PKMNB0Y

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

@Strosivadan: Aye, still open at the moment.

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

Kochiya Sanae

Aventon — Forest Outskirts

With crossed arms and a look of concern rather evident on her face, Sanae glanced around where the group had stopped and shook her head. Up on the peak of Youkai Mountain, beasts rampaging around was an occasional occurrence, but seldom had she seen anything to this extent. More often than not, the tengu or kappa would take it upon themselves to clean matters up before Kanako could even thing of sending her out (or cause bigger problems that would call for her presence to resolve the matter), which meant that her experience on this front was rather limited at best.

Luckily enough, there were those present who did have the skills for just such an occasion, which would inevitably mean that she wouldn't have to make a fool of herself by chasing the wrong trail.

Not that there would really 'be' any wrong trail, though; Remilia (and anyone else with a keen eye for these things) would notice that there were indeed multiple creatures that had passed through the area—and a few minor clashes to boot, if the rare patch of blood or torn fur was any indication of anything.

"Uh... A youkai?" Derek would ask in response to Youmu's inquiry, scratching his head in confusion. "I haven't the foggiest what you might mean by that. Is that a monster of some sort? Because if we're talking monsters and magical creatures... Well, there are probably more than a few deeper into the forest, but they usually don't tend to get close enough for us to have to worry."

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich@Lugubrious@EchoWolff

---

The Skies Above Aventon

With the sky as clear and as blue as it could ever be, Rayne would find no issues flying higher and higher into the sky. Ascending into the heavens above, the halfling would soon be met with a beautiful late-morning vista over the horizon—and a nearly uninterrupted view of the land below.

Aventon itself seemed to be somewhat damaged from the chaos of yesterday, but most of the damage could be repaired in time; there was nothing so devastating so as to force the residents to have to abandon their home outright. Sure, the wounds of battle and the loss of life marred what would otherwise be a picturesque little town, but that much couldn't be helped.

There would be little of note to be seen to the north, where the Heralds had retreated towards; there scarcely seemed to be a road of any sort that way, though the ground seemed level enough to not warrant a need for any. A gaping hole in the northern wall, though, would explain how the Heralds had been able to access Aventon's inner workings. Maybe that was an issue to be handled later in time.

Looking east would provide much of the same visuals, though these lands seemed at least somewhat developed. Fields of grain had only started to grow, it seemed, and by some miracle or another the Heralds had left the area mostly untouched. There was evidence of some robbery of whatever was near the town, but beyond that everything seemed intact enough. Further still would be a river, and one large enough to provide for the needs of the town's food supply.

To the town's south, a long, winding road would stretch out into the distance. This one, though scarcely anything more than worn dirt, would at least indicate the presence of travel to and from the humble frontier town. There wasn't any clear destination from where they were now, which at the very least meant that wherever that road led to was too far away to see even from the skies above.

That ultimately left the west the last, and it was there that the expanse of the forests made itself rather apparent. Trees blanketed the area and only really stopped right where Aventon had situated itself—a strategic choice of some sort, no doubt—but seemed to extend far off into the distance, at which point they seemed to bleed into the ground below a somewhat moderately-sized mountain.

The clearing where the church was positioned—in other words, where the group had all come from—was visible from where Rayne was in the sky, as were a few scattered ruins that she had seen yesterday. They weren't convenient trips by any means, but their distance from the town would at least make return visits doable within reason.

@DracoLunaris

Qlippoth Shift: A Supernatural Action RP About Combating Otherworldy Anomalies

Tachibana Masaru

Nagano Prefecture — Abandoned Mansion

With the sole ranged phantom ashigaru promptly dealt with by none other than Zhao and his fists of death, Masaru moved to follow after his teammate with more aggressive positioning. If their enemy was to take a more defensive posture to use their spears as tools to ward them off—against an archer, no less—then there clearly had to be some sort of misstep in their training.

Well, assuming they had been given any, at least.

As Zhao moved to break through their weapons, Masaru began to fire volley after volley of arrows into the gaps where the martial artist wasn't. If their enemies had been felled with simple shots like those he had fired earlier, then surely he could just turn them into pincushions and achieve the same result in less time... Right?

"Well, trash mobs like these are an... Okay warmup, I guess? Still feels a bit like target practice, which isn't particularly riveting," he remarked as he fired another volley of arrows. "...So if we've got foot soldiers here, maybe we'll find some sturdier stuff deeper in? Wonder how you go past 'armored samurai' in the chain, though, since I assume that's what's up next..."

