Lugubrious

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

Not a concern for one such as I, seeing as I never color-code speech.

World of Light

Vs Mom

Level 10 Nadia (92/100)
Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Jesse’s @Zoey Boey, Omori’s @Majoras End, Ganondorf’s @Double
Word Count: 1624

With a bloodcurdling, guttural roar the tiger went to work, slicing into the robes and eldritch flesh of the Priest and Witch that stood in Nadia’s path. After a direct swat from the great cat’s massive mitt nearly severed her right arm at the bicep, leaving it a barely-attached mess of loose, dangling teeth and tendons, the hissing Witch slunk away from the chaos. Since her counterpart seemed to be grappling for the tiger, unveiling twisted limbs of weaponized bone and muscle from beneath its cloak, Nadia went for the caster.

She pounced on and tackled the stress-slinging sorceress to the ground beneath her, then rolled to put herself on the bottom and her quarry on top. “Upsy-daisy!” she grunted, extending one of her legs upward as far as they would go in a deluge of pressurized blood. Her relatively lightweight foe blasted off, and a split second later slammed into the ceiling. Before the stunned Witch could plummet downward, Nadia snapped upward like a giant elastic band, using her leg to drag the rest of her body toward it instead of it toward her. Her other foot punched straight through the monster’s torso in a brutal upside-down stomp before both began to fall back toward the ground. On the way down the feral pivoted around to put herself back on top once more, her free heel planted on the Witch’s skull-faced mask. When the two landed the next moment, Nadia popped the cultist like a zit beneath her. Another enemy down, and in every bit as gruesome a fashion as these crimes against nature deserved.

Unfortunately, things had gone south while she’d been pulling her stunt. Nadia looked up just in time to see Therion take a vicious wound from the Priest that she’d tried to keep busy with her tiger. “Damn it!” she yowled, scooping one of her fallen anchors off the ground as she sprinted toward the aberration. “Eat this!” While Therion made his escape, Nadia kept the Priest off his back by jumping up and burying the blade into its own. Its insides squealed, and the faceless horror promptly twisted around a boneless tentacled arm to grab her by the leg. “Not again, damn it!” With a cruel tug it wrenched her free, then dangled her upside-down in front of itself for the finishing blow. Its other arm swelled outward from its sleeve into the shape of a giant, malformed crab claw, the inside of the pincer lined with so many jagged teeth that one crush could turn a cow into ground beef.

It lunged in to snap shut on her midsection to messily cleave her in twain, but for the second time this fight Nadia separated herself instead. Her ears stabbed into the ground, propping her upper half up to start spinning by the neck. “Lawn Meower!” she called with a grin, carving into the tentacles holding the priest up again and again. More stray projectiles from Sectonia hit it at about the same time, adding insult to injury. Unamused, the coagulate nightmare dropped all pretenses. Its body erupted in a tide of varicose crimson, turning its robe into little more than a cape on a horrific amalgam of skulls and rippling sinew. It speared Nadia’s back with its spiked tongue to drag her into its slavering maw, filling her with immense, instinctive terror. She screamed at the top of her lungs and promptly severed the tongue, prompting the gibbering freak to fling both her halves away.

After rolling to a stop Nadia stuck herself back together, yanked out the tongue, and cringed like it was going out of style. “Eeeeeeeehe-he-he-he-heeeewww,” she mewled , clutching her own shoulders as the pure panic from the thought of being eaten subsided. Then Mom’s leg showed up, forcing her to focus on the task of hand as she evaded. “Hey, can’t ya see I’m cringing here!?” she yelled at the offending limb, only for the Knight to show up and steal the show.

The little guy was, had been, and would continue to move with practiced precision. Whether as a result of Sectonia’s prompting or its own intuition, it had been hunting Mom down wherever her leg appeared. It dodged with practiced precision, then went on the offensive. Nadia got to her feet, watching as the Knight made mincemeat of Mom’s cankles with the aid of random light rings from a certain illustrious insect. A Brawler charged at it from behind, but it leaped up and over, falling upon the cultist with a well-aimed slice that bounced it up high enough to take a final swing at the leg before its quarry fully withdrew. Then it dashed away, leaving the trash mobs to the Seekers as its pitch-black eyes scanned the room for the leg’s next emergence. Nadia whistled. “This one’s a Knight to remember.”

At that people Jesse’s shout rang out over the general chaos. “I’m okay!” Nadia replied, despite her residual heebie-jeebies. Thanks to her new striker, most of the damage she’d currently racked up was mental. Hopefully her exposure to these freaks didn’t mean she’d be getting some eldritch meat infection. The possibility was almost too horrible to consider. Instead she sought to answer Jesse’s question for herself with a quick look around. Having been hanging back to blow chunks from the cultists’ corpuscles from a distance, the FBC director herself seemed fine. It looked like Sectonia was too mobile for these things, with her gang of Antlions and unrelenting magical output making it tough for them to challenge her, even if they did get a couple hits in. Nadia spotted Therion as he finished off a Witch that gave him grief earlier, healing himself up in the process; she felt like she could count on him not to get into the same pinch twice. She couldn’t tell if the Knight had even been touched yet, but her money was on ‘no’.

That just left Omori and Ganondorf, and with a start Nadia realized things might not be hunky-dory in that department. The unlucky lad had almost been pancaked by a stomp from Mom, and then found out the hard way a couple moments later that these enemies were cut from a different cloth than usual. After that he pivoted to follow the Knight’s example, fleeing from the cultists to target Mom exclusively, albeit in a more conservative fashion given his fresh wounds. Hopefully he’d stick near Sectonia for healing. Meanwhile, Ganondorf -either too slow or too prideful to dodge- had eaten not one but two stomps from Mom, leaving him with several broken bones. Worse still, he seemed to be Mom’s favorite target other than Sectonia, though that gave Omori, the Knight, and Jesse something to look out for.

Nadia sighed and shook her head. Having caught her breath, it was time to get back in the fight, starting with that damn Priest. With its naked villainy clad in black robes once more, it loomed toward her like the shadow of death. No doubt Therion wanted another stab at it, too. “We need to focus on this one!” she called, pointing at the Priest. “Jesse, can we get some support?”

The three were ready, so Nadia made the first move. She ran in, on two legs this time like a normal person. Patiently the Priest waited until she got in range, then let rip The Finger, just as it had done to Therion. In the glare of the feral’s Night Light, however, it was more than slow enough to dodge. Nadia went low with a quick Cat Slide as Jesse’s first charged sniper shot rang out, pulverizing the priest’s spinal cord spear. “Nice one! Now for the…can opener!” Nadia burst up from below and sent one forearm into overdrive, turning it into a rip-roaring corkscrew of bone to drill into its center mass. Her combo might have ended there, but Jesse’s second shot staggered the Priest yet again, and a bright idea flashed into Nadia’s mind. With a yellow flash she pulled off her tail and held it up like a golf club. “Fore-gettaboutit!” When she whacked the Priest with her Outtake, it did no damage, but utterly demolished the monster’s stance, both knocking it on its ass and blocking any healing. At that point Therion could swoop in, and with a third and final shot from Jesse to pave the way, finish the rotten nightmare off for good. “Hell yeah! You’re Theri-on the ball!”

