Piercing Light

Knights of Evil (High Casual Fantasy Villain Group.)

Ester's plea for civility had for the most part been ignored, which she had honestly expected. At least no one could say she didn't try. There was one woman that responded positively, which surprised her a bit. Hopefully that positivity wouldn't come back to bite her in the behind. But that wasn't what was on her mind as she strolled through the castle. Ester was curious as to the contents of Lancelot's treasure trove. She cared not for the monetary value of his collection, but of whatever unique items may lay inside.

She eventually came to the entrance of the room and opened it without hesitation. Inside was a trove composed of a diverse selection of artifacts. She could likely spend hours in here examining all of the priceless objects. She set her eyes on a crystal ball the size of an apple in the corner, it appeared to reflect light into a prism of colors even though no light should have been shining directly at it. In fact the orb-

"Huh?" Ester blinked, finding herself staring at a blank space on the ground. "What was I... Doing?" It wasn't often she had bouts of confusion, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't remember what she was looking at. She shook her head and continued looking around the room. Her eyes laid upon an ornate pocket-watch. A beautiful crimson gem was embedded in the center, and the hands were made of pure gold. The hands were all stuck on twelve however, it seemed the watch was either broken or needed tuning. "This should be easy enough to... Easy enough to... What?" Again she found herself looking at nothing. This was twice now and she was starting to wonder if there was some sort of hex placed on this room.

She turned to leave and nearly tripped over something. She looked down at her feet and saw... something. She wasn't sure what she was looking at, which wasn't to say this was some object she could describe but had simply never seen before. She knew she was looking at something, her mind registered that something was there, but what was it? If she weren't undead she would have broken out in a cold sweat.
It's shape. It's size. It's weight. It's density. It's ____. She blinked, what was that last word? It entered her mind, but where did it come from? She didn't know.

Didn't know. Couldn't understand. Incomprehensible... Ineffable.

Something tore inside her mind both figuratively and literally. She stumbled to the ground, feeling something strange and highly unpleasant in her skull. Was this pain? Her body shouldn't be capable of feeling such a thing, but she could only describe the agony in her head as that.

Most people would have died from this, in fact even she would not survive her brain being obliterated. But her mind was still there, and was able to form it's self back together thanks to her natural healing. She pressed against the ground to stand up, and her left hand touched something. She looked at it, it was a book. It was in the same place as that strange object. Was this it's true form? She picked the book up and left the room. As she headed towards her room she looked the book over. It appeared to be an old book, with a dark leather cover and paper made from...

"Parchment? Vellum? No. This is Human skin." She let out an amused hum. It seemed she had come across something quite interesting.

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

Septim was right, they needed to hash out a plan. They were all in this together, regardless of how much they wanted to be. Even still, it seemed some of them had little interest in discussion. Mable looked up at the girl that had just introduced herself. She was curious as to what she meant by 'clone.' Cloning sapient beings was outlawed in the entire galaxy where she was from. For there to be a place where child soldiers were created was almost inconceivable. She sure didn't act like a child soldier though. "Sure, you can have some, just don't uh, burn all of it like that lizard over there." She turned towards Rafael. "Since you don't want to join us, how about you dismantle these things for us? We could use their plating for armor or something I bet." She said, then turning to Septim and Kaede.

"So, how long until most of the people here die of starvation? Not everyone here is the same biologically so it'll be hard to guess, but I'm assuming after a few days things will get rough. Hrmm~" Mable lowered her head in thought, thinking about the events in the cave. "Also is it just me, or does it seem like we've been put into some kinda game? Win and loss conditions, prizes, even an announcer."

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

As Mable was carrying the last of the deceased armadillos towards the box she heard the strange man that had been making even stranger noises speak up. "Plague?" She looked around, then back to him and blinked a few times. "The black plague? That was taken care of forever ago." She shoved the dead beast into the box, then looked back to Sieve. "Is that why you're dressed like that? Don't tell me you have spices stuffed in that beak too?" Mable let out a short chuckle before heading back towards the way they had come in, box in hand after the bleachers had been placed inside of it as well.

There stood what looked like a giant lizard man. She had seen him earlier now that she thought about it. The way he spoke made it seem as if he had only just now learned English. Now that she thought about it everyone here seemed to speak English, that was oddly convenient. "Have you been hiding? No need to be shy buddy!" Mable beamed at Jackal. "We're all in this together after all, try to help out next time." She said, walking past him.

The wall raised upwards once she approached it, thankfully they weren't locked inside anymore. As she made her way back to the outside she saw a young girl in the passage. She was one of the younger looking people she had seen so far. "Ah! Another adorable one has shown up." she said with excitement. "You just missed the action though, we're headed back outside now. I'm Mable by the way." She motioned for the girl to follow her and made her way back to the cave's entrance.

As expected she was met by a noisy crowd eager to hear good news. She sat the box down onto the ground and opened it up, then pulling out each of the dead armadillos. "Rejoice, your hunters have come back from the hunt with food!" She raised her hands triumphantly as the crowd reacted.

"What the hell is that?"

"Is that even edible?"

"That's not even enough for half of us."

"Yeah she's blue and all but I'd still hit it."

"How do we even cook that?"