@Psyker Landshark@Raineh Daze

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

Kochiya Sanae

??? — Hunter's Lodge

Sanae turned to look at the others present who hadn't yet left for the night and was left only mildly surprised at the fact that a majority of them wanted to go hunt down whatever it was in the forest that was leaving the hunters on edge. When that number promptly doubled when the two who had been missing when she had woken up when she had chimed in, the green-haired girl was left in a bit of an odd spot. Naturally, dealing with monsters would have been no different from youkai extermination—a job she had become quite familiar with, but not in this sort of context—but Anne did have a point. But to choose between staying behind or gathering more information about the area...

"Mmm..."

After being lost in her thoughts as she weighed the pros and cons of doing whatever she did, Sanae finally chose to simply choose both options at once. It made sense to her; after all, there were also corpses near the church, which meant that the 'monsters' in question could still appear near there... Which meant that she could accomplish her original goal and help a bit before coming back. "Two birds with one stone" and all that.

"I'll go tag along for a bit, then," she said, stepping forward. "Or, well, I'll join the group to check the area around that church up and help deal with monsters on the side—assuming there are any, of course. I'll head back to the town once my own investigation's done, though, just so we can split the difference."

At the sudden wave of support for an investigation into the nearby woods, though, the hunter who had first mentioned the presence of something odd therein seemed to look surprised for a moment before giving his friend a bit of a smirk.

"Guess we've got the heroes on my side, huh?" he half-joked before raising a hand towards them. "Right, name's Derek; if you wanted to know where we are right now... Well, this is the humble town of Aventon, slapped right on the frontier of the nation of Riltaea. As you, uh, overheard, I saw an uncannily large shadow in the woods earlier today during a hunt. Seemed too dangerous to continue with something that big lumbering around, so I came back early."

There was a bit of a pause before Derek scratched the back of his head before glancing briefly towards his companion, then back towards the rest of the group that had assembled.

"I can show you where it was I saw it, at least. If something that big really is around here, then we're going to have a hell of a time getting any food from the forests here."

---

Aventon — Forest Outskirts

Led by Derek into the forest as they were, the group would swiftly make their way westward. For the most part, nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, but anyone with an eye for nature would feel anything but. Signs of freshly-marked trees, gouged out by something far larger than should have been ordinary, and large amounts of underbrush that looked to have been crushed underfoot in a single motion...

"Here we are," Derek said out loud as he slowed to a stop and looked around. "This is where I saw whatever that thing was, but..."

The more problematic thing wasn't that whatever had marked this place as its own didn't seem to be the only one—not with so many branching paths with clear signs of things passing through every which way.

"My instincts are telling me that something's off. The heck could've caused all this, though...?"

---

Aventon — Hunter's Lodge

As the rest of the group left to go and hunt whatever beast was giving that hunter cause for concern, Kendrick—who by the looks of things seemed rather worn-out—entered the lodge. He had given a passing glance to those who were headed out, but his goal at this point in time was not to speak with them.

No, it only made sense that he wanted to talk to the woman who he had entrusted the pair of children to the night before.

"Miss, uh... Sorry, I don't think I ever got your name," he said to Anne as he walked over to her. "...I saw Alvin run off back to his old place last night. I'm guessing you chose to break the news to him?"

The guard had a complicated expression on his face—an indescribable mix of concern, frustration, and understanding all in one—but he chose not to act on any of those emotions and continued speaking his piece instead.

"Either way... I checked in on him last night after my shift ended. He was still there, thankfully enough—sleeping on the floor and soaking wet, but there. But that's more than enough reason to talk to you now."

It was at this point that Kendrick's expression hardened a little, and a frown made itself rather evident on his face.

"Look, I know I'm not the kid's dad. I can't replace what Ywain's done, and I don't even want to think about how to handle the situation with Millie after she wakes up. I also can't thank you enough for bringing them back here safely—a lot of people here lost their friends and loved ones, and every person alive is a blessing on its own. But would it have been too much to ask to try and keep the news from him until... I don't know, today? Even asking me to do it like you had suggested would have been fine; it's not like I haven't had to do that more than enough times already."

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious@Drifting Pollen@EchoWolff

Pokemon: Dream

Richard Evans

Seasalt Caverns — B2F

Given that his plan hinged upon Luna getting enough experience, it seemed reasonable to just start by defeating every Nacli that they could come across and try to get the Snivy enough experience in battle before heading deeper out onto the trail. The first two were dealt in much of the same way as they had Laurel's Sprigatito—in other words, paralyzing them with Glare, then steadily tackling them down between their own attacks to knock them unconscious. The battles were by no means intricate or intense, but in an enclosed space like the cave there was only so much space that Luna could use to maneuver in.