A moment later Sectonia’s projectile profusion finally spelled the end of another Witch, leaving just one Brawler from the third wave, and though a stomp from Mom managed to finally clip the Knight, Omori’s retaliation seemed to provoke something in her. ”Grrah!” she snarled. Three more fleshy protuberances expanded from the floors and walls of the room, but this time one was much bigger than the others. In addition to another Rapturous Cultist and a second Cultist Priest, which by itself did not inspire joy, a Templar Impaler fought free from its grievous wound.

The bizarre, grisly confluence of man, scorpion, and eye-pocked viscera filled Nadia with dread, but she wasn’t about to quit now. While there wasn’t much to go on, the hunter in her smelled blood. Whatever this leg-creature was, it seemed to be losing, and this fresh horror smacked of a desperate measure. “C’mon, guys! This gam is almost over! Let’s show ‘em what leg-ends are made of!!”

Edinburgh MagicaPolis

Level 8 Big Band (41/80)
Ace Cadet’s @Yankee, Frisk’s @Majoras End, Red’s @TruthHurts22
Word Count: 2277

After her new acquaintances expressed the faintest hint of interest in Wicke’s company and what they did, the floodgates were open, and the bespectacled lady launched into an excited monologue. Happy to let her babble on about conservation and habitats to her heart’s content, Big Band kept to himself in taciturn silence, crunching away at an extra-large candy bar full of nuts. He’d been amazed to learn that in a place like this people used physics defying sorcery for as mundane a purpose as making chocolate, but he’d be hard-pressed to deny his appreciation for the fruits of their magical labor after trying some for himself.

Nice as the smidgen of dessert was, however, his mind currently dwelled on matters other than sugary sweets. He listened to Wicke’s spiel as best he could, hoping for her to drop an even tastier morsel of information about what might be going on in this city, but she stubbornly refused to suggest anything of value to him. While she did touch upon the inhumane mistreatment of Pokemon by rabid breeders as something of an endemic problem in Edinburgh, and ‘research’ undertaken by the Aether Foundation, any conclusions drawn from such vague descriptions would be speculation at best. He might have assumed her monologue to be a carefully rehearsed advertisement for the Aether Foundation, especially that part about donations, if she didn’t speak with such clear and present passion for the subject matter. The only scoop he’d be getting out of this chance encounter would be one of ice cream.

Still, he didn’t begrudge this meeting with Wicke one bit. In fact, he was grateful for both her and Sierra taking the team a little ways across town, for reasons keenly aware to both himself and Lucia. Those three loose cannons were still on his trail, after all. He’d worried about Irons’ lackeys putting in a surprise guest appearance at the All Round Spheal Show, and kept a close eye out during the event. While he didn’t notice anyone who fit the profiles Lucia gave him, he couldn’t discount the possibility that they watched from inside nearby buildings, or other vantage points he simply missed. Simply put, Band did not want those ill-omened cops showing up any time soon, which was why a quick trip in Sierra’s van worked to his group’s advantage, especially if any would-be pursuers happened to miss their exit into this arcane patisserie. The fact that Band kept glancing discreetly over his shoulder at the shop’s entrance indicated how much he believed in his luck, though. His merry little band hadn’t been too careful, not by a long shot.

Ace took the chance to turn the conversation toward the team’s investigation on his own. It was a good question, asked in a casual enough manner to not seem probing, and Wicke didn’t hesitate to answer. “Monsters and skeletons, you say? Well, not many know this, but ‘Pokemon’ is short for ‘Pocket Monsters’. That’s probably not what you mean, but actually I have heard about skeletons appearing at night as of late. Some trainers have shown up who used their Pokemon to try to deal with them, which is terribly reckless, if you ask me. Pokemon battles aren’t life-or-death fights, after all. It’s like sending, oh, I don’t know, baseball players to join a SWAT team. And their poor Pokemon had the scars to prove it!”

Wicke shook her head with a heavy sigh. “The only other rumors I’ve heard are even spookier. They say that some of the skeletons that appear are those of Pokemon themselves! It makes sense if some sort of phenomenon is reanimating the dead, since of course Pokemon have passed away in this city, but how awful! I don’t know if I could stand seeing one reduced to such a sorry state.”

After a sip of hot chocolate, Wicke managed to relax. “Anyway! Enough about all that. Here, I’ve finished writing your checks. You can cash them at any bank in the city.” One by one she distributed slips of paper covered in her elegant, loopy script. The Seekers’ full compensation for their work was outlined therein.

“Thank you.” Though it felt a lot more like a promissory note than any actual money, Band supposed that he wouldn’t be getting any better. He carefully plucked the proffered check with the padded pincers of a tiny mechanical arm and stashed it in one of his enormous trench coat’s many inside pockets.

“Dearie me!” Wicke pushed out her chair and stood, gathering her pocketbook and purse. “This was a lovely little break, but I’m still on the clock, and every day’s a busy day at the Aether Foundation. We do have work available, so please visit the headquarters and apply if you’re interested. Have a splendid day, sweeties, and remember: with Aether, not even the sky’s the limit!”

Her heels tap-tap-tapped as she left at a brisk pace, back into the cold streets of Edinburgh. Band remained at the confection-laden table with the others, thinking. While it did strike him as funny that any woman in her thirties would call a grizzled forty-nine-year-old man a ‘sweetie’, he wondered more about taking her up on her offer. “Even if we didn’t need the money, I figure we probably oughta pay the Foundation a visit sooner or later,” he put forward. “Even if I ain’t a Pokemon fiend like Bede or Bowser Junior, it seems like an important place.”

“Shoah,” Lucia replied. “But ouah fahst oahdah of business is whatevah the deal with the skeletons is, right?”

Band nodded, already trying to figure out a path to take that might lead them in that direction. “Mm-hm. Right now though, I ain’t exactly swimmin’ in ideas, other’n just waitin’ for sundown and seein’ for ourselves.”

“Excuse me.” The two glanced over at Frisk, cognizant of the first time she’d spoken up since the show. Her expression took them by surprise; it was clouded, stormy, and even suspicious. “Before we move on from the company Ms. Wicke works for, there’s something she said that stuck out to me.” She took a deep breath. “Actually, it just about slapped me in the face. She said…she said that the mission statement of her company, the Aether Foundation, is to ‘love and protect’ all Pokemon. Love and protect…that’s exactly what she said.”

