovanna snapped her fingers. “Oh, that reminds me. One tricky little detail.” She pointed a finger at all three of the team’s female robots, using the index and pinky of her right hand to do so. “The gridLinks you got back at base won’t cut it if we run into any actual security. Robots aren’t people in Midgar, but they still need a way to ID you, because of the Machines. Gotta have a way to tell friend from foe, right? So everything gets an LED, white for military hardware like DespoRHado’s androids and Unmanned Gear, blue for commercial androids.” She brought up a glyph to display a map of the current area. “So before you go anywhere, visit the Solid Waste Landfill nearby. People dump their scrap there, so there’s bound to be some functional LEDs. Just scan it with the gridLink you got and it’ll transfer everything over, then put it on your temple.” She shrugged again. “I’m pretty sure that’s right.”

No sooner did she finish with that advice than Geralt turned toward her for some. “Should be possible,” she told him. “They say the Hermits started in Quarantine Valley as hackers, but when new leadership took over they expanded out into the city. Got more aggressive, too.” Giovanna peered around the nearby streets. “I’d be more surprised if there weren’t any in Sector 8.”

Tora spoke up at that point. “Before we go to war, friends should take time and figure out what working with, meh. Learn ins and outs of new place, and who better for help than streetwise Hermits? Tora vote search for hackypons!” He took one more look down at ‘Sector 9’ and shivered in the chill wind that blew across the forlorn, rusted rooftops. “Up here though, not in Redshift Valley. Plus, this Tora chance to study city tech!”

“Kay then. The three bots plus Tora to the landfill for LEDS, then either the Limb Clinic or Android Zone, sounds like.” She pointed out the facilities to the four, both within easy walking distance of the train station. “While the rest of us look go make some friends.” She, Raiden, Geralt, and Benedict set off, quickly discarding the electronic avenues in favor of claustrophobic side-streets and grimy lots enclosed by building walls and chain-link fences, like prison yards. Barely a hundred feet deeper in from the undercity’s well-traveled public roadways, its smooth, futuristic alloy facade became brick, mortar, iron, and concrete. For a ways it still seemed livable, but after the squad went down a warmly-lit street and took a turn, their surroundings downgraded once again to their base form.

They stopped in a raggedy, graffiti-plastered, pipe-infested alleyway, littered with trash bags piled up against walls like snow drifts. A couple people either laid or drifted around, whether homeless, delirious, semiconscious, or plain old down-on-their-luck. They looked like they could use some help. Giovanna ignored them and summoned Rei, who manifested behind her like a big, green scarf. They began to snoop around. “Finding criminals isn’t hard,” Giovanna said aloud as she and Rei alternatively scanned and sniffed the area. “Like finding a salamander in the jungle. It might seem impossible at first, but if you know which rocks to turn over, it’s only a matter of time. I figure a lot of lowlifes lurk near the train station, trying to catch naive newcomers or unwary commuters. Plus, it’s a quick and easy escape route if you don’t have a car. Places where people come and go in a hurry, you never know what you’ll find…” Producing a small pair of tweezers, she picked up a small plastic sleeve from the garbage and held it up in front of the light. Tiny, faded red crystals could be found within. “...In those liminal spaces.”

She held out the sleeve for Rei to sniff, then looked toward the others. “Red Ice,” she told them, knowing what that meant to Benedict. It was the drug of choice for the city’s dissatisfied underclass in the more techy Sectors especially, being similar to cocaine with an additive of thirium. “Strong, destructive, and addictive. Lots of poor men and women who lose their jobs to machines wind up becoming users. Or even dealers. I’m guessing someone got a fresh load and couldn’t wait to get home to help themselves.” Rei barked and began to move, snaking through the air down the alley toward the set of stairs that led back up to a second level along the street. “Let’s take a look.”

Rei led the team through a series of balconies and catwalks that ran throughout the area’s second story, between and through clusters of buildings. The locals watched them with unmasked suspicion, caring very little for their odd mixture of semi-professional attire, medieval armor, and cyborg components. At one point just after they passed beneath a third-story sky-line, a handful of hoodlums hurtled along beneath it with the aid of sky-hooks, and headed from the direction Rei indicated, too. Just over a minute later, the team wound up across the street from an abandoned three-story tenement on a corner that jutted out into and towered over a basketball court. A handful of lookouts lurked around what looked like a reinforced entrance at street level, further protected by that dead being closed off by barriers in case of inter-gang aggression, but Giovanna could see holes in the roof from here. She pointed up toward the alternative entrance, then with Rei summoned alongside her, took a running jump over the steamy manholes and beneath the unlit street lamps of the fortified lane. Once airdash later, she landed deftly on a protruding AC unit, mantled onto a pipe, and climbed onto a fire escape with which to make her ascent. If the others did not possess the agility to follow her example, they could find another route.

Once at their destination and ready for battle, the Seekers prepared to attack. From the roof Giovanna could see a number of Hoodlum Dolls, strewn all around their hideout. The whole tenement had been gutted, with the central area wide-open, so she got a good view. Gang members with knives, crowbars, bats, and a few pistols lounged around, making sure to look extra intimidating for the addicts trying to make a purchase from a stash carrier on the bottom floor, while a stash vehicle rested nearby. Plenty of sky-hooks were in evidence, which seemed to garner more of Giovanna’s attention than the weapons–a testament to her confidence. At her signal, the four dropped down and burst onto the scene.

---

Tora’s fantasy of poring through a smorgasbord of unwanted mechanical marvels got swiftly crushed under the cruel weight of reality once he and the ladies arrived at the Solid Waste Landfill. Instead he found a big, muddy pit ringed by construction amongst the downtown buildings of Detroit. A heavy-duty lifter sat on the brink of the dump, using its claws to shovel the contents of an adjacent reclamation truck into the mire, but instead of everyday garbage this morass contained the junk of countless machines. For a moment it looked to the horrified Nopon that a number of people lay within the dump as well, sprawled out and often dismembered, but after a quick look with her optics Poppi reassured him that they were just humanoid machines, probably the androids that the SOU mentioned. Still she herself could not quite overcome a feeling of intense dread that permeated her; being an artificial lifeform herself, she looked at this place as something even more macabre than a mass grave.

Still, their mission demanded that they descend. Tora reached the tail end of the street, jumped off the jagged edge, and slid down the dusty, scrap-littered incline. Once at the bottom, he looked around the heaps of dirt and discarded metal, big enough to form mountains and canyons throughout the area. As Poppi flew down after him he waddled up to the upper half of an android husk reclined against a filthy pile of its brethren, most of its valuable components gouged and and picked clean. Even its Thirium blood had been drained by some opportunistic salvager, leaving dry blue streaks across its hacked-up chassis. Higher up in the pile, the body of a Side Kicky dangled limply from where it had fallen onto a spike of rebar, the one big, blue eye that remained in its head smashed. The head of another medabot corpse seemed to stare at him, despite its cranium being caved in by some sort of heavy impact. Many other trashed robots and their parts came to rest here, including a number of pierces that undoubtedly belonged to the Machines themselves, possibly taken from the battlefields where they waged war with DespoRHado outside the city.

Noticing how uncomfortable this place made Poppi, in addition to how uneasy it made him, Tora wasted no time using his wrench to pry functional LEDs from the heads of dead robots around him. He could learn few lessons from this place, and none were the ones he wanted. Once he collected enough components for his team, he and Poppi beat a hasty retreat.

On the way back toward the Limb Clinic, Tora spotted another of the shops mentioned by Giovanna: Android Zone. He and Poppi, with the military-grade LED newly plugged into her right temple, entered to find a pristine white store full of all the latest lifelike android models on display. Some looked like normal, everyday people, while others seemed rather fantastical. Poppi almost immediately caught her Masterpon ogling some of the more elegant and alluring designs, prompting her to push him toward the clunkier-looking units. While he looked around, examining and reading whatever he could, Poppi went to wait at the main counter. After a staff member finished helping a man in green retrieve a KARA-type android that had been in for repairs, she met Poppi face-to-face. “What do you need?” she said, the professional smile she wore before replaced by a brusque neutrality.

Poppi smiled at the employee anyway. “Hello. I would like to ask about where these machines come from.”

“Come from?” The question seemed to take the woman by surprise. “You mean the manufacturer, Cyberlife? Wouldn’t you already have all the information your owner might need about it?”

