The dripping of water and soft creaking of metal emanated through the flooded sector. Water had filled it up for days by now, with few daring to set foot in it. That didn’t stop some from wading their way through the water that went up to knee height, especially since some had few other options on where to go to. One of these unfortunate souls was Melissa Powell, a janitor who had rushed to the flooded sector right after the disaster to save a subject friend of hers: a tiny mantis subject called Tina. The two had waded through the flooded sector for several days now, noticing how more and more water filled the facility with each passing day. They at first had attempted to head to the green sector, given that it would have food and shelter. But unfortunately, they had not succeeded due to the flood hampering the way over. Thus, they were now quickly attempting to go the other direction. If the green sector didn’t work out, then the freezer sector seemed like a viable alternative.
The two were wandering through the centre of the flooded sector, hearing water trickling everywhere and breathing in the highly humid, somewhat saline air. The light of their pocket torch illuminated the dark hallway, reflecting each droplet which fell from the ceiling. The murky water was up to Melissa’s knees by now. Mel kept Tina on her shoulder, since Tina’s small size put her at great risk of drowning. Especially since the little mantis girl wasn’t exactly the best at swimming. “Are we there yet?” Tina asked impatiently, Melissa sighing softly. “I’ve already told you, it’s going to take a while. I don’t know this place by head, and we have to be careful. Every step I take needs to be taken carefully.” Melissa calmly told Tina, the mantis girl looking a little annoyed. Melissa was glad to have saved Tina, but she had to admit that the little mantis girl needed to learn some patience, especially now. Still, she’d try and keep Tina distracted in other ways.
“Look at the bright side, Tina. You really wanna eat meat and flies, right? Well, the place we’re going to has at least one of those things. So, you’ll have plenty of food there to enjoy!” Tina would get rather excited. “I hope it’s a lot of flies. I wanna hunt again! I need to hunt!” Melissa chuckled, before focusing on the path forward. They’d soon pass a particularly large and deeply flooded chamber, Melissa noticing a ton of water bubbling to the surface and a soft crackling noise. “What is that noise?” Tina asked curiously, to which Melissa started thinking. The noise did sound familiar, her having heard it before somewhere in the flooded sector. Though soon, they heard a loud splash and saw some kind of octopus subject leap out of the water. Melissa froze, Tina immediately raising her claws to try and appear intimidating. However, the octopus subject would simply stare at the two in abject fear, before yelling a single thing at them. “Get out of here! RUN!”
You are Charlotte Fawkins, Herald and heroine. With the power of your positive spirit, you have overcome deceit, defeat, and divine possession, and now you are going to save the world. First, though, you need to achieve your fullest potential.
Richard had a plan. You didn't like the plan. The plan involved spending a lot of time with him, drilling your current weak points, and it's not that you thought it was a bad plan. It was a reasonable plan, and he said it all reasonably, like he'd been doing— he'd been reasonable ever since you learned he killed your father.
You couldn't tolerate it. You'd been tolerating it, admirably well, you thought, since you'd kill him later. Your father would be avenged, later. But it had been weeks, later was nowhere in sight, and Henry had picked the scab off the wound. Now when you thought of your father, Henry's voice in your head went <span class="mu-i">He wanted more than anything to be good for your sake.</span> And when you looked at Richard's new and stupid and reasonable face, you thought: He's trying to be good for my sake. Or the world's sake. Or something.
And it was too little and far, far, far too late and you hated him more than anybody else in the world. You hated his plan, too, and told him where precisely he could put it, and how deep. You told him you'd be taking Annie (well, you couldn't just leave her) and finding Cult HQ and getting Henry to help you practice. Because he said he'd help, and he didn't kill your father.
Richard was only a voice: you couldn't see his face. The voice sounded a little annoyed, but it said, reasonably, that if you had to be petty, at least Henry was likely the best alternative. As long as you actually stayed on track, Charlotte.