Band blinked, wondering if Frisk meant Wicke herself, or a different she, whose association with this or any matter was of utmost significance. With all eyes on her, Frisk wasted no time clearing things up. “The woman who attacked and stranded us in the middle of the icy ocean on our boat trip over here, and left us to die. Rather than fight us herself, she summoned two monsters with strange, supernatural abilities to do her bidding. We survived, but only thanks to Linkle, who could freeze the water for us. The rest of the trip was agony.” Her face tightened. “She said her name was L.”

“L?” Band repeated the name, his face and manner deadly serious. It didn’t ring a bell, but it needled him nonetheless. “Can you describe her?” After Frisk obliged, the detective narrowed his eyes. “Apparently, the other half of the team, the ones Ace here was with, ran into some boat trouble themselves this mornin’. They got attacked by someone in red armor, a tall man that people called a ‘Consul’. Another one showed up this afternoon in the Metro and sicced every cat in the joint on us.”

The news didn’t make Frisk any happier. “While laying low after our arrival, we did a little digging around and found out that L is also a Consul. It seems like she’s the person in charge of Edinburgh.”

“That makes three Consuls,” Band groaned. “Probably means she’s the boss of the Aether Foundation, too. So much for ‘love and protect.’ Worst case scenario, it also means she knows we’re here, ‘cause the cops answer to whoever’s in charge. To think I just walked right in and announced my presence. God, this is some funked-up sheet music.”

“The Consul’s aftah yah?” Lucia blinked, her brows as high as they could get. “I mean, I only know hah by reputation, but yeah. Iyahn’s ain’t exactly subtle when he stahts bellyachin’ about whatevah she wants him to do. No wondah he jumped on yah case, she probably had ‘em lookin’ out fah any unusual newcomahs.” She removed her hat and ran her hand through her hair, clearly nervous. “We bettah be real cayahful.”

Band suddenly jumped up as if he had ants in his pants, no longer confident in this place’s safety. “We can’t stay here and wait for ‘em to catch up with us. We gotta find somewhere to disappear.”

“My place ain’t any good,” Lucia said, getting to her feet. “They know wheah I live.”

Frisk stood also. “Albedo and I found a hideout. But before we go anywhere, we need to get in touch with him. He should be at the big library. The New Minion?”

“Noumenon?” The police officer nodded quickly. “Yeah, I can get us theah from heah, no sweat. Can take us by a bank to get these cashed, too.” She waved the check given to her by Wicke.

Band popped one last brownie into his mouth and made for the door. “Then letsh boogie.”

---

After a tense but uneventful stop at a nearby bank, where the group got to see small wads of zenny magically wired to them from the ether, Lucia led the others in the direction of the Noumenon. All five of them -Ace, Band, Lucia, Frisk, and Prisoner- hustled along as fast as they could without being conspicuous, casting many an awry glance down every alley and around any corner, but if they were being followed or spied on their enemies gave no sign. All told the trip took about an hour, errand included, so it was just past three by the time the team reached their destination. Funnily enough, they could see it from the very outside; it was rather hard to miss.

In keeping with the standards set by some of the absurdly colossal buildings in Edinburgh, the Noumenon towered over much of the cityscape, reaching hundreds of stories into the crisp arctic sky if not further. It stood as tall as the Great Pumpkin that formed the magical city’s centerpiece, if not that ginormous gourd’s ‘hat’, which doubled or perhaps tripled its height. The Noumenon, at least, was much narrower, yet its classical resplendence still dominated most of the city block that housed it, and at its zenith stood a metallic colossus that may have just as well been Atlas, shouldering the weight of the world’s knowledge on his shoulders. Next to it, Big Band felt very small. The only thing that stopped a minutes-long pause to marvel at the staggeringly vast structure was the fact that he’d already been forced to come to terms with the Great Pumpkin itself, a building so big it housed a whole nother city inside it. He took a deep breath and went in.

The rules of the Noumenon, as offered by the bookworm Lex behind the front desk to first-time visitors, were simple. Be quiet, be courteous, clean up after yourself, keep an eye out for less friendly bookworms (some nerdy, some psychic, and others downright nasty), and don’t go anywhere you shouldn’t. The lowest couple scores of the building’s many floors were open to the public, their shelves packed with the written words of a thousand thousand worlds, while higher levels were restricted to scholars possessed of the title Archon. The very highest, meanwhile, were sealed away from all except Edinburgh’s governing council, a very select group. So enormous was this place’s interior that everyone who entered was encouraged to take a magic bookmark from the front desk as they perused the facility. Those bookmarks functioned as a dowsing rod that could be used to find either people or books within the library. Even then, countless magical familiars scurried around the place helping people to find and carry their books, or who got lost. There seemed to be a great deal of (mostly utilitarian) magic here overall, from flying carpets to on-call candles to everlasting inkwells, fittingly enough for the number-one source of spellbooks in Edinburgh. Ominous guards roved around with heads covered in wax, silently keeping the peace, and there were even pools of wax for some reason.

It was pretty overwhelming, but Band didn’t come here to study. Once he took a bookmark in mechanical hand, he held it up as instructed and said, “Albedo.” Sure enough, the bookmark moved on its own, a number inscribing itself toward the tip: twenty-six. That, Lex said, would be the floor where they’d find their friend. The only problem was getting up there, since Ace was strongly averse to magic, and Band himself couldn’t just rocket-blast through a place like this lest he disturb the peace at best or cause rampant destruction at worst. That meant the stairs, and as Band stood at a seemingly infinite staircase, he realized that death might be preferable.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

Although I'm locked in on Odradek at the moment, and happily so, it occurred to me that it might be fun to turn more legendary explorers and/or pirates into Personas like ERode is doing with Shackleton. Imagine a Persona based off Magellan, a legless specter complete with puffy sleeves, floppy hat, beard, a ship's sail as a cape, and perhaps a compass for a face (or just compasses for eyes), embracing a globe of the world. Wind element, maybe.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

Cool beans. Between Daniel, Connor, and Leif, we might have one heck of a swim team on our hands.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

It's an interesting shift. With my character, her reputation is essentially as a non-entity, and other PCs probably would never think twice about her either, but that doesn't give much of an idea what she's really like. I look forward to revealing that through the interactions that spawn from the unique circumstances that will befall them.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

RP Theme music, eh? This one comes to mind.

