Lugubrious

Caravan: An Episodic Fantasy with Worldbuilding! [Always Accepting]

Gruyere Emmentaler Caerphilly Yarg

Gru was pleased to hear his client’s assent to his suggestion. ‘Quality and integrity’ were exactly the virtues Gru intended to cultivate, and he enjoyed hearing them recognized. Someone else might have balked at the idea of just handing a valuable item over to someone else (let alone someone like Gru) for safekeeping at the drop of a hat, but Knossos didn’t let any petty suspicions or compunctions get in the way of an arrangement that best suited everybody. When there were deals to be struck, there wasn’t any use beating around the bush, and the Dreamwalker knew it. When it came to business, there were few things more valuable than trust; that was something money couldn’t. He was right to place his in Gru.

In fact, Knossos seemed to be in such good spirits that he proceeded to invite the cheesemonger to an impromptu wine tasting. A curious smile spread across his cheeks, his eyes instinctively narrowed. This kind of cordial gesture very seldom graced Gru’s doorstep–even ’once in a blue moon’ might be too generous a turn of phrase. The cheesemonger didn’t particularly relish socializing, nor did he prize the Dreamwalker’s friendship as much as his coinpurse, but friendship wasn’t the only reason to drink with someone. In the business world, he knew, such activities often heralded or celebrated a significant deal or partnership. One wheel of cheese didn’t make for a magnificent exchange, necessarily, but it was something. Besides, sampling wine sounded like a gentlemanly thing to do, and Gru did so enjoy affecting such a persona.

After a moment Knossos went to make his way elsewhere, but he didn’t leave without a parting comment about the alcohol. If he looked back while leaving, the Dreamwalker might have been surprised to see a look of muted indignation on Gru’s face. Did I not give my word that I wouldn’t siphon off much as a drop of wine? I said I wouldn’t have it, so I won’t have it. Gruyere Emmentaler Caerphilly Yarg wasn’t a man who probed for favors beneath a veil of honeyed words. He made guarantees. My word is my bond. Does he think I’m not good enough to keep it? That I’m some boozehound angling for a tipple? Or does he hope to wheedle a better deal out of me once I’m in my cups? Well, forget that. For evening drinks, tea would serve just as well. A scholarly gentleman preferred tea anyway, to stimulate the mind. If there were any leftovers, they belonged wholly to Knossos, and he could do with them whatever he pleased. Spill it in the mud, for all I care! Of course, Gru didn’t dare speak aloud any of these thoughts. The bargain hadn’t yet been struck, after all. Until the cold, timeless, indefatigable weight of coin greased his palm, his lips were sealed. “...Good day, Mr. Dreamwalker.”

Once Knossos left, Gru could attend to other matters. As much as he wanted to get started on his new project straight away, the stuff he’d told Knossos had been no exaggeration. His whole operation hinged on fresh ingredients. Time loved cheese, but it hated milk with a passion, and his nose could detect spoiled product a mile away. He rose to his feet and began to pace along the roof of his wagon, one hand at his chin as he grappled with the current situation, the other closed around a rat whose fuzzy head he stroked with his thumb. In any other situation, he would’ve been happy to leave the Caravan behind and forge ahead until he found civilization. He had the means and provisions after all, not to mention ample recourse should he need to defend himself. Perhaps the others might even appreciate his work as a scout. But in the Emerald Forest, that possibility seemed woefully slim. This trail was narrow, and even if he and his rats could navigate the Chuck Wagon around all the other Pilgrims and their carriages, they were liable to get stuck in the tangled margins. I need to get closer to the front, he groaned internally, making a mental note. Plus, he got the distinct impression that the Emerald Forest wasn’t somewhere someone wanted to be alone in. Technically he’d never really be alone so long as he had his rats, but ‘safety in numbers’ was an axiom for a reason. Maybe the only reason why the Caravan hadn’t already succumbed to this accursed place’s attrition.

“Aha!” A few moments later, Gru extended one finger into the air, and the rat in his fist climbed out onto his knuckles as if to see what the fuss was. “If it’s for milk, I may not have to travel as far as I thought,” he explained to her. She just peered at him with round black eyes, the perfect audience. “They may not be as lovely as my darlings, but there are other beasts within the Caravan itself. And not just horses, oh no.” He picked up the pace, turning his gaze rather afield as he searched the stalled convoy. Surely someone had an animal whose milk would make good cheese. A cow would be best, since their milk is the most versatile, well-liked, and mild, but he’d happily accept a goat. A sheep. He’d even take a camel, if there happened to be any sojourners from the great deserts nowadays. Then again, making cheese with camel milk was supposed to be impossible due to its resistance to bovine rennet. No amount of magic could make cheese if he couldn’t create curds to begin with. It didn't matter though, since for all his searching, he couldn’t see any camels. Or sheep for that matter. Or goats, much less cows. Only…

…A yak.

His eyes had been drawn by the commotion of two women attempting to disentangle a cart from some roots or briars. No doubt the fate of my own wagon if I didn’t think things through, he mused. At first the sight of the great shaggy beast filled Gru with hope, but after he’d set his sights on it, another glance at the women jogged his memory, and the realization made his excitement shrivel up like a squeezed grape. He’d met Lynn only briefly, not even long enough to really internalize her name, but he’d received a frosty reception. She did not like the look of him, which he didn’t appreciate, and she did not like his rats, which he disliked quite a lot, actually. No doubt as a result of some past trauma, she’d clearly resolved to never trust or depend on someone again, and cling tight to the one thing that mattered the most to her. Gru could picture the poor woman turning up her nose at the ratty cheesemonger, convinced he’d come to take the food from her son’s very mouth, and lay a protective arm across her son’s shoulders. Keep your ill-gotten gold, she’d declare, every inch the heroic pauper telling off the rich, encroaching scumbag. I’ve got everything I need right here. It almost made him sick. Was he really that bad, that every interaction with someone involved getting over a massive, built-in hurdle? People might spit on rats as filthy vermin, but if treated well they were actually quite clean, intelligent, and affectionate. Curling his lip, Gru turned away and stalked back toward the front of the Chuck Wagon. Not everyone could see the true value in things.

“Mr. Yarg? Hello?”

Taken by surprise, Gru looked down to discover a small crowd by his wagon. They all looked tired, torn up, haunted. The lost souls. Swallowing, he carefully added his rat back to his collar and approached the edge of the roof, where he stood with his hands in his pockets. “What business have you with Mr. Yarg?”

One of them stepped forward. “We’ve been lost, hungry for days. They told us you would give us food.”

Gru did not bother to hide his grimace as his eyes widened. Of course they would. Two, four, six, seven hungry mouths to feed. Some looked pleading. Others expectant. They’d been starved enough before someone raised their hopes, and now they were famished. Desperate people were always apt to do something unwise, making for high risk, but suitably high reward. Hopefully their situation would make them inclined to think with their stomachs rather than their minds–or their fists, for that matter.

“I see,” Gru said, seating himself on the edge of his wagon’s roof. At the negotiating table, whoever looked down upon the other had a distinct advantage. “Well, this isn’t a charity, you understand. But given the circumstances, I think you’ll find my terms more than reasonable.” With a smirk the cheesemonger doffed his top hat, revealing Pepper beneath it, who doffed her tiny hat in kind. “Gruyere Emmentaler Caerphilly Yarg, at your service.”

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

Lewa had very little experience fighting humanoid opponents, much less ones possessing martial skill. When his adversary shifted his stance and his grip on his polearm, the Toa of Air read it as a preparatory move for a strong technique that he needed to stop in its tracks. Accordingly, he put his substantial weight into a strong two-handed axe chop, hoping that even if he didn’t connect with his opponent’s body, the heavy blow would at least hack apart his weapon’s shaft. After all, he’d noticed that this glaive, unlike solid protodermis toa tools, incorporated a length of wood into its design. And what were axes for, if not chopping wood?

Needless to say, things didn't go how he planned. His enemy caught him mid-swing, intercepting and deflecting his weapon. Even if it wasn’t a battle axe, a hatchet in motion had a lot of momentum, and to the braggart’s credit he possessed the skill to turn that inertia against its wielder. Lewa suddenly found himself exposed, fast enough that he was left wondering what just happened, and before he could come to any conclusions the Raven Herald delivered a counterattack. The polearm’s glinting head thrust into the thick, rubbery cable mesh around Lewa’s neck, getting about an inch in before the material’s resistance and it stuck against of the metal with the armor around Lewa’s collarbone. Just as quickly as he stabbed it forward the man withdrew his weapon to prevent entanglements, and as he did Lewa jumped back, spurred to action by the pain.

The toa winced, suddenly worried. His enemy, knowing that his weapon probably couldn’t pierce (and might actually break against) solid metal armor, had aimed for his heartlight. It was a small and high target to hit, but the fact that he’d gotten so close was a cause for alarm. This man’s attitude wasn’t just empty egomania; he had the skill to back it up. Lewa knew he couldn’t fall prey to strategies like that again. He needed to leverage his own talents in turn.

Lewa changed his grip, releasing his axe with his left hand and sliding the right further up toward the head for better control. With how long his foe’s polearm was, a little extra range for the axe wouldn’t make any difference. That also opened up his hand for air manipulation. After whirling his left to whip up the wind, Lewa thrust his palm outward to summon an air current that blew from behind him, plowing into his opponent -as well as the lackeys behind him- head-on. That resistance would make it harder for him to move forward, orient his glaive, and attack. It also tugged at his fancy cape, increasing the chance that it wrapped or tangled, and even made it harder to hear as the wind roared in his ears. At the end of the day it was just a stiff breeze, but all the little disadvantages it imposed would add up, even if the Raven Herald’s pride convinced him it was nothing to worry about.

This tailwind offered one other boon for Lewa: it would speed him on his way when he moved forward. For a moment he remained on defense, compressing air into an orb in his off hand. If his adversary thought this was to sustain the wind, he would be surely mistaken. Then Lewa burst forward, much faster than a ‘golem’ of his size should be able to, and as he closed the distance he brought his off-hand forward to unleash an explosive blast of air from just outside melee range. Depending on how that went, he might then follow up with a one-handed axe swing, ideally at his enemy’s weapon itself.

World of Light

Sector 04, Veles - Neuron Helipad

Level 6 Goldlewis (92/60) Level 4 Sandalphon (57/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man
Word Count: 2013

When Consul Y ended negotiations by seizing control of all gleaming fighters present, it became clear that the time for talking was over. That suited Jena just fine; she’d heard enough out of her old nemesis already, and wasn’t in the mood to listen, whether to him or Blazermate. As the fight began, she sprang forward and barreled toward Y, leaving Mephisto and Faust to take supportive rolls. In response, the Howard twins leapt to the Consul’s defense. Akira’s Arrow Legion, outfitted with black armor just like its legionis and sporting a bright red core, unleashed a flurry of projectiles from its dual bow-arms. Jena put up her arm as she ran in, manifesting a chimeric shield wreathed in purple to soak the bolts until her own archer got Akira’s attention with a crossbow bolt that knocked her flat on her back. As the Arrow Legion turned to help Akira up, Hayato moved to clash with Jena in his sister’s place.

