Totemists, one of the first lines of defense against the malicious and monstrous, famed slayers of Behemoths which are perhaps the most dangerous examples of such, and bridge to the domains of spirits and magic unseen. The role is not an easy one of course, but it must be done and has been since time before almost all written history.
You are Capran, young man of the Four Peaks mountains, pupil of Oranya Skystrike.
There has been a lot of unrest on the mountain slopes lately, the issue growing further with each day it seems, but with your teacher still guiding you, there will always be a way to deal with it the trouble.
Such as this post mimic, which stands on thin wood-splinter-like legs and angrily spears them into the ground beneath it at the failure of its ambush. You stand nearby your teacher and her friend Heyra, ready and willing to destroy this mimic.
Awful thing. You're rather happy you three are the one who found it rather than some poor patrol guard or villager.
All preparations are over. No more distractions. You gotta get the plan underway. The main objective is to drag the head of the mafia (Gianluigi Youhao) out of his own little bunker. Thrust him into the spotlight his men are creating, and let the law enforcers do their job. This is the only way he’s going to face justice before he moves to a safer place. No other window of time. No other opportunities.
The first part of the mission is to go through the hidden passages in the sewers that lead directly to the Youhao Clan Headquarters. Celia knows the way through these catacombs, and the base like the back of her hand.
“Hey, hey, who died and made you queen? You’re not coming with us, are you?” Celia slips out of Lydie’s friendly arms. The eccentric fan club leader ended the last thread holding you both.
“Haven’t you noticed?! We’re divided into two teams. We need our beautiful flame wielder!” Lydie points at you and Rora. “Our intrepid yet sneaky thief!” Lydie points at Crossbill and Celia. “And the wildcard with exceptional athleticism!” Lydie points at herself and Matilda. “You know, the essentials!”
“So, we are, like, me, Crossy, and Mat?” Aurora is doing the math. You can tell she’s serious since she’s using her fingers.
“Count me in.” Matilda is so ready to kick some butts.
“Sounds arbitrary, but eh, there’s no idea I can’t make work. Welcome to the best trio, Mat.” Crossbill sees no issue.
“Your trio has nothing on us.” You get competitive with your bestie. “Tell ‘em, Celia.”
“Huh, yeah, yeah. Sure.” Celia gets into a fighting stance.
“W-When did we agree on this…?” Liu missed this bit!
“Never! You should know by now that she’s making stuff up!” Vera grumbles. “Now sit your clown ass down. We don’t need a wildcard.” Vera starts dragging Lydie back into Beanie Hedgehog.
“M-My dear Veranica, did it slip my mind?! You’re the navigator of our beautiful and flexible team, welcome!” Lydie is trying to gain favor.
“Welcome to the best quartet, Liu.” Crossbill winks.
“I-I’ll do my best!” Liu will fight hard!
“Wait, then I’m with Johnny?” Vera stops dragging. “That’s great. You’re still not going.” Vera continues dragging.
“T-This is utterly unfair! My thick legs are meant to run faster than the wind, not sit comfortably at the bottom of a perplexing totem tower...!” Lydie wants to be part of the operation, and not be one with a hedgehog.
There is a ringing behind your ears. Your senses are dulled, and are wrestling with an internal static preventing you from regaining your grip on reality. For a moment you are stunned into forgetting the where and the why of the drama: that is what happens when you get caught in an explosion. Before numbness invaded your system a mysterious force smashed into the walls of your school. A villain appeared. You could never have predicted a villain showing up in your town of Hauteville.
You and your class had little time to react. The entity collided with the building at lightning speed; demolishing one side of the school a flashy figure appeared. <span class="mu-s">A rogue magical girl.</span>
The floor offers stability for your hands and knees to rely on, currently the most reliable object for support. The fuzz in your head vanishes at a snail's pace as teenagers scream in the chaos.
"This is revenge! I'm sick of being looked down upon! You only have yourselves to blame!" the magical girl reasons. She looks familiar. There must be some sort of supernatural barrier from being recognized; but her looks and tone invoke a visceral response to your psyche. "Where is she!?"
Clarity of mind returns little by little while the magical girl sows destruction. You also feel a mysterious energy inside you as well. Is it the sensation of your life in peril? Or something more?