World of Light

The Genetic Pokémon

---

Game Origin:
Pokémon

---

Personality:
Mewtwo can often act distant or detached from those around him. And given that he's a Pokémon, this makes a bit of sense. He sometimes doesn't comprehend the often illogical actions of humans or other humanoids, as if Mewtwo himself is still in the process of learning how to understand them. Still, beyond that he's amicable and agreeable enough. Mewtwo takes a similar approach when in battle. He'll simply calculate what he thinks is the best plan of action and then simply execute it. Since Mewtwo is essentially a Wild Pokémon, he's a bit more prone to attacking instinctively when flustered, since he has no Trainer to watch and analyze the situation for him.

Background

Mewtwo was "born" in a secret laboratory located on the remote Island of Cinnabar. Mewtwo was genetically engineered to be a clone of the Pokémon known as Mew. The project was headed by Scientist and Gym Leader Blaine, but was also secretly funded by Giovanni of Team Rocket. With his influence, Giovanni was able to ensure that Mewtwo would be born with even greater power than Mew, desiring only to claim ownership of the world's most powerful Pokémon. But Mewtwo had greater intelligence than initially designed, going berserk when he began to question his own purpose and existence. He destroyed the lab, leaving virtually no survivors. Then, as he stood in the wreckage, Mewtwo was approached by Giovanni.

Giovanni offered to give Mewtwo a purpose. And while the Pokémon was tempted at first, a quick read of the man's mind told Mewtwo that he was not to be trusted. And so the Pokémon used his own powers to fly away, where he then proceeded to live in solitude in a secret cave located in the heart of the Kanto Region. It was some time after this that Mewtwo was whisked away to eventually fight in a few of the original Smash tournaments. He was among those that were obliterated by Galeem's Light.

For a while, Mewtwo remained in Alcamoth where he was made to fight others in tournaments. But Galeem's influence was purged from him when the Seekers of Light managed to defeat the Ender Dragon, just as everyone else living in the region. Mewtwo has been working with the Mercenaries ever since then.

Specialty:
Psychic + Elemental Attacks (Close and Long Range)

Level:
1
Experience:
0/10

Powers:

• Default Moves: In addition to some of Mewtwo's passive powers, he also possesses a set of four distinct moves like any other Pokémon. With Psychic, Mewtwo is able to telekinetically move objects or people within his mental range in order to deal psychic damage to them. He can also use it make himself float or levitate. With Shadow Ball, Mewtwo can hurl a sphere of ghostly energy as a projectile attack that can even be charged up for extra power. With Disable, Mewtwo can momentarily stun an opponent at close range and prevent them from being able to attack. And with Teleport, Mewtwo can instantaneously move himself and at least one other person between points in space - he must be able to physically see where he is teleporting to.

Strengths:

• Telepathy: Mewtwo can project his thoughts to the minds of those around him within his mental range, or so long as he can physically see them. Being a Pokémon, this is the only method through which he can communicate with humans or other humanoids.
• Steadfast: Mewtwo's Ability. Slightly increases speed every time an attack makes Mewtwo flinch.
• Psychic Type: Like any Pokémon of this type, Mewtwo resists other Psychic attacks, as well as Fighting Type attacks from other Pokémon. They deal around half damage to him. Mewtwo's Psychic type attacks will also benefit from Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) and thus will deal 1.5x damage against opponents.

Weaknesses:

• Glass Cannon: Mewtwo's defensive stats aren't exactly super impressive. His power obviously lies in his ability to deal damage rather than to take it.
• Poké Balls: As powerful and intelligent as he is, at the end of the day Mewtwo is still technically just a Wild Pokémon. Meaning any prospective Pokémon Trainer could theoretically just throw Balls at Mewtwo in an attempt to capture him.
• Psychic Type: Like any other Psychic type Pokémon he is weak against Dark, Ghost, and Bug type attacks - resulting in x2 damage from them.

Spirits:

• None

Guest List:

• Giovanni
• Mew
• Giygas

Inventory:

@Lugubrious

@Double

That sheet's pretty much golden. One other aspect I can think of to go along with the 'Pokeballs' weakness is that since he's a legendary pokemon, he's a rare catch and would probably get more attention from trainers than usual. That doesn't need particular mention however. So the application is acceptable as-is.

World of Light

Suoh

Sector 3 Upper
Level 2 Goldlewis (9/20)
Goldlewis, Peach, Raz’s @Truthhurts22, Roxas’ @Double, Bede’s @Crimson Flame, Sakura and Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Midna’s @DracoLunaris
Word Count: 2305

With a destination in mind and no small amount of competitive spirit to speed the short trip along, the splinter group moved fast. Only a couple minutes into the group conversation beside Anistar Gym, Midna, Sakura, and Karin all showed up in quick succession. Despite following up a fierce battle of their own with vicious Others by running an extended race, none of them even seemed out of breath. Were he a younger and more impulsive man Goldlewis might have felt jealous, but he knew that everyone had their own strengths, all worthy of respect. Besides, these were the people who’d managed to eliminate over a fourth of the Guardians that stood between the Seekers of Light and the Lord of Light. Goldlewis knew that he ought to count himself lucky if he could so much as keep up.

“Hello, girls!” Peach greeted them, smiling at Sakura. Considering the threat posed by the Others, the sight of them unharmed did them a lot of good. That meant out of everyone who engaged the unknown foe in battle, only Raz took serious injuries, but the orange-flavored jelly given to him had already helped patch his wounds up. “We’re just discussing where to go next. Hopefully no more of those things show up, they were a real handful, hm?

Not to Midna or her team, apparently. Peach and company had managed to save a few civilians, but an entire bunker’s worth? The thought of a shelter coming under attack hadn’t even occurred to the princess. Any pride she’d managed to take in her own small accomplishments during the scramble to defend Main Street quickly evaporated.

Luckily, Karin directed the conversation back toward more practical matters than aggrandizing or effacing. She brought up the Others’ distinctive Achilles’ heel, and though this didn’t constitute a revelation for the other fighters, Goldlewis gave a sagacious nod. Before he could chime in on the subject Midna went ahead and showed off something else she’d gleaned from the battle, that being a strange packet of coagulated intelligence. She called it ‘data’, a concept that would normally lack any sort of physical form, and yet here it was. It floated above her hand, shifting slightly like a cluster of pixels or perhaps television static brought into the real world. “...Huh,” the veteran murmured. How strange. If it was just information, what was it doing in physical space, instead of inside a computer somewhere? Maybe it existed as a result of Psynet, like a knot in the invisible ‘web’ that connected the minds of the city’s psionics? Well, Goldlewis wasn’t a techie, let alone a psych-techie, so he gave a shrug and moved on. “We oughta ask someone from Psych-OSF about it if we get a moment.”