He threw himself into Jena’s shield with a flying kick, then cartwheeled backward away from her retaliatory slash. His Sword Legion rushed in with a double slash that drew blood, putting Jena on the defensive as she blocked slice after slice with her lance. When the Sword Legion performed a hurricane slash, she went low and pierced the ground, creating a purple rupture. The next second a spike of astral matter burst upward to hit the Legion from below, launching it into the air. Jena smashed through the crystal shield-first and into Hayato, knocking him back, but when she brought her lance forward in a thrust Hayato capitalized on the split second he had. He dismissed and then instantly recalled his Sword Legion in front of him, executing a Perfect Summon that threw Jena off and left her wide open. There was a blue flash, and he followed up with a Sync Attack, sending his Legion across the ground splayed out like a starfish and spinning to grind into his enemy from below.

Jena’s teammates moved to help her, so Akira went to back up her brother, too. At that moment, though, the sight of missiles coming in from Susie got Y’s attention. “Here!” Akira wheeled around to help, taking aim with her blaster alongside her Arrow Legion to mow the missiles down with a barrage of laser bolts. From there she stood ready to continue defending the Consul.

At the same time, the party had really gotten started for the Seekers. As Sandalphon stumbled toward Penance, Roland acted fast to save the archangel by intercepting the Judge’s follow-up attack. Blades metal flail in a furious clash of metal, pushing both apart. The trade powered Roland up, but with more foes on the way, Penance acted fast. In the moment that Zenkichi used Valjean to bolster Sandalphon’s defense, the Judge unleashed Last Word. Her empowered flail smash didn’t just hammer Roland for 200% damage, but also stunned him for five whole seconds, leaving her free to trade blows with the Witcher. Shielded by Guardian of the Law and Quen respectively, she and Geralt whaled on one another’s barriers, but Penance had one trick up her sleeve that her opponent didn’t. Whenever he struck her Arts barrier, it reacted with a burst of thorny lashes to deliver an attack equal to half a swing from her flail in damage. Her barrier also boasted much greater durability, more than half her own max health in fact, so Quen was gone long before Geralt could take Penance’s shield. Despite his greater stopping power and his efforts to mitigate the blows from her swings, he found himself losing the war of attrition. That was where Karin lent him a hand with her martial prowess, joining in to whittle down Penance’s barrier and distribute the recoil from Wreathed in Thorns. Together they destroyed her shield, putting the Judge on the back foot–until she spent a chunk of SP on Trial of Thorns. A new spiky golden barrier flailed to life around her, this one worth 130% of her max health, and reinstating Wreathed in Thorns. It also boosted her rather low attack by 400%, her attack speed by a little bit, and her inherent threat, turning the Judge from a thorny roadblock to terrifying powerhouse.

Vigil proved no less formidable. The minute Susie got him off Goldlewis’ case, he rounded on her with guns blazing. Still not used to her personal shield, she brought up the arms of her Business Suit to protect herself when Vigil shot at her head, and in the brief moment that bought him Vigil activated Leader of the Wolfpack. Two Wolf Shadows appeared on Susie’s position to Block her, both striking in quick succession every second or so. Their bites might be weak, but Susie couldn’t effectively reposition or attack anything else while Blocked, and that wasn’t all. Thanks to Vigil’s Wolven Nature, both him and his Wolf Shadows penetrated a huge amount of defense for anyone his Wolfpack blocked, and every thirty seconds a new Wolf Shadow would appear–even if there weren’t any left. By the time Roland recovered from his stun and came over to help Susie, both Vigil and Akira were ventilating her Business Suit without a care in the world.

Thanks to her allies, Blazermate in particular, Sandalphon managed to recover her gunstaff, which she accepted with a curt nod. If the archangel was mollified by getting disarmed, tugged around, and almost pancaked by Penance, she hid her indignity well. She escaped from the fighting unscathed and took a quick look around, clearing her throat. Penance seemed to be weathering the assault of both Karin and Geralt at the same time, which was no easy feat. Having used only his revolvers until now, Vigil had torn open his bag of tricks in order to shoot up Susie and Roland. On the other side of the brawl, Hayato was holding off all three Reunion fighters at once, while Akira was shooting from a defensive position near the Consul. Everyone needed a hand, and out of everyone present, only Sandalphon could actually help them all.

“Angelic Wings,” she proclaimed, lifting up her staff. Angular streaks of radiant blue light surrounded her, emanating from her staff and encircling the ground around her like embroidered threads. Four curved screens appeared around her, spinning in a ring, before launching outward in a divine pulse. Geralt, Karin, Susie, Roland, Giovanna, and Goldlewis all received a massive heal for over 100% of their max health, fully restoring them all. With Sandalphon in Concentration protocol, her powerful skill did not provide her teammates any extra benefit, but it charged her a certain resource of her own by a third.

That boost was just what Goldlewis and Giovanna needed to get back into the fight. Given the sheer threat exuded by Penance, the veteran understood that his team couldn’t make progress as long as she still stood. “Sorry ma’am,” he rumbled, running toward the melee. “But you gotta go!” He jumped, then burst forward with an airdash to land on Penance with a barrage of alien swipes. Pushing through the pain from Wreathed in Thorns, he canceled that into a downward Behemoth Typhoon that caused a ground bounce that an ally could follow up on. Penance rose quickly, and after landing Goldlewis joined Geralt and Karin in their assault, three on one. If the Witcher wanted to prove he wasn’t a liability to those around him, this was his chance. Together they finally began to overwhelm the stalwart defender. Two enemies Penance could withstand, but three was pushing it, especially with opponents of this caliber. That left no other options. The Judge reeled in her flail, then held her book high, surrounding herself in the golden light of Stoic Atonement. Protected by 60% damage reduction, she began to emanate ripples of thorns around her, each one dealing magic damage to any opponent they hit on the ground.

“Gah!” Goldlewis spat, recoiling from the painful wave of briars that bit into his legs like bestial fangs. When another wave rolled out the next moment, cutting into both his pants and the flesh beneath them, he grit his teeth. “We’re in trouble!” Taking a gamble, he performed a shorthop over the next wave and landed with another Behemoth Typhoon that struck Penance head on. Her poise withstood it, steeled by superhuman endurance, but she did flinch beneath the blow, a look of strain on her face. “But not helpless!” If they stood and fought normally Stoic Atonement might very well be a death sentence, but he’d found a way around it, risky though it was. The fight had become a dangerous game, and for the next twenty seconds or so, it was up to him, Geralt, and Karin to overturn the Judge’s ruling.

At the same time, Giovanna dashed in to help Susie and Roland against Vigil. Once the Turk got Urging and made it clear he wouldn’t just be eating bullets for breakfast, the well-dressed gunslinger sent his Wolfpack after Roland instead. From there had been able to flee from both foes consistently, keeping them at bay with his trusty revolvers. When he used Packleader’s Gift, his Wolf Shadows gained one instance of boosted damage plus lifesteal, and Packleader’s Dignity gave them three attacks for the price of one. But the secret agent’s sudden arrival threw a wrench in the works. “Need a hand, Roland?” With Rei at her back, Giovanna darted into the fight with blistering speed and took Vigil by surprise with Trovão. The flying kick knocked him down, and as he rolled to his feet he knew he couldn’t afford to let his foes pin him down.

“Sic ‘em!” He growled, using Packleader’s Call. A new Wolf Shadow manifested and lunged toward Giovanna, a streak of gnashing black.

The secret agent hunkered down to block, putting her under duress as she sustained chip damage from both blazing guns and flashing fangs. When Susie got Vigil’s attention, Gio took her turn back with a spectacular high kick that struck the Wolf Shadow below the jaw, and as it flew into the air Rei gave it a taste of its own medicine with a lunge of her own. The two ethereal wolves fought savagely, thrashing in the air and rolling on the ground, at times little more than green lightning and pitch-black fury. Giovanna broke off from her spirit animal and closed in to help Roland with Vigil himself. She slid in with a knee thrust, then combo’d with a punch into Sepultura, kicking with her leg in lieu of Rei. From there, it was up to Roland. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Meanwhile, Zenkichi had reached the other side of the fight. Having left Susie to Vigil, Akira had brought her Arrow Legion close to let loose well-aimed charged shots at Blazermate, forcing the Medabot to stop summoning ghosts and start spending her Projectile Shield. Hayato still fought Jena, his entire arsenal of legions brought to bear against Reunion’s leader, but Mephisto’s shots kept interrupting him, and Faust happily healed whatever damage the legionis did to Jena with a tap of his cane. Neither Jena nor Mephisto would let him go after Faust, either. That meant that for a brief moment, Zenkichi and the Consul were face to face.

Y turned toward him, his sneer imperceptible beneath his helmet but imparting a scoff to his voice. “It’s true, you’re quite unmanageable.” Y held up his hands to his chest, one curved above his purple core and the other below. “Fortunately, I have other uses for you.” Suddenly the core started to glow, and around it appeared a conical purple vortex of pure sucking power, as big as Y himself. With fearsome strength, the vortex began to pull Zenkichi in.

Suoh - Shinra Building Gate

Midna’s @DracoLunaris, Sakura’s @Zoey Boey, Pit’s @Yankee, Luka

Despite his very useful power, Luka was no less tense than his allied Seekers when it came to the task set for him, and he wasn’t about to take it any less seriously. For a few more moments he continued to scope out the security checkpoint, trying to get a feel for which guards were patrolling and where, as well as checking and rechecking the cameras, turrets, and spotlights in the fading light. On a clear day the sunset would’ve illuminated the scene well enough, but today the stormy skies offered only a dying flicker of dusky orange over the western mountains, and an infiltration under the cover of night meant that nobody could bumble around. Neither could he afford to make any mistakes and compromise his team, which included overuse of his power. Teleportation wasn’t a common ability after all, and with the OSF soldiers stationed here, it was by no means impossible that one might recognize him just from the sound of his power going off.

Luckily, being little had its advantages. Small and fast, Luka could hide in places the others couldn’t, and his dark attire -especially with his good up- helped him blend into the plentiful shadows. He couldn’t literally fade into them like Midna could, making recklessness her only real risk, but he wasn’t that far behind. Luka even went as far as to temporarily disconnect from SAS, which caused the orange Vision cables that ran across his outfit to fade away. Alternating between bursts of speed and stretches of patient waiting, Luka made his way through the area with a couple close calls, but no incidents. That brought him close to the front gate, where he lingered, considering how to get through this final stretch and make it inside. There weren’t any entrances with low activity, since those were closed. From his hiding spot he spotted Pit entering a vent, and gave a nod of approval. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t get up there without teleporting, and if anyone looked up at the sound he’d be a sitting duck.