One of the first shards of clarity returns: your name is Gana. In this world, there are good magical girls and bad magical girls with monsters in between.
Your reputation in school is known for:
>A girl from a pretty rich family. Richer than the normal standard in Hauteville. Materialistic, arrogant, antagonistic against classmates who have less. You have bullied others for having cheap clothes or bad makeup. >A girl leading a clique in your part of school. You have been political with your classmates; others that stand against you often find life hell afterwards. Intriguing, manipulative, antagonistic to rebellion. >A girl frequently envious of others. You are a popular talk for boys; you exude a need for attention and hate it when someone prettier comes along. Contenders frequently run into bad rumors about themselves, in class and over the net. Vain, shallow, antagonistic to modesty. >write-in ______
<span class="mu-s">Magical girl Encountered: Montesinos, the Indignant Magical Girl</span>
Your name is Johan, no last name given. Although you had to admit that self-nomenclature was of little import at the moment.
Especially now that you were in such a surreal landscape, one that was ever shifting and turning. It was a place were neither day nor night reigned--yet both divided their realms in the sky in an almost perfect line. What remained of the moon brightened your way in spite of this paradox; the newly minted stars speckled the sky like... well, stars.
On the subject of the heavenly bodies, the moon itself was shattered in the sky, bleeding out a waterfall of clear-dark liquid onto the mountain that it was closest to. The theater that was once proudly upon it was in shambles, barely recognizable. These three changes were, somehow, direct consequences of the actions of your lover. You intended to speak with her about that later, preferably after you all stop running for your lives.
The once strange and twisting town, placid as it also once was, was now slowly inundated with a deluge of moon-water, overwhelming the streets and alleyways until merging with the ocean. Said sea rose into the ports and piers and made the canals overflow. Market stalls were extricated by the water's force and slowly drifted away, roads became slick with a dark tinted water, buildings became flooded. But oddest of all was that the winding, changing, shifting and almost living town had now gained a semblance of stagnancy despite being overwhelmed by a flood.
Two people tailed behind you: Jeremy keeping a steady pace while Mimi was quickly catching up to you. While Jeremy was a good friend and a decent enough fellow in your eyes, though to be fair you'd only known him for less than half a week, Mimi was the person most close to you. And she was your aforementioned lover. While the idea of having a <span class="mu-i">girlfriend</span> was something you never really considered in your mind (at least not in a conscious level) there was definitely some romantic tension the two of you shared with each other. Now that you thought about it, <span class="mu-r">it was mostly at Mimi's insistence and assertion to be close to you that served as the catalyst to the relationship.</span> At the very least, <span class="mu-b">that strange aversion and frustration you held towards mimes was slowly being eroded, thanks to her.</span>
It is the chirping of the birds which first jolts you from your stupor, proudly sitting upon their trees, singing jollies to and fro of the merry morning lights. You, who had found no rest, no shut eyes throughout the night, take it simply as an ringing pain on your head. For though you had momentarily found yourself lacking in cognition, it was not rest which you had felt, but a lapse in concentration, a departure of your thinking to some state of sickly torpor.
You had not slept for the entire night, and certainly, it hath given no benefit to your condition. But then again, how could you, with the challenges that you faced?
You are <span class="mu-s">Alessandro Galliota</span>, the Viscount of Portblanc. That much you can be sure of, even in your sorry state...you, who had been brought here to this land of Nera, this distant land from your own, by your great liege <span class="mu-s">Don Carles IV Brascarams</span>. You had come here to wage war in the name of the Spisa family, allied to your country, against the forces of the Fortelli, friendly to your foe. You had launched a campaign throughout their borderlands, partaken in a siege, and most of all, you had faced a force far mightier than yours, many times greater in both number and capability, aided by scores of Himmmerian Giants, those most fearful of enemies of the human race. For a whole day, you had succesfully fought them of, and, shattering the bridge which they sought to take in an pivotal moment, you had sunk to the depths of the river hundreds of their men.