He mentioned fighting alongside a couple Scarlet Guardians by the names of Kagero and Tsugumi who just happened to be in the area, as well as the fact that Kagero seemingly possessed the ‘psychic ability’ to turn invisible. How that worked Goldlewis didn’t care to speculate, since if Kagero was technically editing himself out of the minds of those perceiving him, the notion of all psychic abilities originating from mental manipulation was a scary one to consider. He couldn’t offer any guess as to Tsugumi’s power aside from supernatural aim, but he could mention the psychic television broadcast that happened, since without psionics on hand to interpret it, the new arrivals must have been even more in the dark than the veteran’s own detachment. As a Septentrion the name Karen Travers carried some weight for the Seekers, even if Goldlewis couldn’t assign a face to that name just yet. “By the way, that Luka feller said brother, and pronounced the name ‘Kah-ren’, so if we somehow meet the guy make sure ya don’t call the Major General ‘Karin’.” He couldn’t help but glance at the Seekers’ own Karin while speaking. “I only ever seen his name in writin’ myself, so…” After that, all that remained to be said concerned the brief encounter with Arashi Spring, who could move at lightning speed, and the teleporting Luka Travers. “He’s the possible ‘in’ we mentioned,” Goldlewis said. “Gave us his number to call if we need anythin’.”

Not much to go on, but as Pit pointed out, the Seekers found themselves at a severe disadvantage in a brainpunk city where everything worked with psionic ability in mind.

“Right…” Peach, who’d been mulling over all the details everyone presented, nodded slowly as she replied. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually. Whatever’s going on with the Others, and maybe Midgar in general, the Psych-OSF seems really important. A lot of major players. I have an idea, but I’ll need to run a quick errand first.” She glanced up at Goldlewis. “In the meantime, I think we should call this Luka and arrange a meeting if we can. We’re in the dark here and need every last morsel of info we can get.”

Goldlewis crossed his arms. “I hear ya, but I reckon there’s two problems with that. First off, we ain’t gonna get the right answers if we don’t ask the right questions. Second, I dunno how in tarnation I’m actually s’posed to call the li’l guy. My phone glyph don’t work with Black Tech.” Sensing some confusion, he furrowed his brow and explained. “There’s…well, in my world we ain’t got what you’d call normal technology anymore, or science for that matter. Just magic science and magitech. All it means though, is that we gotta find a Psynet terminal first.”

“Okay, we’ll keep our eyes out.” Peach put her hands on her hips, frowning. “That just leaves us back where we started, though. When I’m done with my errand, where can I find you all?”

At that, Goldlewis gestured to the nearby window of Anistar Gym. “Why not check in here for a spell? Bede moseyed on in by himself a couple minutes ago, and I noticed a couple of hours eyeballin’ it. Might as well, I figure.”

Without any real alternatives for the moment, the Seekers headed for the main doors, joining a couple people in workout clothes on their way inside. When the other alert began the gym-goers had dropped everything and evacuated to the nearest shelter like everyone else, but with the all-clear given they were right back on the grind. Upon stepping inside, it wasn’t hard to see why people would want to make the most of this place, for the Anistar Gym was a sight to behold.

Three huge floors of gym goodness stood in front of them, each two stories high for a total of six stories, although the building extended downward into the plate rather than upward into the sky, and the entrance brought the group into the top floor. The floors were color-coded, with the topmost being blue, the middle floor green, and the bottom floor purple, although for all of them a high vaulted ceiling made to look like a starlit night sky gave the whole place a space-age vibe. A great dome-shaped skylight overlooked an open circular atrium in the building’s center that spanned all three floors, and the five support pillars that circled it featured six-story rock walls for intrepid climbers.

In fact, everywhere the newcomers looked they could find all sorts of equipment. There were high-powered treadmills where psychics rolled along at a breakneck pace atop their levitation orbs. Next to the racks of weights were racks of spoons, ranging from table-size to dumbbell-size to spoons the size of a streetlamp. The giant sign that read ‘RERACK YOUR SPOONS’ in all caps didn’t seem very effective, though. Big foam blocks lay around for use with psychokinesis and transport powers, with a few people even sparring atop blocks someone else was levitating. There was an elaborate psi shooting gallery, and a reverse shooting gallery where machines launched balls to test defense powers and dodging. Along an entire wall stood a huge variety of punching bags, many of them fashioned after Others on a scale of hardness from easy, squishy Pool bags to tougher Rummy bags to hanging Pendu bags that moved on small tracks. Some of them even looked animatronic, like a Vase Paws bag currently giving a man an reactive workout routine where he had to recognize and dodge fast kicks or a big tail swipe. Goldlewis spotted a woman training with a game of life-size reverse whack-a-mole with Yawn bags that popped up from holes in the ground, dodging their attacks and countering with quick punches. And all that was just the first floor; according to the big sign by the door, the bottom floor featured a giant pool, and the middle offered a number of insulated rooms, whether for meditation or practice with the elements, such as pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, cryokinesis, aerokinesis, and hydrokinesis. Anistar Gym was fully loaded, a favorite training ground not just for civilians but Psych-OSF personnel too, despite whatever accommodations they must have at the Otherlobe. There was just one problem.

As the Seekers marveled at the place, Bede flounced up to them in a huff. “Some gym this is!” he fumed, his face the very picture of annoyance. “There’s not a single Pokemon in the whole place! I asked who the leader is, and they didn’t know what I was talking about. What a crock.” With his disappointed-looking Hatenna at his heels the boy stormed off toward the door.

On the way out, he nearly ran into a tall, well-built fellow with a jawline protector and a mop of dirty blonde hair. Before the two could collide, however, the man flattened himself against the doorway, allowing the much smaller Bede to push through. “Scuse me,” he murmured, but Bede ignored him and disappeared outside. Thinking nothing of it, the new arrival headed inside, walking past the Seekers with a mildly curious glance in their direction. Behind him followed a trio of rank-and-file OSF members, two identical and the third a little different. Now that the action was over with for now, they were removing their helmets and loosening their uniforms a little to get back to working out. The first two turned out to be brothers with shaved heads except for poofs of blonde hair on top, while the third was a girl with black hair, a widow’s peak, and an eyepatch. “Alright, let’s pick up where we left off,” the leader said, heading toward the right to an open area by the bags.

Meanwhile, Goldlewis found what he was looking for. “There!” he said, pointing out a machine by the front desk. “That’s gotta be a Psynet terminal. Lemme see if I can make a call.” As he went over, the three grunts took up positions around the sturdy man with training weapons in hand -a pair of beatsticks for the twins and an axe for the girl. Their opponent stood in the middle, and when the sparring began he defended himself, using some sort of power to harden his body into a metallic texture. His attackers fought without holding back, but the defender held them off all by himself with only his gloves as weapons. After only a few moments of furious contention the three took a break to catch their breath, while their opponent merely wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. Then the training continued.