After a few more seconds, he noticed a patrol that would pass within inches of him in about thirty seconds. Luka took a deep breath; it was now or never. Going with the best idea he had, he borrowed Yuito’s Psychokinesis to levitate a bit of debris and throw it against the wall. The noise got the attention of one of the two sentries by his chosen entrance, who shared a glance with her partner and then sauntered over to look. Poking his head out from behind the wastebin, Luka waited until the remaining sentry looked away, then teleported. As long as he had line of sight and could confirm an arrival point, the distance didn’t matter, after all. He warped through the open door and to the far side of the foyer.

In truth it was more of a garage mixed with a warehouse, loaded with various materials, vehicles, and military hardware. Possibly the Sector 05 muster station for Public Security, or a parking garage for Shinra Power Company employees. Without missing a beat he ducked between a couple vehicles. In here, there were plenty of spots to hide and no patrols, just workers not paying too much attention, so as long as he kept a low profile there wouldn’t be much trouble. As it happened, a low profile was the only one he had.

A couple minutes later, the Seekers gathered together. Tense as the infiltration had been, they’d made it inside, so now it was time to go deeper. Hastened by the threat of discovery at any time, they moved from the station to the transport hub just beyond it. A number of routes seemed to lead to various destinations from this room, including two sets of stairs up to a secondary security checkpoint for the Shinra Building itself, a downward staircase between them that led to a large and ominous-looking lift, and a few other doors. A contingent of soldiers was just heading toward a stairwell marked ‘Seiran Access’. Given Karen’s city-wide announcement, it made sense to send extra security that way. Once they all left, Luka and the others could proceed toward the lift. Judging by its position, it couldn’t possibly go upward, so that plus its lack of label made it a prime candidate. Before running over, though, Luka noticed the odd set double doors on the right side of the hub. While the rest of this place seemed almost brutalistic in its stark, functional appearance, those doors were decked out in bright colors, and above them was a label spelled out in large capital letters, pale yellow-green with darker green dots: Daycare.

“Daycare?” Luka whispered. “Why would this place have a daycare? Who’s bringing their children past a security checkpoint?” Spurred on by a mixture of curiosity and dread, Luka headed for those doors instead. On the other side lay a wide hallway with an arched roof, with a matching set of double doors on the other side. Once Luka jogged down the corridor and pushed the door ajar, he could see exactly what the Day Care was.

Before him stood a very large room shaped like a square donut, with high ceilings that reminded Luka of a gym despite its somewhat alien appearance. Its look wasn’t anywhere near as strange as what was happening in it, though. The ‘donut’ featured two tracks separated by a central channel, and along those tracks were a number of people on ordinary bicycles. Though mostly human, these riders came in all shapes and sizes, most featuring a handful of inhuman or animalistic features like ears, tails, horns, et cetera. Clad in black and red sports attire, they were just…peddling around. Every one of those bikes, however, had a basket on the front laden with eggs, very pale green with darker green spots just like the sign over the doors. After stepping inside to confirm the truth of his eyes, Luka just stood there for a couple moments, baffled. “What are…why are they doing this?”

He gradually turned his attention toward the structure in the center of the ‘donut’. Though it had several windows and no doors in its entry, he couldn’t see very much from this angle. Mostly just glass walls, hazy -or dirty- enough to reflect the light in such a way that he couldn’t really see through it. Luka did see one thing, though. It was a line of ordinary people in nondescript white shorts and tank tops, some of them teenagers or even younger. Some of them held little orbs, of various colors, the majority half red and half white. As he watched, the central chamber suddenly filled with prismatic light. It shone for a moment, then died down, and after another couple seconds the line advanced.

The Under - Mercy Dreams

Level 12 Nadia (133/120)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Nocturne’s @Grimnir, Tingyun, Stetson the Scout, Paintbrush the Gunner, Overhard the Engineer, Cyclops the Scout
Word Count: 3172

Once she confirmed that the high-pitched, all-too-familiar voice in the distance wasn’t just her weary mind playing tricks on her, Nadia’s mission was clear in her mind. Her first instinct was to vault over the wrought-iron railing before her and plummet down into the depths of the dungeon itself, single-mindedly rushing forward and taking all comers until her best friend was safe and sound. After all, this eerie penitentiary layout meant that she could leap straight into the belly of the beast if desired, a tempting prospect given her love for dramatic entrances. And what situation demanded drama like a daring rescue? For once, however, Nadia decided not to be reckless. While she and the others had run roughshod over plenty of dangerous places so far, every fiber of her being told her that this morbid, uncanny prison wasn’t a place she could take lightly. Not this time. Her instincts told her that Mercy Dreams had some sort of strange intention to it, and though she couldn’t fathom what it might be, she knew in her gut that it was best left undisturbed. As a paper butterfly took flight nearby, Nadia released her tense grip on the iron fence and stepped away. If she wasn’t going to jump, it was past time she found another way down.

Nadia and the others split up, separating under the tacit assumption that nobody was to make a scene if they could help it. With how quickly the feral scampered around, and how undefended Mercy Dreams’ uppermost level. seemed to be, it wasn’t long before the girl and her dog found the intended way down to the second layer on the left side. Using it was another matter, though. The access route took the form of a stairway corridor, and both landings featured their own sturdy metal portcullis. Sliding to a stop on all fours, Nadia stood and laid one hand on a metal slat as she turned to look around. She found the mechanism not in the form of a lever on the floor or wall, but suspended from the ceiling up near the pulleys that controlled the gate. It was an assembly of gears all contained inside a large glass jar, and she could see what appeared to be a weight resting on the jar’s bottom with rope coiled atop it. Going with the obvious solution, Nadia stepped back and raised one fist extended like a rifle as she closed one eye and squinted the other. A brief moment of blood pressurization later, she fired off her fist and smashed the fragile glass with one punch. She flinched at the sound of shattering glass as it broke apart and hit the floor, tensed up in case any prison denizens noticed, but nobody seemed to. Instead the counterweight dropped, and as it fell the gate rose. Once she felt sure no enemies would be coming to corner her in this narrow corridor, she and Chucho raced down the stairs to the gate at the bottom.

This would be slightly more complicated, as there seemed to be no way to open the gate from this side. She couldn’t see another switch jar either, though she suspected one must be close by. “Weird system,” she muttered. Maybe this double gate system forced mutual agreement between parties on both sides of the stairs for anyone to get through? She scratched at a metal slat with her claws, but it wouldn’t yield. “Watt about this?” When she tried to bolt through with a Charge, it ended with her head slamming into the steel bars. “Ow, right. Lightning likes metal. Well, there's more than one way to skin a cat.” Nadia stuck one arm through the lattice and detached it, letting it fall to the floor. Then she took her head off with the other, squeezed it through the biggest space available, and dropped it as well. “Oof!” From there, she grabbed her head with the fallen arm and moved it around until she spotted the switch jar around the corner. “Bingo. Nothin’s safe from me as long as I use my…head!” With that she hurled her head like a volleyball and struck the jar with her mechanism, shattering it to open the gate wide and let her body through.

“Rrrrruh!?” Nadia’s smug satisfaction evaporated like morning dew as she heard a questioning snarl just down the corridor, far too close for comfort. Rather than snatch up her arm and head, she allowed the rest of her to fall to pieces, eking out blood to give the illusion of a freshly-dismembered corpse. Right on time, the guard she alerted arrived. Watching through barely-cracked eyes, Nadia beheld something that looked like a man, but clearly wasn’t all there. Though muscular, his bloodied, half-naked body exhibited signs of atrophy, and he lurched around with unnatural vigor. The heavy, gasping breath that issued from his scarlet headwrap suggested the presence of fluid in his lungs, and the motes of sunset red within it seemed more like sparks than eyes. In both hands he held bloody scourges. After he staggered to a stop, another flagellant came into view, followed in turn by a Spear of the Cathedra atop his floating chair, clad in flowing red. After a moment, the flagellant determined that not enough blood had been spilled and grunted, lashing Nadia’s torso across the belly. The intensity of that pain brought tears to Nadia’s eyes, her teeth and eyes clenched as she fought to give no signs of life. By that point the Spear and his other attendant had turned to resume their patrol, and after seeing blood trickle onto the ground the first flagellant gave a satisfied purr and turned to go.

When she heard its steps receding, Nadia cracked one eye open, then extended sinews from her body parts to connect them back together. Once whole, she stalked after her attacker into the dimly-lit hall, drawing Athame. The flagellant didn’t know what hit him. As one arm locked around his throat from behind to cut off his air throw, the other drove the dagger into his back, eliciting a guttural, breathless wheeze. To the feral’s surprise, however, he continued to struggle violently, not slowing down even when she stabbed him two more times. “The hell?” she hissed. This thing wasn’t human–not even close. When he managed to reach around and grab her by the ear, panic spurred her to resort to desperate measures. She released him and jammed the knife into the undead monster’s head, then delivered a heavy cross slash to his back with her claws. Finally the flagellant slumped down, but as he fell, the sound of his body slamming against the floor got the attention of the other one. With no time to grab her head, Nadia sprang into the air and sunk her claws into the ceiling, hiding in the darkness. When the second flagellant came to investigate, the feral waited until the right moment when he was standing over his comrade’s dissolving corpse. Then her head burst forward on a jet of blood from her neck, knocking one of the flagellant’s legs out from under him. As he teetered forward, Nadia’s body dropped onto him from above to take him face-first to the ground. This time, she knew she couldn’t be lenient. Pinning him beneath her, she revved up both arms like drills, thrust them into the monster’s sides, and brought them together until the flagellant had been halved.

That took long enough and made enough noise to alert the Spear of the Cathedra, who turned with a wordless cry to hover Nadia’s way. With his lackeys gone, however, the feral felt more confident. “Careful,” she said darkly, spinning her arm drills down. “This isn’t a bit.” As she rose she shot out one hand to grasp Athame’s handle, and as she took off running she yanked it free. As the two approached one another, Nadia threw her dagger, only for it to sail past the Spear’s shoulder and off down the hallway. Groaning, the feral went low, avoiding the old man’s thrust with a Cat Slide beneath his floating throne. After getting behind him, she jumped up and delivered a drop kick to the back of the cathedra in an attempt to knock him out of it and onto the floor. Instead she heard a crack as she flipped away and hit a three-point landing. When the Spear turned toward her, she was horrified to see his spine somehow fused with the cracked back of his chair, and the same nightmarish sparks in the sockets of his eyes. With a hollow cry he jabbed at her repeatedly, drawing blood with the first and then forcing her to block until she timed an evasive roll away. The Spear advanced on her turned back, but Nadia looked over her shoulder with narrowed eyes, hardening and then bloodily launching her tails. They flew up and sank into the Spear’s body, staggering him long enough for her to flip over and fired off a maximum-power Fiber Upper. Her spring-loaded double kick struck the monster in the chest and snapped his cathedra’s back, sending both it -and the Spear- flying off. Immediately the throne went up in flames, and the Spear dissolved right after.