You wanted more than anything for him to call you a stupid bitch and shock you or possess you or knock you out and make you wake up a week later with a snake neck or something. But he didn't do that, so you wrote Gil a note and left for the Fen.
Several days of continuous worm-revival efforts had honed your Earth Powers. You still couldn't make earthquakes or sinkholes or anything, to your disappointment, but now when you stuck yourself underground and really concentrated you could sense pretty far. And distinguish different sources of vibrations, too, even if you didn't exactly know how. Through your Heroic Intuition. Anyways, you didn't need much Heroic Intuition to sense Annie, who was waiting pretty much where you left her. You'd given her instructions, but you were still pleased they got followed.
It was trivial, while underground, to tap into Annie's vast dim mind, and to say Up, and to return to your body just as her jaws snapped through the surface. You pet her rubbery bulk and chewed the gross gulfweed— strangely difficult with your teeth shaped the way they are— until you drooled brown saliva and went cold. You thought through a haze of Henry, Henry, come on, Henry, until Henry appeared.
"Philosophy?" The Engine Near of Environmental Rejuvenation, the newest of that most esteemed council of technological sages, Exhaust 72, said as if testing the word. Ever fair Kanzeon, leaned down and with a smile that could cleanse the heavens themselves of strife, giggled and explained
"You should know my scholar is rather fixated with philosophy. You've read his attempt to preserve his kindhearted beliefs and share his world view with the world"
"Yes, The pamphlet titled the Journey was one of the first cultural exchanges we received. I find its tales to be a great source of wisdom, even if the poeticism of its lectures are somewhat overblown" The Engine Near hummed "So, you wish to discuss philosophy? Should've prepared for this, when hosting a philosopher"
"Among other things. Like your experiences with the natural world, will allow us both to understand eachothers three views much more clearly" You answer, smiling brightly despite the grunge and grime of your surroundings deep in the quarry of the soil revival center of Eternal Celestial engine
"I do not see how the that will promote deeper comprehension between our beliefs, of which I have more than three" He states, as the guided tour stops to admire a machine threshing long infertile and polluted soil to break it up, soften it and allow for its ease of transport to a different facility to cleanse it of its contaminants
"And that is because you are no philosopher. And three views is a term from Long-Jian" Kanzeon once against explain "To broadly refer to an individuals beliefs about life, the wider world and their personal values"
"Shangralan idioms baffle even the most studious minds, yet I still do not see how discussing nature will expedite our mutual understanding" Exhaust 72 states soberly, their three mechanical eyes staring towards the distance ceiling
"Much can be learned through meditating and ruminating on nature, one can learn much of the nature of the importance of struggle against seemingly unsurmountable odds by watching Carp try to swim upstream to challenge a waterfall" You answer, clapping your hands thrice in the manner Guozhi used to do "You have a fondness for nature, and speak of its designs, let us speak at length of what you, I and Kanzeon have borne witness to in nature and wax philosophical as we walk"
"I suggest our dear Engine Near leads the discussion" Kanzeon said with a jackalish smirk and Exhaust let out a drawn out sigh as he gathered and arranged his thoughts, trying to discern how best to begin a discussion of a subject he was nearly entirely unfamiliar with.
"Struggle. One flaw in the biological systems of the Ever Running Engine that I have noticed, is that more oft than the failures experienced by the manufactured replicas of their grand designs we maintain" They start Cont
You play as Argia Candente, a Paladin of Ansàrra cursed with silver hair since birth, on her way to deliver correction where needed. And there’s a lot of correction needed…
# # # # # #
Welcome to the <span class="mu-s">sixth thread</span> of Argia Candente's astounding adventures, our scatterbrained, silver-haired (busty, as the players decided) Holy Knight-trainee with a penchant for daydreaming and plagued by self-doubt, on a quest to achieve her ordaining and save her family from poverty and starvation.