After a few minutes, Peach showed up again. She and Goldlewis, fresh off the terminal with his new Psych-OSF contact, met up with the Seekers. The veteran went first. “Luka said he’s on assignment and can’t meet for a while, but he’d be happy to chat with us over a meal at Musubi’s at seven,” Goldlewis reported, glancing at his watch. “That’s about three and a half hours from now, so we got time to kill.”

“I found what I was looking for. You mentioned that your old friends invited you to join the Psych-OSF, Raz,” Peach said next. “What if you took them up on that offer?” From her pocket she produced and revealed two spirits, and from the images within the motes of prismatic light her compatriots could tell they belonged to Psych-OSF grunts. “Of course, I’m not asking that you go alone.”

Goldlewis stroked his whiskers, impressed. “Those ain’t the casualties Luka mentioned, are they?” When the princess nodded, he raised an eyebrow. “What d’ya need those for?”

Peach selected one of the spirits and lifted it up, looking closer at it. It belonged to a woman with short, light brown hair in a high bun, long sidelocks, amber eyes with two moles by the left, and a big smile. “In this place, being psychic is everything. These two must have been, and we can use that. We don’t need new powers, just sensitivity, so mental fusion would be enough. If three of us go together, we’ll be able to watch one another’s backs as we get intel from inside the OSF. We also won’t get in trouble for helping people”

After a quick look around to make sure no security cameras were listening, Goldlewis thought about it. “Hmm. Mighty bold’, but risky. Fusin’s illegal, if ya recall. You’ll need to do it outta sight, and you’ll need new IDs afterward.” He sighed. “That said, it might be our best shot at gettin’ inside the Psych-OSF. Raz mentioned a fast-track through Basic Brainin’, so if y’all breeze through together, ya might even reach Cadet by tonight.” For his part, however, Goldlewis didn’t feel comfortable with fusion just yet. That led into just one question, aside from what to do until dinner with Luka: who would be joining Peach and Raz on this daring mission to infiltrate Psych-OSF.

Detroit

Sector 8 Lower
Level 11 Tora (113/110) Level 12 Poppi (3/120)
Susie and Blazermate’s @Archmage MC, Raiden’s @XoXKieroBombXoX, Geralt’s @Multi_Media_Man, Benedict’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 2204

The dynamic duo’s descent from the top of the factory was breakneck even by sky-line standards. With only the tenuous magnetic grasp of the sky-hook’s furious rotation keeping them from freefall, they tore through the wind so fast it just about beat them senseless. Sure, Tora had fallen from a far greater height in the Sandswept Sky when hurled thousands of feet upward by an updraft from Hollow heights, but now he was being dragged along, forcibly whipped back and forth by the curvature of the sky-line. Tora found himself immensely grateful that he had Poppi clutching him tight in the ironclad assurance of mechanical strength. If he’d been obliged to hold onto a hook himself, the staggering and relentless g-force involved would have ripped the hook from his wing’s nerveless grip long ago and sent the Nopon spiraling into the cityscape. Still, it took everything he had not to scream his lungs out from a potent combination of heart-pounding exhilaration and sheer terror. After all, they were zooming into battle.

After what felt like ages but in reality encompassed just a handful of seconds, the sky-line swooped down to travel alongside a filthy canal adjacent to the construction zone, and following Giovanna’s example Poppi disengaged the sky-hook there. She tucked in, holding her bug-eyed Masterpon against her like a body pillow, and landed in a roll. “Oof, ow, ooh!” Tora cried as the two tumbled along, until finally his companion came to a stop on her back and unfolded. He slid off her and plopped onto his side, spirals in his eyes. “Meeeeeh,” he wheezed.

Up ahead, Giovanna quickly stood up straight from where she slid to a stop herself, a fair bit more unkempt than last time in the brewery. At some point during the frenetic descent, one of the two buttons keeping her shirt together had come undone, but luckily she’d managed to prevent disaster and put herself back together. “Best way to travel,” she deadpanned as she approached the group, tucking her shirt back in. After a quick self-diagnostic to confirm no real damage taken, Poppi stood as well. She helped Tora to his feet and started to dust him off, prompting him to return the favor, but her attention mostly lay on the construction zone across the canal.

“Might be for the best that line didn’t bring us any closer,” Giovanna reasoned aloud, crouching down behind a section of fence in case any of the gang members looked her way. While she originally imagined zipping in to start the brawl with an intense, daring takedown or two, closer inspection of these crooks convinced her that this scenario was fundamentally different from the run-in with the Hoodlum Dolls earlier. “Hold tight a second,” she told the rest of the team in a loud whisper. “These guys are much more heavily armed and armored. They’re on alert, too. We’re not catching them with their pants down this time. I see lots of guns, too.”

Tora narrowed his eyes. “Not want run in with balls to wall then, meh?”

“Exactly.” Giovanna took stock of the area. Whatever this building might be she couldn’t quite tell, since it looked too small for either a warehouse or a factory, but its construction had seen some solid progress. The structure existed as a framework of burgundy metal with thick, possibly concrete filler within the major supports. It boasted no real walls, but plenty of hanging tarps, plywood boards, yellow shoots, port-a-potties, and metal panels obstructed sight lines, providing dubious cover for a shootout but plenty of places to hide. The stacks of material lying around would be better suited for defense, if it came to that. Plenty of construction equipment lay around the place too, from handheld tools to heavy-duty machinery. Of course, the workers left plenty of beer bottles and crumpled-up fast food bags around too, sometimes stashing them inside whatever they were constructing before the finishing touch. By this point all the humans had fled and the androids were destroyed, which left only the Misconducts scurrying around.

What bothered Giovanna was why they were here. What was their plan, and how long had they been planning it? If they meant to knock this project down, it should have logically happened before those supports came in. It would take a lot more than sticks of TNT to blow through all those. And why did they gun down the androids without setting their sights on the fleeing humans? Just because they thought they could get away with it, since they weren’t human? It didn’t add up. Something smelled fishy, and it sure wasn’t that scummy canal in front of her, rank as it was. “We can use the walkie-talkies Sakura gave us to communicate if need be,” she said, holding up her own for emphasis. Raiden and Susie had their own. “But let’s try the quiet way for a minute. It doesn’t look like they have designated lookouts, so we can move in if we’re careful. Subdue anyone you can without being noticed, but don’t do anything that’ll compromise us. Probably won’t last, but it’ll give us a leg up when it’s time to go loud.”

The team did some quick preparation. Poppi switched to her Dark core, which would allow her to create localized gravitational anomalies to push, pull, and crush foes. If Susie preferred that infusion in her business suit to Raiden’s, the machinist would be able to do the same. Her fusion with that volatile gunslinger appeared to be granting her new capabilities, as well.