At the very least, though, there were a few stalagmites that could be used as cover if it came down to it.

After dealing with two Nacli, Luna seemed fairly confident in her ability to take on another. But when the third seemed to be unaffected by her Glare and swung back with a Mud Shot, Richard wasted no time in calling out to her.

"Change of plans! Luna, dodge to the side and Leer! If it tries to come in close, tackle back; if it stays at range, keep dodging and using Leer!"

It was only at the last second that Luna seemed to notice Richard's cry, and after somehow shaking off the shock of their tried-and-true strategy not working, the Grass Snake Pokemon attempted to dive out of the way before mounting a counterattack. While the battle continued on, though, Richard reached into his bag and pulled out an empty Pokeball, readying himself to try and capture their opponent once Luna weakened it enough to do so.

@Rune_Alchemist

Qlippoth Shift: A Supernatural Action RP About Combating Otherworldy Anomalies

Tachibana Masaru

Nagano Prefecture — Abandoned Mansion

"What the heck, you were right?"

Masaru's follow-up to Zhao's quip was quickly followed up by a quick backstep as the Agent brought his bow up to a ready position. Sakura had already retreated using that odd portal magic of hers, and with Zhao taking point and causing chaos on the frontlines it swiftly fell to him to keep the pressure up on the enemies that hadn't yet engaged him.

A quick analysis of the room left Masaru with just enough leeway to start firing without threatening to tag Zhao in the process, and the young man wasted no time in nocking an arrow and firing towards the gaps in the shadowy ashigaru soldiers' helmets. He didn't expect them all to land dead-on, but even exposing the area underneath would make it easy for a follow-up attack to land true.

Not like he could just aim for the body, though; with all that plating, all his arrows were apt to do was bounce off and maybe leave a bit of a dent. Using whatever weird electricity magic his bow had was an option too, of course, but limiting the space that their frontliner could access seemed rather counter-intuitive at best.

@Psyker Landshark@Raineh Daze

Past the Veil

@Sanity43217: Certainly. I've also added this to the OP, but to emphasize it here:

Traditional magic (or, more simply, just magic) is a blanket term used to describe any spell or field of magic that is not directly influenced by some sort of "divine" amplifier. The variety of magic types that this encompasses includes but is not limited to:

• Elemental magic of all varieties
• Status magic, which itself can be split into enhancement and debilitation spells
• Healing and divine magic
• "Life Magic", which is a general-use term for any number of miscellaneous spells generally used for day-to-day convenience (for example, maintaining the temperature of an object for a period of time)

Most traditional spells are single-purpose and are designed to execute one thing in a certain way. While their use cases may be flexible, the manner in which they act upon the world and the results they produce are clearly defined within the parameters of their spells. Changing those parameters would change the spell, and doing so without understanding the mechanics behind the spells (which are generally cast using some form of verbal or physical conduit) could lead to less-than-desirable results.

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

Kochiya Sanae

??? — Hunter's Lodge

Lewa's rather adverse initial reaction to her comment about being controlled caused Sanae to instinctively raise her hands in the air and take a step back from the green machine-not-machine-person-thing. The fact that she had apparently touched on something that was a bit of a sore spot for him was not lost upon her, of course, but it luckily didn't take long for him to recover and explain himself and his origins in turn.

"Oooh... I see, I see," she said, nodding her head at his explanations. "A mechanical hero protecting the jungles of his homeland... I think there's something inherently poetic about that, in a weird way. Regardless, that has to be a large responsibility to bear; the best I ever do is go around solving incidents when not tending to the shrine I live at, and even then that stuff usually doesn't leave who knows how many lives hanging in the balance..."

With that said, though, Sanae quieted down and listened to the others introduce themselves and their situations in turn. Rayne's situation seemed a bit more concerning compared to the rest of them—life and death not functioning sounded like an incident waiting to happen—but it didn't seem like any of them could really get back to what they were doing until this whole summoning mess was resolved regardless. Joker's introduction, however, piqued a bit more of the young woman's interest—not because of how foreign it was, but instead how familiar the last quip he had given felt to her.

"Joker and Arsene... Cards? Like playing cards? And... Arsene... Lupin? Like that old manga?" she asked in turn, cocking her head to the side in curiosity. "Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?"

Though she wanted to poke more into everyone's histories and circumstances, Youmu's and Remilia's accounts of their arrival quickly pulled her back to incident resolution mode. The fact that they had both been brought over after the fact, and well after the rest of them had been summoned to the church here (and fundamentally weakened to boot) was a red flag in her head, and inevitably something to look into sooner rather than later.

