It is nearing a year since you, The Courier, fought and secured independence of the Mojave from domestic and foreign powers. Mr. House was put on ice, the NCR got sent packing and even the mighty Legion tucked tail and fled back East.
Now, the New Vegas Directorate, your new government, faces as many challenges as it does opportunities. Industry is rapidly expanding and agriculture is now firmly established while migrants from around the wasteland flood in looking to change their fortunes.
But the Boomer Blight, an engineered plague from parts unknown, is spreading throughout the Wasteland and little looks uncontainable. You continue to walk the line in courting both the NCR and the Legion, seeking to be a stable power between the two warring giants.
A new player comes into the picture and he brings with him hundreds of Enclave descendants eager to start again. You have agreed to welcome them into the NVD but time will tell if you can hide their influence from the NCR while keeping other factions happy.
With the looming NCR election, the hostile President Kimball seems poised to lose to the unknown Allgood Murphy while Caesar continues to see you as his Augustus, urging greater cooperation between both nations.
The one-year anniversary is rapidly approaching and while a grand celebration is planned, existential threats lurk everywhere and with Mr. House on the loose, you can be sure you’ll see him one last time.
You are Phlegna, the underworld goddess of plague. The world has just been ravaged by a cataclysm, and although you had nothing to do with it, you got empowered by the ensuing generalized bad health. Most of the old gods were killed or driven away. You escaped your prison while more powerful and far more evil deities made their escape into the outer planes. You thought about escaping as well, but the material plane right underneath your sacred stars was just - rather empty. You don't think there are more than 100,000 souls in the entire world. Most deities think this is too scant a meal to bother, so you're alone - for now. You are now looking for a particularly gifted individual or group that you can empower so as to restart your ancient cult. And who knows - maybe this time around you'll achieve divine supremacy.
Searching far and wide, you find only small scattered groups. There are a few representants of most races, but they are all scattered. There are places where members of the same race are continents apart, with little hope of ever rejoining. You look around for a resilient little group, and you find a race of:
<span class="mu-r">This is the end of the world.</span> It's also the birth of a new one, or an old one, depending on who you ask. Maybe it's more like an overdue arranged marriage.
You might not have been fully aware, but the world used to cast a Shadow: a separate realm of spirits, kept away by a barrier that only a certain few were ever meant to cross. Spirits are capricious, rarely logical, and often dangerous beings composed of the essence and energy of all things real; scuttling reflections with their own arcane hierarchies and motivations.
But every wall has its rats, and the barrier between your world and the spirit world was no exception. The Beshilu are a nasty manner of demon - derived from and connected to the spirit world, but fettered to the world of flesh, and gifted with many terrible abilities. They massacre and they multiply, and their only desire has ever been to tear down that wall between worlds... to gnaw at its foundations in greater and greater numbers, until the wolves could no longer keep them at bay.
They succeeded.
Too many tears. Too many crumbling wounds between worlds. The gauntlet was sundered, and when that wall crumbled away, the world of mortals and the world of spirits were merged into one. In those first terrible moments, everyone on Earth could hear a trillion shrill voices screeching out in triumph, and swarms of rats swelled across streets and forests in writhing tides.
The fabric of reality is now like a sieve, the threads wavering apart and stretching in new directions; space and time operate differently. The sun no longer rises, or sets, and light instead seems to meander from one place to the next according to whim. Places seem to stir and shift, reacting to their occupants in sometimes unpredictable fashion. The rules have changed, and will likely change more, but things will never go back to the way they were.
That was three days ago, and it would be a stretch to say the dust has settled, but you are adjusting to the chaos. You're a survivor, and while you may not fully grasp what's going on, you're not unfamiliar with the supernatural. You are determined to knuckle down and make your way in this fucked up new world....