For Poppi

New Power:
High Noon
Poppi can enter into a state of badass gunslinger focus, increasing the damage dealt by her guns by 20%, which visually increases her shots’ size and brightness. While in the Noon state, a landed shot on an enemy will split the shot into four that spread out in a cross shape for a couple extra yards from the impact point, dealing 50% of the original shot’s damage to those caught in the splash. The Noon state lasts ten seconds and has a three minute cooldown

“Alright, let’s go already.” At Giovanna’s signal, the Seekers got underway. Most of the Misconducts were on ground level fiddling with explosives or ransacking terminated androids, which made getting close the hardest part. Poppi flung Tora across the canal before boosting over herself, and together the pair sprinted across open ground toward a crane. With the artificial blade and her keep optics leading the way they waited for an opening. When it came they climbed atop the treads, then the main cabin, then onto the crane arm itself, deftly maneuvering up the metallic incline until they could jump onto the second of the five floors.Tora rolled against a cylindrical red-and-white container and held still, listening for any sign of trouble, and Poppi crouched behind him. It occurred to her that she could have switched to a smaller and less conspicuous form, but QT Pi’s mobility would be an asset, and it looked like the two of them found a pretty good spot.

They found themselves at the bottom-most corner of the C-shaped building. Behind them softly flapped a hanging tarp, the gaps between it and the frame small enough that she could easily see to ground level, but it would be hard to make out anything in the dark from behind it. Straight ahead lay the central courtyard, full of Misconducts, including the heavily-armored man who looked like the leader. To the right, a drop to the first floor. She could see a white cloth and some discarded hard hats down there. A peek across the courtyard confirmed Giovanna on the opposite side of the fourth floor, hiding behind a pillar on the upper straight of the C, right beneath where the fifth floor began and shielded by plywood plus a blue container on one side. Within arm’s reach of her hiding spot a yellow cable was anchored, stretching across the courtyard to the center bend of the C on the first floor. Elsewhere, the other Seekers were getting into position, with the less stealthy ones taking fewer risks. Blazermate, for instance, would probably hide behind a vehicle outside of the construction site itself until go time, at which point she could fly in. Everyone needed to be mindful of relevant light sources that could cast telltale shadows over the Misconducts’ fields of view as they worked. Tora sidled around to the edge of the tarp to peek down. They could easily get the drop on some hapless hoodlum from here, but neither he nor his blade planned to kick things off by themselves. So they waited, not sure what they were waiting for, other than some kind of signal. Giovanna, the de-facto source of such a signal, waited too. If she didn’t want utter chaos, she needed a diversion, but the longer she waited the closer everyone got to the Misconducts finishing their setup and cleared out to start the fireworks.

After a tense minute, the growly chatter and barked orders from the first floor went quiet with urgent swiftness. Alerted to some sort of change, Poppi quickly scanned the area, and soon found out why. A lone G-man was approaching the construction site from the nearby street, and two more waited on the sidewalk, staring with their bright red eyes. Poppi pursed her lips. “Oh, boy.” The G-man continued to get closer until a pair of Misconducts went out with their weapons hidden to meet it before it could get close enough to see what their mates were and had been doing.

“You’re not construction workers,” the G-man stated, his voice hard. “You’re hockey players. You should be skating on ice and hitting pucks, not in a construction yard. What are you doing here?”

One of the Misconducts shrugged, holding his hands out to either side. “What, we can’t just hang around here? Tomorrow’s the, uh, big game, you know? We’re just getting together to, uh celebrate. And psych ourselves up! Just some harmless fun, man.”

The G-man did not so much as blink. “We saw construction workers leaving the premises. You’re obstructing their work. Disturbance of the peace and loitering are both punishable crimes.” Behind it, the other two G-men began to approach to support their outnumbered colleague.

“Huh? Ah, don’t you know it’s break time around here, man?” The second Misconduct, a lady, nudged him, and he held up placating hands. “Hey, hey, look. We’re sorry, alright? Won’t happen again. Just give us a few minutes to pack up, and we’ll be on our way. Promise!”

“Your story doesn’t check out,,” the G-man replied. “If you are hockey players trying to have fun, there are better places than someone else’s construction site. We will personally oversee your departure.” It went to step between two.

The man rolled his eyes. “Man…” Then the woman whipped out her shotgun and blasted the G-man in the chest. It staggered, falling to one knee, then lunged at the woman. They disappeared together in a flash of light and smoke. “Damn it!” the Misconduct growled, pulling out his pistol to open fire on the other G-men. His buddies back at the site joined in, peppering the agents with bullets as they ran for cover behind a stack of girders.

“Mayday, mayday!” One of the G-men said into its phone. “Hostile gunfire from suspects at my position. Requesting backup.” After a moment it continued, its voice still flat but a little more urgent. “What do you mean you’re busy cleaning up the Hoodlum Dolls? I am full of bullet holes…fine, I will put out a general distress beacon…”

At that point TNT Randy stepped up, a lit bundle of explosives in hand. “Fire in the hole!” he howled as he hurled the payload toward the G-men in cover. The TNT blew apart the stack of girders with a tremendous noise and sent both G-men flying, but as they dragged themselves to their feet they doffed their hats. The next moment they exploded in a blast of tar, assuming the form of two new monsters: a horrific bat-winged woman split in half, and a frenzied wolfman. Immediately Manananggal cast Zanma on the girders, releasing a blast of force that sent the whole lot of them flying through the air to crash into the Misconducts’ hiding spots, while Loup-garou raced forward.

“Now!” Giovanna yelled, using her walkie-talkie. She summoned Rei and jumped out from cover, using her sky-hook to grab onto the yellow cable. Even if it wasn’t metal, she could still hook onto it and slide down, then leap off the opposing wall and fly down with a divekick at TNT Randy himself. The big man, his left hand full of TNT and a lighter in his right, managed to block at the last second, then come around with a massive right hook. Giovanna airdashed backward out of the way, but Randy lit the TNT and tossed it toward her underhand. Gritting her teeth, she jumped up and blocked with Faultless Defense, negating the chip damage as she flew backward toward cover away from all the Misconducts ready to rip her limb from limb.

Before they could go after her, Poppi opened fire with her revolvers from the second floor. Empowered by High Noon, her dark-energy bullets erupted into brutal cross-shaped blasts of repulsive force on impact, demanding that the gang members run for cover while returning fire. Randy, however, just brought up his goalie shield. “Shit! Was this a setup!?” He hurled more TNT up at the two, but Tora managed to blow it up midair with a spread shot from the Variable Saber, and the dynamic duo retreated from a hail of gunfire from below, using their high ground as cover. The multifaceted battle was on.