You escaped death, too, by a hair's breadth, when the infamous <span class="mu-i">Famiglia</span>, those mighty knights of Nera, armed with beastly amazonian mounts, had been able to momentarily breach your formation. It was only by bidding your musketeers to fire upon them even as they fought your own men that you had survived, though at the cost of your entire retinue. All those things and much many others had happened yesterday, in this battle upon the Vessena. This battle, you are certain, has not ended yet, and it is this which brings you trouble. For today you must <span class="mu-s">seek out victory</span> and find a way to hold your foes at bay until the city of Montechia falls!
For now, however, breakfast will have to do. Shaking yourself out of this stasis, you raise yourself from the piece of wood that you had used as a seat for the night. <span class="mu-i">Because you had fled into the grove to make your camp</span>, you did not have the amenities of your lordly tent. Of course, compared to those amongst the soldiery who did not have any tent at all, you were not in a poor state. You order one of your servants to gather up whatever is available for you. What you receive, after some time, is...some bread, and some of the cheap rum that was served to the soldiery. Though it be enough to fill you, you cannot help but feel some manner of bitterness in the knowledge that you stand but a few minutes of travel away from your supply wagons.
The president put on the ceremonial gowns, now knowing the terrible conventions of society. A forbidden fruit, offered to her by subordinates and friends, that which they all deemed an essential part of youth; the what to say, the what not to say; the great secrets of seduction; the three gazes of the man-eating leopard; “The height of skirt that melts the inexperienced virgin”. And she endured it all, like a woman. She endured to have them play with her, as if a rag or some mauled doll; only by the time they began to imply that the size of a bag was perspectively proportional to the osseous width of her body, she had already ran out of patience. And with the skirt, and the blouse, the inconspicuous accessory and the invincible bow of black hair, victory was served with imminence, and tremendous prematurity.
As the lead of the Paranormal Investigation Club, she was in labour of solving mysteries in the company of her most trusted. Who hasn’t heard yet about the rapist of human souls, the phantom on the staircase, or the not single instance when the devil went and took the farmer's cows for a dance? After that, and many other adventures together; seemingly united, in their hearts she earned a deep place with her pure merit. And this time it was their turn to prepare her with the ubiquitous knowledge, to face the unknown, and perhaps even… to scare her fears. Trembled the world when the day came,
Surely, long had spilled been the tea; and yet, in shame, a single drop lied and dared not to be spit. She, and she alone knew; thoughtless, truly thoughtless the compromise had been conceived. Upon their first and only conversation she was met with a sudden and unknown boiling emotion. She couldn't admit; the temptation was too much to bear. From the pure desire to partake in that which impossible is, agreed they to meet the next Sunday, despite knowing her she lived in the neighboring city. And even then, prepared and committed, without respect for distance, without fear, she departed on the afternoon, towards a station lost in time, lost from reason, all so she could ever meet with him... the next morning.
- <span class="mu-r"><span class="mu-s">The Hairy Hand</span> is a quest ruled by contradiction of wills and whims The President has towards all gruesome realities awaiting. Survival is doubtful, and physical integrity is never assured; bad decisions are ultimate.
Players can cumulatively pick a maximum of 3 choices, once 3 different courses of action are picked, no alternatives can be proposed nor votes. Actions are taken upon popular vote, effected at irregular, arbitrary and unforgiving times. Small and menial actions may be taken by individuals at times; affecting or not the outcome of an encounter. The whims of a few may just suffice to change The President's fate. </span>
“HAHAHA, FOOLISH HEROES, KNEEL BEFORE MY GRAND MAGIC!”
Your skeletal body, adorned in robes that have lived longer than any human has breathed, lords over the fallen party of heroes. Your ultimate <span class="mu-s">Origin Magic</span>, though incomplete, has proven more than sufficient to take on the pathetic mortals sent to their knees before its might. Miasma-smoke fills the room, spewed by the necromantic fire left in the wake of your destructive magnum opus. However, to your incredible satisfaction, the Holy Sword itself, the only weapon capable of striking you down, lies corroded beneath the hero’s tattered frame, little more than a sparkly pile of smoldering slag.
Yes, your ultimate victory has been achie–
Pain unlike any you’d ever imagined stabs through your very being, a thin, needle-like blade jutting out from the cluster of mana animating your undead body, destabilizing it, causing your very being to quiver and weaken. Something is wrong— something is very, very wrong. . You collapse to the floor, your head snapping 180 degrees back to see just who had landed the killing blow. If your eyes could widen, they would: the Hero Michael, who you had thought collapsed in front of you, stands proudly behind you with an unknown blade in your back.