It has been 100 years since ancient beings, known as the Old Ones, walked the Earth with their two strong feet. Now they are gone and we animals now rule the remains that they left behind. With our new knowledge of sword and sorcery, we were able to survive in peace for a while, but then came the three factions. The Apes: Strong giants, claiming to be as just as the old ones and believe they should be the ones to rule over the new world. The Pigs: An intellectual but slothful group who wish to rule the world with an iron hoof and remain kings while the others remained as dumb animals. Then there the Lizards: A fast and large group that want to set the world a blaze. Trying to forget the harsh past that the old ones left. All three sides wishing to go war and destroy one another to bring in what they believe to be true peace. But, unbeknownst to everyone, there was another group. One that was trying their best to find a way to heal everyone. To bring back order. You found it.... and now you are taking care of it.
Your name is Shelly Suzume, and you’ve finally discovered what really happened to you all those years ago. About your condition, your mind, and the mess it’s become.
Unfortunately, the truth isn’t good news.
After a retrieval mission was abruptly changed at the last minute, you decided to take matters into your own hands and infiltrate the Black Sheep Family’s headquarters. You’d been here before. Partially, at least. But with the city under blackout and Grimm swarming the outskirts, this seemed like the perfect time to go deeper.
And, somehow, it paid off.
You found her. The scientist who once worked as a nurse back at Haven Academy. Cerise. You interrogated her, accidentally broke her nose, and finally learned what really happened to you. Why your mind fractures the way it does. Why children flinch when they see your eyes. Why… you’re the way you are.
To put it bluntly, Grimm-infused Dust emits waves that warp the brain in unnatural ways. That’s what happened to you. No cure, at least not yet, and considering how experimental this whole thing is, you’re not even sure if one even exists. But you’re not about to stop looking.
Cerise asked for your help finding someone. An associate of hers. You agreed, partly because you’re not a monster, partly because you needed her alive and cooperative if you wanted answers.
Then came the elevator. A tight, hidden shaft buried deep beneath the mountain. Halfway down, the power started to flicker. You tried to stabilize things with your Semblance, but it didn’t hold.
Long story short, the elevator crashed. You got off light. Just a few broken fingers and toes. At least you’re alive.
Cerise isn’t… that well. She’s unconscious, with a hit in the back of the head, and without Aura to heal herself.
Now you’re trapped deep in the Black Sheep’s hidden laboratories with a dying scientist in your arms. Given what you’ve heard about this place (The experiments, the lack of ethics, the vast number of unholy secrets), you have no idea what’s waiting for you down here.
But one thing’s clear. You have to save Cerise. Mostly because she’s probably the only person in Remnant who can help you fix what’s been done to your mind.
This is part 8 of the "side quest" for "Disappearing Hogwarts". An unofficial alternate timeline based on HeadQM´s highly praised quest, Disappearing Hogwarts. Reading the original story is not exactly necessary but heavily encouraged since this quest will contain references to it. Created mostly as a place to wait while HeadQM was away for a while but slowly evolved into his own thing.
Quick recap so far: >Recently graduated Ravenclaw student is hired at Hogwarts as the new Caretaker. >Merlin somehow ended up inside your head. >Harry Potter´s daughter died, letting Salazar Slythering (previously stuck inside her head) free to continue his quest to control The Beast, an all powerful ancient creature accidentally created by Merlin. >He is currently now trapped inside a poor and weakened girl named Artemis. >You obtained a piece of The Beast >The Beast is now trying to escape under any circumstance >Because of it, magic is now gone and you now have to find a way to get the rest of the pieces before The Beast escapes What will happen now? Let's find out!
To most, the idea of being reincarnated into another world was a mere fantasy.
But to you...
It was reality.
Your name is John Doe, and a few months ago you got hit by a truck. After your death you met Herta, the beautiful (and perverted) Goddess of Artifice. She told you that you needed to pick a cheat skill before she could send you to one of the many generic isekai worlds available.
"Because that's heavenly policy!" She'd said.
But instead of picking between those boring options, you took the Goddess Herself and brought her with you to a world of her own creation.
This universe of hers was slapped together with 'tags' and generic fantasy themes. Some might scoff at the abundance of stale tropes and cliched genres, but things were just the way you liked them.
Well, you were still getting used to the unfamiliar logic and morality of this brave new world. Beyond being mere ideas that were held by people, these conceits extended deep into cultural thought, sculpting history and even shaping the laws of physics.
But that wasn't all this universe had in store: Soldiers, airships, mechs, clockwork robots, walking artillery units, all of these and more marched from their homeland's borders to fight in a neverending skirmish against their enemies.
Yet these modern conflicts were petty when compared to the Demon Lord's invasion. So great was that war, that the scars from that era lingered like a thorn on the side. Corruption magic threatened to destroy everything if not purged whenever it was found, despite it being many millennia since the demons were vanquished. This evil magic will grow and fester if no precautions were taken. Thankfully there were many organizations in the world that dealt with these sorts of things.
Today, gold poured from the coffers of nations as everyone clamored to get a slice of the goods and weapons available. In spite of the constant wars and battles, commerce flowed through the planet, giving and taking away fortunes in an instant.
These realities gave testament to some of this universe's priorities - war, trade, and steampunk tech.
And that didn't even mention what is blatantly the most important of this universe's conceits: Slavery. It was a fact of life. Everyone you'd met in this world approved of it and spoke about it like it was the most common thing in the world. Which, in this world's context, made perfect sense.
As Freeborn Men are people, thus women and the lower classes are considered property. Although one could argue that slavery in this world was not the same type of chattel slavery that might pop into your mind whenever someone in your old world mentioned the word 'slave'. Providing evidence to support that theory, the Bondage Accords, which are a sort of international agreement most nations adhered to, granted certain protections to the enslaved despite their legal status as objects.
It was late in the afternoon, as staff were starting to wrap up testing, check-ups and other activities in the deeper parts of the facility. However, whilst most subjects were being brought back to their containment, this was not the case for Kaenum. In fact, she was currently following Catherine to a place she hadn't visited before. "So, who are you bringing me to?" Kaenum asked calmly, looking around and noticing that there were a few guardsmen around, which made her both curious and concerned. "Her name is Edith Astor. Codename, PW-87. I designed her with Roraima. However, after she refused to do what Roraima demanded of her, he... punished her." Catherine said in a regretful tone, Kaenum giving an understanding nod. "I fortunately managed to take full control of her, ensuring Roraima doesn't hurt her further. Unfortunately, she has been rather scarred by the experience. Which is why I was hoping that you could help her out. Perhaps give her some therapy to help her cope with things."
Whilst Kaenum was saddened that a subject had to suffer so much under Roraima, she was optimistic that she could help out here. After all, she had trained quite a bit when it came to therapy, and knew that she could help anyone out with enough time. "Of course, Catherine. I'd gladly help out." Kaenum responded, Catherine smiling with relief, as the two headed towards the secluded and relatively well-guarded chamber. Until finally, the two would reach the large set of doors leading to the chamber. "Will you be joining me?" Kaenum asked to Catherine, who paused before reluctantly shaking her head. "I want this to be between you and her. I've talked with her a bit, but... I could not get her to talk much. She needs someone else. Another subject..." Kaenum nodded again, taking a deep breath before looking ahead. "Very well then." With that, Catherine would give a nod to the nearby guardsmen, before taking a step back.
Kaenum stepped through the door after it opened, entering the small space which separated the outside world from the containment chamber. Though once the second set of doors opened, Kaenum was met with a rather neat and homely looking room. Clearly, Catherine had tried o decorate the room in such a way that it helped Edith feel more at home. Though, given how things looked eerily untouched, it had not been too effective. Not to mention, the fact that Edith wasn't really doing anything in the room. Kaenum spotted her in the corner, sitting on the floor and facing the wall. "Go away..." Edith mumbled in a worn-down voice, Kaenum remaining calm and quietly entering the room. Kaenum looked over the subject, quickly noticing all the combat features Roraima had clearly given her. Those large and long wings, those clawed hands and her stature all were traits meant to appear intimidating. And yet, Edith appeared more sombre than scary. "Edith, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Kaenum. I am here to talk to you."
