[center][h3]Valley of Ruin[/h3]
Level 11 Tora (154/110) Level 12 Poppi (44/120)
Giovanna, Roxas’ [@Double], Pit’s [@Yankee], Susie’s [@Archmage MC], Zenkichi’s [@Multi_Media_Man], Partitio’s [@Dark Cloud]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1577[/center]

Even if the vista of desolation laid out before Tora, filtered through the dreary haze of a raincloud-gray sky, filled him with a sense of melancholy, it couldn’t dampen his spirit for too long when he kept such good company. Naturally he could face just about anything with Poppi around, but the team’s newest recruit took an interest in the rotund engineer as well, and soon Tora found himself engaged in a lengthy conversation with Partitio to pass the time. Though different in disposition and speciality, they shared a sense of curiosity that made it easy to communicate, and of course Tora was only too happy to tell the merchant all about his pride and joy.

“This is Poppi!” he practically sang, gesturing toward Poppi with both wings open like a showman. If his companion had the room, she might have performed a curtsy or some similar elegant formality, but without the space to do so inside the tricks interior she struck a pose with her hands on her hips, her head turned sideways with an amused smile. “Poppi invention of Tora, meh. She Artificial Blade originally designed to replicate capabilities of blade one-to-one, but after many-much adventure and development Poppi come into her own as incredible fighter and true-blue companionpon! Crux of matter is indispensable Ether Furnace, originally designed by Grampypon Soosoo and iterated upon by daddypon Tatazo, which draw in naturally occurring ether from environment for use as fuel. Can also reconstruct both body and weapons using ether to suit any challenge, meh. As product of many many long days and sleepless nights shut up in house, Poppi truly bestest invention, and living proof that Tora bestest inventor!”

He squeezed his partner close in a big hug, although his eyes bugged out slightly when Poppi squeezed him back, squishing him like a giant stress ball. “Most modest inventor, too,” she joked.

Cain, who happened to be riding in the truck, rested his chin in his hand in a thoughtful expression. “Ah, a homemade masterpiece. Zat would explain why even in a city chock-full of machines, you truly seem to be one of a kind.” His bright blue optics roved between Tora and Poppi. “Alzough, I am curious about one thing, monsieur. How do you see her?”

“Meh-meh?” Tora blinked. “Not sure what friend mean.”

“Hmm…” Crossing his arms, Cain tried to think of how to phrase this. “What I mean is, what is ze nature of your relationship? Do you see her as, say, your daughter? Or perhaps something more…intimate?”

The question seemed to perplex the Nopon. “...Not sure actually, meh. Not really give it much thought. All Tora know for sure is that Tora like Poppi very much!”

Cain tried to read Poppi’s expression, but her mental state was inscrutable. “Fair enough, monsieur!” he replied, and the topic ended there.

[center][img]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hNj9K1Uv9Do/maxresdefault.jpg[/img][/center]

Eventually, the trucks groaned to a halt at their pre-programmed destination. Eager to stretch their legs and stimulate their senses after the stiff, sore, and somewhat boring journey, everyone climbed out and set foot for the first time in the Valley of Ruin. It didn’t take a lot of perception to see why this spot had been chosen as a salvage point. Neither Tora or Poppi recognized the once-proud machine splayed out before them, but the sight of a crashed passenger plane made Giovanna take a sharp breath. It lay in huge, grisly pieces with its tail in the air, its right wing lodged in a nearby building like a broken axeblade left to rust in a tree. Its cabin, ripped clean off by the catastrophe that transpired here, had come to rest a couple dozen feet away, the broken glass of its windows listlessly reflecting the rainy day’s dim light, streaking down rivulets of rainwater like tears. At one point this section of destroyed city might have been a bustling, vividly-lit Chinatown, but all that remained now were the characters on decimated signs and red paper lanterns dangling from what few cable lines still clung to their crooked poles.