"That doesn't sound particularly pleasant," Sanae remarked, grimacing at her acquaintainces' accounts of their arrival before crossing her arms. "Hopefully it isn't anything too bad, but I've got a bad feeling about this if that's how you two arrived here..."

With the situation as it was, though, it seemed that the best the group could do now was spend the rest of the night under a proper roof and resting—and maybe even talking further about what their plan was for the near future beyond waiting for their questions to be answered by the still-absent divinity that had brought them all here.

---

Though he seemed to have been expecting the answer that Anne had given him, Alvin seemed no less torn by what she had said. His father was dead, and had died giving his life for theirs...

"..."

Though he had seemed mature for his age, the young boy had really only done so at the behest of his father—the very same who had the wits to send him and Millie off into the wilds, knowing full well that whatever had come for them would have left them dead (or worse). But though the logical part of his brain had begun to grasp it, his heart refused the evidence outright. He and his sister had been saved from the Heralds, yes, but they had still taken his father all the same. Even so, a miracle had saved him and his sister; who was to say that something couldn't have happened to save his father after the fact?

Despite everything, Alvin—whose fists had clenched tightly into fists—wordlessly broke past Anne and ran outside the lodge and into the streets. Maybe, just maybe, his father would be there, alive and waiting for their return like he had promised.

---

---

The Next Day

With everything that had happened, it wasn't too surprising that Sanae had eventually burned through the last of her energy and passed out on the floor at some point during the night. It was only the feeling of hunger that finally roused her from her slumber—well, that and an uncomfortable rest on the cold wooded floor in her shrine maiden outfit.

Really, it was a miracle that she had fallen asleep to begin with.

Sanae let out a groan of discomfort as she blearily opened her eyes and stretched her arms upwards, and a cursory glance around left the young woman cognizant that the events of the last day had not been a delusion conjured up by her mind. The injured were still laying around, and the people who had awoken were slowly getting back to work trying to make sure that nobody had passed during the night. Remilia's assistance seemed to help a lot more than her own small miracles had, given how much more tangible they seemed to be, but physical repairs could only do so much to keep someone alive and well.

Pushing herself off the ground and stretching her limbs in an attempt to rid herself of the soreness and discomfort of it all, the young woman glanced around before frowning.

"...Hm. Anyone else up?" she asked as she brushed some of the debris off of her dress and glanced around. "Need to figure out where we can get some food to start. I was going to go check out that church again if Millie wasn't awake, but by the looks of things she's still out like a light."

At the same time, though, a few of the hunters off to the side seemed to be discussing matters in hushed tones, close enough to the entrance of the building so as to not alert the injured further in.

"You sure you saw something in the forest? Rain should've washed everything down last night."

"Blood, sure, but we've got corpses all over and no chance to clean up. You'd be crazy to think there aren't any opportunistic monsters who would love a free meal..."

@VitaVitaAR@Izurich@DracoLunaris@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze@Drifting Pollen

Past the Veil

@Vlad Tepes: Eh... I mean... It's just one of many inspirations. There's a lotta stuff to pull ideas from, so it's not too farfetched to think that.

@Crowvette: Aight, let's see if there aren't any more people to pull, then.

Past the Veil

Prologue

When the towers first decended upon the world, humanity was whipped up into a frenzy. On that day, hundreds of pillars—each build of some sort of material, though seldom the same as one another—seemed to appear all across the planet without so much as a sound. The people living nearby would be hard-pressed to ignore such massive structures appearing all of a sudden, but the theories as to what they were and why they were here were few and far between. Some blamed aliens; others, an act of divinity heralding the end. But one thing seemed to be certain: no matter what people tried, each and every one was nigh impenetrable.

Or, rather, impenetrable save a sole pair of doors, massive and ominous, serving as their entrance.

It went without saying that the governments of each nation moved quickly to secure the areas; people were evacuated, containment zones set up—everything to at least posture like they had the situation under control.

But it was then that things grew... Strange.

Scientists who had begun to analyze the area quickly become aware of a certain something radiating from the towers—an odd element that seemed to have been absorbed by the people nearby and that was spreading out into the world around them.

And those nearest the towers as they first appeared began to develop powers that one could only describe as "magic".

The first scouting drones also soon reported back as to what was hiding behind those doors: spaces far larger than they had any right to be, filled with fantastical flora and fauna—and no small number of hostiles. Only one expedition in Tokyo found something different: a large floating gateway, bound by stone and glowing runes in the center of the floor.