Nadia stood slowly, taking a deep breath. Chucho caught up to her with a whimper, looking a bit nervous. Those enemies hadn’t been too hard, but their unnatural constitution demanded a sort of ruthlessness from her that even she found a little scary. “I’m a thief, not a fur-eakin’ assassin,” she muttered to herself as she went to collect her tails. Finding Athame took a little longer, but she stumbled across it about halfway down the second layer cell block. She slid it into her belt, stood, and found herself standing before a strange cell. Its lock was broken, so instead it was boarded over from the outside, and unlike most of the doors this one had a barred window. Inside, Nadia could see a large chest wrapped in chains, just begging to be open. Normally she would’ve been all over it, but right now, even treasure could wait. “Minette?” Nadia dared to raise her voice slightly, hoping her misadventures had brought her closer to her imprisoned friend.

“Nadia? Where are you?”

At the voice, Nadia whirled around, looking back the way she came. For a fleeting moment, she thought she saw the visage of a teenage Dagonian girl in an apron and seashells, silhouetted against the weak glow of candles in the gloom. Nadia’s ears flattened in alarm as she blinked rapidly, trying to see more clearly, but just like that the apparition had vanished so suddenly and completely that she couldn’t be sure it had ever been there to begin with. “Minette!?”

“I’m here, Nadia!” Now that she was facing the source of the voice, the feral could tell that it wasn’t nearby. Closer than before, but still not close. Maybe one layer further down. But then…what was that shadow? Was she just seeing things? Once again, the sound of her friend’s voice roused her to action. “Please, hurry!”

Nadia did. The second layer had a couple more patrols, but she avoided them, sticking to the shadows and zipping past with a Charge when necessary. Chucho helped a lot, alerting her to enemies and illuminating alternate paths. Nadia could hear fighting from elsewhere in Mercy Dreams. Were the other Seekers facing demons of their own? When the cat burglar found another barred staircase, she smashed the upper switch jar like before, then raced down the steps. This time she didn’t plan to screw around, so when she reached the bottom, she conjured a copycat that could simply pass through the portcullis like the glorified water she was. As the copycat went to smash the switch jar, Nadia heard a magical noise from the right, and a ray of brilliant green light blazed in from a blind spot to splatter the copycat against the wall. “Mew gotta be kitten me.” Wrinkling her nose, she looked over through the bars to see a Mind Flayer shuffling into view. Though clothed for the most part in a ratty robe like a burlap sack, the head of the cephalopod monstrosity looked just as bad as it smelled. “Urk, what nyeow?” She crouched down, her claws sharpened despite the separating barrier. “You want a copiece of me?”

In reply the mind flayer lifted its bell and unleashed a wad of magical electricity. It flew through the gate, and Nadia’s eyebrows shot up. “Hey, that’s not-!” Then the spell struck her, paralyzing her in a wreath of eldritch green lightning. “Gya-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!” While she struggled, the jailer grasped the bars of the gate and extended its tentacles to grab her. Barking, Chucho grabbed his owner by the arm and pulled her over backward. The impact with the stairs barely registered; Nadia was just glad her pooch saved her from that grab. Gurgling, the mindflayer gnashed its beak and thrashed its tentacles until the spell wore off. Then, as Nadia rose, it lifted its bell to cast again. “Alright already, no need to spell it out for me!” the feral yowled. As she fled back up the stairs, another Soul Ray went off where she’d been a moment prior. Hounded by its awful gurgles, she didn’t stop or even look back until she reached the second layer.

Once there she sat down for a moment, panting as she pet her softly-glowing Polterpup in the dark. “Okay. That guy’s clearly no octopushover. Gotta find another way…” Her eyes landed on the perimeter fence that ringed Mercy Dreams’ central space. Jumping to the bottom was out of the question, but maybe she could abuse this layout in another way. Nadia made her way to the railing. “After all, I’ve got a good head on my shoulders…or off them, for that matter.” She carefully lifted off her head, still connected by a length of muscle fibers, then dangled it over the edge and began to let out the slack. She extruded more and more to lower her head down to the third layer, allowing her to see the mind flayer upside-down as it guarded the staircase. After confirming its location, she reeled her head back in, then grabbed onto and vaulted over the fence to lower the rest of her down the same way–by extending the lengths of tissue connecting her hands. Eventually she reached the bottom, it being built out slightly farther than the layer above, and gently touched down so as to not alert the watchful sentry. Once in the clear, she let go with her hands, reeled them back in, and scampered off down the hallway with Chucho right behind. By the time the mind flayer looked over, she was gone.

After getting a safe distance away, the feral tentatively raised her voice again. “Minette? Are you there?”

“This way!” Her friend’s voice was low, urgent, and close.

Nadia homed in, pausing only to hide in the shadows from a passing mind flayer. Lucky that they were carrying bells and not lanterns. If the atmosphere in Mercy Dreams had been bad in the first layer, it was much more pleasant halfway down, and promised to get even worse closer to the bottom. She called out a couple more times as she went, and soon, Minette’s voice wasn’t from somewhere in front of her, but from the cell right beside her. Nadia took a deep breath. “Minette. I’m here.”

“Nadia! Oh, thank goodness!” Though she whispered to avoid being heard, the fishgirl’s voice was wracked with emotion. “I c-can’t believe it’s really you.”

The cat burglar swallowed. “Yeah…”

“H-h-how’d you find me?”

Nadia hesitated to answer. She didn’t want to say ‘pure coincidence’, which was the truth. Instead she put on a gallant smile, even though her friend couldn’t see. “What can I say? Whenever I hear my bestie’s in trouble, I come runnin’. That’s just how it is.”

Something between a happy sob and a rueful laugh issued from the cell. “Y-yeah…no m-matter how many times it happens, you’re always there. The brave knight rushing to save the perennial damsel in distress.” She exhaled, then inhaled sharply. “I’m…I’m s-sorry this k-keeps happening. That I always bumble into stuff like this, and you have t-to save me. Those creeps, the-the robbers, the cops, the Medicis, the…”

From the beginning, Nadia had harbored her doubts. What were the odds that she’d really run into her best friend in a place like this? But this didn’t just sound like Minette; those were her memories, too. Their memories. Nadia allowed herself to open up, genuine concern expressed through her voice. “Hey, hey, look, don’t do that to yourself,” she cooed. “Some guys have all the luck, right? Me, I’m just glad you’re okay. And always, always happy to help! I don’t mind one bit if you need me, ‘cause I need you, too. In fact, I need you outta here. So just hold on a little bit longer, ‘kay?”

Minette’s voice turned panicked. “W-wait, don’t leave me!”

“I just gotta go find the keys, right? My friends’re all lookin’ too. It’ll be a ‘lock’ in the park, you’ll see, so just give us a ‘Minette’, eh?”

Despite her current predicament, the fishgirl couldn’t help but laugh. “H-heheheh, ohh, Nadia. How can you crack jokes at a time like this?”

“Crackin’ yolks is just how I roe, baby,” Nadia grinned, relieved that her comic relief was actually working as intended for once. After a moment, though, her smile faded. “Uh…just one last thing, Minette. Somethin’s been buggin’ me…”

“What is it?”

The feral took a deep breath. “How do I know…you’re real?”

Her question seemed to take Minette aback. “R-r-real? Wh-what do you mean? I…of course I’m real, you know I am. I’m M-minette, and I lived in Little Innsmouth all my life. The R-River King is my dad, I’ve got a b-bunch of sisters, and I work at Yu-Wan’s r-restaurant. And you’re my best friend, Nadia. My hero.”

Nadia looked down at the cold stone brick floor, speechless. She swallowed, her throat dry. Her stomach felt hollow, and her heart ached. She kept on smiling, but for a brief moment, the corners of her mouth twitched. Sensing her distress, Chucho whined. Nadia knew that should make her happy. Why then did she feel such dread?

“R-right,” she replied after a moment, petting her dog for stress relief. “Sorry I asked. This place–it’s got me a little, ehe, y’know, loopy.” She pressed her hand against the cell door, just hard enough to make an audible noise. “Just hang in there, like I said. I’ll be back be-fur ya know it. I purr-omise.”

The voice on the other side took a deep, steadying breath. “...Okay. Please hurry back!”

Nadia waited a second more. Two seconds. Three. Ten. Then she stood, and resumed her search.

---

At the bottom of the huge, dark shaft opened by the heart that Ganondorf sent crashing down from its tower lay a fetid mire that stank of death, its sludgy waters full of fleshy mounds far too big to have come from an ordinary animal, crusted over with fungus and festering with maggots. There, in a pit of its own juices, the heart came to rest, wriggling in vain until its spasms became palpitations and finally ceased altogether. Even after it ceased, however, its loathsome flesh continued to move, until finally a host of grotesque man centipedes tore their way loose and began to spread around the bog.

By that time, though, Ganondorf and Jesse had no doubt navigated the crude, rotting wooden walkways just above the mire and found a sturdy door. Once forced open, they stepped out onto the third layer of Mercy Dreams, roughly opposite the side where Nadia had meddled with a mind flayer minutes before. This was an unorthodox place to enter the underground prison, but then again, he’d blazed an unorthodox trail. When the warlord used his linkpearl, the feral -being a little on edge- was the first to respond.

“Shhhh,” she shushed him gently. “We’re scattered around the prison. Lookin’ for the boss. There’s somethin’ weird about this place. Keep a low profile, will ya Big G? Good hearin’ from ya again, by the way. Thought we mighta parted ways for good back there.” Did she really like Ganondorf? Not really. Was he good to have around? Definitely. With the warlord (and allegedly, Jesse) in Mercy Dreams with her, Nadia felt a little less lonely. Plus, with a Toady on its way to deliver a requested key, things might get livelier very soon.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

After felling a living, breathing man like a tree, it took Lewa a moment to snap back to reality, such that it was. When he did, he found not just a handful, but a whole platoon of other soldiers gathering together not far away, seconds away from the point where their numbers would bolster their confidence enough to push them forward. Lewa’s slackened grip tightened around the shaft of his axe, and he brandished it with both hands. He didn’t want to take any more lives, especially after the cavalier demonstrated how easy it could be if everything went wrong in just the right way. And if he could do that, what about the others already demonstrating much greater strength, elemental power, and callous indifference to bloodshed? They should run, Lewa thought. Even in numbers, surely they realized that a couple would fall when they attacked. Did they not value their own lives? He narrowed his eyes and steeled himself for the assault.