Especially with today’s weather, it was a terribly solemn place, but the sight of the airplane’s hull reminded Tora and Poppi why they were here. It had already been thoroughly picked over by previous salvage crews, who’d unscrewed or cut off panel after panel of usable metal to make good use of the precious steel, titanium, and aluminum. Most of the other loot around here had already been claimed as well, but a little delving could still uncover a variety of [url=https://theforest.fandom.com/wiki/Suitcase]suitcases[/url] with small amounts of cloth, batteries, booze, snacks, hair and face products, pills, cash, and other such goods. The trucks themselves also made sure to remind the alleged salvagers to get to work before time ran out. [i]Nineteen minutes, twelve seconds remaining,[/i] the displays on their dashboard consoles read, counting out the seconds before the trucks’ automated departure. Of course, the Seekers weren’t here to salvage, and they had no intention of letting their rides leave them behind. Giovanna approached Tora. “Ready to do your thing?” she asked.

“Born ready, meh.” Once helped into the driver’s seat by a boost from Poppi, the Nopon put down his toolbox, pulled out his microcontroller kit, and after a couple moments spent configuring the adapter, plugged right into the truck’s console port. He got tap-tap-tapping straightaway, a rather pleased look on his smug little face. “This too easy for top-of-class code monkeypon like Tora, meh,” he said, despite having not taken any classes. Quickly he accessed the vehicle’s internal self-driving system. “Only have, what, ten circuit boards?” It didn’t take long at all to disable the truck’s automatic route. “Looks like it only drive on pre-recorded route, so can’t turn autopilot back on to get back afterward,” he noted. “Hopefully someone pay more attention to route on way here than Tora.”

Poppi frowned, thinking. “I can surface those memories. We should be fine.”

She helped her Masterpon out of the first truck, then boosted him up to repeat the process for the second. At the same time, the Rust Crew finished casing the area and reconvened with Giovanna beneath a surviving overhang to get out of the rain. “So. Now that we’re in the woods, all that’s left is to go hunting, eh?” Marshall asked.

The secret agent nodded. So far, her team had spotted a handful of Machines scattered around the area. Whether [url=https://i.imgur.com/u6dqX87.png]bipedal[/url] or [url=https://nierautomata.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Nier-Automata/small_flyer.jpg]aerial[/url], they just seemed to mill about, although Giovanna couldn’t discard the possibility that these units were scouts as well. “Uh huh. Recon ‘til we find anything that looks like an assault force. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so we should get moving. And destroy those Machines whenever possible. We don’t wanna let them pile up.” It looked like another long, footsore day. Even if the [url=https://i.imgur.com/YPY1LPa.png]coat[/url] she’d borrowed from the Salvage Depot hampered her style, Giovanna was glad to have some protection against the rain.

“We oughta use the trucks to drive between vantage points,” Bo mentioned. “The higher the better.”

With that plan in mind, the teams got underway, identifying four high-altitude locations in different directions from the crash site that they could visit to survey the area. The Rust Crew took their truck northwest in the direction of an abandoned factory where a surviving [url=https://images.nintendolife.com/screenshots/117939/large.jpg]smokestack[/url] offered a good spot to get a lay of the land. Tora and Poppi went with them, then broke off on the way to fly west toward a handful of [url=https://i.imgur.com/4CYICBN.png]overgrown highrises[/url].

