[center][h3]Quarantine Valley - Sector V[/h3]
Level 5 Goldlewis (111/50) Level 4 Sandalphon (26/40)
Karin’s [@Zoey Boey], Blazermate, Roland, and Susie’s [@Archmage MC], Geralt and Zenkichi’s [@Multi_Media_Man]
[b]Word Count:[/b]  2407 (+3) (-3 (Goldlewis))[/center]

With Wind Chimes blazing a trail, and Hal keeping him company rather than flying ahead, Goldlewis made quick work of the Quarantine Valley rooftops. She moved through the rusty, perilous labyrinth with certainty borne of familiarity, leading her new acquaintance on a number of side paths, clever shortcuts, and hidden shortcuts. Time-saving alternate routes that newcomers like the Seekers would have obliviously passed right by were just part and parcel of a skilled courier’s repertoire, suggesting that Wind Chimes made this trip a number of times in the past. In fact, the veteran suspected that her combined familiarity and fitness would be making mincemeat of her well-traveled route, challenging Goldlewis to keep up with an attitude of friendly competition, if not for her rather concerning ailment. In addition to the dark crystals that protruded from her midriff, which caused visible discomfort whenever the muscles in the area took action, Wind Chimes looked rather feverish and sick. Able to airdash across gaps that his guide needed to swing across with her mountaineering equipment, Goldlewis managed to keep pace with her despite being quite out of shape. She didn’t exactly relish the big man being right on her heels, but when she pushed herself a little harder to pick up the pace, the veteran’s proximity turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

After sliding down an inclined rooftop and jumping onto a [url=https://i.imgur.com/ndFM8kr.jpg]billboard[/url], her foot caught in a twisted section of its corroded catwalk. “Agh-!” she grunted, losing her balance. She tripped and fell flat on the weakened metal, which not only vibrated dangerously, but actually bent beneath her. The moment she fell, she began to slide toward the edge, where a deadly drop all the way to the Quarantine Valley streets awaited her.

Goldlewis acted fast. “UMA!” Stopping on a stable section of the walkway above a supporting girder, he slung his coffin off his shoulder and dangled it over the abyss by the chain. The lid popped open, and from the swirling aquamarine cosmos within erupted three spindly arms of superhuman length. Just a fraction of a second after Wind Chimes went over the edge, the arms seized her by the ankle, cutting her freefall short.

After a moment of terrified hyperventilation, Wind Chimes managed to get her pounding heart under control, and with a shaky smile she looked up at her savior. “...Shit. Can…can you pull me up?” Gritting his teeth, Goldlewis began to haul the coffin up with both hands, trying to ignore the protesting creaks of the metal beneath him. Hal lent a hand (or more accurately, four pincers) with his drone, and once they got the coffin onto the catwalk, the cryptid lifted Wind Chimes the rest of the way. They couldn’t celebrate just yet, though; all this stress was too much for the walkway to handle. The moment the alien retracted its arms, Goldlewis tucked the coffin under one arm, Wind Chimes under the other, and took off running like a football player to the endzone. At the last moment he leaped from the collapsing billboard over a chain-link fence and onto the rooftop adjacent to Sector V’s. Breathing heavily, he turned and watched the derelict structure crash noisily to the streets far below, where it landed with a terrific slam in a cloud of dust and red matter.

He dropped his coffin with a thud, then set Wind Chimes down more carefully. “You okay, ma’am?”

She looked somewhere between resigned and frustrated. “Yeah, yeah. Man, I can’t believe I made you save me again. Sorry.”

“You must’ve been worse off than I thought, even before your abduction into the Astral Plane” Hal’s voice sounded fretful as his drone drew close for a new scan. “The more redshifted people are, the sicker they get. It’s sapping your strength and clouding your mind.”

Wind Chimes sighed. “I guess…I’m not long for this world. Should’ve known better than to push myself. I knew it’d come to this eventually, but…still, feels pretty awful.” She gave Goldlewis and Hal a sad look. “For now at least, I can make sure we’re square. You don’t need to be around for whatever happens after that.”

Taking a deep breath, Goldlewis stood up straight and put a hand on his heart. “I ain’t gonna let that happen.”

“What are-?” Before Wind Chimes could continue, the veteran slammed a Friend Heart into the messenger’s head. She reeled from the impact, furious and surprised, only to find herself completely restored. Her injuries and redshift evaporated like morning dew, and she blinked, her mouth agape as she held a hand to her head. “Whuh…I feel…amazing! Like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders! What was that?”

Hal seemed just as astonished, but Goldlewis brushed them both off. “It’s nothin’. Least I can do for a fellow human bein’. Whatever you remember, just take it nice and easy. One step at a time.”

Wind Chimes looked thoroughly confused, but her befuddlement quickly gave way to determination. “If you say so, mister. I owe you my life…what, three times over? I’ll bring you to the Hermits if it kills me. C’mon, this way.”

She led Goldlewis and Hal the remainder of the way to Sector V, unknowingly following right in Geralt’s footsteps. They spotted him and Zenkichi ahead and went to join them, passing by a woman in a hooded green jacket leaning against the wall of the passage on the way. Evidently this ‘hidden entrance’ was something of an open secret. When Goldlewis raised an eyebrow at the civilian, she gave him a nonplussed stare in return. “I like it here because it’s out of the way,” she said simply. “Careful you don’t poke around too much. You don’t want the Hermits interested in you.” Part of Goldlewis reasoned that he actually did want the Hermits to take notice, but he gave her a stiff nod and went on his way. A couple seconds later he, Wind Chimes, and Hal stood with the others inside the rooftop colony called Sector V.