Instead, a voice cut the tension, and Lewa zeroed in on the source. When the stranger appeared, he sported a distinctive shock of yellow fibers on his head. Lewa wondered if that stuff might be somehow analogous to the masks of his world’s people in that those unique styles gave each individual a visual identity, just with the top and back of the head rather than the front. More relevant was this newcomer’s polearm, though, which seemed to possess some sort of power of its own judging by its glow. A toa tool? Trying not to become too distracted by all this dazzling newness, Lewa focused on what the stranger was saying, but even then he ended up confused. “Golem?” He murmured, watching as this person seemed to take charge of the surrounding Raven Heralds. In so doing he exhibited a rather casually callous manner, which naturally rubbed Lewa the wrong way. “How is it that I feel more for this poor soul’s passing than his own ally?”

The stranger wasn’t paying attention, instead barking orders at his troops. Maybe he took inaction on Lewa’s part for granted. If he intended to oppose the toa, Lewa would be much better off taking the initiative. On a more normal day, he probably would have. Move now, think-question later, might as well be his motto. Today though, he was so far out of his element that he couldn’t bring himself to be impulsive. When the stranger did address Lewa again, his consternation only grew.

“I am no ‘golem’,” he told the blonde man indignantly. “I am Lewa, Toa of Air. If I have a maker, I forgot him during my long journey through the sea-waves. I am far from home, but for the sake of all I hold close-dear, I cannot falter!”

His enemy began the fight soon after, flaunting a power that Lewa didn’t recognize. With no idea what might be happening, he couldn’t react in time to evade the shockwave, and used his arm as a shield to take the blow. “Hnngh!” he grunted, pain shooting through his nervous system. If this foe could unleash energy like that at long range, he knew he should get up close. As he tensed up, he activated his Kanohi Miru. His mask began to glow, green as the verdant jungle, and when Lewa leaped into the air he soared like a bird. After a moment, though, his mask of levitation petered out, and he began to descend. Holding his axe with one hand, he compressed air into the palm of the other while airborne, and when he came down on his foe’s position he did so with an explosive release of air to blow open his guard or knock him down.

World of Light

That application seems good!

Caravan: An Episodic Fantasy with Worldbuilding! [Always Accepting]

Gruyere Emmentaler Caerphilly Yarg

From his vantage point atop his caravan, Gru watched the people of the Pilgrims’ Caravan go about their business. He didn’t bother to compose any actual critiques of their activities, but he made sure to adopt an appropriately unamused, scrutinizing look as he sat there that seemed to say ‘well, get to it then’ to everyone who passed him. Together, his posture and expression made it abundantly clear that he had no plans to help resolve this dilemma, whatever its cause might be, and that this profound waste of time had him feeling very put-upon. It went without saying that everyone in the whole convoy would be better off getting out of this execrable Emerald Forest as soon as possible; he simply intended to showcase the misery of this situation firsthand, and spur everyone on all the faster.

Of course, the others didn’t need that much encouragement to begin with. Everyone could feel the sickness festering within the Caravan, the steady depletion of supplies, and the worsening communal mood as they walked up and down the chain of beasts and wagons, doing what little they could to get the ball rolling again. He spotted a familiar painted pelt hustling toward the head of the Caravan. As swift as Malleck was, he didn’t hesitate to wave to Gru as he passed, bound perhaps for the Navigator to look into the situation going forward. Gru gave a stiff nod back. Any well-to-do gentleman could appreciate the arts, so while he’d initially disdained Malleck as a freeloader, he’d eventually come around and acknowledged the beastman as a skilled minstrel. Still, having the appearance of an animal didn’t mean he had one’s essence, and Gru had extended Malleck neither his friendship nor patronage. Given current events, it would be a miracle indeed if the painted dog managed to bring him cheer. Not long after, Gru beheld a rarer sight: an individual quintessential to the Caravan, trusted and needed by all sooner or later. He’d never memorized the smith’s name (‘Master Dwarf’ worked well enough when soliciting business) but he’d worked with Gadri whenever his wagon or cheese-making equipment needed metallurgical upkeep. For that reason, Gadri was one of the few who’d ever been inside the Chuck Wagon, making their testimony important if someone started indulging baseless suspicions. For the smith to leave their mobile forge behind to try and expedite this delay, things must be even worse than Gru thought.

Only after another passer-by showed up did Gru have occasion to speak, though. When the genial, gray-haired eccentric greeted him, the cheesemonger turned his way with a thin smile. Manners seemed hard to come by these days, and common courtesy was anything but, so it pleased him to answer politeness in kind when it came from a valued customer. “And a very good day to you, Mr. Dreamwalker.” Whether giving or receiving, names were important. When conducting business, Gru always opted for the professionalism of using a last name, or cheekily substituting a title for one if applicable. As such, most knew him as ‘Mr. Yarg’, or even less cordially, just ‘Yarg’. Since he always joked that only friends would call him ‘Gry’, few addressed him on a first-name basis. Knossos was among the few. “Here to make a purchase, perhaps? I find nothing takes the edge off of a miserable day like this quite like sinking your teeth into a rich, tender, full-flavored wedge of cheese.”

The occultist did have a request, albeit of a more uncommon kind. At the mention of Ilgirian Red, Gru perked up slightly, stroking his whiskers as he cracked an intrigued smile that showed just the faintest hint of his crooked teeth. “An infusion, hmm? Well, you’ve come to the right place Mr. Dreamwalker. For a cheesemaker of my caliber, it’s certainly possible…” His eyes narrowed slightly as he pursed his lips, a hint of his general annoyance allowed to seep through in a way that invited sympathy. Taking a rat from his collar, he began to stroke its back and scratch its sides, making it giggle. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid there’s a little…snag. For the chemical processes to proceed as they must, the wine infusion must occur in the curd stage, before the cheese is brined, introduced to mold, and aged. I’m sure I need not spell it out for someone as keen as yourself, but with no fresh milk for over a week now, my entire cheesemaking enterprise has tragically stopped dead.”

Gru shook his head mournfully. “Most regrettable, I think you’ll agree.” He then put on his most determined face, his index finger raised. “Rest assured, however, that once I obtain fresh ingredients, I will be able to do all you’ve asked and more. And since you’re supplying the wine, why, I’ll even infuse it at no additional cost. A custom ‘Ubriaco Ilgirio’, how does that sound?” Gru tempted his fingers, peering at Knossos. “If you like, I can take the bottle off your hands so that it’s on hand the moment I’m able to begin. Rest assured it will be safe and secure in my rack–and that I’d never dream of appropriating any for myself, of course.”

In a couple parts of the Caravan, pilgrims were gearing up to leave the safety of the stopped convoy and brave the Emerald Forest itself. Like mice jumping headfirst into the lion’s maw. Gru tried not to let them distract him. Even if the fools didn’t end up like those unfortunate loggers, forging into these uncanny woods was just asking for trouble.

World of Light

At last, the Under team has reached Mercy Dreams, the Prison of Hope. A place of despair where bodies are captive and minds are captivated. Nocturne isn't the only character held prisoner here, either. As your characters explore Mercy Dreams, three kinds of special events can happen on top of normal encounters.

First, your characters may begin to see and hear someone close to them. In addition to that someone's voice, which can be traced to a specific cell somewhere in Mercy Dreams, your character might see a fleeting, ghostly vision of that person in the prison's halls. These familiar faces can communicate with anyone fully and possess all their original memories (as is normal for a Gleamer), faculties, etc, although they can't offer any more details about what they're doing here other than that they awoke here or were imprisoned here. They may ask to be freed, maybe telling your characters to find the keys or the warden. Notably, the bronze locks on each of these cells is oxidized and nonfunctional, meaning you'd need to get the silver keys to open them.

Second, you can collect pages as they fly around like origami fairies or butterflies. Each one describes a random creature, not necessarily from this area, including description, a picture, statistics, and applicable lore.

Third, in the Prison Office directly opposite the 'entrance' on the first layer of Mercy Dreams, there's a ring of twelve oxidized bronze keys, corroded and laden with greenish patinas. You can have your character take a key (or maybe two) and open a standard cell door of your choice, at which point the key breaks. Who's inside the cell? Well, that's up to you, with a couple rules...

• The prisoner cannot be from the same game series as any player character in the area
• The prisoner has at least a couple things in common with your character
• The prisoner is in a dreamlike trance and will fly into a desperate rage when his or her cell door is opened
• The prisoner has seemingly been driven mad by being awakened. If still able to speak, there could be ranting about everything and everyone being 'fake', or about nothing mattering, or about dreams. He or she won't act coherently or answer questions, but is very likely to attack

I would ask everyone bringing in a character to message me their choice/s for approval. If you want me to give you character/s as a sort of grab bag, you can do that too. Oh, and also, there's a larger cell near the Prison Office. That's where the Seer is, behind a door with no bronze lock, beneath which trace amount of soft orange-pink light seem to leak. If you want to converse with her, I'm happy to help. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Have fun with Mercy Dreams!

World of Light

Quarantine Valley - Empty Lot

Level 6 Goldlewis (89/60) Level 4 Sandalphon (54/40)
Karin’s @Zoey Boey, Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s @Archmage MC, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man
Word Count: 1227

If there was one upside to fighting this massive monstrosity, it was that it made for an easy target. Goldlewis had no trouble perforating the Homunculus with a full barrage from his Skyfish minigun. If only it did more damage; even with a very helpful Tarukaja from Zenkichi, its stopping power was remarkably low for such a massive weapon, and even at Security Level Three it could only shoot for a couple seconds. After that, it was up to Sandalphon to lay down the law from a distance while Goldlewis got up close and personal.

Coffin at the ready, he joined the charge to fight the huge brute toe-to-toe. Geralt, Roland, Zenkichi, and Vigil -whose revolvers weren’t accurate enough to fight from long range- were the frontrunners, while he, Susie, and Penance brought up the rear. She slowed down in order to try and divert the monster’s attention toward herself. With the defensive abilities she showcased earlier, backed up by the lion’s share of Blazermate’s medigun support, Goldlewis had no doubt that the Judge would be able to weather the monster’s wrath, so left her to it. Contrary to appearances, he was no tank, but an all-out bruiser, and he showed the Homunculus as much when he finally reached it with an unstoppable Wild Assault that landed just after it busted through the house Roland somehow dropped on it. Against an adversary like this that obviously couldn’t combo, Goldlewis judged this to be the best way to spend his Burst, and it worked wonders. When it tried to crush him in its jaws, the Homunculus instead reeled back, several teeth knocked out and its eyes lolling as the Wild Charge brought its lunge to an abrupt stop.

Of course, that lasted for only a moment, but that was long enough for Geralt to cut loose. Goldlewis already knew to stand clear of his overtly aggressive ally, but once appropriately forewarned, he made sure to give Geralt an extra wide berth. Empowered by Blazermate’s kritz and eldritch lightning, the Witcher carved into the Homunculus in an almost frightening display of savage strength to take out a big chunk of its life right off the bat. Though the monster managed to wrest control back from Geralt before the kritz ran out, the damage was done, and everyone surged forward to keep the pain train rolling.

With its massive size and strength, the Homunculus set the pace for the battle, but its pace was slow enough to be manageable. Its enormous sweeps, slams, bites, and crushing blows were telegraphed just enough to offset their huge range, but the Seekers didn’t have the time to fight a war of attrition. Rather than play this methodically, Goldlewis placed his trust in his allies and waged total war against the Homunculus. He went whole hog on the monster’s legs with his coffin, landing Behemoth Typhoons one after another. His target moved a lot, only too happy to throw its massive weight around, but Goldlewis ran to keep up. “Come get some! …Hrrraagh! ..Try this on! …Crumble! ”When his Security Level refilled completely he’d pause just long enough to throw out a Thunderbird grenade to do some explosive headhunting, then return to the brute’s trunk-like legs, chipping away at them like an autumn beaver. Getting this close meant facing the Homunculus’ massive attacks, of course, and he managed to halt his onslaught so he could block them about half the time. Goldlewis, made of sterner stuff and backed by Sandalphon’s periodic Angelic Praise, did not relent, even when faced with the withering might of the monster’s purple laser. He spent a little tension in order to block it with Faultless Defense, then the rest on Down with the System. “Shut the hell up…” he yelled over the roaring noise. “AND SIT THE HELL DOWN!”

His mighty coffin uppercut struck the Homunculus from below, hard enough that its whole body thrashed, causing its beam to veer upward in its last couple of seconds and rake across the lot’s surrounding buildings rather than the veteran’s allies. Sandalphon shrank down into cover as the beam blazed overhead, then calmly got back up, took aim, and loosed an ether bolt that burst one of the monster’s eyes. Everyone’s efforts were adding up, and the Homunculus didn’t have a lot left in the tank. Penance and Vigil had been pulling their weight, shrugging off deadly blows and plugging it full of bullet holes respectively, but in the end the limelight went to Karin. When the monster began an unstoppable rampage, charging across the whole area with reckless abandon, her initiative (plus a little stalwart help) put a stop to its brutally simple gambit and dumped it on its back for a tremendous finishing blow.

With the Homunculus dead, the high-power fight had come to its climactic conclusion. Goldlewis watched the enormous, otherworldly body begin to turn to ash, his breathing heavy from the effort he’d put into that final maneuver. His gaze turned toward Sandalphon as she descended from her perch, gliding with the help of her radiant golden halo. As she landed, his communication glyph flared up, and a familiar voice offered a nonchalant greeting. “Someone call for a ride?”

An increasingly loud whirring brought both their attention to the cargobob helicopter just now descending in front of the opening between the empty lot and Quarantine Valley. As it flew carefully through the gap, its side doors swung open, revealing a certain gorgeous secret agent and her emerald green wolf spirit. Goldlewis breathed a sigh of relief. “There y’are. What in tarnation took y’all so damn long?”

Giovanna shook her head, nonplussed. Suppressed by the noise of the rotors, her voice only came through his glyph. “Just get in here, will ya?”

Everyone made a break for the helicopter, pushing through the wind given off by its rotors. For some of them, it was a blast for the past, just like the day almost half a week ago after they’d escaped the Cluster Trucks. How things had changed since then; Benedict had come and gone, Raiden made his final stand, Peach and Poppi as the Seekers knew them had ceased to be, and Tora became bereft of hope. Now they were advancing to a still more uncertain future, but at least they weren’t alone. Though Penance and Vigil hesitated, Goldlewis waved them over after climbing inside and turned to help them up. The Judge gave him a nod of appreciation, and as the cargobob’s doors closed, she turned toward the new arrival. “Giovanna,” she said somewhat stiffly. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Hey, Vinnie,” the secret agent replied with a smile, glancing at Goldlewis. “New boss, meet old boss. Old boss, meet new.”

The veteran ran his hand through his hair, then offered his hand to shake. “Huh. Didn’t realize we had a mutual friend.”

Penance accepted it, giving him a rare, slight smile. “Thank you for looking after her. Since she left, well…General Affairs, it hasn’t been quite the same.” Vigil just rolled his eyes.

“Where to?” Duke, the pilot, shouted from the cockpit as the helicopter rose and turned back toward Quarantine Valley.

“Neuron HQ.” Tonight had been hell already, but there was one final event that Goldlewis knew the Seekers couldn’t miss. “And step on it.”

---

Sector 04, Veles. A heavy-metal cyberpunk dystopia of towering black buildings, and none more so than the Aegis Research Institute in its center, Midgar’s greatest pioneer of scientific marvel. While even that didn’t reach the altitude of the Vandelay Tower in Sector 06, let alone the monumental Shinra Building, this sector’s cityscape gave it the highest average altitude in all of Midgar. Even to the Seekers flying high above it via the Special Operation Unit’s signature helicopter, it was overwhelming, not due to visual clutter like its smaller neighbor Suoh or its more jam-packed undercity Night City below, but due to its sheer scale. Goldlewis and the others weren’t here for the Aegis Research Institute -not yet anyway- but for the headquarters of the Neuron Task Force, the police division of Peace Preservation specialized in Astral Plane countermeasures. As they approached, they could see that Jena had been true to her word–Neuron was under attack. All around the building, its officers -as well as local security groups- were under attack by an army of masked vigilantes armed to the teeth with tools of destruction. “Reunion,” Sandalphon observed. “And if they’re here, Anderson must be as well.”

Up on the building’s helipad, a situation was unfolding. Two Neuron officers, the brother and sister duo Hayato and Akira Howard in armored uniforms of Neuron blue and Raven black, had just broken from the elevators to run across the open area with a third armored figure in tow. His outfit featured cherry-red plates over a gray undersuit, an intricate helmet, and a black cape that fluttered in the wind behind him as he ran. After a moment, he slowed to a stop behind the siblings, seemingly out of breath, only to turn and see Jena Anderson walking toward him, flanked by Mephisto and Faust.

Behind his mask, the Consul’s eyes narrowed. “...Jena.”

Her face hard and bitter, she took a few more steps forward before stopping. “It’s been a while, Y. Or can I drop pretenses, and simply call you Yoseph?”

The Consul ignored her. “Jena, why are you doing this?”

“Why?” Jena looked affronted. “You know why.” She began to pace, throwing her arms wide as if tearing something down. “To put an end to this misguided project of yours!”

Y shook his head and thrust his hand toward her in frustration, as if the true nature of things were patently obvious. “YOU’RE the one who’s misguided!”

“No…” Jena shook her head. “We can win. We have a future as we are!”

“Idiot!” Y cut her off, casting his arm aside. “Cling to your worthless husk, but let the rest of us evolve!”

Their voices rose in anger, and in unison. ”Only I can save humankind!”

Jena inhaled sharply. “It appears talking will get us nowhere.” She lifted up a vial of perfected Blue Evolve, a startling shade of purple. Without hesitation she knocked it back, drinking everything. The contortions began before she even finished, and the vial fell from her grasp as she doubled over, purple veins spreading across her skin. Her irises turned from blue to glowing violet, and her sclera ink-black. “RrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAGH!” With a final effort she thrust her arm upward, constructing a lance of chimeric flesh around it. Then Jena lowered it, all three Reunion members ready to fight. Y moved back in silence as Hayato and Akira stepped forward, their batons drawn.

It was at that moment that the cargobob swooped in, its bay doors open. Goldlewis jumped, fell a couple dozen feet, and slammed down on the surface of the helipad. Giovanna, Penance, and Vigil landed to either side of him, and a moment later, Sandalphon gracefully drifted down via her halo to alight amongst the group.

Jena gritted her teeth, glaring at the newcomers. “...You again!?”

“Well, well.” Y crossed his arms, unimpressed. “If it isn’t the Seekers of Light. I had a feeling we’d run into one another sooner or later. Quite the dramatic entrance, and with remarkable timing, too.”

Penance stepped forward. “Consul! On behalf of Midgar’s citizens, once this terrorist is dealt with, we need to talk.”

Y shook his head. “On the contrary, what you need is to fight.” He snapped his fingers. Suddenly, the eyes of Penance and Vigil, as well as Hayato and Akira, gleamed a vivid ruby red. “So fight. Protect me or die trying.”

“Wha-!?” Goldlewis lifted his coffin to block as Vigil turned, unloading his revolvers on his former allies. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me!” At the same time, Giovanna fell prey to a leg sweep from Penance’s flail. As she went to bring the hammer down on her fallen friend, Sandalphon interposed her gunstaff in the way, causing the flail to wrap around its length. Penance promptly yanked it back, and the archangel’s weapon flew from her hands as she stumbled forward.

Wasting no time, Jena went straight for her nemesis. “Yoseph!” she screamed, charging forward as Mephisto and Faust covered her with shots from their crossbow and luger pistol respectively. The Howard twins moved to stop her. The night’s final battle had begun.

The Under - Rival Incursion

Level 12 Nadia (129/120)
The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Primrose and Therion’s @Yankee, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Artorias’ @Dark Cloud, Nocturne’s @Grimnir, Tingyun, Stetson the Scout, Paintbrush the Gunner, Overhard the Engineer, Cyclops the Scout
Word Count: 4250

Just when it really looked like the Seekers and their new compatriots had the Caretaker’s number, it brought out its biggest and nastiest batch of reinforcements yet, and the manageable battle went to hell in a handbasket. Once the Dirtscrews churned through the earth like giant drills to create entrance tunnels, the packs of Choppers charged in to start cutting, the Smallfries marched in to wreak havoc, and the bullet-spraying Hot Rods put the Rival Tech turrets to shame. Nadia scrambled along with everyone else to respond to the overwhelming new threat. While individually these new robots might not pose much danger, they were everywhere, and the risk of getting physically bodyblocked or locked in hitstun was a very real possibility. The chaos was such that when another uninvited guest showed up, smashing through a solid wall of dirt as if it were styrofoam, Nadia only glanced the newcomer’s way expecting yet another Dirtscrew making an entry. Instead she beheld a strange metal machine, vaguely similar to the automobiles of her world and the more modern cars throughout this one, but far more futuristic than anything she’d ever seen before. Still, even if it rang no bells for her, the visage of a white rabbit instilled her with a deep sense of dread.