Before any decision could be made to send a drone through it and see what could be retrieved (if any), though, those on guard soon found that whoever (or whatever) was on the other side had made the first move. The portal began to waver, and as the soldiers on duty readied their weapons...

Out came what could only have been described as a young man bearing metal armor lifted straight out of a fantasy game—followed closely behind by someone who, with pale golden hair and pointed ears extending behind her, could only be seen as an elf straight out of Tolkien.

In other words, a realm of fantasy awaited the people of Earth—and, in a way, a world developed bereft of magic awaited beyond the veil of their newfound "acquaintances".

To say that the coming days were chaotic would have been an understatement.

With no other tower sharing that same portal, delegates the world over flocked to Tokyo to try and establish relationships with that fantasy realm on the other side, in hopes that the world beyond might not only have an explanation to the strange phenomenon that had befallen them, but also to capitalize on the coming revolution.

The "Age of Fantasy", as many would come to call it, had only just begun.

---

A World of Swords and Magic

The fantasy realm that has since been connected to Earth goes by the name Valmerin, and it is by all accounts what someone on Earth would consider to be a "high fantasy" world. Though only very basic diplomatic contact has been established with the nation of Prynzfir by means of the portal within the tower in Tokyo, a few basic facts have been established thus far.

• Technology has not advanced far past that of the medieval era on Earth; the exception to this rule is in the usage of magic in lieu of modern conveniences.
• Some magical translation spell is at play when it comes to verbal dialogue. The written language remains undecipherable as of now, but linguistic trends indicate that their common tongue is phonetic and thus can be transliterated to some extent. As of right now, though, dialogue must be dictated and transcribed if it is to be recorded—and this goes both ways.
• There are quite a few sapient species living within Prynzfir beyond just humans. Physiology does seem to differ between them, but none seem outlandishly "alien" by Earth standards.

---

The Nature of Magic

Magic—or magic so far as people understand it—is the process of using mana in a structured manner such that a desired outcome is created as a result of that. Magic, by nature, runs contrary to many of the laws of physics, even if what it creates may follow it, which has already left so many scientists attempting to consider the implications of such a system relative to the laws of the natural world. For the moment (and with the field basically unexplored both on Earth and within the realm it now connects to), however, magic is only really understood in the context of itself—especially when the "exceptions" start brought into the conversation.

Magic has traditionally been categorized into one of two categories, as per Prynzfirian records: "traditional" magic and "blessings". Traditional magic (or, more simply, just magic) is a blanket term used to describe any spell or field of magic that is not directly influenced by some sort of "divine" amplifier. The variety of magic types that this encompasses includes but is not limited to:

• Elemental magic of all varieties
• Status magic, which itself can be split into enhancement and debilitation spells
• Healing and divine magic
• "Life Magic", which is a general-use term for any number of miscellaneous spells generally used for day-to-day convenience (for example, maintaining the temperature of an object for a period of time)

Most traditional spells are single-purpose and are designed to execute one thing in a certain way. While their use cases may be flexible, the manner in which they act upon the world and the results they produce are clearly defined within the parameters of their spells. Changing those parameters would change the spell, and doing so without understanding the mechanics behind the spells (which are generally cast using some form of verbal or physical conduit) could lead to less-than-desirable results.

Despite the naming schema, blessed magic does not occupy the same niche as what we might consider "holy" magic—in other words, magic traditionally attributed to clergy in fantasy such as removal of curses or healing—but does derive itself from a similar origin. Blessing magic usually derives itself from the power of divinities of Valmerin, whereupon one such being bestows upon a mortal the ability to invoke power well beyond most of their kin at the cost of only being able to draw upon those magicks that their patron has an affinity for.

What might be more intriguing, however, is the presence of what seems to be a third category of magic—one unique to Earth, comparable in a way to blessings. Colloqually dubbed "unique" magic, wielders of this type tend less towards standard elemental or metaphysical schema, but more towards concepts and abilities with those as a basis. As with the magic of the blessed, those who wield unique magic cannot generally expand outside of their given domain insofar as we have observed. The only consistent thread we have found among these people is that they were in close proximity to a Tower when it manifested, and no more.

---

Right, that should be enough for a basis. I want this RP to be a bit looser in terms of structure than most that I've run, but the core concept is more or less presented as-is. As ever, I'm open for questions, so feel free to ask. For those who might have something cooking already while this is still in a preliminary stage, though, here's a form for your troubles.

Form

• Name:
• Appearance:
• Age:
• Race:
• World of Origin:
• Abilities: (This includes magic, which is not mandatory for characters).
• Skills:
• Personality:
• History:
• Other: