[center][h3]Suoh[/h3]
[b]Sector 3 Upper[/b]
Level 2 Goldlewis (20/20)
Goldlewis, Peach, Raz’s [@Truthhurts22], Roxas’ [@Double], Sakura and Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Pit’s [@Yankee]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2591[/center]

Rather than walk all the way back through the city, Goldlewis returned to his nearby hummer and drove back to Anistar with Midna riding shotgun, arriving at the gym a tiny bit older and not a whole lot wiser than they were when they left. In their absence the others had been exploring and making use of the gym itself, either conventionally or as a source of information. Apparently Sakura got herself into a sparring match with a senior Psych-OSF member of the premises, and while it seemed to go well at first, it ended on a surprise sour note as the street fighter’s trauma from the depths of the nightmarish Maw returned to haunt her. At that point she went from ‘working out’ to ‘working out her mental issues’ with the help of Raz, who unveiled a special ability he’d been sitting on for a while now to literally dive into and get straight to the heart of the matter.

In the meantime, Peach and Pit had been exploring the lower levels of the gym. Down there they found nothing too unusual, just more civilians and off-duty Scarlet Guardians training themselves through a variety of means. One of the more interesting methods they spotted was one telekinesis-user doing his best to hold up a number of padded blocks in the air, while two sisters engaged in a psychic shootout on the suspended battlefield. There were more normal classes on offer as well, including a ‘Boxercise’ routine run by one [url=https://i.imgur.com/TxDMH5c.png]Disco Kid[/url]. With the tagline ‘punch with the best of them!’ it offered a workout that required no psychic ability. In the spirit of fitting in Peach decided to give it a try, though her choice of office clothes rather than gym wear got her a couple funny looks. Disco Kid was all about it, though, and with his winning smile plus can-do attitude he got the whole class grooving in a high-energy dance of jabs, hooks, and uppercuts. Her love of sports still intact, Peach had a great time, and afterward she got in a quick word with Disco himself. Once she explained her goal of training in order to volunteer for Psych-OSF, Disco supplied her with the requirements for joining. It was less stringent than she thought; applicants didn’t even need to have a home. As long as any would-be cadets possessed sufficient medical, moral, and physical fitness, basic education, 10-30 years of age, and psychic sensitivity, it sounded like just about anyone could join up. The princess thanked her boxercise instructor and returned to the group.

After a brief meeting during which Goldlewis and Midna shared what little they’d learned about the politics and pest control of Suoh, everyone went their separate ways again, resolved to meet back at Musubi’s by no later than six forty-five in the evening. Midna went to find Bede to warn him about the eventual fate of any and all psychic Pokemon in Midgar, but with no sign of the young man her search quickly turned into a wild goose chase through the streets of Suoh. Goldlewis, meanwhile, uncovered a promising lead via the public Psynet terminal in Anistar Gym. As it turned out, a relatively easy and official way to descend beneath the Sector 5 Plate to Seiran did exist: a public freight elevator not too far from the center of the sparkling red metropolis. Planning to see it with his own eyes, and use it if possible, he extended an invitation to any of the Seekers who might want to join him. Then he and whoever accepted loaded back up into his hummer, the veteran’s giant coffin tucked securely into the trunk, and they took to the city streets once more.

Thanks to the miracle of motorized transport, the hummer came to rest in the public parking lot of a grand structure called the Praetorium. Practically a fortress in terms of appearance, this was the transport hub that housed the freight elevator Goldlewis sought, and it positively bustled with activity. Even finding a parking spot was pretty difficult, especially given his ride’s sheer, audacious size, and things only got livelier from there. Coffin slung over his shoulder, he joined the steady stream of people headed inside the building, careful to observe everything he could about the place. From what he could tell, this facility handled both human traffic and cargo shipments between Suoh and Seiran, sending goods between plate and undercity in massive quantities. He could not see the timetables projected as Visions around the building, but they revealed an ironclad schedule: ten minutes to load and unload at one terminus, then ten minutes of travel between them, rinse and repeat over and over again like clockwork. In other words, the second the elevator got sealed and began its trip, it would be thirty minutes on the dot before it returned. The lift happened to be gone when Goldlewis arrived, so he joined the line to wait for the next one, ignorant of how long it might be thanks to his inability to see the psychic displays. Just under ten minutes later though, the elevator arrived, and the great exchange began. 

The platform itself was pretty huge at hundreds of feet in diameter. Once it came to a stop and the gates opened, passengers flooded off it, and large machines went to work unloading the freight from Seiran in order to stack high the containers from Suoh in their place. It reminded Goldlewis of a cargo ship bay and a subway blended into one. As he boarded, his eyes on the giant cranes, he briefly wondered why a psychic city would rely on technology instead of, say, telekinesis to move such loads around. Then again, using mechanical precision cut out the possibility of human error, and maybe they needed to conserve their psionics’ abilities for combat, anyway. Once the passengers loaded up, either standing, using benches that rose up from the elevator’s surface, or just sitting on the floor, the [url=https://i.imgur.com/lhW4O4E.jpeg]elevator[/url] began its diagonal trek through the plate itself via a huge inclined tunnel, rolling on immense metal wheels.

When he arrived in Seiran, Goldlewis quickly learned just how stark the differences between it and Suoh were. While the Plate resembled an ordinary metropolis, at least for the most part, the undercity featured a much more unusual layout. It was composed entirely of skyscrapers of various heights, rising hundreds of stories into the air like a primeval forest, interconnected by countless bridges, cables, and metal rails–a real concrete jungle. Many of the skyscrapers, but not all, extended all the way up to the plate. One such building housed the bottom end of the Praetorium elevator, and after disembarking Goldlewis made his way to the nearest edge. After looking down and managing to not lose his lunch, he could see that there was no ‘ground level’ to this city. Instead the skyscrapers rose straight from the reservoir itself. The water didn’t look inviting in the least, with vast, scummy algal blooms turning the water green and even red, as well as embankments of trash instead of sand around the bases of the buildings. Blue and pink bioluminescence could be glimpsed even from this height, calling to mind the Psifish that one member of Psych-OSF’s Containment Division mentioned, but those pulsing lights were weak and febrile. Goldlewis did not envy anything living in that water, if ‘living’ it could even be termed.

The veteran snooped around Seiran for a couple hours, on the hunt for anything that might be useful for the Seekers. Though the glittering lights and stainless steel of Suoh weren’t so far away considering the freight elevator, the property values plummeted here, dropping lower and lower the farther down one went on the skyscrapers. Even getting around was tricky, with a variety of ingenious (or slapdash) methods to navigate the towers in evidence. While the higher areas featured an almost maritime charm to them, the lower areas tended more toward degradation and squalor, undesirable even for the city’s poor. Nothing wholesome could be fished from those waters, after all. Only the most abject wretches, laid low by illness or other malady, dwelled in the shanties near the water. Goldlewis heard that the denizens down there weren’t even people, for the most part; rumors spoke instead of fishmen and other demihuman monstrosities. He stuck to the upper levels, with their seafood markets supplied by high-level indoor aquaculture, ignorant of the Visions of aquatic creatures that swam through the air in an almost pitiable attempt to preserve the original atmosphere of what had once been a genuine seaside city.

After some searching, Goldlewis finally found it: a former clinic not too far from the freight elevator, for sale at a pretty cheap price. At some point after its initial dereliction, it had been occupied by a detachment of shady individuals purported to be operatives of some tech gang or another, but recently it had been discovered that they abandoned the place once more, so it was back on the market. Lingering fear of the gang members returning drove away potential buyers, though, which explained the cheap price. When Goldlewis arrived the [url=https://i.imgur.com/DH1nXUA.png]demihuman landlord[/url] gave him a tour in person. The clinic turned out to be a strange blend of futuristic and medieval, with [url=https://cdn1.epicgames.com/ue/product/Screenshot/InfinityBladeHideout2-1920x1080-8fbae86d4f49fa71efca7e59cc62c55b.png?resize=1&w=1920]one half[/url] tinted yellow by the light that streamed through its glass windows onto wooden furniture and metal cookware, while the [url=https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/040/409/543/large/oleksii-lisovyi-screenshot-2021-06-02-22-54-37.jpg?1628765659]other[/url] was a jumble of discarded tech awash in electric blue light.

“Well?” Moneybags asked, reaching out his paw. “Not my most splendid property, I’ll admit, but it’s functional, pest-free, conveniently located, off the grid, and yours for a [i]very[/i] modest price. What do you say?”

[hr]

Goldlewis put his hummer in park, removed the key, and rolled down his window. The Seekers gathered around his vehicle. Aside from Bede, who the veteran hoped Midna managed to find and warn, everyone seemed to be here, and right on time. After an afternoon spent galavanting around Suoh, and in some cases Seiran too, the Seekers had reunited right back where they started: in the parking lot of Musubi’s. The shadows had grown long, and the sky tinted orange as the sun was beginning to set over the Suoh skyline. Seven o’ clock was right around the corner, but before the team went to dinner, Goldlewis had something to say. “Pile in for a spell,” he told the group, reaching his arm out of the window to pat the exterior of his car door. “I want a quick word before we head in.” 

Once everyone got in, he put his window up again, and turned in his seat to address the group. “Sorry it ain’t exactly comfortable in here, but I appreciate y’all for hearin’ me out,” he told them, though for anyone less than seven feet tall and five hundred sixty-six pounds his hulking hummer’s interior was actually pretty roomy. “In here’s the only place we’re really safe from them listenin’ cameras. Now, this won’t be a minute, but I figured I’d sum up real quick before we get started. The little fella we’re meetin’ is Luka Travers. Regardless of anyone’s misgivin’s, we don’t wanna antagonize him, so play. It. Cool. He also ain’t as young as he looks, so don’t treat him like a kid. He’s the little brother of Septentrion First Class [i]Ka[/i]-ren Travers, who just might be the biggest fish in the whole doggone OSF. We’re tryin’ to do two things.” He held up one finger. “One. We wanna learn more about Psych-OSF. Relations between the big players, current events, anythin’ we can without pryin’ too hard. Don’t grill the li’l guy or nothin’, just bring it up in conversation, all casual-like.”

He held up a second finger. “Two. We wanna get a couple o’ ours into the OSF. We can lean on Raz and his connections, hopefully get y’all fast-tracked through basic and into the fold. Luka can teleport, so maybe we could convince him to take ya along with him back to base to get started. Havin’ him along to vouch for ya’s gotta be worth somethin’, too.” He furrowed his brow. “That means it’s time…”

“Time for us to fuse,” Peach finished, nodding. “Me and whoever else wanted to volunteer. Was it you who did, Sakura?” She glanced at the street fighter.

Goldlewis pursed his lips. “I know it might seem…odd, but doin’ it right here might be your best bet. I got tinted windows that’ll block out the light some, and y’all used a bathroom or something anywhere else, chances are there’d be a camera watchin’ ya go in and out.”

“Okay,” the princess replied, determination in her voice. “Let’s do it.” After rummaging around in her pockets, she produced the two OSF spirits. She passed the other one to the other volunteer, then held hers in front of her heart. Closing her eyes, she steeled herself with a deep breath, then shoved the spirit into her chest.

[center][hider=For Peach]Spirit absorbed:
[b]Kaede Thompson[/b]
The host had gotten shorter and more slender. Her skin is slightly tanned due to the lingering effect of Mr. Grimm, but her ethnicity is now predominantly white/Asian. Her hair is still tricolor, but the red-blonde-white is now a more muted auburn-caramel-cream, as if filtered through light brown. She has two round buns and long sidelocks in front of her ears. Her eyes are an interesting gradient, blue in the right and red in the left but both turning to amber and then to dark brown going upward. Her outfit is a slightly more techy suit and tie, with a red instead of white shirt, light armor pads, and a few orange wires wound around. Her personality is a bit more cheerful and carefree, not too far from her original mindset. This spirit confers the Power [b]Materialization[/b], which allows the host to create objects by psychically condensing stray particles into crystalline matter, which can be perceived even by those without sensitivity. This also imparts psychic sensitivity. This spirit also confers the Weakness [b]Harsh Reality[/b]. Others can now sense her presence from a distance and will hunt her down for her brain. She can now be Brain Crushed and is susceptible to PR.[/hider][/center]

When the light died down, Peach sat in her seat, a changed woman. Considering how she looked before as a result of her fusions with Mr. Grimm and Chao Ho, she looked rather more normal now, but only the faintest trace of the original princess remained in her features. She checked herself in the passenger-side mirror, running a hand along her cheek. While she couldn’t say she looked bad or anything, she didn’t even recognize herself. And yet the effect of fusion dampened any dysmorphia she might be experiencing, so she couldn’t even say this felt wrong. The person staring back at her from the mirror wasn’t Princess Peach. But it was her. She inhaled through her nose, breathed out her mouth, and smiled.

Goldlewis had been watching her intently, intrigued by the whole process. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Peach replied, a little surprised by the sound of her own voice. It was higher than before, almost cute. “I feel pretty good, in fact! It’s almost like…a weight was lifted off my shoulders.”

“Good, ‘cause I think Luka just appeared right in front of the restaurant,” Goldlewis said, pointing through the windshield. “Let’s get movin’.”

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/HH4mWhY.png[/img][/center]

The Seekers piled out of the car and into Musubi’s. On the way Peach nearly stumbled and fell, overwhelmed by the change of scenery. All of a sudden, Suoh had come alive with the light and motion of a million Visions, aglow and alive with psychic energy. Goldlewis, who had gone ahead to hold the door open for everyone else, didn’t reach her in time, so one of her other allies helped her along instead. The team managed to make it in one piece to the table where [url=https://i.imgur.com/sghuW2E.png]Luka Travers[/url] had seated himself, just as the waitress finished setting it for nine.

“Good evening,” the boy said, smiling. “It’s good to see you again, and in better circumstances.” He shook the hands of Goldlewis and anyone else who wanted, pausing only a brief moment as he tilted his head at Peach. Then he unzipped his bag and pulled out a handful of eight papers sealed in plastic. “Here,” he said, passing them around. They were paper menus, with all sorts of rice, ramen, and sushi dishes listed out on them. “I only realized after we made plans that Musubi’s uses Vision menus, so on the off-chance that they might come in handy I procured these.” He smiled again and clasped his hands together. “This is the ‘Place Where People Meet’, after all. You can never be too sure who you’ll find.”

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8tiS1mF5yo&ab_channel=EccoMixes[/youtube][/center]

[center][h3]The Ruins - Dripstone Cave[/h3]
Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose’s [@Yankee], Rubick’s [@Scarifar], Teemo’s [@Bugman][/center]

Some quick thinking and teamwork allowed the Koopa Troop to cash in on the opportunity presented by the fleeing Huuli Hoarder. Once sedated and retrieved, it could be finished off with ease to render up a whole bunch of minerals, including nuggets of deep green Jadiz, mustard-yellow Bismor, and best of all, gold.

Junior then opted to take the initiative with a small pack of Migospel lurking nearby. The garishly-patterned bugs took note when he yelled out, drawing their attention to the entrance of the cave where the young prince and his friends were still getting their bearings. Such a large group of newcomers gave them pause, but once they realized that Junior might be a kindred spirit in terms of clowning around, they tentatively drew nearer. All of them made sure to use their best silly walks, or at least most of them did. One of the bunch lagged behind a little, its manner languid and bleary as if dispirited, sick, or perhaps just very tired. Junior would need to meet the bunch halfway, but when he did so he found the overlarge insects decently amicable. However, their comprehension of his questions left a lot to be desired.

“Send in the clowns!” one squealed, beginning to mime.

Another one honked its nose insistently, adding some extra sound effects to the mix. “Honk! Hooonk!”

“I love to laugh!” Another declared, juggling balls of ants. “Ha ha hee hee ho ho huu huu!”

The only one who didn’t join in the tomfoolery was the laggard one Junior spotted before. Its giggles were tremulous, and its attempts to juggle fell flat. It was as if the poor Migospel was half asleep. If Junior looked more closely, however, he would see something odd. Its eyes weren’t white like the others, but seemingly hollow, and within them shone a faint but unmistakable orange glow that flickered like firelight.

Meanwhile, Primrose retraced her steps a short ways. Mindful of both getting lost and marking a path for any allies to follow should they happen to come this way, she set about using a weapon gleaned from the fracas back in the Convent of Our Lady of the Charred Visage to create an inscription in the stone. Doing so brought her close to the spot where the tunnel branched between the Dripstone Cave and the alternative, more cluttered route. When she turned to rejoin her friends, she caught a glimpse of something in the corner of her eye, a shadowy figure moving through the soft purplish light down the other path. Mists far less ominous than those of the Webwood clung and curled gently around the outcroppings of stone and discarded masks in that direction, and through them the dancer could see a [url=https://i.imgur.com/m2XkOpz.png]lone figure[/url] whose oil-black body seemed to be adorned with a necklace of skulls and a helmet curled like a snail's shell. For a moment the stranger just stared back at her, making no attempt to hide himself, his shining white eyes curious. Then he waved as if to say hello in a manner very suggestive of sentience, and turned to tread a little deeper into the Ancestral Mound.

Naturally, Bowser and Kamek took some time to look around themselves. While most of the area seemed nice enough, dripstone caves like this owed their unique formations to calcium salts deposited by dripping water, and all the water found in this place turned out to be abominably stagnant. About a fourth of the cavern was occupied by a pool of extremely green, viscous liquid, pungent and foul. No Goams could be found in their vicinity; for all their invincibility they avoided that execrable liquid like the plague. The lily pads and reeds that grew in and around it were tough and brown, and around the poisonous pools lurked [url=https://i.imgur.com/So2xgYP.png]giant mosquitoes[/url], a lot less mobile but a lot more dangerous than their minuscule counterparts. 

The Koopas might have been content to leave the enormous pests to their rot if not for a certain discovery they made not too far from the muck. From his vantage point in the air the wizard happened to spot a diminutive creature nestled in the brush. He was a [url=https://i.imgur.com/wr5OO7Y.png]fuzzy little guy[/url], with cream-colored fur and a head as big or bigger than his body, decked out the green pith helmet, gloves, and boots that befitted an explorer. At the moment the Yordle seemed to be completely unconscious, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Next to him lay a piece of half-eaten shelf mushroom of the variety known as Naiti-Nait, overconsumption of which had knocked the unlucky lad right out. Anywhere else he might have been able to recover on his own given time, but In the vicinity of the squalid swamp, time was a luxury he didn’t have. The mosquitoes were already homing in on his position, all too eager to pierce the tiny, adorable explorer with their swordlike proboscises and drain him of his precious fluids.

[center][h3]The Under - Mom’s Chamber[/h3]
Level 10 Nadia (95/100)
Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Omori’s [@Majoras End], Ganondorf’s [@Double]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2273[/center]

The arrival of the Templar Impaler presented a fresh and ferocious new threat for the Seekers to contend with as they vied to finish Mom off, but to say that Ganondorf rose to the occasion would be an understatement. Spurred on by his pride and anger, he called upon his dark sorcery to transfigure himself into a towering boarlike monster, less eldritch and yet more fearsome than the cultists arrayed before him. As Nadia looked on, suddenly in no hurry to get any closer to the fight than she absolutely needed to, the slavering beast let out a hideous bellow and charged into the fray.

With greatswords bigger than most men he went after the gouty pillar of flesh wherever it descended, hacking into it with reckless, hateful abandon. The cultists that remained following Therion’s deft execution of the priest took aim at the monstrous new threat, gouging his body and mind alike with deadly spurs of bone and madness, but Ganon’s rage would not be sated until the amorphous mass responsible for his injuries lay dead at his feet. Omori and the Knight had been going after Mom previously, but after the already-wounded boy mistimed a dodge and ate another stomp, the Knight was forced to carry him out of danger, which left the way wide open for Ganon. Everyone else could more or less sit back and watch as their terrifying ally sundered chunk after chunk from Mom’s leg, especially after a friendly fire incident involving Junicorn when Therion went to head off the Impaler, which naturally carried over to the thief himself. Soon, the butchery took its toll, and Mom was on her last legs. 

That said, ignoring the cultists -or just blindly going to town on them, for that matter- wasn’t without its consequences. The Rapturous Cultists that spawned managed to heal Mom twice before Spacial Rend demolished it. Both Ganon and Sectonia suffered from heightened stress, and though the former managed to stave off further insanity through the landing of critical hits, the mind of the latter went past its boiling point. The madness within bubbled over, rendering Sectonia Abusive not long after she unleashed her withering rupture in space-time. That said, her first shout sounded more like encouragement to derision as far as Nadia was concerned–not that Ganon needed it. After blasting away the Impaler with his laser one final time, the beast took aim at the bone he’d exposed in the leg with his continuous slices, and with a tremendous final slash severed the leg.

[b]”ISAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAC!”[/b] the horror wailed as the room began to crack around the Seekers, blood pouring from the walls and ceiling to pool on the floor. The last cultist standing, the horrific Templar Impaler, thrashed and died along with its creator, soon reduced to nothing more than a ashen smear and Notable Spirit on the floor. After another moment the rumbling came to a stop, and in the brief silence that followed three things happened at once. First, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/pW29BGP.png]reward[/url] appeared on a pedestal, taking the form of a bright red high-heeled shoe just like the one that had been smashing the Seekers moments ago, albeit of normal shoe size. Second, a hole opened up in the center of the floor, and unlike the trapdoors in previous boss rooms, this one was circular, shiny, and flesh-colored, which pleased Nadia very, very little. Third, two doors opened on the far wall at the exact same time, emerging from crumbling rubble: a black door adorned by a goat head, and a white door crowned by a radiant cross. Within the first was the unsettling pitch-black visage of a devil, and within the second stood the image of an eerie, faceless angel, but both offered the same reward: a [url=https://i.imgur.com/8byxYIV.png]strange trophy[/url] with a capsule of prismatic light obscuring a shadowy figure within.

As Ganondorf turned back to normal, Nadia let out her pent-up breath. “Whoa,” she breathed. “That…really sucked!” The feral switched off her Night Light, then crossed her arms, shaking her head. “I mean, that boss was really one-note! Her minions were way more dangerous, not to mention scary. What kind of big bad relies on goons to fight for ‘em, anyway? More like min-yawn, jeez.” She jogged over to where the Knight had laid Omori, skirting around the high-heeled shoe in case her tail accidentally brushed it as she passed by. “Man, you got it rough, kid,” she said, crouching over him. “You sure you’re up for this? Here, lemme help. Uh, freakshow, heal him!”

Her new striker appeared and used Flesh to Flesh, repairing Omori’s wounds through unholy rite. Nadia’s own scratches, bruises, and scrapes were buffing out as well thanks to her regeneration. As the striker disappeared she treated him to a cheery smile, patting him on the head. “There! Good as mew, right?”

Nadia’s gaze then landed on the Knight. “Thanks for looking out for him, little guy! You [i]really[/i] know your stuff when it comes to fightin’!” She sent her two brain cells into overdrive trying to think of a suitably bug-related pun, but whether due to the lingering stress from the fight or the fatigue she’d built up from fighting so far, the poor feral couldn’t think of a darned thing. [i]Rats. I’ll get ‘em to laugh next time.[/i] If anyone else needed healing it would be another minute or two before she could use the Cultist again, at least by her estimation, but Ganondorf probably didn’t need her help anyway.

The feral stood, stretching out her limbs, and went to regroup with the others. Naturally everyone noticed the appearance of both devil and angel rooms, as well as the fact that their offerings not only seemed to lack any sort of price, but also didn’t fit this place’s blood-and-guts aesthetic at all. “Probably something different,” Nadia mentioned, pulling out the Bait Launcher both to show it off and reload it. “Like this thing. Didn’t embed itself in my skin or anythin’, just a normal gun. Other than, y’know, the fact it summons tigers. I sure ain’t hidin’ my stripes anymore after seein’ that!”

While the others decided what to do with the assist trophies and boss reward, which Nadia dismissed outright based on the hypothesis that it would mutate her feet into living heels, the feral pulled out and consulted her map. Despite her own injuries and nearly getting torn in half twice over, her hoodie and its contents seemed to be in pretty good condition. Still, that jacket would need some serious laundering. After a quick look at the map, her perked-up ears fell flat again, and her doleful eyes fell on the oversized orifice in the floor.

With a sigh she rolled up and stuffed the sheet of parchment into her pocket. “Guys? Accordin’ to the map, there’s one more floor. Much as it pains me to say, we probably ain’t done just yet.” 

As much as she would have liked to take it easy, it looked like Nadia needed to steel herself for one last run before the Seekers could escape this damnable place. She spotted her anchors and went to collect them. Even if their chains had been severed and she could no longer swing them from a distance, they could still be of use. In fact, it might be better like this. Up close and personal was just how Nadia fought; it just didn’t make sense to try and be something she wasn’t. Of course, the Bait Launcher was a different matter. It more or less amounted to calling an assist, and useful assists like that made her style of non-stop close-quarters pressure even more unstoppable.

In the end, there wasn’t a whole lot to do aside from heal up, loosen up, and tune up any faulty equipment. The Seekers then gathered in a ring around the hole in the ground, their misgivings written plain on their faces. With all eyes on her to take the plunge again, Nadia took a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll be countin’ on you guys to bail meowt, ya hear? And if this leads straight into a giant stomach or somethin’, well, I’ll at least die knowin’ I was the best cat food that ever lived.” She flipped her anchors into a reverse grip, saluted with two fingers, and jumped. “Cannonbaaaaall!”

On the way down, she drifted toward the chute’s wall and jammed both anchors into the slick pink flesh. They slid right in, catching enough to slow Nadia’s descent, just as she planned, although even with both embedded almost to the hilt her weight was enough to continue dragging her downward at a brisk pace. The pit seemed to grow wider the farther she went down, not to mention darker and more humid, but a glance down confirmed a source of light. After another few seconds she dug her toeclaws into the meaty surface to bring herself fully to a stop right at the bottom of the chute, where it seemingly opened up into a big, bright cavern, at least twice as large as the decrepit chamber where her crew slaughtered Mom. Beneath her was a solid purplish floor of appreciable size, and she could see a couple things that looked like items. “I’m okay! I think it’s safe!” Nadia shouted up the tube, her voice echoing up to the others. She swiveled her head back around to glance down at the chamber. “There’s a little fall, so be careful. And get ready for a fight!”

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/EPdBIah.png[/img][/center]

Nadia dropped down the rest of the way, slowing her descent with jets of blood just enough to land with her typical catlike agility. The chute lay a good hundred feet above her, but she figured if she could climb up if need be, although she didn’t relish the thought, or anything else in this place for that matter. This new room seemed to be rather hideously organic, with moist, spongy flesh the color of gums stretching like meaty tree trunks through the air and along the walls, everything irregular and glistening. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. “Ugh, its soft!” she whined, hopping from one bare foot to the other on the surface of the big, roughly diamond-shaped floor. “And WARM! Yuck!” Nadia was quickly beginning to regret her decision. Goosebumps formed all across for skin, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. All of a sudden, it felt kind of like she was in something’s stomach after all. Like she’d been eaten. In the distance she could hear the low, deep, repetitive sound of a gargantuan heartbeat. “Can we just murder the ever-lovin’ fuck outta some big monster already and get the hell outta here?”

On the four corners of the raised area were four more items, seemingly there for the taking. [url=https://i.imgur.com/LAkNCKS.png]Free Lemonade[/url], a pitcher of lemonade with no strings attached that could either be drunk or scattered around to damage enemies, which could be stashed when not in use and after four minutes would refill itself. [url=https://i.imgur.com/IczGpD2.png]Leo[/url], which would increase the taker’s size by thirty percent and give them stomps strong enough to shatter stone, along with a luxurious mane of wild hair. [url=https://i.imgur.com/V50qXui.png]Ghost Pepper[/url], which after bringing the eater to tears from the spiciness would give the power of fire breath. [url=https://i.imgur.com/BrQ2axW.png]Ceremonial Robes[/url], which when worn would increase the wearer’s damage and confer instant retaliatory damage for the next three hits taken.

“Hey, is that lemonade?” Nadia jogged over, trying to forget about the squidgy floor. She stooped over the pitcher, sniffing it. “I’m pretty sure it is! Real question is, what horrible thing is it gonna do to me…” A brilliant idea struck her. She created a copycat which, not being a striker, wouldn’t transfer any damage or other effects to her, and bade her doppelganger take the lemonade in her place. The clone seized the pitcher by the handler. Nothing happened. She poured some out on her head, and still nothing happened. Tentatively, the copycat passed it to the original, and still nothing unusual transpired. After absorbing the copycat, Nadia drank some, and found it pleasantly sweet and tangy. “Huh. Purr-etty sure it’s literally just lemonade. Guess I was just bein’ a sourpuss, eh?”

Only once all four items were taken did the boss rush begin. Seven bosses emerged, one for each of the challengers: [url=https://i.imgur.com/MRwhq84.png]Blastocyst[/url], [url=https://i.imgur.com/IphwuNC.png]Scolex[/url], [url=https://i.imgur.com/hEaPz4M.png]the Bloat[/url], [url=https://i.imgur.com/WMlQTzY.png]Mr. Fred[/url], [url=https://i.imgur.com/qDqJvdR.png]Triachnid[/url], [url=https://i.imgur.com/H7KHcdB.png]Lokii[/url], and [url=https://i.imgur.com/AWzERH0.png]Teratoma[/url]. It was up to the Seekers to pick their targets and get to work.

“Holy shit!” Nadia practically screeched, her impulses getting the better of her again. As Scolex erupted from the flesh wall and leaped for her, Nadia barely dodged in time, then hurled the pitcher of lemonade at the monstrous worm. To her surprise the liquid seemed to burn it, eliciting a bloodcurdling squeal as it dug back into the meat. “...Okay, I see its game. I’ll handle the scare-asite!”

[center][h3]Edinburgh MagicaPolis - Noumenon[/h3]
Level 8 Big Band (43/80)
Ace Cadet’s [@Yankee], Frisk’s [@Majoras End], Red’s [@TruthHurts22]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1077[/center]

On the way up the interminable stairs, crammed with the others inside a scarlet, hand-shaped construct and paraded by red through the Noumenon like a waiter with his silver serving tray, Big Band got a lot of time to think. At this point it went without saying, especially since his allies might not yet be on the same page with him about the best and only course of action here, that the situation with the Skullgirl was very, very bad.

According to Frisk’s account of when and how her trio arrived in Edinburgh, it had been days since the Skullgirl’s last sighting. The fact that skeletons roamed the streets of the winter city at night was a testimony to the new Skullgirl’s power, but their aimlessness suggested a lack of control. Maybe she had yet to come to grips with her new abilities, which meant that Band -and anyone he convinced- might have a chance of finding her and putting an end to this imminent disaster before she could become a real problem. Maybe a semblance of her original heroic self still remained, and she was trying to keep herself from going on a berserk rampage. He liked that second possibility even less, not just because the undead presence in Edinburgh suggested that she was failing, but also because it would be all the more tragic when the time came to put her down. For that eventuality there was no alternative. Becoming a Skullgirl was a degenerative disease, with no heart in the universe too pure to fall to its corruption, and destruction was the only cure. The only difference would be whether he could stop her before she began freeing the skeletons of the populace by the hundreds of thousands, or after.

Eventually, Red managed to reach the twenty-sixth floor, weary and winded by the arduous descent. He let the others down, giving Band, Lucia, Ace, and Frisk a chance to stretch their legs while he rested his own. “Thanks for the lift, Red,” Band told him. “Sit yourself down and have a breather. We’ll take it from here.”

He held up his bookmark and repeated the same name he fed it earlier. It lit up in search of Albedo, and after a moment churned out some less-than-ideal news. “Twenty-seven?” Lucia read, her brows raised. “Of frickin’ coahse. Looks like ouah guy went up anothah floah while we wah makin’ ouah way up.”

“Just one floor,” Band said evenly, shrugging. “Would be a shame if Red did all the work, after all.” He nodded in the superhero’s direction. “You take it easy, we’ll see ya in a minute. C’mon, y’all.”

The detective led the way across the Noumenon’s twenty-sixth floor. Looking over the railing turned out to be a mistake; even for someone not especially afraid of heights, Band couldn’t help but feel a little queasy when he glanced down the precipitous three-hundred-and-sixty-plus-foot drop. And yet, the distance his team had already climbed suddenly seemed like little more than a drop in the ocean when he looked upward, revealing dozens upon dozens of stories yet to go. “Must be a hundred damn floors, at least,” he murmured, amazed. Hopefully this friend of Frisk’s found what he’d been looking for on the twenty-seventh and felt no need to ascend further.

Band’s inner monologue came to an abrupt end as a shadow fell across the Noumenon’s interior, cast from the west-facing side. The next instant something big blitzed past the windows at such intense speeds that the entire row of windows shattered with explosive force, letting in the chilly high-altitude arctic air. In its wake came a sonic boom that just about knocked Lucia off her feet, although Band reached out in time with a mechanical arm to steady her. Mages, scholars, and other library visitors in the area let out a chorus of screams and yells, either readying themselves for combat or taking flight, in some cases literally. The detective groaned. “Ugh. If I had to guess, our nice little field trip just came to an end. Let’s hustle, folks!”

The team sprinted through the latter half of the grand library’s twenty-sixth floor and practically flew up the stairs to the next, harried by civilians fleeing the opposite way. Upon reaching the twenty-seventh floor landing, Band spotted someone who fit the description Frisk gave them: a [url=https://i.imgur.com/fAyG2rd.png]young man[/url] probably in his early twenties, with fluffy blonde hair, in an elaborate and almost nonsensical outfit that included a short-sleeved hooded coat, thighboots, and shorts over leggings. With a [url=https://i.imgur.com/K333Bei.png]fancy sword[/url] in hand he’d taken up a position in the very center of the the floor on top of a central table laden with books, beneath which a couple of scared children had taken cover. “Albedo!” Band called, sliding over. The alchemist glanced his way, noticing both Frisk and the lack of Galeem’s light in the detective’s eyes. “I don’t know what in the hell’s goin’ on, but it looks like we’ll be facin’ it together.”

“Understood,” Albedo replied. An explosion from up above got his attention, and as the group turned to face the disturbance, the perpetrator appeared.

The new monster floated in midair without flapping its six wings, descending as if a seraphim from heaven, though its visage was anything but holy. [url=https://i.imgur.com/TMiq1xp.png]Whatever it was[/url] appeared to be a sleek, if freakish fusion of angel and demon, fish and bird, with wings lined by glowing eyes and a half-head crowned by clasped fingers, its upper half a vague mockery of the female form. With a high-pitched cry like a note from an angelic choir, it spread its wings and unleashed a flurry of pink projectiles.

“Hmph!” From beneath his coat Band deployed two massive mechanical arms, their brazen digits clasped into fists big enough to crush melons barehanded. He blocked the lasers that came his way and deployed his bagpipes as well, loading himself up with armor. “Got some pipes on ya, huh?” he grunted, slamming his fists together. “But that voice could use some work. Gimme two minutes and I’ll have ya singin’ a different tune!”

In a flash, Artemis zoomed from one side of the floor to another, sending books and inkwells flying from the pressure. It came to an instant stop, already turned around, and its luminescent rays blazed forth.