And sure enough, she was right.

As soon as Kanna showed her face, or rather her drawn-on pot, Nadia’s blood ran cold. “Waitwaitwait,” she pleaded, so distracted by the prospect of another nightmarish assortment of random reality warps that she barely noticed the Chopper jumping for her in time. She brought her hands together and caught the little fiend with its chainsaw blade just inches from her horrified face. “Dammit, not now, I gotta-!” More ravenous Choppers were skittering her way, backed by a hulking Smallfry. One pounced, and she reflexively fell onto her back, where she brought her knees up to her chest, let go of the one she’d grabbed, then hyperextended her legs in bursts of blood to kick both high into the air. Planting her hands against the wood beneath her, she then hyperextended her wrists to launch the rest of her up after them. Once her hands snapped back into place, she grabbed both Choppers by the legs and hurled them down into the rest of the pack. They smashed messily through their kin, spraying the Smallfry with scrapped parts. As it put up one arm to block, Nadia blasted out high-pressure blood to hurtle toward the robot and shear through its metal with an X-scrape Claws shining silver with the power of New Moon. Her eyes met the Smallfry’s as the pieces of its arm fell, and the next moment she shot off her head on a spring of coiled muscle fiber.

The mighty headbutt knocked the robot over, and after Nadia caught it, she turned it toward Kanna to realize that the senseless girl had already grown a new Wonder Flower. “Waitwaitwait!” she yowled in protest, waving her panicked hands as she ran toward Kanna only to get caught in a shower of bullets from a Hot Rod. “Argh!” she groaned, her teeth gritted as she tried to block the stinging barrage while groping blindly for her Bait Launcher. After her fingers finally closed around the weapon, she yanked it out and fired off a steak at the offending Hot Rod, which she trusted would soon be sorted out. Without giving her a second to rest, another Chopper leaped at her, so Nadia got the hell out of doge with a spinning backdash, the claws of her free hand anchored in the wooden ground. As she slid to a stop, however, her ears perked up and her pupils shrunk. Something was standing right behind her.

Nadia whipped around, one arm poised for a bloody jet punch, only for the Smallfry she’d partially disarmed earlier to catch her with a massive haymaker right to the stomach. The feral’s eyes went wide as saucers, and spittle flew from her open mouth. “PUAH!” Her torso flew backward before the rest of her, connective tissue stretching out as her body -not to mention her Bait Launcher- flew away, though her limbs and head snapped toward it after another split second. Her various parts struck the petrified wood of the cave wall and bounced off it in quick succession, slowly sliding back into place like a pullstrings on a toy. Whimpering, her Polterpup flew after her and started to lick her face. “Uuuuugh,” she groaned, seeing stars instead of the robots closing in on where she’d fallen. It was in that state that Kanna’s lucky Wonder Effect washed over her. A bouquet of flowers appeared above her resting place and fell onto her body, absorbed in an instant and converted into power.

Nadia’s eyes popped open as a sudden flood of energy coursed through her veins. She looked up to see the Smallfry raising its arm to bring down like a hammer. The deathblow descended, but Nadia’s head flew off on a jet of blood that rocketed past the robot and into the air. The Choppers that crowded in to hack the feral to pieces found themselves beaten to the punch as her pieces flew off on their own. In an instant the area filled with rogue body parts, each a missile propelled by a jet of blood and spinning like a drill bit. “Remember, remember!” They crashed and cut into the robots repeatedly, clumping them together until every portion of Ms. Fortune slammed together in a bloody explosion. “The Fifth of Dismember!”

As the blood subsided, carrying with it the sparking, mutilated remains of the machines, Nadia rose from the carnage in one piece. Something was amiss, though. She stared at her wrist as it, like all her scars, poured out blood without any sign of stopping. And yet she felt no trace of depletion or lightheadedness. Was this Kanna’s doing, too? Well, there wasn’t time for introspection, because there were plenty of robots left, not to mention the Caretaker itself. “Not sure if this is a-positive or a-negative…” She sharpened her claws and got into stance, Chucho wagging his tail as he floated beside her. “But I’m full-blooded and red-dy to rumble!”

Like the others, she went on total offense against the machines. Whether because of Kanna’s literal flower power flooding through her or some sort of catastrophic fault with the robots, Nadia found herself tearing through the enemies like tissue paper. She’d quickly found that while they weren’t weaker across the board, their heads -or equivalent processing centers- took way more damage than usual, practically popping like balloons. For a dextrous fighter who targeted such weak points anyway, the Rival threat quickly turned from unstoppable horde to cannon fodder. The others seemed to be every bit as super-charged, and the cavern filled with a magical lightshow as the Seekers unleashed a deluge of thunder, pitch-black flame, ice, and darkness. For the Koopa Troop and the dwarves, the whole place had become a shooting gallery. Cyclops bathed robots in flame, Paintbrush wiped them away in a deluge of micro-missiles, and Stetson busted heads with precision bursts of gunfire from his Deepcore GK2. “Whoa-ho! Whatever she did, it actually worked!” he yelled in a mixture of glee and disbelief. “My gun–it’s totally loaded!” The prospect of endless ammunition seemed to have activated something primal in the dwarves; all were roaring in satisfaction as their weapons sowed streams of destruction through the metal horde.

Nadia had been contenting herself with hand-to-hand combat and wanton abuse of her Blockbusters, leaving a wide trail of her own blood in her wake as she ran around collecting flowers and pulverizing robots, but when she realized what Stetson meant she got in on the fun. After spotting her Bait Launcher amidst the chaos she made a break for it, Chucho hot on her heels, and sure enough, when she held down the trigger it began to divulge an endless amount of tiger-summoning steaks. FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON-FOON! Her burly beasts appeared among the machines in droves, tearing them up like tinfoil. “Nyahahahaha!” Nadia laughed, almost euphoric, and her Polterpup barked along with her. “This is AMAZING!”

Everyone’s abuse of their unlimited resources meant it was curtains for the Caretaker’s reinforcements. Even Kanna got in on the action this time. She drove donuts through the bots, shot down Hot Rods with Eir’s main cannon, or jumped her Metal Attacker into the air to come down on opponents with a huge drill extended from its undercarriage, all while cheering everyone on incoherently. Thanks to Therion’s tactic, the machines couldn’t even fight back. Before long all that remained was the big bad itself. Sectonia’s magic slowed the Caretaker’s spin, however, and a few seconds later the explosion of a C-Foam grenade brought the inverted pyramid to a complete stop. Everyone joined the effort to focus down the vents one final time, and Nadia had a brainwave on how she could pitch in. “Aha, just you wait ‘til I get my ship together!” Running for where she’d laid her jacket, she scooped it up and put it on. At that point, the blood she’d inundated the floor with let her activate her rigging, and like clockwork its mechanical arms unfolded to bring her cannons to bear. “There we go! How’s this for in-vent-ive?” From her cannons she fired off homing hydro-missiles to join in the Seekers’ fusillade, and when the vents were done for, the Caretaker’s eye was next. Nadia kept skating and kept firing until the deed was done.

When the final blow was struck, the Caretaker pulsed violently, sparks flying as it lost power. It fell and hit the top of the Data Vault hard, then pitched onto one side with a massive KOMMM. After a brief moment, its four eyes open and lolling cartoonishly, it began to suck in energy. It released a resounding death scream like the shrieking bugle of an elk, then shook the entire cavern with the explosion. Kanna fed Yacopu a Wonder Seed so he could dispel the Wonder Effect, and as what passed for ‘normal’ in this reality reasserted itself, the torrent of blood from Nadia’s scars subsided. “Man,” she groaned, looking over her clothes. “Everything’s soaked through. And blood never comes out…” Her ears perked up and she fell quiet, though, as she heard the deep clicks of some massive mechanism. As everyone watched, the Data Vault unlocked, swinging upward like the door of a safe. Beneath it, concentric circles arose like a ziggurat, until finally the center section extended to reveal a glowing, humming Data Rack, cases of rare minerals, capsules containing specimens, and a one-third mask fragment.

“Alright, let’s grab the damn thing and blow this hellhole,” Cyclops groused. None of the dwarves seemed too enthused about the victory; to them this was just another day at the office, and Nadia got the impression that this wasn’t the first Caretaker they’d beaten, anyhow.

Stetson grappled up and grabbed the big, techy-looking cylinder, which he brought to the four-legged robot that had been waiting in the wings. “‘Ere, Molly.” Nadia’s team took the mask fragment, and split the minerals fifty-fifty between dwarves and Seekers, with the specimens free to whoever might want them. Once Stetson loaded the Data Rack onto the Mule, he held his hand over the big red button and turned to look at the others. “Roight then, once I press this button, it’s go time. Wherever the drop pod lands, we’ve got five minutes to make it there, ‘cause it’s leavin’ with or without us. Molly ‘ere’s gonna lead us at least, but it’ll be nonstop bugs the whole time, so keep your wits aboutcha.”

“More bugs?” Still breathing heavy from the battle, Nadia sighed in resignation. “Man, you guys just can’t catch a break.”

“You’re bloody well right,” the dwarf grumbled, trying not to let it set in.

Kanna, meanwhile, seemed just as cheerful as ever. “Ooh, I’ll totally go with you! One good turn, like, deserves another, right?”

For a moment Nadia’s gaze lingered on the unexpected helper. Then she adopted a rueful smile. “Uh, yeah, well...thanks, by the way. You really helped back there. Made the whole thing a piece of cake.”

“Well, doy!” Grinning, Kanna gave the feral a wink. “Like, I totally know what I’m doing and stuff~”

At that, Nadia’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, but she managed to stay positive. Having recovered enough at this point to continue, Tingyun spoke up next, turning to Therion with a sly smile. “While we’re at it…” She leaned toward the thief, spreading her fan to cover her face as she planted a little kiss on his cheek. “You saved my life. Thank you.” Then she stepped back and turned toward the others. “Is everyone ready? Not to rain on my most gracious benefactors’ parade, but the sooner we’re out of these bug-infested caves, the better, hm?” Nobody could disagree with that, and when everyone was ready, Stetson pressed the button to begin the countdown.

A few tense moments passed before the Mule suddenly stood up, turned, and hustled off in the direction of a tunnel nobody had used yet. That tunnel also happened to be a good fifty feet up on one of the cavern’s walls. Molly climbed it like a spider, leaving both a trail of green warning lights behind her, and everyone else to find their own way up. “Aw, hell,” Stetson griped. “Paintbrush, zipline. Stat!” Nodding, the gunner ran back far enough to get an angle that wasn’t too steep. Once he set it up he, Overhard, and Cyclops all jumped on the slow-moving ride upward, with Tingyun joining them. Given the strict time limit, the Foxian seemed fretful, but she had no other choice. Stetson opted for the direct approach. “From A to D, skippin’ B an’ C!” He zipped right up with his grapple hook, and Nadia followed suit with Chucho right behind, digging her claws into the petrified wood to haul herself upward. With a Charge and a few spurts of blood, she managed to reach Molly and climb onto her to ride the rest of the way.