Poppi shook her head. “No…” Given the false identity provided by SOU’s technical contact that now circulated within her LED, she knew that she couldn’t say that she didn’t come from Cyberlife herself. “Due to a technical error, I lost most of my stored information. My owner says he’s sorry. Can you tell me more about Cyberlife and its workings?”

“N-no?” the employee scoffed, her brows furrowed in incredulity. “If you’re defective or your owner tampered with you, we can deactivate you and ship you off for repair, but we can’t help you when it comes to anything else about Cyberlife. Everything there is to know about them should be available online, however.” Though she kept her tone gentle, the lady began to look impatient. Her expression said why didn’t you just do that from the start? “Who is your owner, anyway? Is he here?”

Poppi was beginning to feel a little impatient herself. “I have a Masterpon, not an owner. Sorry to waste your time, I’ll just be on my way.” With a final sidelong glance Poppi stalked out of Android Zone, stopping only to grab Tora by the wing, then drag him away from the female androids and out of the store onto the streets of Detroit.

The Caves

Level 10 Nadia (77/100)
Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Omori’s @Majoras End, Ganondorf’s @Double
Word Count: 1088

“Whew!” Nadia took a deep breath and leaned back, stretching. “That wasn’t so bad. We’re really cuttin’ through these little abominations.” She happily pocketed the nickel that appeared in the room with the Hosts before either Sectonia or Omori got the chance, then began the trip back to the start. The weight of even a little money in her pocket made a lot of difference when it came to her mood; maybe this was the first sign that her luck was starting to change. Still, in this nightmarish place a little windfall could only elate her so much. “Three dead ends in a row, though,” she griped. Her new teams’ efforts got the Seekers no closer at all to the next floor. Instead they’d just been mopping up all the fleshy little fiends that dwelled in these caves’ alcoves and byways, like some kind of demented viscera cleanup detail. “Plus, we’re still dirt poor! Aren’t dungeons supposed to be filled with riches? Where are all the sparkly jewels? The priceless heirlooms?” She stopped in front of a fungus-ridden corpse crawling with maggots, grimace, and skirted around. “Huh, at least the maggots are eatin’ good. In fact, they’re spoiled rotten!”

On the way, Nadia suddenly realized something she’d been wondering since the fight with the Knights, which was why her new bauble didn’t seem to work the way Sectonia said it should, at least all the time. The answer suddenly dawned on her: she fought in a side-facing stance, so of course a light that shone in the direction of her torso would miss any foes in front of her. Plus, the more she looked at it, the less sure she felt about it being a gemstone of some kind. “Great purr-chase you turned out to be,” she grumbled, tapping the Night Light with her claw.

The team reunited in the northernmost chamber of the Caves, where Jesse and Therion’s own series of skirmishes just came to an end. Everyone seemed okay, no life-threatening injuries or grievous mutations immediately apparent as Nadia looked around. And wouldn’t you know it, there it was: another ominously-decorated boss door off to the west, wide open and ready to accommodate any would-be challengers. “We all made it!” she exclaimed. “Not that I doubted ya. But if your rooms turned out anythin’ like ours, we had a harder time even with fewer enemies. Next floor’s bound to be even tougher.” The cat burglar’s shoulders slumped down she let her her head loll to the side. “Ohh, we still don’t even know how deep this goes. This place is gettin’ ‘under’ my skin!”

Before they could think about the next floor, however, they needed to confront the final challenge of this one. While the others caught their breath, deliberated, and shared any tips they’d uncovered on their rampage through the Caves, Nadia happened to notice some movement by the door in the corner of her eye. When she looked over her brows shot up in surprise at the sight of the bug knight moving toward the gateway with a purposeful stride. So far the silent swordfighter had been content to follow Omori around, but now it seemed intent on tackling the biggest challenge in this place so far both head-on and all by itself. “Hey, wait a sec!” Before she could take action, or even decide if she wanted to, the Knight stepped inside. Nadia got a split-second glimpse at a towering heap of guts before the gates slammed shut to bar the way.

“Oh.” Nadia glanced at the others, shrugged, and jogged toward the door. She pressed her ear up against it to listen, and what greeted her was a near-constant barrage of swiping sounds, each punctuated by the wet shlorp of meat torn asunder. Monstrous coughing and the muffled buzz of oversized flies cropped up here and there, but only once or twice did the onslaught ever cease. After less than a minute, she heard a loud, meaty blast, and the door popped open, so suddenly that Nadia toppled over into the room. In front of her lay Gurdy’s head, dissolving into ash, and she recoiled from the smears of blood around it. In the center of the chamber stood the Knight, using a portion of its accumulated Soul to heal. Above a plinth floated a set of soft periwinkle garments, a new trapdoor could be soon on the floor, and behind the Knight lay a door with a pitch-black frame, adorned by the head of a goat. Within, a satanic statue watched over an item on the floor, a creepy head wreathed in a wheel of crimson flame, and like the shops encountered before it featured a price carved into the floor below it. Rather than money, however, it demanded health.

From her position, though, Nadia could only see the immediate room, the reward, and the very capable fighter that won it. “Well, aren’t you the cat’s pajamas?” she said, impressed. “Not this cat’s though, they’re all yours. Good work!” The Knight nodded and took the PJs, which immediately appeared on its body beneath its cape, with no other visual changes. Curious, Nadia headed over to take a peek inside the dark room, but what she saw made her fur stand on end. “It’s a demon!” Between that and the flat-out scary item in front of it, she backpedaled super hard. “Nope, nope, nope! Not messin’ with that!” She went over to the hatch, through which the knight had already descended. “See ya on the other side!”

Things did not get better on the next floor. Nadia joined her masked companion inside an even darker, drearier labyrinth, free from the nauseating odors of either the Basement or Caves, but somehow even more dreadful and grim. This ancient, crumbling ruin, replete with strange and unnerving bas-reliefs, possessed a fearfully primeval quality, as if chiseled by inhuman hands in some antediluvian era. It reminded the feral of the catacombs beneath the Cathedral of the Trinity, only worse, and that realization chilled her. That, and the atmosphere itself. Instead of stuffy, musty, and overgrown it felt cold, desolate and long-abandoned. Still, Nadia rather expected to find plenty more horrors here, and worse ones than those that came before. First filth, then rot, and now…death.

Necropolis

The Colorless Wood

Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose’s @Yankee, Rubick’s @Scarifar

Silitha’s meteoric descent scattered the Seekers, their defenses, and their minions, and though she took a few puncture wounds from Bowser’s spikes in the process, the Brood Mother’s onslaught continued. When she warped off to the side, she got a satisfyingly good view of her handiwork. While the Koopa King wasn’t so easily squashed, the others had all been either thrown or knocked to the ground, and that meddlesome wizard Rubick took a direct hit that left him cratered in the dirt. Coarse laughter, scratchy as nails on a chalkboard, rang out before she moved in to make sure the biggest threat wouldn’t escape unscathed. Bowser was not the sitting duck that he appeared to be, however, and before her mantis-like forelimbs could test their serrations against her target’s scales, he leaped into the air, where he stuck fast in the strong, wiry webs of Silitha’s innumerable spawn.

With the defenders’ formation broken and prey freshly caught in their nets, the small spiders surged ravenously forward, but their foes knew better than to forget about them. Bowser hammered them with exoskeleton-rattling sound, while Primrose’s flames scoured the arachnids too eager for a bite to eat. Once Kamek’s entourage regrouped to pick up the slack, defending Rubick as best they could in the process, the star players still on their feet could give Silitha the attention she was due. The many-legged monstrosity boldly charged into Bowser’s flame, weathering the burn long enough to deliver a titanic one-two punch with her forelimbs, then laid into him with faster, weaker blows like he was a scaly speed bag. Rika and Junior hurried over to help as the Troop’s leader got turned upside-down. Their combined sorcery and gunfire plus the painful burns convinced Silitha to teleport again, this time on the opposite side of Bowser, at which point she reached her arms up to grab him. At that point she pulled him in for a giant spider bite, just as he feared, but in the nick of time Kamek’s barrier appeared. Silitha hissed as her jaws closed around a Koopa King as hard as rock, and she threw him away with all haste, though that didn’t hurt him much either.