"Oh stop being ungrateful!" Mable yelled. "And I swear I heard something way off topic!.. Oh well." Mable shrugged her shoulders and sat against the wall. Their first expedition had been fairly easy, but it wasn't even close enough to what they needed. Now that she thought about it, the bottomless box had been their bonus prize, what was their primary prize supposed to be?

As if on cue the wall began to rumble, Mable hopped to her feet and jumped away from it. It almost felt like an earthquake, but the movement was all clearly coming from inside the wall. About three hundred meters away from them a large hole opened in the wall. The hole was fifty meters up the side of the wall, and was in the shape of a rectangle as large as a king sized bed. A torrent of water came rushing from the hole, at the same time the ground below it changed. The grass sunk unto the ground, creating a ditch that grew until it was around seventy meters wide, it then extended in a straight line outwards until it vanished into the thickness of the fog. The torrent of water fell into the new ditch, quickly filling it up. Before long what looked like a river formed.

Up until now Mable was able to find some sort of excuse for the things she'd seen, however even coming from a planet as technologically advanced as she had this confounded her. She responded as eloquently as she possibly could.

"Buah, wha?"

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

Your character should be waking up in the field like everyone else.

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

accepted

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

It's still open.

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

With her teammates keeping most of the Linebackers busy Evfimiia only had one to deal with now. Thankfully she was far faster than the creature, and combined with Mable's cheering it was no longer even a contest. It was hardly graceful but Evfimiia scored the goal for them. The moment the ball passed through the rim a loud buzzer blared throughout the room. The Armadillos that hadn't already been eviscerated stopped in their tracks and fell to the floor dead. Smoke poured out of their mouths, as if something inside their heads had exploded. The buzzer stopped right before the voice from the speaker spoke up again.

"Oh, it's over already... huh." There was a sound like the shuffling of papers before they spoke again. "Congratulations! Not only did you succeed in scoring a goal without anyone dying, you've also won the special bonus prize!" From the ceiling another hole opened, out fell a red treasure chest lined with gold. The chest landed with a thud, not even cracking from the fall. Mable let out a gasp and rushed over to the chest. She unlocked the latch and opened the lid with glee in her eyes. Her smile turned stiff at what she saw, however.

"This thing is empty." She said in monotone. "What are we supposed to do with this?" She asked, but the speaker remained silent. Mable shrugged her shoulders and took a closer look into the chest. As her head reached the middle of it a tingling sensation came over her body and she appeared to be sucked inside of the chest. Ten seconds passed as nothing happened to the chest, until Mable suddenly burst from it gasping for air.

"Awawawa...gah...fuaff.." She made various strange noises as she attempted to compose herself. "The box- space..." She rambled before taking a deep breath and shaking her head, causing her thick strands of hair to painfully slap her face. "Gah..." She stood to her feet and looked at the other marked individuals. "It looks like we'll be able to stuff anything into this thing, it kinda reminds me of those uh, bags from that game. I'll call it the forever bottom box!" She seemed pleased with herself for naming something that likely already had a name.

She looked at the dead Linebackers, then to the chest. "Hey uh, you think we can eat these things?" She asked. She then glanced at the steel bleachers. "Oh~ we could use those too. Can someone cut those up and shove em in the box?"

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

Mable watched the others from the sideline, feeling a bit twitchy due to her inability to help. They seemed to be doing alright so far, no one had been killed in a gruesome fashion at least. The armadillos fighting Rafael and Sieve were thoroughly being suppressed so far. The monster fighting Rafael couldn't keep up with it's opponent, each of it's powerful swings easily being avoided by Rafael's strange movements. After being knocked back by yet another blow, it seemed to lose it's temper and simply lunged at the man, attempting to grab him with it's long arms.

Sieve's attack had knocked it's target onto it's back, it was confused for a moment, not knowing how it had been attacked, but didn't dwell on it. It instead curled it's self into a ball and quickly rolled towards where it last saw Sieve. It was effectively blind like this, but far more durable.

Septim's attack was enough to distract four of them from Evfimiia, who was their first target since she was closer to them. They held their arms in front of their faces to protect their them, but not before one of them was struck in the right eye by a stray projectile and fell to the ground. It began to panic and curled into a ball, then rolling towards Septim blindly. The other three turned their backs to Septim and set their sights on Evfimiia again, believing her to be the easier target. However they stopped once Kaede got in the way running quickly past them and setting herself between them and the ball carrier. They didn't see her as much of a threat at first and kept running, but stopped as she began to transform. They didn't quite know how to react to the sudden change. Two of them ran towards her in a straight path as they were provoked by the challenge while the third attempted to circle around her and continue chasing Evfimiia.

Meanwhile Mable had thought of the perfect way to help without setting foot on the field. They were playing a sport, it was basically the result of someone throwing a dart at a board with random unoriginal ideas on it, but it was still a sport. And since this was a sport, her team needed something for sure, 100% required. No doubt. Totally necessary.

"Lets go team~ lets go!" Mable clapped her hands and danced, cheering on her allies. "W! R! E! C! K! E! D! What's that spell!? Wriggity wrecked! Show em what you can do! I believe in you!" As she did this extremely vital performance, her mark began to glow with a pale light. At the same time the marked on the field would notice that their bodies felt lighter and stronger.

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

That's what her parents said.

Blue Fog - A Survival and Society Building Game

Mable will often ignore negative comments or brush them off like she did lol