The other truck took Partitio, Susie, Giovanna, Pit, Roxas, and Zenkichi further south. There lay a district of [url=https://i.imgur.com/uEp0o1H.jpg]flooded ruin[/url] in the shade of a great tree that grew from two skyscrapers that collapsed against one another. Strange Machines inhabited this zone, like the troops of baboon-like [url=https://i.imgur.com/FRPPGTX.png]Clamberjaws[/url] that prowled the overgrown in search of fresh scrap, happy to use their tail dusters to spray noxious fumes or hurl hunks of metal ablaze with foul chemical fire. In and around the waterways lurked crocodilian [url=https://i.imgur.com/89LM7Us.png]Snapjaws[/url] able to slow down targets with sprays of freezing water to leave them vulnerable to a killer lunge. Worse still were the bulky resource collectors known as [url=https://i.imgur.com/0x5MuTw.png]Widemaws[/url], which used powerful vacuums to suck up minerals into their massive, drill-filled jaws for grinding. Further still stood a couple [url=https://i.imgur.com/g0RxxNd.png]Shellwalkers[/url] stockpiling resources collected by other Machines into their containers. Not too far east stood an intact construction crane overlooking a [url=https://i.imgur.com/B324R86.png]neighborhood[/url] that never was. That crane crawled with [url=https://i.imgur.com/3dJRQKZ.png]Simians[/url] however, and the entire neighborhood featured a conspicuous patrol of [url=https://i.imgur.com/NC8QyX1.png]Assault Shooters[/url] and [url=https://i.imgur.com/GxFtfkh.png]Rapid Shooters[/url]. Wherever the Seekers went, excitement was sure to follow.

[center][h3]Abandoned Subway - Overgrown Transfer[/h3]
Level 4 Goldlewis (21/40)
Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Blazermate’s [@Archmage MC], Geralt [@Multi_Media_Man], Benedict’s [@Dark Cloud]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1534[/center]

When the monsters appeared, Goldlewis was ready. From the moment he lost sight of the sky he’d been on high alert, cautiously moving step by step through the underground railway labyrinth as he waited for humanity’s enemies to appear, whether he found them or they found him. Now, the bright red flash of the Session Pounds and the bulbous, bloated silhouettes of Rotwarts through the smoke, bouncing along like over-inflated balloons just waiting to burst, kicked him into action. He’d seen enough of war to know that any enemies that single-mindedly charged like this with no visible weapons were detonators.

“Get behind me!” he called out gruffly, stepping backward to try and herd the others back the way they came, out of the open where an attack could come from any angle. Instead Midna disappeared, and the others might be similarly disinclined to be protected, but Goldlewis was undeterred. His coffin slammed to the ground with a [i]thoom[/i], and the lid slid open. From insight the UMA’s spindly arms lifted up the Skyfish minigun, which Goldlewis gladly took and hoisted in his massive arms. Bullets sprayed through the haze and punctured several Rotwarts, detonating them long before they could reach their targets, but even though he lit up a pair of Session Pounds they neither exploded nor were visibly wounded. The minigun clicked empty, and after a disappointed click of his tongue in reply Goldlewis stowed it away. “Darnit. The flyin’ ones are goin’ out on their terms!” he warned the others. As the Others closed in, he lifted his coffin up like a shield, a semblance of a plan in mind.

In the smoke, Midna descended on one of the Mission Pounds. It fought back to preserve its own life, whirling around in a circle like a pinwheel to try and strike its attacker with its metal body, but it couldn’t effectively counter the princess’s attack. Her angle and elemental attacks left it disoriented and tingling with electricity, leaving it open for continuous assault until she managed to finish it off. While the Missin Pound’s death didn’t make the smoke around it vanish, it would soon dissipate without the source to replenish it, and as the screen began to clear Midna tangled with a Session Pound of her own. It did not go down easily, and when she escaped between some pipes the explosive Other struggled for only a moment before circling around to find another route. These things were determined. Floating lazily over the battlefield made Blazermate a prime target for them; even if she could see them coming thanks to her scan, this area wasn’t enormous. Getting surrounded was both surprisingly easy and extremely punishing.

Karin found a way to use the Session Pounds’ relentless pursuit against them, however. Even if these enemies proved frustratingly unsuitable for melee combat, she could demonstrate clever use of the other tools at her disposal. With her grappling hook she bound two of them together, and almost instantly the Others got tangled around a pipe. Completely at odds in terms of directional movement, they tugged and tugged, hopelessly wrapping themselves around the pipe like a giant set of bolas. Shortly after binding themselves so tightly that they couldn’t move anymore, the Session Pounds wrenched the section of rusted pipe clean off, which sent them spiraling into a corner of the room. There, Karin’s cinderblock promptly smacked into one of them, making it think it had been struck by something in melee range. It blew up, and the one at the other end of the line quickly followed suit, shaking the underground chamber with the twin explosions but hurting nobody.  At the same time, water began to pour from the broken pipe, quickly pooling and spreading across the floor of the room. The Rootwarts splashed through it heedlessly, unaware of the potential hazard sloshing at their gnarled feet.