Spinning quickly, she lashed out at the other flies buzzing around her, but thanks to Primrose’s dance the spider’s heavy blows barely left a scratch. Aghast and not sure what to do, Silitha teleported away again, appearing hundreds of feet away. Her options appeared to be limited, however, for after she composed herself the Brood Mother teleported above Primrose, hoping to lay low her enemies’ support the same way she did their sorcerer. After that she rampaged toward Rika and Junior, slamming away at them like whack-a-moles. This pattern of warp out, warp drop, attack, warp out, warp drop, attack would continue without variation–until the Seekers whittled her down to half health. At that point Silitha shrieked, and six-eyed Deephunters the size of dogs appeared from the backdrop. While their smaller kin shied away, the Deephunters spat globules of fiery venom through the air, quickly dealing heavy damage to any ignorant Seekers who stayed in one place too long.

Edinburgh MagicaPolis

Level 8 Big Band (38/80)
Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Frisk’s @Majoras End, Red’s @TruthHurts22
Word Count: 1524

In the end, the show went even better than Sierra, in all her endless optimism where random, untrained volunteers were concerned, could have either expected or hoped. Ace and Frisk both gave it their all, and if they stumbled at all the crowd barely seemed to care; they were here for cute Spheals doing cute things, after all, and All Round more than delivered. Clumsiness was practically part of the charm. Sierra kept the audience excited and attentive as her helpers went about their business, hyping up tricks with cheers of praise and encouragement, or offering fun facts about these ponderous Pokemon when the trainers needed a moment for setup. They pulled off routine after charming routine, and whether the Spheals rallied Pokemon-colored balls, balanced atop one another, water gunned down the targets, tricked off the ramp,instigated aurora borealis, or just vibed to the music, the crowd ate it up. Oohs, awws, and uproarious applause filled the plaza when the show came to an end, with the only disappointment being that it was over too soon.

“One more time, let’s give it up for our stellar squishes, our sensational sillies, the heart and soul of All Round, Glenn, Dumpy, Happy, and Sadie!” The people obliged Sierra as she directed her Avalugg over to the front of the fountain, in which the four Spheals were waving at their adoring fans like the superstars they were. Being too small to help either of them, Sierra could only beckon to her trainers to join her up on her animate iceberg, offering them their own icy stage for both the audience at the security detail to see. “And let’s give another big hand to our talented trainers, too! Would you believe this is they’re first time?” A chorus of cheers resounded, and together the three took a boy. “Thank you for coming, everyone! If you enjoyed the performance, please feel free to show the Aether Foundation some support, so they can keep funding more spectacular shows just like this one! See you next time, everyone!”

After the show finished, a bunch of fans swarmed the fountain, eager to stroke, scratch, and feed the Spheals for themselves. With no disturbances of any kind throughout the performance, much to his relief, Band moved in toward the fountain to keep a closer eye on the meet-and-greet, and his fellow guard Lucia did the same. They kept a close eye on everyone who came up to meet the Pokemon in person, but most of them were children, and none gave any sign of ill intent. A few parents and miscellaneous fans crowded around Sierra, full of praise and questions, whether about All Around, Pokemon shows, Pokemon handling in general, or the Aether Foundation and how to show their support for delightful events like these. Ace and Frisk, meanwhile, got a chance to sit back by a portable heat lamp and rest while warming the fingers numbed by constant fish handling in the cold.

Several minutes later, with most of the remaining spectators dispersed, Sierra made her way over to the fountain. “All right, all right!” she told the red-faced youngsters. “Our Spheals love you guys, each and every one, but they’re tired from the show and need a nice, long nap. Plus, they’re so stuffed full of fish, they’ve gone all round!”

One of the kids, a young blonde boy in glasses, looked affronted. “What do you mean, they’re always round!” he corrected her in a nasally voice.

“Ahah, you got me!” Sierra wagged a finger at him. “You really know your Spheals, dude! For real though, it’s time to pack up. See you next time!”

Reluctantly the kids moved on. Band chuckled as he watched them go, then lent a big, brass hand to help carry the spheals to their cushion-lined cages in the back of Sierra’s van. “Gotta say, little lady. Ya put on a damn good Spheal show.”

“Thanks!” One by one Sadie toweled the Spheals off, then installed them in their cages with a pat on the head apiece. “Wouldn’t have been possible without you guys, though. With that finished and all the doors closed, she sat herself on the vehicle’s rear bumper, letting off a big, misty sigh of relief. “Hwah! Man, I’m beat. There wasn’t any trouble, right?”

Lucia shook her head. “Not a peep. No pickpockets, poachahs, nothin’.”

Sierra leaned back against the rear doors, allowing her tired eyes to slide shut. “What a relief. I honestly didn’t think there would be, but if any actual Spheal poachers showed up, I would’ve lost all my faith in humanity. Stick a fork in me, I’m done, you know?” She clapped her hands on her knees. “Still, even if it was for nothing, I’m glad you all kept an eye out. The Aether Foundation…well, it’s not the most popular company in town. Some people have real issues with our shelters. So, someone trying to hurt the Aether Foundation by targeting All Round...not that farfetched, if you ask me. I kinda feel like these shows were approved just in the hopes of boosting our public image. But training and taking care of these guys is my passion, and I’m going to keep working as hard as I can to make this cold, bleak city of ours a brighter place.”

“You got a good heaht, miss,” Lucia told her. “...I feel bad sayin’ what I planned ta now, ‘cause I don’ wanna bahst yah bubble, but the postahs mentioned a rewahd, yeah?” She shrugged, her hands held up as if the question couldn’t be helped. “We’ah really shoaht on cash right now, is oall.”

“Oh…!” Sierra paused only a moment, but that was enough for the shoe to drop for Band. Sure enough, her paltry attempt at a poker face turned into a wince. “I’m, uh, really sorry, but I don’t…actually have the money right now. My crew’s paid in a lump sum at the end of each show week according to overall performance. In fact, the analyst should be around here somewhere…” She scooted off the bumper and onto her feet, sidling off as she looked around the area. “Where, where…ah!” She turned toward the group and held out a hand toward another woman in white. “Here she comes now!” Then, in a loud whisper. “Better cross your fingers for good news, ahaha…”

After a moment, the senior Aether Foundation employee joined the group, a pleasant smile on her face. She wore gold-accented white clothing much like Sierra did, albeit in the form of a shawl, skirt, and thigh-high boots. A thick pink turtleneck sweater matched his big pink glasses, and her mauve hair boasted both impressive volume and height. Her bright green eyes lingered on Frisk; the two seemed to possess a similar energy, almost motherly in nature.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted them. “You must be our darling Sierra’s hired help, then? A pleasure to meet you!” She gave her coworker a warm smile. “I’m so glad you managed to find some substitutes after all, dear! And they did quite well, considering its their first time. I have all the analytics right here.” The lady held up her tablet and took a deep breath for a thorough explanation of how things went, but second-guessed herself and waved the numbers off. “Oh, but I don’t want to bore you all. My name is Wicke, by the way.” The Aether Foundation analyst put one hand on her hip as if posing for a photo. “I won’t waste your time with quibbles, I’m sure you’re eager to receive your pay. I can handle it in Sierra’s stead, but I’ll need to crunch some numbers before I write your checks.” She put a finger to her smiling lips, thinking. “Why don’t I treat you all to a nice cup of hot cocoa at the nearest ROSE? You’ll drive us, won’t you Sierra dear? But let’s hurry, it’s cold outside~!”

With no other choice if Band wanted to cash in on an easy job well done, and no reason to be suspicious, the detective cast one last wary glance over his shoulder for any sign of EMPD personnel before taking Wicke up on her offer. With Sierra behind the wheel of the van, Ace could take shotgun with all his equipment, and Red squeezed into the middle of the back seats between Frisk and Wicke. Lucia didn’t mind riding in the back of the van with the Spheals, whose soft snores the passengers could hear through a grate in the separating wall. Band followed behind, sliding smoothly along the snow-dusted street after the vehicle with a stream of jazz in his wake.

A few minutes later, the van came to a stop at Dessert Shop ROSE, a warm and pleasant-smelling bakery where the magic of a pink-haired witch fueled the creation of pastries, chocolates, and other confections of all kinds. Sierra bid the team farewell to take the Spheals home, leaving them in the capable hands of Wicke for their rewards.