The Ruins

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

Though the Seekers’ reception to Barnabee’s plea ended up being a lot more lukewarm than the buzzy brave would have liked, but between them Bowser, Rubick, and Primrose offered just enough of a hook for him to hang his hopes on. Though this turn of events took a little wind out of his sails, the Hive Knight wasn’t about to become crestfallen. “As much as it grieves me to put my most noble cause on hold, I shall hold out hope for your cooperation when the time is nigh.” He stood tall and saluted his new acquaintances. “In the meantime, should you present no objections, I should like to join you on your own quest. A rare offer, I confess, and perhaps out of line for the champion of Her Majesty the Queen, but I am honored to extend it in good faith to any who might be of aid in the future. Upon my blade’s gnashing teeth, I daresay you shall not find my skills wanting! For as long as it takes to see my mission though, my sword is yours. Dedicated to your ‘wellbeeing’, as it were! Huzzzzah!”

After flourishing his saw-toothed sword, Barnabee winked. “And as they say, one good turn deserves another, hohoho…”

The group retraced their steps back into the Ruins. As they neared the Temple of the Black Egg, Barnabee considered the mask fragment left over by Silitha, which Primrose pointed out to him. “Hmm…” he mused, scratching his fuzzy head. Then he snapped his spiky little fingers. “I am loath to speak with too much certainty on historical matters, for outside our fair Hive I am admittedly rather ill-informed, but this rather calls to mind a legendary artifact of yore. See its ivory-white luster? That perfect hollow? It can only be the mask of Lurien, the Watcher, said to have resided with the tallest spire above the Home of Tears and peered through the rain with an all-revealing lens.” He ran his hand along a jagged crack at one end of the curio. “Although, it is plainly sundered. It would take two more such fragments to restore it to its former glory.” He sniffed and handed the piece back to Primrose. “Although, even then it could not possibly compare to the splendor of my Queen, whose own glorious mask has no equal among either living or dead.”

A quick visit to the temple confirmed that the fragment fit perfectly into one of the three slots on the seal of the place’s titular black egg. Other than that, however, nothing happened upon its insertion. It didn’t take a genius to intuit that more fragments would be necessary in order to gain entrance to the Guardian trapped inside. How many more was anyone’s guess, but if the number of fragments adhered to the typical formula, ‘eight’ seemed like a solid guess.

With that confirmed, the next order of business was to reunite with the other group of Seekers. They recalled that Nadia mentioned a large vertical cavity deep inside the Ruins, as well as the possibility of a mapmaker at its bottom, and headed in that direction. There they found that huge vaulted chamber of gruzzers, cave crickets, and suspended platforms among wrought-iron supports. No sign of their friends could be seen, however, and given the size of the other contingent that meant they must have gone further in, which meant Bowser’s bunch needed to do the same. For those who could teleport, float, or fly, getting down would be easy, but not all of those among the few that braved the Webwood could count themselves so fortunate. Still, despite the treacherous descent and a couple up-close encounters with ornery insects, the team managed to reach the bottom.

On the central dias they found evidence of a struggle, including the spirits of fallen gruzzer flies on the cusp of fading away. More worrying than that was the discovery of several different routes that all seemed to lead in different directions from this spot, leaving the team at an impasse. Luckily, some telltale humming and a trail of discarded paper led them over to Cornifer in his cozy corner of the crossroads, hard at work on his cartography. “Oh yes, they were just here a while ago,” he replied when asked about Nadia and the others. “The young lady with long ears, the one with striking red hair, the sturdy fellow in armor, and of course that rather grand wasp.” Having not really taken notice of Omori, Therion, or the Adventurer, he pointed the newcomers in the direction of a certain tunnel. There, the purple stone bricks and bluish chitin masonry of the Ruins gave way to packed dirt and the wooden supports of a mining shaft. “They went in that direction. Oh, but wouldn’t you like to purchase a map before you go? It is all too easy to lose your way down here, I find. To wander without aim is a fine predicament for a mapmaker such as myself, to be sure, but not so for ones who travel with purpose, hm…?”

As the team moved on, Barnabee set off with them at an eager stride. “Forsooth, the mapmaker speaks true. The tunnels and trails of this ancient kingdom twist and turn without end. Any fool who blindly travels its paths is destined to meet an untimely end. Tis well that I, the Hive Knight, have never…well, almost never, or at least, very rarely, gotten lost.” He cleared his throat with a buzzing sound. “...Onward, my new friends! Your comrades cannot have gotten far!”

The dirty eastward tunnel confronted the troop with a number of branching paths of various sizes as they went along. Some featured strange totems or indecipherable signs, bug masks, or cracked crystal protruding from the stone. Scouting planes and wizard orbs sent down them turned up no sign of the other Seekers, and in a couple cases provoked new enemies, some of them vicious indeed. Regardless, most seemed to be dead ends, or loop back to the main path, so they stuck to what seemed to be the main route. Eventually, they came across a final split in the road. In one direction there seemed to be a lot of masks, either hung up on poles in an ominous manner or discarded amongst the clods of soil underfoot so thickly that walking that way would make them clatter and scrape incessantly. Within slumbered the Ancestral Mound, home to dead spirits and the eccentric Snail Shaman. The other path quickly opened up into a massive dripstone cavern of packed earth, stone, stalagmite, and stalactite, spiky and treacherous even without the bus-sized Goams that erupted suddenly and without warning from the earth, their spiky burr-coated shells nigh impenetrable. Nimble bugs deftly leaped through the cavern in search of foliage to nibble, staying well clear of the strange clown insects that hung around the area in groups by noxious pools and sludgy streams of poisonous muck. At the sight of the newcomers, a wrinkly purple Huuli Hoarder laden with gems took off screaming, scuttling along a nearby wall for a place to dig into and make its escape. On the far side of the huge cavern, part of the rock face gave way to a protruding wall of wood that stretched from floor to ceiling, with several hollow roots twisting out from it to rest like primordial serpents in beds of grimy stone. Could this be one of the trees that extended upward through the Webwood?

Barnabee paused at the cavern overlook, his eyes narrowed. “Hmm,” he began, raising his voice over the Hoarder’s irksome cries. “It seemed reasonably straight shot here, yet now a perilous land unfolds before us. We would do well to consult fresh eyewitnesses, should there be any likely folks around.”

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

Lots of quality being posted in here. Considering we have ~12 applications already, more on the way, and the gm/co-gm may or may not count as 2 out of the half-dozen or so slots, it's going to be a slaughter when between half and three-quarters of the people who apply don't make it, lol.

Persona ~ Alone at Sea (PERSONA WITH A BOAT 𓊝)

People be having crappy eyes I guess.