“H-how?”
“Lich King Atrebor,” the hero declares, his obnoxious condescension shamelessly leaking into his words as he drives the blade even further through your ribs, “you may have been wary of me, the possessor of the Holy Sword, but you paid far too little attention to my real strength: my friends.”
You turn your eyes back to the party: an illusion, a paltry trick, dissolves from the worthless entourage of the chosen one, revealing a golem in place of his second in command and that same eternal loser, Reinlock, in his place.
“Impossible!” you roar, “I was certain! He– he had the holy sword! He acted just as you would!”
“I’ve been chasing that bastard’s back my whole life, you undead bastard.” Reinlock snickers, blood trickling from his broken lips, “I know him better than the back of my own hand.”
This is infuriating but… it matters not. Your phylactery, the real vessel of your existence, is safe, in an unknown locale far from here. Or at least, <span class="mu-r">that’s how it should be</span>. Golden cracks start to form on you— first on your body’s mana core, then on your bones, then, horror of horrors, on your <span class="mu-i">mana itself</span>. “What trickery is this!” You scream, your rage powerful enough to shake the foundations of your castle.
You see his face. Sharp razor slit eyes etched onto a hulking creature’s giant head, which would give children across the galaxy vivid nightmares, stare into your soul. It produces no feeling of horror or fear, nor any other natural response, because you know him. Those eyes that are locked onto yours are dulled, empty, lifeless. The vacant glare causes your heart to wither in your chest. It was you, you did this, you killed your closest friend. A man who has saved your life, and you killed him. Now his face is slack, muscles relaxed, and his eyes are barren; all that vigour and life that he carried around with him is forever gone, never to return.
It was your choice to kill him. Sith Lord Yvalok presented the options to you. During your months on Lao training as a Sith Acolyte you, Vulfstahn a child of the extinct Sith people, have shown a wild potency with the Force which is unequalled by your supposed peers. This rare talent caught Yvalok’s eyes and has him captivated with your development, wanting nothing more than to see you flourish. The ancient human decided to gift you hate through a choice: slay Urr’tal in a duel or watch as Yira gets gangraped. You gave the withered husk of a Human your answer. With a slash of your sword, you betrayed Urr’tal, ending all the myriad great possibilities he could have achieved in his prodigious lifespan.
The Sith Lord that would be nothing but a frail old man if not for his mastery of the dark side of the Force stands above you as thick red ichor spews from the Whiphid’s severed neck. Forced onto the hard durasteel floor by a burst of lightning, you are enveloped by the growing pool of your friend’s blood. His decapitated head rests in front of you, not able to steal your eyes away from the lifeless face as his matted fur stains from his bleeding. Yvalok monologues and lectures, but you can’t hear him. The unblinking eyes have stolen your world.
You're a goddamn bum prowling the streets of Crossroads, an once bustling metropolis that has been reduced to ruins after the Stonekin, some bulking creatures with a skin strong as stone, attacked the Covenant of the Sun, a kingdom of the Plainsfolk to the north. This place became a no man's zone, loosely patrolled only by the Shadow Hand, a coalition of thieves, ninjas, assassins and other types you don't want to mess with.
You check your Secure Ledger (it is a weird glowing tattoo thing everyone has, it tracks your money) and you only have 1,000 Links left... should be enough to buy food for a few days, but that's it.
You're wearing rags and only armed with a stick you found at a dead body yesterday.
Are you male or female? > Male > Female
Also decide your name.
As you walk towards the bar, you bump shoulders with a fucking Ash Raider! These guys are the worst, a massive gang of good for nothing hooligans. He is wearing poorly made plate, even a metal helmet. That looks heavy and clunky, but should give him some protection.
"Hey, ya bumped on me you fucker! Give me all your Links as an apology if you want to live!"
You know it is not really possible to directly steal from someone's Ledger, courtesy of whoever came up with this money tech thing, so your links are safe... but you may not be!
> Give him 200 links > Give him 500 links > Give him all your links > Fuck off, I ain't giving you shit > Attack him > Run away > Write in