A couple Session Pounds closed in on the spot where Goldlewis stood in front of Geralt and Benedict. The latter used his new striker to sling an ice spell at one of them, but the freeze did not proc. Goldlewis prepared to swing his coffin to try and squash the Others with a Behemoth Typhoon or two, but he changed his mind at the last moment. If these things were going to wait to explode until in the perfect range to do so, he might as well let them–as long as they couldn’t hurt him or his team. The veteran slammed his coffin foot-first onto the ground in front of him, and blue light flared out from within. A glowing hex shield appeared, covering almost the entire room to either side of Goldlewis from wall to wall, and when the Session Pounds blew up against it the barrier held firm. “Hmph!” he snorted, smoothing over his hair with his other hand.

Once Midna and Karin finished dispatching their own targets, and however many detonators crashed against the rocks of Goldlewis’ shore to be broken, the scary but brief encounter came to an end. “Nothin’ to it,” he said breezily, slinging his coffin back over his shoulder. He glanced down at he spirits left behind by the tam’s fallen foes, wondering if creatures like those could be made into Strikers that could explode like that whenever summoned. They might work even better than his Thunderbird drones. Then again, given how Strikers worked, that might blow [i]him[/i] up. “Hmm.” Leaving Midna to round the spirits up, he continued on his way.

[hider=Team Goldlewis Encounter 1/3 Results]
[b]Party:[/b] Goldlewis, Midna, Balzermate, Benedict, Karin
[b]Reward:[/b] +5 EXP
[/hider]

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/cgimp41.png[/img][/center]

Continuing in the same direction brought the team to another abandoned train platform, separated by another platform to either side by train tracks that led into collapsed tunnels. The escalators that led upward also turned out to be dead ends, but the path continued straight ahead. Unfortunately, this liminal space wasn’t unoccupied. Three particularly bizarre Others called it home, two on the left side platform and one on the right. The [url=https://i.imgur.com/WHmS36M.png]Saliva Santas[/url] appeared to be male and female bodies conjoined at the midsection, where they sat upon a metal box, and covered in blue fish scales. The male halves would use their head-tentacles to spray beams of watery spit at the Seekers from a distance. Their long-range sniping, performed either as precision shots or big sweeps, would stop only if they ran dry, their targets got too close, or they completely lost sight of them. In the first case the Santas’ male halves would plunge their tentacles into the ports on the females’ heads to extract saliva for a refill, and in the second the Santas would retreat into their extremely durable boxes. Fighting them at melee range necessitated taking them completely by surprise.

These Others proved to be a huge pain for Goldlewis. He couldn’t outmatch them from long range, he couldn’t hide behind the pillars in the room to cover his approach, and even when he finally got to the one on the right he couldn’t crack its shell before it blasted him back with an explosive saliva reversal while still encased. “Consarn it all!” he spat, red with frustration and supplied with no shortage of spittle himself. Since the Santas seemed more keen on being massive annoyances than actually moving, he turned and left the room using his Wall of Light for protection. “Rat bastards,” he muttered as he proceeded to the next room. Once everyone got through the door, he slammed it closed and shoved a piece of rubble in front of it to keep it shut even if the Saliva Santas managed to drag themselves over, provided any survived the other Seekers. “The Scarlet Guardians can have ‘em.”