∞ Activity

The afternoon sun shone through a blue sky dotted by vast, voluminous upon the shingles, timbers, and battlements of a bustling medieval town, livelier than usual. After all, it was Saturday, and for the inhabitants of Lumbridge that meant the exact opposite of a day of leisure. Townsfolks and adventurers alike ran back and forth, each with at least a dozen tasks in mind and only a scant few hours left in the day to check everything off their lists. The outposts, camps, and other staging grounds built around the Land of Adventure throughout the week needed to come down, their equipment and supplies salvaged for use in the coming seven days. With any troublesome monsters cleared out by hunters over the course of the last few days, it was all hands on deck to make the most of this iteration. Field teams arrived to the town one by one, laden with all the loot they could safely carry back to home base from the dungeons, forts, mineshafts, and other such points of interest. Valuables, materials, foodstuffs, spirits–they all got handed off to the citizens for sorting, itemization and distribution through Lumbridge, while the weary adventurers who procured the goods on behalf of the Guild took the records of their achievements with them as they returned back to base for their wages and a hard-earned feast.

In a few hours, as dusk began to gather, most would be sharing stories of this cycle’s exploits over plentiful food and drink. WThe menus of Lumbridge’s eateries and canteens never grew stale, for each week offered a brand-new assortment of ingredients to supplement with the crops and livestock grown within the settlement’s boundaries. Life here was a whirlwind rich with adventure, danger and opportunity going hand in hand, with every week a brave new world of unknowns and possibilities. This ever-changing reality offered its hardships, of course, but as long as the people here -from the most legendary heroes to the most ordinary millers and potters- worked together, there seemed to be nothing they could not achieve. And once the sun set and the sky grew dark, alight with the twinkling of countless distant galaxies and worlds beyond measure, those who wished to could gather at Lumbridge’s borders with their chairs, blankets, and lanterns, and in awed silence watch a realm unravel and woven anew before their very eyes, knowing that even as everything changed, the bonds they forged would remain the same.

On the parapets of the Guild Castle rooftop rest a lone figure, watching the wagons of plunder roll hither and thither, the excited shouts of adventurers gearing up for one last run, and the laughter of squealing youngsters underfoot whose eyes shone with wonder at all the new stuff brought in to enrich their home. The observer reclined comfortably in his fine chair, the spiky, black-scaled tail that protruded from his armor coiled around one of its legs. He slouched, languid, with his elbow on the arm of his seat, occasionally sipping from the glass of red liquor that sat on the table beside his seat next to his helmet, which with its horns and fangs almost seemed to glare balefully down at the townspeople. The Consul’s face, however, was one of faint amusement as he idly tossed a palm-sized cube up and down. As if someone who’d painstakingly erected a house of cards before him was a mere moment away from its completion, oblivious to the errant gust of wind just about to blow his way.

When the rooftop door behind him swung open, the Consul turned a sidelong glance in that direction, and his smile only grew. A familiar figure approached with his cape billowing in the winds of change, too tall to be mistaken for anyone else with a similar taste in armor. “How interesting,” he remarked, his voice curt and acerbic. “A visit in person? You must be infatuated to flatter me so.”

“What are you doing here, M?” S asked, his own tone devoid of humor.

M narrowed his eyes, an unfriendly smile on his lips. “Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow? This happens to be my territory, in case you’ve been meddling around so much you’ve forgotten. Did you know that these fools made a road all the way to the Hamlet, honestly believing that a link to Lumbridge would prevent its re-generation? What a laugh!” He looked again at the villagers below, then slumped down in his chair with a sigh. “Ugh. It really has gotten nauseatingly boring around here. So here I am to set things straight. You wanted as much, yes?”

“M, I beg of you,” S drawled, putting every ounce of tiredness he felt into that word. “Speak plainly. Perhaps it slipped your notice, but I have expressly avoided so much as a singular utterance to you for quite some time.”

At that, M snickered. “Oh, but I can take a hint. F was kind enough to stop by and tell me about the meeting with everyone. The way you talked about me, it almost sounded like you thought I wasn’t doing my job.” He feigned sounding hurt. Unconvincingly. “So I simply thought, what better than to clean up one of my partner’s messes for him? Think of it as a gift.” His gaze returned to the people of Lumbridge. “A fresh start, if you will.”

S looked down as well, but not at the people. The eyes inside his helmet settled on the object in M’s palm. It was a chiseled cube of sleek black obsidian, emblazoned with gold in a distinctive shape plus an inlaid fragment of diamond on each of its four sides. He took in a sharp breath, and his eyes narrowed. “The World Anchor.”

“Mmhmm~” M tossed it again, then caught it. “I knew you put it here, but I didn’t mind since that just meant more subjects for me. But it turned out to be a snoozefest, and we can do better than that, can’t we?”

“Why? Our enemies have no reason to return here, and the people aren’t freed. There’s no benefit. You’re…not even going to harvest their lifelight?”

M’s brows rose. “Oh, how bloodthirsty! That didn’t occur to me. And here I thought you were a feckless wastrel, more interested in playing with heroes than serving your purpose.” He stood and put the World Anchor away. “Oh, don’t you worry about giving me any ideas, I’m just kidding. I’ve already mostly drained the Clock most of the way. Not bad for a peacetime colony, too, must’ve been some big monsters out there this week. We won’t lose much, and it’s more than worth what we’ll gain when the clock strikes midnight! All those gnats, preening with arrogance…I can hardly wait for them to see all they hold dear evaporate before them. What a sublime moment it will be!”

Green wings unfurled from his back as he rose up to clasp S around the shoulder. “You’ll stay here to watch the fireworks with me too, right? ‘Parter’? I know we haven’t always seen, heheh, eye to eye, but let’s not dwell on the past, hmm? Why not enjoy this as the start of a brand new chapter in our friendship!” S said nothing, his eyes dark, and after a moment M shook him by the shoulder. “Hey now, why the hesitation? You haven’t gotten attached to these worms or anything, have you? That’s not very cash money of you, S. Your hands are stained, black as pitch. After all, you’re Moebius, just like the rest of us.t” His mockingly jovial voice dropped to a whisper as he leaned in close. “Or did you not wish for the endless now?”

“Hmph!” S tilted his head away as he pushed away from M. “Questioning my loyalty is a buffoonish jape even for you. Our newfound initiative against the new heroes is my handiwork, after all. These people are…nothing…to me.” He dismissively flipped his hand at Lumbridge, his voice bitter. “I only ever selected Lumbridge for edification in the first place in an effort to do your job for you, since you prefer wanton murder to proper cultivation. This was clearly a gross mistake, and one I shall endeavor not to repeat. Moebius I may be, but a sadist I am not. There is no purpose in any pretensions between us so long as we do our duties. Do with your fiefdom as…as you please.”

“Aw.” The other Consul landed, a disappointed look on his face. “Well, I think I’ll do just that. It’s true I’ve been slacking off lately, after all. My colonies are infighting; I’ll need to whip ‘em into shape before we visit any of yours.” M put his helmet on, then turned toward S with a mocking bow. “See you on the battlefield?”

But S was already gone.

Pilgrim's Caravan: An Open-Ended Fantasy (with Worldbuilding!)

It's been a long time since I've been a normal player, and this RP looks really promising! It seems really well thought-out, and a bunch of interest is always a great thing. Since it looks like it's still taking applications, I've already remembered an old character that would be perfect for something like this, with a little retooling.

World of Light

Reposting the sheet since I edited it how you asked the last time, Lug, and figure it'd help more than making you hunt down the original post. The strengths and weaknesses have been changed, and the wording on Essence of Mayhem has been slightly altered. Otherwise it's the same.

The Part-Time Hero

Name: Ichiban Kasuga

Game Origin: Yakuza: Like a Dragon (aka Yakuza 7)

Appearance: Just a mop-headed ex-yakuza looking for a job.

Personality: Ichiban might seem simple on the outside - a well-meaning goofball who's a bit slow on the uptake and too stubborn to care - but there's a lot more going on under the surface. Ichiban has a rigid moral code, a sense of righteousness that colors everything he does. Heavily believing in one's honor and the responsibilities that come with it, he'll set straight anybody he sees as straying from the path. But don't think that makes him some holier-than-thou type. Ichiban is incredibly humble and will always see the best in those that get looked down on. He's no bully, and only uses his skills to protect those that need it, like a real hero.

He is really stubborn though, that part's very true.

Background: Ichiban Kasuga, born on New Years day, was an orphan who was found and raised by a soapland owner since he was a baby. Growing up in an unsavory environment didn't lend him much of a social life, but it afforded him an immense pool of compassion and empathy to people that others would see as lesser. His friendless childhood also drove him to spend most of his freetime playing Dragon Quest, leading to his obsession with the game and RPGs as a whole, eventually viewing life as one big one. Before then, during his teen years, Ichiban ran afoul of some local Yakuza and, in a bid to protect himself, name-dropped the Arakawa clan, hoping it would scare them off. Instead, it lead to the head of the Arakawa clan, Masumi, to show up in person and save Ichiban, at the cost of a finger and a humbling apology. Ichiban, shocked at Arakawa's choice to demean himself to help a random kid, all for the sake of upholding the clan's image, indebted himself to Arakawa in the hopes of joining his clan and learning from him. After months of hanging around the Arakawa office through rain or snow or shine, Arakawa eventually relented, and accepted Ichiban into the family.

Ever since, Ichiban was a loyal member to the Arakawa clan, becoming a personal favorite for the patriarch himself and even appointed as a sort of caretaker to Arakawa's wheelchair-bound son, although his direct superiors weren't so happy with Ichiban's goody goody antics. Eventually, at the turn of the 21st century, Ichiban's life would change forever; one of his commanding officers shot a rival yakuza member, and Arakawa asked Ichiban to take the fall and go to prison in his stead. Ichiban, ecstatic to finally have a chance to honor the clan's name as Arakawa had the first time they met, marched himself right to the police to confess to the crime.

18 years in the clink later, Ichiban was released to... nothing. Despite Arakawa's promises, no one was there to greet him back to the free world. Nobody save for a retired cop named Adachi, who delivers some poor news to him; the Tojo clan, to which the Arakawa family was a subsidiary of, was wiped entirely, with Arakawa now a member of the Tojo's sworn rivals the Omi Alliance. In complete disbelief Ichiban agrees to help Adachi get to the bottom of Arakawa's change in allegiance, if and why he would sell out the Tojo, and his apparent coldness towards Ichiban. However, this ultimately lead to Ichiban getting shot through the chest by Arakawa himself...

...but not dead yet. Waking up in a city called Ijincho, Ichiban was saved from death by a local homeless settlement, particularly an ex-nurse named Nanba who patched him up. Now without a job, a family, or a real place in the world, Ichiban set out to figure out the truth of his 18 year imprisonment, why Arakawa shot him, why he ended up in Ijincho, and maybe, just maybe, be able to afford dinner. (Ichiban will have been taken partway through the story - around a mid-point, rather than the start of his proper journey.)

Specialty: Adaptability, buffs & status effects, the power of friendship

Level: 1

Experience: 0/10

Powers:

• Tag Team: Essence of Mayhem - Ichiban's signature Heat Move, Essence of Mayhem is an all-out attack against a single target. Should Ichiban land a blow using this move, the target is stunned, setting them up for additional attacks from up to 3 other allies, one after the other, finishing it off with a dropkick from yours truly for devastating damage. Ichiban cannot use Essence of Mayhem if he is afflicted with a status ailment.

Strengths:

• Personality Stats - Like most people, Ichiban has a personality that's made up of several different traits - Passion, Confidence, Charisma, Kindness, Intellect, & Style. Unlike most people, these traits can provide bonuses to Ichiban; raising his resistances to ailments, increasing power for specific attacks, and boosting the effectiveness of his buffs. They all start off weak, at Lv. 1 (out of 10), though Ichiban can gain points towards their next levels by divvying up EXP gained from posts or through significant "dialogue choices" that best represent a related trait.
• Life is Like a Video Game - Having been so invested in playing RPGs in his youth, Ichiban has gained considerable knowledge of the various gaming franchises of his time. Despite being an unremarkable skill where he's from, this wealth of information is pretty useful in the World of Light, affording Ichiban details and foresight on what he may encounter that others lack.
• Inventory Space - Typical of any RPG protagonist, Ichiban possesses a near infinite amount of storage space on his person even though he realistically has, like, only five or six pockets to use. He's able to carry a staggering amount of different items, upwards of 99 of each unique kind, regardless of size, weight, bulkiness (though the common sense of it being able to be held in the first place is still required), with even perishable foods staying fresh and living creatures remaining healthy and content.

Weaknesses:

• Trying Hard to Beat the Stage - 18 years in the joint made Ichiban a fucking pussy lose his bearings in the video game world. Without the proper time to have caught up in all that he's missed, Ichiban's knowledge of video games cuts off past the year 2000, so anything that came after that time will be a mystery to him, though he may get by on context clues from long franchises.
• Flat Broke - On a level even more extreme than most, Ichiban is penniless. Or yenless. Not a single coin to his name, Ichiban's current poverty back in his home world has translated to a near cosmic constant in the World of Light - any funds he does get will be gone soon, meaning he has a time limit in being able to use the money he gains.

Inventory:

• Valuables: Cell Phone
• Weapons: Self-proclaimed Hero’s Bat (a metal bat with rusty barbed wire bunched up at the end)
• Consumables: None

Spirits:

Guest List:

• Nanba - a very close friend to Ichiban, though he views their bond as even closer due to Nanba's role in saving his goddamn life. Despite being a homeless bum, Nanba provides invaluable support, both in his knowledge of healing from his time as a nurse and his scrappy, street-level knowhow.
• The Hero - the descent of Erdrick, tasked with bringing light back to the kingdom of Alefgard. Ichiban used to play the early Dragon Quest games obsessively, so if he knew he was in the same place as this guy, he'd probably nerd the hell out about it.
• Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu - known as the "Ultimate Yakuza", Fuyuhiko was enrolled in Hope's Peak Academy with other notable Ultimates. Fuyuhiko has a few less scruples than Ichiban and a whole lot more cynicism, but much like the baby face he's stuck with, there's a softer bit of him somewhere in there.

@TruthHurts22

Good overall. The addendum to the 'being broke' weakness that he tends to lose his money fast as well is what keeps it from being a worthless weakness, but that's really the only possible nitpick. You can start playing as him once the other prerequisites are met.

World of Light

<Snipped quote by Lugubrious>

Amended.

@Bugman

Looks good overall then. Are you still wanting to wait a month for the new year in order to begin?

World of Light

Hello again! The sheet's not bad at all, but I do have a couple small notes.

The personality section is a very high-level overview. Is there enough to go on there where other people could approximate how he'd act in certain situations? It's not critical to have a huge personality section, but the more you could say about how he behaves, the better. Characters with more/stronger personalities are easier and more compelling to play as, after all.

Since he has an infinite amount of poison darts and blinding darts regulated by mana and cooldown, those should definitely be individual powers, and mushrooms especially since they're pretty much pure magic. I would also recommend fleshing out the Weaknesses section. You say he's tiny, but spend more time in the weakness describing how capable he is than how his size hinders him. I assume Teemo's weaknesses might also include that he's physically weak (in that he doesn't possess much physical strength, instead relying on his kit of tricks) and doesn't have much defense or health.

World of Light

SOU Hideout

Level 11 Tora (103/110) Level 11 Poppi (103/110) Level 1 Goldlewis (6/10)
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: 1297

“Not sure,” Giovanna told Midna. “Doesn’t happen much. But recognizing a fusion outright is practically impossible. My guess is they’d be checking for any big differences between the current you and the you in your gridPrint whenever you get inspected.”

Peach gave Benedict an encouraging nod when he mentioned the possibility of helping. “That’d be great. When it comes to saving the world, we need all the help we can get, and you’ve already shown us you’re a man of many talents. If there’s anything from your position in the government you can share that might help in our search, please let us know!”

With Jessica’s scoop on the layout of the city’s eight Sectors and N’s Other forecast in mind, the deliberations continued. Susie approached the subjects at hand with a unique perspective, one that blurred the line between offering concrete solutions and singing her Haltman Company’s praises. Casually, almost matter-of-factly, she mentioned that her own corporation, which supposedly harvested planets and possessed a solar system’s worth of resources, could not only out-compete the Shinra Electric Power Company but also take over the city from them, which sounded fanciful at best. She did present one intriguing possibility, though: that it was Shinra with a link to the Dystopiascape’s Guardian, rather than the Ever Crisis. Hopefully, Goldlewis mused, her theory would amount to nothing more than a shot-in-the-dark guess at a worst-case scenario.

“In addition to the mountain of paperwork it takes to open a brand-new company here,” Goldlewis told her, “You’d need to get vetted by the city council. Background checks, approvals, the works. Takes weeks. Just ain’t possible for an off-grid, not in the amount o’ time we got.” Susie’s true proposal, however, concerned DespoRHado Enforcement. She wanted to ally with them rather than Neuron or Psych-OSF as Goldlewis recommended. Midna and Raiden -one he assured the group he wouldn’t fly off the handle- both chimed in with their doubts, but the latter provided a little extra information he happened to be privy to. It was as Goldlewis feared; unlike Psych-OSF, which actively recruited any suitable candidates they could get their hands on, or Neuron, which promising police cadets could transfer to, DespoRHado was highly selective. Raiden would consider biting his tongue and helping them if push came to shove, but it sounded to Goldlewis like climbing into a pit of vipers.

Peach summarized the situation best, however. “If working with this company is a last resort, and going against them is very dangerous, it might be better to just leave them alone in the meantime.” She rested her head in her hand, thinking. “That, or we could try to follow their deployments. Collect rumors, get an idea of how they work from a distance, and trash some machines in the process. Hmm…”

The Others seemed to intrigue Blazermate, although she missed her guess about what they were. “They are not undead,” M replied. “As mentioned before, we know very little about them, other than their connection to the Extinction Belt in the atmosphere. The answer sort of took the wind out of Blazermate’s sails when it came to her interest in the Others, leaving her indifferent, but Raz kept his focus on the subject. In fact, it seemed that the names provided by Dr. N ignited something in him. “That’s good news!” M said. “It would appear that this group is a hidden treasure trove of prior connections.” He gave Blazermate another thorough look for good measure. “I don’t believe I’ve seen any robots like yourself among the Machines, but there are many variants, so keep an eye out.”

Midna latched on to Raz’s suggestion. She observed that the boy would probably be a perfect OSF candidate, but in the interest of not leaving him to fend for himself, the Twilight Princess proposed that the group take advantage of today’s Other forecast by joining the Scarlet Guardians on patrol. She did admit that the path to stardom might not be so clear-cut, but Goldlewis didn’t hate the idea one bit. He gave a sagacious nod and tapped a finger in her direction. “I reckon that might just be y’all’s best bet. When it comes down to it, helpin’ folks and savin’ lives is what’s important, and the Psych-OSF knows it. That’s why they value strength so dadgum much.”

Poppi crossed her arms, recalling information on the city. “It sounds like we should pay a visit to Sector 3 then. Suoh, right?”

“I hear ya, but gettin’ there’s the problem,” Goldlewis advised. “We got too many people to fit in both cars, ‘cause we need whoever they’re registered to along for the ride. Plus, it might attract too much attention.

“Why don’t we split up? Half to Suoh to meet the Scarlet Guardians, and half to Detroit to see what we can find out about DespoRHado and the Hermit,.” Peach suggested. She glanced at Sakura, her expression apologetic. “Sorry, but…maybe we could stop by Inkopolis some other time? I’m sure it’ll come up eventually, and when it does, we can try some sports together!”

Tora waved his wings. “Tora want see pinnacle of mechanical engineering in Midgar, meh!”

“Not to be a stick in the mud or anything, but wherever you’re all going, you’re out of luck when it comes to crossing plates or levels without a gridLink,” Giovanna mentioned. “Unless you plan to go on foot or sky-rails, you’ll need to get scanned no matter what vehicle you’re in.”

At that, Jessica gave a slight smile. “While you all were out getting dusty on Kunad, we weren’t just sitting on our asses here. We got in touch with our friend from Night City, and he started hacking up some blank gridLinks. Even now he’s hard at work making you into upstanding members of Midgar society with forged gridPrints.” She shuffled her papers smugly. “Speaking of, we’ll need to take official pictures of you all, and work on your histories. If an Agent shoots you a question about your workplace, we can’t have you blubbering out whatever comes to mind.”

“It’ll be about an hour judgin’ by his last update,” Goldlewis confirmed. “Then, we can set out. Me in my hummer with whoever’s headed to Suoh, and Giovanna can drive the rest down to Detroit. Y’all gotta get your own rides sooner or later to keep the feds from crackin’ down on us, but we can handle it for now.” Goldlewis stood, gesturing around the meeting room. “So, make yourselves comfortable. We got tea, coffee, biscuits…”

“The biscuits are for Rei.” Giovanna interjected.

“Uhh…” For the briefest of moments, a look of worry passed across the cryptid collector’s face. He swallowed. “R-right, heheh, just kiddin’. Movin’ on, we got spare clothes if ya need. Dress shirts, suits, an’ so forth. On the cheaper side ‘cause it’s standard issue but it’ll help ya blend in. Since this place used to be a police station, we even got a rec room, and a locker room complete with showers. Kinda barebones, but it makes for a fine hideout. Use whatever ya like.”

“Meh, meh. This all very complicated. Makes Tora glad am not leader.” Tora swiveled and hopped down from his chair. “Hooray for downtime!” he sang. “Over here Poppi, Tora want look at new parts. Been while since last diagnostic too, meh.” The two went off to find an unused office to tinker in, but not after Tora stopped by the counter to grab some snacks.

“Once everythin’s ready we’ll head out,” Goldlewis said. “We can both seat six. See ya in a li’l bit, folks.” He went to get some coffee himself, wearing a smile. He had, in fact, been kidding, but thought that making it seem like he ate a dog biscuit would be funny.

Suoh

Sector 3 Upper
Goldlewis, Peach, Raz, Pit, Roxas, Bede, Sakura, Karin, Midna
Word Count: 1317

After Goldlewis led Peach -who’d exchanged her futuristic getup for one of the office’s spare sets of work clothes- and five others down to the garage, he roused the beast, and in short order the American’s massive and fittingly-named beige Patriot Mammoth Hummer roared out into the late afternoon sunlight. Formidable and impressive, it rumbled down the motorway in the direction of the Shinra Building at Midgar’s center, since the interplate highway tunnels in its facility would facilitate the quickest travel between sectors. Just traveling in this vehicle, more like a tank than a car, made Peach feel unstoppable, and with Goldlewis at the helm plus her new gridLink fitted snugly around her wrist the Princess hoped that she would be. The Sector 7 highways wound back and forth around buildings and districts, less confusing and grandiose than Kunad Highway’s routes but not by much, and the passengers got a good chance to scope out this section of the city.

Compared to some of the crowded skylines the Seekers saw on the way in, Sector 7 seemed pretty normal. Even the busiest parts, full of office buildings and apartment complexes interspersed by elevated railways, pipelines, and roads offered room to breathe. True to Jessica’s rundown, much of it seemed to be residential, and out of the thick of it lay numerous smaller boroughs. As Goldlewis steered his mighty machine down the highway, his passengers spotted a number of interesting vehicles as well. They saw an Apocalypse Sasquatch monster truck, a wooden train, hover cars, hovercraft, and a super stroller. Peach even glimpsed a rocket-propelled bathtub-mobile as it cruised by. She did not, however, see any overt signs of danger, or even unrest. It must be nice for the people to be able to go about their lives as if the Ever Crisis did not exist, the princess figured, but it might be hard to get to the bottom of things. As her team got closer, the colossal Shinra Building only towered higher, standing like a colossal engine above the rest of the city’s tallest landmarks.

About forty-five minutes and no fewer than five security checkpoints later, with plenty of tension but no sign of any problem with the new gridLinks, the hummer emerged from the final tunnel into Sector 3 upper, Suoh. To most of them it seemed stark, almost barren even, a jungle of glass, concrete, walkways, and multi-lane avenues full of empty spaces, full of people but missing something. To Raz, however, this place was a sensory overload. Visions covered every last building and available surface, like a million television screens everywhere he looked, and most of them were ads. Anything that didn’t need to be solid, from street signs to crossing guards, wasn’t. The boy’s eyes glittered with the light of countless psychic displays that only he could see.

A few minutes later Goldlewis parked his hummer in the lot of a complex full of trendy-looking stores and restaurants, unable to be dazzled by their brilliant Vision displays. “For folks like you,” he said to Raz. “It’s a whole ‘nother world compared to what folks like us see. Everythin’ from top to bottom ‘round here’s designed with psychics in mind, which means it ain’t easy if you’re a dud.” He snorted. “Hell of a word, ain’t it? But people prefer it over ‘mentally inept’.” He popped open the door and climbed out, then headed for the trunk. “Still, when it comes to killin’ Others, ya don’t need powers.” From the back of his hummer he withdrew the Area 51 High Security Coffin, which he slung over his shoulder like a knapsack. “A good arm and a little gumption are enough.”

Peach joined him, and the group headed out to the sidewalk. Pedestrians and cars crossed back and forth, but without the means to see the signs most of the newcomers would need to resort to either guesswork or the raised bridges to get across the streets. They could see the surveillance systems, though. Every fifty feet there seemed to be another cluster of black cameras pointed in various directions, dotted with harsh red lights that gave them a pointed stare. They stared down at the tasteful sidewalk tiles, hedges, trash cans, and bus stops, listening quietly to the citizens. Passers-by, many decked out in futuristic techwear, spoke about all sorts of subjects either with one another or alone, using Brain Talk. A number of them mentioned ‘Otherfall’ elsewhere in Suoh, worried about the repercussions there or the possibility of such an occurrence here. All the way down Main Street, a walled plaza with an open gate led toward a big, almost citadel-like structure topped by a enormous glass brain, its triangular panes all tinted red. Or perhaps, scarlet.

“We’re tourists from Sector 7,” Goldlewis said aloud to explain to the others, rather like a G-man. “Let’s wander around some and see what we find, hm?”

Fairly close by stood the most popular restaurant and place to meet on main street, Musubi’s, featuring peppy music and ever-changing Vision menus. On the right-hand side lay Vision Town, a cluttered and twisting market street open only to foot traffic full of small businesses all jostling for attention, including some outdoor food courts. Farther along lay Sumeragi Tomb, a mixture of Japanese shrine and mausoleum complex. On the left stood Anemoiapolis, a multiple-level pool complex-slash-escape room that danced with Visions of sea creatures, Paradise Lost sauna with its unique dark atmosphere, a department store for techwear apparel, and Aquarius Hydroponics Garden, a health center and natural grocer. Behind the parking lot lay a route to a multi-leveled courtyard surrounded by apartments that looked almost bleak without psychic sensitivity, although the citizens walking and playing with their dogs there lent it some extra life. And of course, in between there lay countless other boutiques and things squeezed into every last nook and cranny, like laundromats, workshops, and outlets from Hope Station, where Psych-OSF personnel and approved citizens could ride Maglev trains to traverse the city. With a lot to take in and explore, the Seekers set off.

Anyone who ventured up the steps of Sumeragi Tomb, though, might find something especially interesting. In the first shrine tear, with its structures surrounded by some of the only verdure to be found this deep in Suoh, stood a distinctive five-man team. A young man with a sword across his back and his brown-haired friend stood comparing fortune’s they’d just received from a stall, though neither looked especially pleased. Nearby two girls, one bespectacled and her companion pigtailed, stood complaining loudly about something or other, while a teen with a topknot attempted to make use of the shrine’s peace and quiet for meditation. All five wore black techwear with red accents, with thin orange cables looping around and through their garb.

Detroit

Sector 8 Lower
Giovanna, Tora and Poppi, Raiden, Blazermate, Susie, Geralt, Benedict
Word Count: 1024

While the others drove the length of Sector 7’s highways to reach the interplate tunnels, Giovanna steered her run-of-the-mill SeeD personal Carrier the opposite way. Tora sat on Poppi QT Pi’s lap, ostensibly to free up another seat for his teammate, although he seemed happy to lean against his companion throughout the ride. Their team made for the outer edge of the plate, where a station would allow them to ride a speedy Maglev train down the wall to the city’s lower section. The guards on duty didn’t give their gridPrints a second glance; clearly, the SOU’s contact knew his stuff. Giovanna parked her car in a secure area, and once squeezed aboard public transport, the Seekers hurtled one Sector over to the lower part of 8, known as Detroit. Their route was neither scenic nor comfortable, and in fact they needed to take a little extra care -or be a little extra menacing- to avoid any potential thieves who might take advantage of the situation.

As Giovanna explained on the drive there, pickpockets weren’t the only dangers the newcomers might face in public transportation; certain thieves employed devices called skimmers that could trigger monetary transfers from the accounts attached to hapless citizens’ gridLinks in close quarters. While such devices wouldn’t net any ill-gotten gains from accounts with falsified numbers, having strangers realize their bankruptcy would certainly do them no favors, so watchfulness was an absolute must. In sectors where digital technology reigned supreme, a skillful hacker could achieve just about anything. When Giovanna told him this Tora made a mental note to ask about that later, and resolved to keep a sharp eye out.

Thanks to the maglev’s blistering pace, it wasn’t long before the train slid to a stop in a terminal station. The heroes exited to find themselves well and truly in Detroit. Even in broad daylight the plate up above cast a heavy shadow over the undercity, exacerbated by the hazy atmosphere up above to douse the industrial expanse in perpetual twilight. Tora needed to look out toward the land beyond the city limits to remind himself it was still day, though what he saw brought him only cold comfort. Outside Midgar stretched miles and miles of desolation. Lesser cities’ remains stretched all the way to the Valley of Ruins between the Dystopiascape’s border mountains, and those blocky, overgrown highrises sagged together like aged tombstones in an unsettling manner. Out there lurked the Machines, and whatever diabolical engines gave rise to those unyielding mechanical hordes. He and his Artificial Blade stood there for a moment staring out into the distance, imagining an entire army of the red-eyed, soulless robots the twins exhibited in their slideshow. Tora reached out for Poppi’s hand to squeeze it, and she squeezed back. Together, they would show the world the difference between mass-produced junk and Noponic automata.

They caught up with Giovanna and the others a few moments later after they stopped at an overlook on the station’s right side. To his shock Tora looked out across a massive hollow basin that stretched hundreds upon hundreds of feet further down into the ground, lined on all sides by towering buildings. This orange-tinged urban pit, full of buildings laden with rust, stretched all the way to the greenish smog, tangled pipes, and dark, craggy towers of Sector 1’s Zaun, and it continued a good ways into Detroit as well. “Impressive, huh?” Giovanna asked, her tone nonchalant. “Well, that’s Zone 09, AKA Quarantine Valley, an autonomous exclusion zone. It’s been that way for longer than just about anyone remembers, but I got curious, so I looked it up. Twenty years ago, the biggest Chimera outbreak in Midgar’s history left the streets a corrupted waste, so people live on the rooftops. Its corruption levels are off the charts, and Redshift is rampant, but it’s contained, and so are the citizens. Nobody in or out, officially anyway. Between it and the Sector 7 Slums, though, they’ve got the Ever Crisis salvage industry cornered. So a lot of stuff gets by on the sly. Pretty good chance we’d find some Hermits down there, if you ask me.”

She crossed her arms and turned to her new allies to give them an overview of their own situation. “Well, we don’t have my car anymore, and unless you feel like hoofing it through one of the most dangerous undercities in Midgar we need a way around.” She pointed out some elevated metal rails that snaked between the buildings nearby. “Bingo, sky-lines. The monorails don’t run anymore, so we should be fine to hitch a ride. Of course, we’d need sky-hooks to do it. Maybe we could convince a local gang to give us some.”

Tora blinked, surprised, then smiled. “That awful nice of gang!”

“Figure of speech,” Giovanna snarked while Poppi reprimanded her Masterpon’s naivete with a poke in the forehead. “Though, the most important thing is figuring out where we’re going. Out to the ruins to fight Machines, or deeper into Detroit to check out the PMC. Let’s scope out the place, see what we can make of it for now. Just keep in mind, things are a lot looser down here than up top. Stay on your toes.”

Tora widened his eyes innocently. “But Tora not have toes!”

“Now you’re just trying to be annoying…” Poppi nudged him. “Masterpon.”

As the team turned away from Quarantine Valley toward the streets, the undercity confronted the team with a shiny veneer best exemplified by the brightly-lit Limb Clinic up ahead, but those streets belied a cramped, cringy underbelly, and the facade quickly gave way to dingy back allies, trash-ridden courts, and even a solid waste landfill where much of the Sector’s outmoded or unsalvageable trash came to rest.

The Caves

Level 10 Nadia (69/100)
Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Omori’s @Majoras End, Ganondorf’s @Double
Word Count: 1177

For Sectonia

You have acquired:
Coin x2
Worm
A sturdy little wriggler. It can be used as fish bait, or placed in a farm it will help till and hydrate the soil around it, increasing the growth of crops slightly
Hopper
A metal storage device that can collect things that fall into it (or pull items out of storage above it) and transfer them into whatever its lower output port is attached to

With the Duke of Flies well and truly slain and the boss gates open again, the rest of the Seekers could trail inside to rendezvous with the trio that mopped up the Basement. Sectonia, Omori, the Knight, and Therion all made it, a few fresh cuts, burns, and bruises on display but nothing to write home about. Nadia didn’t see the Adventurer, but then again she didn’t remember him jumping down through that chest to begin with; maybe after the incident with those giant flies he figured he’d be better off adventuring on his own. Considering the nature of the Seekers’ mission, Nadia couldn’t blame him. Better to have new acquaintances quit than bite off more than they could chew and end up…well, dead.

The heroes spent a few moments to collect themselves, which gave them a chance to catch their breath, commiserate and complain about the awful stuff this place confronted them with, and top off their health via Sectonia’s regeneration aura. Still, they couldn’t dilly-dally forever, and even if they’d rather not plumb the depths of this vulgar dungeon for even worse horrors, there didn’t seem to be any other ways out save an ascent back up through the entry tunnel into that pest-filled mine. Once she finished her stretches, Nadia sauntered up to the trapdoor. “I’ll take point again. I’ve flung myself into danger twice already, no point in mixin’ things up now.” She jumped, tucking her knees against her chest and clasping her arms around them. “Cannonball!”

Dark. Dank. Spotted by leaks and weeds. The Basement didn’t have a lot going for it, to be sure, but at the very least it had been conspicuously well-lit for how few actual light sources it featured. In comparison, the Caves seemed even less inviting. Nadia sidled out from beneath the hole to make way for the others, her ears perked up for any hint of what might lay beyond this room’s four exits. It smelled as if she’d exchanged the despicable odor of offal for the sickly-sweet reek of decay, which might not be a whole lot better, but given all the nastiness she’d experienced in here so far the feral would cherish every blessing she could get.

The Caves

As the others made their way down, many being less light on her feet than Ms Fortune herself, Nadia took a sneak peek at the surrounding chambers. To the north lay a large room full of different kinds of maggots, many of them with freakishly human little faces, and some of them even sported one on each end. Just watching them wriggle and writhe around made Nadia’s stomach churn, and with a shiver she rotated to the next door. In there she counted six scarlet Boils sitting among the rocks, swollen to the point of throbbing, while three Mr. Mimes traipsed around with skinless heads tugging their bodies around via sinuous, elongated necks. “These things belong in a horror flick,” she hissed, gritting her teeth. Aside from the enemies though, she spotted a familiar sign above the door on the other side. Another shop! With a whole eleven cents burning a hole in her pocket, Nadia wanted to see what was inside.

She turned around to face the group just as the last of her allies entered, that being Sectonia, who being too big to fit through the shaft needed to warp through the tunnel from one floor to the next. “There’s a shop through here!” she called. “I’ll handle this.”

The curious cat stepped inside, and the door slammed shut. Though they lacked eyes to see with, the Mr. Maws whirled to face her and stumbled her way. Rather than wait for them to close in, Nadia made a beeline for one of them, racing on all fours past a couple boils toward a corner that had none. They belched out showers of blood tears at her, but by the time they fell she’d already left them behind, and in just a moment’s time she’d reached her first target. The Mr. Maw launched its head at her with unexpected speed. “Hey now!” she snapped, stopping short to block. “Don’t lose your head!” She jumped and slashed through the extended neck, then airdashed forward to come down with an axe kick on the body. It proved stronger than its counterparts in the Basement, however, and survived to start gushing blood from its neck. Worse still, an awful, raspy snarl from behind her made her ear twitch, and she whirled her head around to see the now-detached Maw floating toward her.

“Ooh, you spoil me.” She raised her arm to drive her elbow into the Maw, then thought better and flipped away from the Gusher she’d created to land on a rock, her brow furrowed. So if I cut the neck, they just become two enemies, she thought. Well, it’s not the only one. With a sweep of her arm she created a Copycat from her blood, which stepped forward to smack the Maw with a headbutt before carving it up. It then raced off to deal with the Boils, while Nadia remained in the Boil-free zone to deal with the bigger issues. She pulled out her chains and jumped, somersaulting through the air like a buzz saw to hack the Gusher apart. When she landed, she held the chains up and swung them in a circle around her not unlike Jesse’s new orbitals. Her anchors struck the Mr. Maws again and again, and even when they broke up into more enemies they just kept walking into Nadia’s blender. Soon enough they gave up the ghost, and the feral checked on her Copycat.

Her doppelganger had eliminated the Boils one by one, methodically pummeling them down into pulp so they couldn’t grow back. With her Copycat heavily damaged and contaminated by the Boils’ filthy blood, she didn’t want it back, so it eventually just melted down. Just one foe remained, and Nadia went after it. She baited a blood shower, then moved in to reduce the last Boil to a stain with a quick combo. A single coin dropped as the doors opened. “All worth it,” Nadia sighed as she collected her loot, then used the key from the big room in the Basement to proceed into the shop.

A stony corpse sat in there, stooped forward as if sleeping with a fire on either side of it. In front lay a heart for three cents, a yellow pill for three, and a glowing prism for fifteen. There also seemed to be a donation machine, but the feral didn’t so much as give it a second glance. “Ooh, some kind of gemstone?” she bubbled excitedly, squatting over the device. If this could light her way in the dark, she’d be set! Unfortunately, she was ‘light’ on cash as well. “Aw, nuts. Only twelve. Just you wait though,” she poked the corpse in its forehead. “I’ll be back when I get fifteen!” With that she turned back to see what the others had gotten up to.

The Colorless Wood

Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose’s @Yankee, Rubick’s @Scarifar

A veritable horde of slavering, eight-legged arachnids descended upon the Seekers, masked by the mists, the grass, and the pitch-black silhouettes they loved to hide in. Just the noise by itself would have been the stuff of nightmares, but while this situation would have been curtains for any other hapless wayfarers, it turned out to not be quite as dire as it first seemed.

The Koopa Troop belted out firepower using a variety of elements, and to their barrage Rubick lent his magical strength. With Primrose’s Peacock Strut elevating their power even further, they laid into the spiders as they swarmed. The destruction of their webs by the gunk-slinging Juniors meant that the weavers could no longer descend through the open air, and with those lines not so easily restrung the heroes quickly cut down on the spiders’ means of approach. This in turn funneled them into more predictable routes. Brain-rattling sound waves and frigid, movement-impairing gusts impeded the crawlers’ advance, and the heroes could begin to secure their position. Once the walls of fire and trenches of paint around them fried the first couple dozen spiders into foul-smelling husks, the horde kept its distance around the Seekers’ dangerous perimeter, surrounding them on all sides but unable to advance. A handful of intrepid arachnids rappelled down from the trees above, but Kamek’s efforts meant that only a couple managed to plop down among the defenders. In short order, they managed to turn an overrun into a standoff, and all things considered the situation didn’t look too bad.

Then Rika shot at the giant spider. There came an odd flash of bright blue that turned to purple and then black, spread out like webbing from where the spider lay, and it disappeared. A brief moment passed, and then another, much brighter flash went off–directly above the Seekers’ encampment. One second later Silitha the Brood Mother slammed down into the Seekers, indiscriminately scattering them, their defenses, and many of her own children. “̴H̸y̶a̴h̵!̴”̸ she shrieked, her voice raspy and garbled. “̷H̶o̵l̸d̵ ̵s̷t̴i̸l̶l̵,̴ ̵l̷i̷t̴t̷l̷e̵ ̷o̸n̷e̵s̸!̴ ̴I̷’̶l̶l̴ ̷m̶a̸k̷e̷ ̵t̵h̷i̷s̶ ̶q̸u̶i̶c̸k̷!̵”̶ She teleported again off to the side, then lunged forward with a double-smash of her forelimbs aimed at Bowser.