You faced many threats and troubles (Threads 1-4) and then you explored an abandoned Temple looking for a corrupted wizard (Thread 5) to deliver to his Throneland masters. But then you suffered betrayal, from the person you trusted the most, the person who trusted you with her own deepest secret, disregarding your friends’ need to know. The only person you believed could understand you betrayed you… and the worst thing is that Willow did so to save your soul. Or so she believes.
Over the course of the latest thread you managed to rebuild together the relationship with your remaining companions — <span class="mu-s">Rubida dell’Obertengo</span> and <span class="mu-s">Soralisa da Zaribari</span>. While your Magus ally (and a friend, how much a Heathen can be called a friend) <span class="mu-s">Sandora Mirari</span> had to leave on urgent business after the recent scuffle with the Inquisitor set on your heels freed her.
And speaking of inquisition, you are currently under direct (very direct) scrutiny by <span class="mu-s">Rosandra Brusera da Roccafonda</span>, who has been sent by the highest hierarchies of the Holy Land. You knew your silver hair signified you were cursed, but you did not expect this trouble to reach you right now… At least you managed to convince Rosandra not to smite you immediately.
What’s worse, you failed the previous mission, the one given to you by <span class="mu-s">Carnaval</span>, the Angel of Ansàrra. And your Master, <span class="mu-s">Ibardo Delebasse</span>, has been imprisoned on charges of misbehaviour. You suspect that his habit of entertaining himself with the daughters and wives of the nobility finally caught up to him, but you are certain there’s more to this.
Now you and your friends continue your quest, looking for <span class="mu-s">Willow Stark</span>, the otherworlder who betrayed you… apparently to save your soul. There’s indeed much correction to be delivered!
A world where might makes right. A world of Jade and Gold, of Phoenix and Dragons, of Pills and Talismans, of Martial and Spiritual arts. A world where diligent training yield strength, meaning freedom. A world where loneliness means death, meaning social chains. A world still unfair, as the ones reaching the heavens are most likely born rich - be it political riches of the aristocrats, power of secret knowledges and hidden realms of clans, or lucky enough to be born one-in-a-thousand genius.
This was not the case of Quiet Word - that is, (You). Your current skill level is on par with other genius of your age. But where they were graced with secret techniques and special care, you just had lucky encounters leveraged to the best and a knack for navigating social situations.
You own a trove of techniques and treasures for such a young cultivator - more than you can study efficiently, but your strength lies in the impressive amount of Bonded Spiritual Beasts - A Phoenix spirit, a Horse spirit, a Snake spirit and a Wolf spirit. Speaking of that last one, you didn't told a world about him to anybody. As a scion of the Primordial Wolf spirit, its father warned you of its worth and how people could want to rip it away from you. Especially in such a ruthless and public environment than, say, a townwide cultivator tournament. Previously mentionned worth comes from its ability to Fuse without restriction - fusion being a secret of the higher ranking of your sect, secret you have almost completely rediscovered on your own, and freely shared with your sect-siblings (but not your masters). Alright, the Primordial Wolf might have helped you on that "figuring it out by yourself" point.
Recently, you found a way to ream-walk to the Astral Plane by leveraging the Hidden Legacy of the Herculean Magus, where you picked a supply of spiritual beads. Supply vastly shared to your sectmates, and heavily solicited on in your latest endeavor; a ruin exploration where you caught Spiritual Plant-Beasts. Right now, you are waiting for the town's master to charter you back, the Gang of Four Seasons sect-defining artifact in the hand of your good friend LienWen YanEr : an elaborated ploy to grant all of you what you desire. LienWen will get her so-desired fatherly approval, while you will come back with Ping Jun to beg for the <span class="mu-s">Orb of the Seasons</span> to be given to his Versatile Harmony Sect.
You are L2S Trollslayer Fiona Jarnafeldt, and you have so many better things to do with your time. At least, such you thought as you rode down the elevator to the most secretive corner of the Helsinki Stormwatch, a deep underground coven of researchers and inventors known as the Undercroft.