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/Bb5BXgv.png[/img][/center]

It was in the next, much larger room that the heroes found their next real challenge. Inside the reinforced cylindrical station, illuminated by the vivid red light of a high-power flare, were two large Others. Both sported equine hindquarters, long tails perfect for whipping, and treelike heads sprouting from metal valves. The one in full bloom with burgundy leaves, the [url=https://bogleech.com/vgmonsters/scarlet-chinerywinery.png]Winery Chinery[/url], lay on the ground like a tiger as it cleaned blood from its nails. Its counterpart with branches as bare of leaves as trees in midwinter, the [url=https://bogleech.com/vgmonsters/scarlet-chineryslippy.png]Slippy Chinery[/url], was on its feet and eating something. Fresh ashes lay piled around their feet. When they smelled the Seekers’ brains, they turned to look together, staring with the holes in their metal faces. Then they roared, the horrid noise reverberating through the room. The Winery Chinery crackled with electricity, and the Slipper Chinery lifted a hand to turn the valve on its head. Oil flowed from its pores to coat its metallic body, and after another moment the huge Other turned invisible. A torrent of water burst from the Winery Chinery’s face a moment later, forcing the Seekers to break formation as the battle began.

[center][h3]Home of Tears - Soul Sanctum[/h3]
Level 10 Nadia (152/100)
The Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Ganondorf’s [@Double], Rubick’s [@Scarifar], Teemo’s [@Bugman], Ichiban’s [@Truthhurts22], the Knight
[b]Word Count:[/b] 1411[/center]

[center][hider=For Sectonia]You have acquired:
[b][url=https://i.imgur.com/5C6rh0W.png]Blood Vial[/url][/b]
[i]Special blood used in ministration. Restores HP. Once a patient has had their blood ministered, a unique but common treatment in certain rumor-shadowed places, only successive treatments can reproduce that same sublime feeling of invigoration[/i]
[b]Odd Vial[/b]
[i]An injector that contains a strange substance. It’s hard to tell if it’s solid or liquid, matter or energy. It simply glows yellow, and it feels significant. As if the will to keep on living, or the resolve to change fate, were somehow materialized and encapsulated in this little vial[/i][/hider][/center]

For the remainder of Gallo’s exposé on the machinations of Consul P’s inner circle, Nadia kept quiet and listened. The rain drummed down on the windows and walls, steady as ever. Its rhythm and purity helped her both relax and focus as she considered the new road this stranger laid out before him. He made it sound as if P were little more than an upjumped brat, given enough undeserved power and authority to let his worst nature run rampant, and that once these Agarthans were out of the picture his downfall would be straightforward enough. Nadia liked having a plan to follow; nothing felt quite as satisfying as the moment when all the dominos fell just as planned and she pulled off the perfect crime.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel a little conflicted. On one hand, though an expert in subterfuge, Nadia Fortune was a thief, not an assassin. Once the Seekers disassembled Those Who Slither in the Dark, the last step of the mission would be squashing P himself, who -as Gallo rather callously mentioned- was a child. A loathsome, selfish, and abusive child, but still. On the other hand, this whole scheme felt just a [i]little[/i] too good to be true. The Seekers would still need to put in some work, but Gallo’s plan made the elimination of a Consul sound simple, and could that really be the case for a member of such a powerful organization? Gallo himself gave off a rather villainous impression, with ‘mad scholar of magic’ written all over him. Then again, his ego was his whole reason for rebelling against P to begin with, and ratting out his master like this was a pretty big risk. He couldn’t stand up to P on his own, and if he thought the Seekers could, he couldn’t oppose them either if he went for some sort of double-cross. He wasn’t being all mysterious and secretive either, which was nice. Nadia decided that she felt optimistic about this.

Some of the others had questions. Sectonia immediately volunteered herself for the Agarthan stationed in the Royal Quarter; regardless of whether or not she possessed a discrete bone in her body, she heard the word ‘royal’ and went straight for it. Rather than try to figure out where to start on her own she asked Gallo, who gave a nonplussed shrug as he turned up his nose. “I’m not what you’d call a socialite,” he told her. “If you’re as well-versed in the games of nobles as you claim, I wouldn’t dare offer any puerile suggestions. Your own expertise would surely serve you better?” Primrose asked him about Shambhala, and Gallo shared what little he knew. “I would not be at all averse to joining any raid you may envision on Shambhala,” he added. “While I greatly prefer the study to the battlefield, I daresay my signature weapon would be an invaluable means of support. I do insist upon being there when P flees to his sanctum, however. I want to see his face when I spring the trap. I care not who does the honors after that.”

Kamek lavished Gallo with flattery, but he took it in stride. Evidently all the honeyed words in the world would do him less good than seeing P and his toadies dealt with once and for all. Kamek and Primrose’s other suggestions, however, he did agree with. “Indeed, I bid you make haste,” Gallo advised. “Not so much that you slip up and botch things, mind, but the sooner the better. Strike as the iron’s hot, as they say. I myself will return to Gallo Tower and keep watch from the Clock Run. When you’re ready, I will open the gates” Rising from his seat, Gallo prepared to leave. He sighed heavily at Kamek’s last question. “Truth be told, I wish there was an easy way through here. But I picked this place for secrecy, not ease of access. I will simply walk. If you choose to descend through the air, be aware that the pounding rain is strong enough to beat down most winged fliers. It would not do to see my new associates dashed upon the pavement due to impatience.” 

He took one step, then paused. “Oh, one more thing. I believe that the last person to run afoul of the Agarthans without a plan is currently imprisoned somewhere in Shambhala. She may be of use if you free her.”

After that he began the descent, not waiting for the others. On the way through the hallway he almost ran into a [url=https://i.imgur.com/vCUGd3K.png]yellow dinosaur[/url] on her way back from her kitchen to her room with a steaming cup of instant ramen. “Doctor,” Gallo greeted nonchalantly as he passed, glancing in the direction of her room’s open door.

Alphys looked confused at seeing someone else in the Soul Sanctum for a moment, but when Gallo’s eyes roved perilously near her computer screen she moved like lightning to block the door. “D-don’t look in there!” A second later the door slammed shut, punctuated by the sound of multiple locks closing in quick succession. Gallo was already on the move, however. Before making his way downstairs he activated some sort of magic which began sending out light-blue rays in a rotating ring around him. If anyone followed behind him, they’d see that when the rays came in contact with a monster, whether patient or Amalgamate, the aggressor would be frozen in time for a moment while Gallo coolly slunk by.

Nadia did not go back down through the Soul Sanctum. She planned to climb down the building’s exterior, confident that her claws’ grip would outmatch the heavy rainfall. Before going, however, she took a few moments to confer with everyone else. “Well, I don’t really have any objections,” she piped up. “Could be some kinda trap, but I’m not seein’ it. If he tried actin’ all nice he might be hidin’ somethin’, but you can always trust a jerk to act like a jerk. And if it’s jerk-on-jerk violence, no matter who loses, the good guys win!” The bigger issue at the moment seemed to be Consul P’s childlike appearance and demeanor. Something poignant occurred to Nadia as she mulled the matter over, though. “Well…we did kill that Orphan of Kos thing, and we literally watched it get born. And it caused a lot less sufferin’ than P, it sounds like. Plus, P’s the guy who tried to kill us already, right? So if you ask me, the kid gloves are off!”

At the very least, step one of the plan -get rid of the Agarthan kingpins- was agreed upon. “So what, one or two of us per target?” Nadia ventured. “Well, Gallo said the one at the circus is an assassin, yeah? Why noy send in someone who can’t be backstabbed?” Pulling out her box cutters, she neatly stored their blades in her case and slid the grips into her belt with a flourish. “I’m down to clown.” Once everyone decided between Kronya at the Amusement Park, Solon at the Downtown school, Cleobulus in the Royal Quarter, and Thales in Shambhala, everyone could split up and begin their separate missions.

[hr]

Now that the Seekers knew the names to look for, the ones that went to the Royal Quarter didn’t need to spend that much time searching at all. The word ‘Cornelia’ was plastered on almost every sign, display screen, and bulletin board they found, and her [url=https://i.imgur.com/SfGDIKz.png]face[/url] -a visage of uncommon beauty and smirking, unfettered pride- appeared an all kinds of advertisements from fashion brands to perfume, but nothing so much as what appeared to be her pride and joy: the Royal Canopy Club. All the ads for that particular club, evidently the pinnacle of the Royal Quarter’s high-society artistry and entertainment, mentioned breathtaking performances ‘all night long - for the sun never rises in the Home of Tears’. They also listed off a number of other star performers, so it wasn’t exactly clear if Cornelia would perform herself, or merely ran the show. At least the Seekers knew a likely spot to find her, but dealing with someone whose modus operandi seemed to be making sure as many people as possible were giving her attention at any given moment might be difficult.

Unless Cornelia could be beaten at her own game. The descriptions of the Royal Canopy painted one other picture about it: that it was where the best of the best singers, players, and dancers proved themselves, specifically over one another, all vying for the crown in a sort of musical battle royale. They fought for the favor of the esteemed patrons who attended their performances from their galleries on high, sipping fancy drinks and dabbing their lips with fancy napkins, and those who managed to win the audience’s adoration through skill and spectacle were promised fame and fortune. Looking at the Royal Canopy through that lens, it seemed almost like a dolled-up colosseum, and if someone possessed the right skills for the job -as well as an ‘in’- they might be able to upstage even the gala queen herself.

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

[hr]

Nestled in the less-cluttered, less-claustrophobic part of the Downtime district, the Seekers could find the school they were looking for. Aptly titled ‘School’, it lay not far from the cavern wall, and it featured its own little fenced-off grounds where great pains were taken to preserve facsimiles of green grass, autumn trees, and white picket fences beneath a gigantic umbrella that shielded against the constant rain, beneath the apex of which warmly-colored spotlights served as an artificial sun. The result was a comfy, establishment of brown brick and white marble with a nostalgic small-town aesthetic, and though the recreated environment was ultimately a lie, the atmosphere it created probably did help keep the students’ depression at bay.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/9m7LwYV.png[/img][/center]

Somewhere inside that school, according to Gallo, was the Agarthan Dark Bishop Solon, disguised as the schoolteacher Tomas. Even if the Seekers ultimately decided to eliminate P, endangering the lives of normal children was probably out of the question, but that made things difficult. Their target was someone everyone in this establishment probably liked or at the very least knew. Chances were that he’d be surrounded by kids, and given his true identity as a villain, the worst case scenario could be very, very bad.

Luck might be on the Seekers’ side, however. Today was, after all, Sunday, and school was out for the weekend.

[hr]

The Amusement Park was a curious place. Normally, any circus would have to be canceled if it rained, but given the circumstances this one had to adapt. As much, the entire fairgrounds essentially lay beneath a sea of red-and-white striped fabric awnings, some of them several stories high. All the water got channeled into the narrow canals that criss-crossed the district, small enough for even young monsters to hop over easily. Only the roller coasters and water rides were exposed to the elements. Everything else was dry, not to mention a bombastic bonanza of flashing lights, wild noises, and noisy attractions. Alongside the guests here, who themselves were monsters of all shapes and sizes, there were also tons of clowns. Some were [url=https://i.imgur.com/WiadpFl.png]silly[/url], some were [url=https://i.imgur.com/7mTECoE.png]sweet[/url], some were [url=https://i.imgur.com/tslLPis.png]smug[/url], and some were a little [url=https://i.imgur.com/ldV8kbE.png]spooky[/url], but all were generally trying to make sure the visitors had a good time.

“Wow…this place is in-tents!”

Of course, Nadia didn’t need a clown’s help to be all smiles. Already sunny by nature, she felt almost giddy just being around here. She hadn’t been somewhere this fun and jovial since Carnival Town after all, which felt like ages ago. Sadly, the feral knew she was here on business, not pleasure. Somewhere among all the fun and games was a killer in disguise. “Alright,” she muttered to herself, narrowing her eyes to get her bearings. “If I were a murder-lovin’ psycho lady, where would I hide…?”