Kanna drove her Metal Attacker toward the wall and started jumping. While Eir could get some serious elevation, it wasn’t enough. “It’s, like, waaaay too high!”

“Here, try this!” Bringing out his platform gun, Overhard created a handful of plascrete shelves on the wall. When Kanna tested them out, the impressive substance held, and by jumping Eir between the shelves she managed to ascend to the exit tunnel.

Said tunnel turned out to be quite the gauntlet. It twisted and turned in a series of grottoes and chambers with plenty of thorny scarlet vines, bulbous plants bursting at the seams with sticky yellow goo, stray bots, and glyphids. With adrenaline fading and fatigue mounting, the Seekers could only fight through, following the trail blazed by allied Metal Attackers. At one point their mad dash awakened a towering, fleshy thing hailed by the dwarves as a Spitball Infector. Unfortunately, the Seekers were many, and they were in a hurry. They overran the spitballer, squelching its pustules into paste, and hastened down the final stretch. There they finally saw the fabled drop pod, a large, roughly octagonal pillar of corroded orange metal with bladed teeth on the corners and a huge drill on the bottom. With its eyes lights out and entrance open, with ramp leading down to the ground, it looked almost like a big face. Kanna’s Metal Attacker pulled to a stop beside it, and she got out to wave the others over, as if Molly’s trail wasn’t enough. Beyond it, the tunnel opened up into a huge, utterly colorless cavern of thick, towering trees and soft gray mists. A wide, heavyset structure, like some sort of hotel, could be seen in the distance. Right now though, Nadia had eyes for the drop pod only, and she saw a problem with it.

“H-huh!? It’s tiny! We can’t all fit in there!” The pod’s interior could seat four dwarves comfortably, and maybe sixteen if they all really crammed, but no way could all of Nadia’s huge teammates squeeze in. At least Sectonia and Kamek could fly, plus Junior if he left Kuebiko behind, but the Metal Attacker’s UI made it clear that its Recoil Jump would let it leap off walls as much as needed to ascend the purely vertical shaft the drop pod carved on its way down. Bowser and Artorias might be able to crawl inside, but they’d hog all the space and be terribly uncomfortable too. The four dwarves, Tingyun, Primrose, Therion, Nadia, and Kamek (if he wanted) could fit in without too much issue, the taller among them needing to stoop and/or crouch. Once everyone who could got in, the drop pod shut its gates, sealed the entrance, and began to ascend.

“Bye bye everyoneeeeeeeeee~” Kanna sang, bouncing up and down on the ground as she waved to the others with both hands. “Come back and visit soon, flower!”

After the intense rumbling diminished a little and it was clear that the extra weight wouldn’t sink the ship, Stetson let out his breath. He took off his cowboy hat, revealing a shiny bald head underneath, and wiped his brow. “That’s one for the books.”

Results

Party: Bowser, Kamek, Junior, Rika, Sectonia, Primrose, Therion, Artorias, Nadia
Encounter Reward: +15 EXP

---

Mercy Dreams, the Prison of Hope

After about a minute, the drop pod began to shake again, much more violently this time. Loud clangs gave the impression of multiple hits taken from above. Tingyun hugged her tail tightly, her eyes fearful. “What’s going on?”

“Loose debris in the shaft,” Overhard guessed, pulling out his terrain scanner to see what was going on. “Looks like we’re passing right by some sort of big underground complex.”

Nadia tried to peer at his tablet over his shoulder. “Wait, doesn’t that sound like where we oughta be goin’? Hold up a sec, let us off!”

After a bit of back-and-forth, Overhard managed to bring the drop pod to a half in the middle of the shaft, suspended by the teeth it was using to climb and the downward rocket burning just enough to keep it up. The doors opened and the ramp flipped down, breaking through a stone brick wall into some kind of dungeon. Nadia and the others piled off, while Tingyun chose to stick with the dwarves. “The sooner I’m back in the space rig, the sooner I can find a starskiff and chart a course toward the Luofu!” she explained, ironically explaining very little. “Thank you for all your help, benefactors. I hope to see you again soon!” Since the drop pod couldn’t tarry long, it was on its way after another moment, bound with all its passengers toward the surface. That left the Seekers in a new, very important, and very ominous place.

The heroes had arrived in a sprawling prison complex of considerable age and size, dimly lit by assorted candelabras that stood along the walls or hung from the ceiling. Crumbling walls, pillars, and arches characterized the whole place as one of both antiquarian style and sorrowful neglect, yet one neither in ruin nor silence. Voices and whispers echoed through the place, some more distant than others, eerie but not exactly ghostly. Nadia’s ears turned this way and that, zeroing in on definite sources. Whether this place’s prisoners were ghosts or real people, it didn’t ultimately make a lot of difference. The Seekers’ mission was the same: find the Dreamcatcher, find the eighth mask piece, and move on.

Of course, getting through this place was going to be anything but simple. On the surface this dreadful prison harbored an oppressive, twisted atmosphere, into which who knew how many sufferers had been immersed and left to rot. Although Nadia couldn’t see any enemies outright, her instincts told her to keep her voice down, lest she be discovered by…something. Something about Mercy Dreams ignited the imagination in unpleasant ways. Was it something in the air? Or leaking from the corners or the seams between stones? This strange undercurrent made the feral think of water slowly trickling through caves, slowly eroding cracks in the thin walls of reality and inviting madness to fill in the gaps, or depositing unknown minerals bit by bit to create monstrous teeth and regal columns never before seen, much less made, by man. While not as bad as the eldritch train platform where Nadia encountered the Nowhere Monarch, this place still unnerved her, so rather than sprint off guns ablaze, she slunk over from the wall everyone busted through to a spiky wrought-iron railing that overlooked the central atrium of Mercy Dreams.

The complex featured five layers, with the fifth and final being the bottom floor. Roughly shaped like a massive letter I, the rest of the floors ringed the atrium, increasingly narrow the farther down they went, with standalone cell blocks to either side of the central space and a square hall around the edges. Layers could be accessed via staircases barred by metal bar gates, which designated pull-switches could operate. On the opposite side of this first layer stood some sort of office, possibly belonging to a warden. On every floor were prison cells, some open, some not. Every windowless door featured a slot to drop food in and two locks, a bronze one and a silver one, either of which could open the otherwise impregnable cells if they received the right key. All of the voices that permeated this place issued from behind those closed doors, intelligible but delirious. Only one prisoner in the whole place seemed to be trying to get free. At the same time, not all of the open cells were empty. Within one could sometimes find pale, misshapen things, wretches somewhere between man and dragon that lurked in the dark. Dead silent, passive, and almost -but not quite- still as statues.

Nadia could also catch glimpses of the prison’s jailers on patrol. On the fourth layer were bishops on floating cathedra, wielding long spears to thrust downward with from their high chairs, often attended by a couple masked, bleeding flagellants with lashes. On the third layer were mind flayers, robed, tentacled, and beaked. They could cast brilliant soul rays without limit, or if the situation called for it, fire off an electric snare to bind an escapee in place for a deadly grab attack. Deeper still on the fourth layer, illuminators. Anyone within the light of their lanterns would find their maximum health drained at a rate of 25% per second to a minimum of 15%, accompanied by the sound of their pumping hearts. While their max health would restore after twenty seconds, the health itself would not, and if a laughing illuminator managed to brand a target with her soldering iron, the curse it inflicted would prevent healing and increase equip load to hinder evasion. Finally, two abhorrent jailers walked the fifth layer, each massive abomination carrying a cylindrical cage as a weapon. Nadia couldn’t see what they were guarding down there, but it had to be something serious. “...Yeesh.”

That wasn’t all, though. Much to her amusement, she also spotted a number of what looked like paper butterflies quietly sitting or flitting around the prison, the soft rasp of their paper wings adding to the overall ambiance. One fluttered Nadia’s way, and despite her earlier trepidation, she crouched down and went after it, pursuing and pouncing at it repeatedly until she finally caught it between her palms. “Gotcha, haha!” When she opened her hands, the butterfly -or was it a fairy?- unfurled into a sheet of parchment. It depicted one of those strange masked illuminators, naming it as an ‘Irithyll Jailer’. “The jailers were among the few survivors inhabiting the Profaned Capital, later serving under Pontiff Sulyvahn,” she read aloud, bewildered. “Perhaps the screams emanating from the cells help them forget their old home.” The page also gave a number of statistics, including health, resistances (slash and impact), weaknesses (pierce and lightning), and even a selection of three ‘drops’. “Well, that’s useful,” she muttered, passing the page to whoever wanted to read it. “Not to mention really…weird.” Were these paper butterflies the enchanted notes of some sort of monster biologist? Whatever the case, it made her uneasy. “Guess I wouldn’t mind snatchin’ one of their outfits though. Those fancy masks have me feelin’ kinda jail-ous.” Her attempt to lighten the mood did not, unfortunately, get results.

“...Nadia?”

In the middle of the feral’s uneasy chuckle, she heard a voice that made her freeze. It was distant, and a little muffled, but she knew that voice anywhere. Not many people knew her as anything but Ms. Fortune, and it would probably be some of her teammates’ first time hearing her real name, but she didn’t care. Right now, she only wanted one thing. “Minette!?”

“Nadia, is that you!?”

“Minette!” Nadia hesitated, a little spooked. While she sometimes had her moments, she wasn’t stupid. What were the odds of running into her best friend here, of all places? “Where are you? What are you doing here?”

“I’m trapped!” the Dagonian called out from somewhere in the complex. “Please, help me!”

Nervous, Nadia went back over to the railing and looked around, trying to zero in on the voice. She kept her own quiet enough not to alert the jailers. “Hang on, I’ll try and find you!” Like the others she was tired and a little hungry -it had to be dinnertime by now, after all- but now especially, she couldn’t afford to take a break. The hunt was on.

World of Light

That sounds pretty good then. Nocture replacing the Jester as your starting character is approved and you can start working on an opening post. In tomorrow's update the Under team will be reaching Mercy Dreams, which as an underground prison is a great place to introduce a new character.

World of Light

That's an interesting alternative. I wouldn't measure the duration of any effect in the number of posts since the amount of time posts encapsulate can vary wildly. Establishing a set amount of in-universe time would be better. I assume that with 'Dead and Back' she can still be destroyed despite her increased resilience since we can't have an indestructible character.