You have so many better things you could be spending your time with right now. For example, you were injured in a fight earlier today against a <span class="mu-i">giant living breathing tree</span> that was a rogue member of a seclusive cabal of researchers and exmilitary brandishing a shotgun with an axe bit strapped to it, and you still powered through and chopped its head off. Your mother has just returned from a wild and outrageous journey around the north pole for the last twenty years, and has finally returned. Tomorrow you'll have a mission to rescue some people from cannibals in the stormdrains under Helsinki and you need some sleep. There's a great number of reasons you should be in bed.
But now, that very same day as all of these things occurred, Katriina Jousten, the Stormwatch Director and woman who was shot and savagely mauled by the tree from earlier, has decided it was time to orchestrate some bullshit tests based on whatever tech she has cooked up.
And you can't even complain about it, because with you is your fellow Stormwatch agent L2 Manhunter Saemus Fahy. an Irish guy who has zero concept that you, Katriina, and several others were fighting a rogue government agent that's coincidentally a fucking tree. You can't spill the beans, and neither can she. Talking around the cause of both of your injuries is going to be annoying.
But Katriina should be resting too. She was injured, <span class="mu-i">grievously</span> injured, and she has decided to run some tests late into the evening? What's gotten into her?
> Saw Atlantis and its reflections return from the Darkness Beyond Time
> Discovered only children can pass through its borders and led a child army into it
> Discovered the truth about the Mirror of Erised
> Watched as the Unseelie were released upon the world
> Learned of what Salazar and the Beast were really looking for in Atlantis, the Cradle of Magic beneath the city, which can turn someone into something akin to a god
> Learned Potter is planning to create a True Time-turner, and leave this timeline for good
> Had your girlfriend tell you she’s prophesied to sacrifice herself to save the world
> Asked her to marry you
> Received the Mirror of Erised, the Deathly Hallows and every other weapon Hermione Granger could give you
> And while the world outside was devoured by horrors of old, you strode off to fight Harry Potter
It is beautiful. You never had a thing for gems, but this one you cannot look away from. In part because you see it whether your eyes are closed or open, true, but also from how eye-grabbing it is. It was so small, if not for the way it shone, you would have never picked it out before it flew at you. It looks like a ruby, if a ruby had an inner glow to it, and looked as if it couldn't decide how it wanted to be cut from one second to the next.
This strangeness is amost enough to distract you from what has happened. They'd started it. It wasn't your fault. But now they are dead, and next thing you know that stone flew at you, straight through you actually. Your clothes are intact, you felt nothing but a splash of heat on your chest, but when you turned around it wasn't there, and now here it sits in your vision, like the sun's afterimage. And you suddenly know more than you did a scant few minutes ago.
This. Is a bloodstone. It forms inside a person when they kill another. When killed in turn, they...turn on? Activate? Awaken? Come alive? It's hard to say, you're parsing thoughts that don't feel like your own. Point is, something very rare has happened to you, perhaps the only good thing about this mess you find yourself in.
More informations spontaneously flows into your mind, as if your brain had known all along and was helpfully volunteering a memory. But you know that to be false. You skip most of it as one part jumps out at you, barely needing translation. Power. Strength, health, all that you desire. This stone can give it, but it can do better. Let you home in on others. Inside other people. You could take them. They are murderers. But so are you. You could ignore it. Even as you think that the vision of the stone fades, but the thoughts linger. You could be more. This...this is what you wanted, isn't it? This is destiny. You can reach for it, or let fate consume you.
The world has another side, one with secret societies and hidden powers vying for control. But it is not merely humans, nay. For millennia, creatures which a modern man considers fables have been battling in the shadows, both within their own, and others. Only the Magical Girls can slay the demons of humanity's suffering, and clean up the supernatural messes along the way!
Following next, a newly minted magical girl has to prove herself.
- - - - - (Previously On)
Our nameless heroine went clubbing, the experience was electrifying, perhaps overly so. One broken window later and a chase through the city with an unknown pursuer. Our heroine was, in the end, protected by a chance encounter with a magical girl and her good ‘friends’. A choice was offered, and she accepted. Delving deep into her own soul and meeting a mysterious Broker, one known as Sugar. With Sugar’s help, she unlocked her inner powers, crystallizing her soul and becoming Magical Girl SugarRush!
Now, alongside her magical girl sisters, SugarRush is in the midst of her first transformation. Right before they delve into the storm drain tunnels and slay any manifestation of suffering which lies inside.
- - - - -
Light shines all around you, your hands linked with the Leader and Shadow, Jacky across from you. All are warped, in a way, Leader bound in a silver, Shadow consumed by flame, and Jacky shattered into reflections. But what of you? Sugar? One ever chasing? Grasping for stars in the sky? You feel a warmth wrap around you from behind, like a blanket giving you a loving hug. Your lungs take in a breath, and the strong, yet not overpowering smell of confectionary. The hug wraps further, around your chest, down your limbs, but you feel no discomfort, only the slightest hint of ever present longing. Even as the hug becomes tighter, and static plays across your skin, you can’t bring yourself to panic. The tension builds amidst the whole group, your hands still held tight, but all look different. Shadow’s arms covered in wave of soot, hands cracked like broken charcoal, and from her palm, you feel spark of heat, one which is reflected deep in her eyes, while the rest of her form remains clothes in a pristine white dress. Leader’s form, you saw before, but seeing her transform makes it seem much different. A tight silver lace wrapping around her flesh, binding more than tight, the flesh looks choked, but her face is a mask of calm. Jacky was the most violent. Like a shattered mirror she broke, hands barely fragments hanging on, her flesh a cloud of shards with her crystallized soul in the middle. And on the soul, shard by shard, a form was build, a form… exactly like the one she wore before.
<span class="mu-b">ANTON PEAS</span>: That's your name, don’t wear it out! Whisked away by a cult ritual gone wrong to a fantasy land shrouded in perpetual darkness, it’s safe to say your life has gotten a <span class="mu-i">LOT</span> more interesting as of late.
Sure, you’ve got a few new friends to back you up: <span class="mu-b">TZAH-TZIE:</span> a spinner of songs, stories, and shenanigans, <span class="mu-b">VOLKA:</span> gentle giant and Grand Marshall of <span class="mu-b">THE LAMPLIGHTERS:</span> a volunteer group working to keep the city safe, <span class="mu-b">MOROOK:</span> a big-eyed bushman you managed to spring free of a cult base and Volka’s adopted brother, and <span class="mu-b">REZALITH:</span> a feisty fiend who decided to rush off on her own due to… well…
Look, things have gotten <span class="mu-i">hairy</span>, okay? Barely surviving an all-you-can-eat buffet of close calls during a raid on one of the infamous <span class="mu-r">SPICE CARTEL’S</span> casinos, you immediately turned your attention towards preventing a summoning ritual by <span class="mu-r">THE CULT OF THE BURROWER</span>: a group of conspirators aiming to take over the world by any means necessary… including summoning <span class="mu-r">DEMONS!</span>
During your cross-country trek, however, you were visited in your dreams by an unfamiliar voice asking for your aid! The request?
<span class="mu-b">”LORDS… END….”</span>
Every inch of your being hopes they aren’t talking about <span class="mu-r">THE FOUR LORDS</span> that rule <span class="mu-b">ZORAL</span>, but you have a habit of being wrong these days! Still, it’s either be a hero or cough up <span class="mu-b">20,000 BELLS</span> for a lead on how to get home… and that doesn’t even begin to address the fact that you inadvertently entered a contract with a devil upon being summoned!
Oh, and did you mention your ex-girlfriend <span class="mu-r">LIZ</span> apparently found her way here? Yea, you’re not gonna be buying any lottery tickets any time soon, THAT’S for sure…
Trudging through slush and muck to an Inn that owes you a well-deserved reward, THIS is where your tale continues…