“Good work reaching your destination, everyone,” Sandalphon hailed them. “I will relocate to the upper floor of Sector V and seek vantage points from which to support you further.” Nobody had run into trouble as of yet, instead finding ways to help and earn the trust of the locals. So far, so good. The statuesque sniper stood up from her lookout atop the old water tower, banished her gunstaff, and took a graceful running jump. After taking hold of her golden halo, she began to glide through the open air above the Quarantine Valley rooftops, approaching Sector V.

This scavenged settlement took the form of a ramshackle shanty town. Since resources were scarce, the people here made the most of every little thing they got, from building material to pilfered or reclaimed technology. A single meandering street, just wide enough that a couple people could walk abreast, ran the entire length of the colony, starting at the main gate and weaving around the buildings. The people here lived in tiny [url=https://i.imgur.com/IJbQBkI.png]apartments[/url] made from cargo containers, many of which formed Sector V’s outside walls, and inside them were hidden the denizens’ beds, furniture, and all their meager belongings. There were plenty of makeshift [url=https://i.imgur.com/zePXFsl.png]storefronts[/url] selling all kinds of useful bits and bobs from weapons and tech to daily essentials, and there were even some vending machines, although the ‘Hermitonic’ they offered featured an absurd price tag. A tipsy woman standing near the machines could be found singing its praises. “Mmm…this flavor…I can’t put my finger on it, but it tastes like…power.” When she noticed Goldlewis staring, she clutched the canister in her hand against her chest defensively. “Hey, eyes off my Hermitonic! This one’s all mine!”

Goldlewis gave her a dubious glance. “Did you actually shell out for one of those things?”

“Of course I didn’t pay full price,” she said, almost affronted by the notion. “This drunk came through and let me use his Hermit card. Lucky, huh?”

Not so lucky was a man in an orange coat nearby, down on his luck and sitting on the dirty floor. “Sure wish I had a nice, warm blanket,” he muttered aloud. “I wonder if the Hermits would hook me up with one….ugh, but who’m I kiddin’. They’d never let someone as weak as me in. And I don’t even really wanna live with ‘em either…”

In some areas where the gaps between the buildings widened somewhat, it took on the appearance of an open market, sheltered beneath a sheet metal canopy. A crude ‘outdoor’ food court of tire seats around barrel tables surrounded a cookfire where a lone culinarian stirred a vat of steaming congee, passing out the warm, filling gruel to anyone who could cough up some zenny. A standoffish tippler lounged around at a table, wishing muttering about needing a Hermitonic to sober up. Not far away, a couple [url=https://i.imgur.com/IWIZmwd.png]old-timers[/url] sat on real chairs around a real table. These respected community elders sold consumables and concoctions, respectively, though the gray-bearded Mudtooth would just as happily share fantastical stories to anyone who might care to listen. Indeed, the whole place possessed a certain vitality that somehow overshadowed its bleakness. There were plenty of people here, and while they seemed distrustful and tough, they didn’t look miserable, not even the [url=https://i.imgur.com/dKfh4FM.png]fellow[/url] urgently scrounging for something in a corner. There were children laughing and playing.

“I’ll be right back,” Wind Chimes told the group, patting her delivery bag as she turned around to face them. “Just gotta drop these letters off. Then I’ll be back to take you the rest of the way, promise.”

While she was gone, Goldlewis stopped a [url=https://i.imgur.com/bHODce1.png]passing man[/url] to ask if anything strange had been going on. The bearded fellow paused for a moment to think. “Not really!” he piped up after a moment in a gravelly voice. “The Hermits run things around here, and nobody really dares to step to ‘em. I’d watch out if I were you. They’re crazy strong. I hear they use a drug that powers ‘em up somehow. They’re goin’ all out to stop redshift, man. It’s wild!” He seemed interested in the veteran’s coffin, but he soon went on his way, leaving Goldlewis to think. [i]A drug?[/i] Was that the ‘little bonus’ that Wind Chimes mentioned? If it meant that she could see and even fight Chimeras, then that probably held true for the Hermits. But how was such a thing even possible in the first place? Did it have something to do with Reunion? Goldlewis couldn’t help but get a bad feeling about all this.

Past the cluttered marketplace, a final few descending twists and turns around the colony’s hovels brought the team to Sector V’s back exit. It let out onto an old concrete bridge that hadn’t seen a running train in years, though a couple stranded subway cars on the tracks had been turned into shelters with the aid of tarps. Even here people could be found milling about, sitting in their chairs or standing around barrel fires. Walled in by Sector V on one side and tall barriers on the other -save for an opening that provided a view over the back half of Quarantine Valley-, the bridge led nowhere. One end was shuttered, and on the far end slabs of concrete were piled up around a sideways tram car to create a huge barrier. A handful of men and women stood or sat around it, all dressed alike in heavy black clothes, boots, and jackets with pronounced collars and orange accents. Black balaclavas completely hid their faces, but each featured a single holographic white eye projected on the front. These stern and well-armed sentries hung around the barrier, evidently guarding the entrance within.

“Okay, it looks like we’ve got our run of the place,” Hal told everyone. “Just as a reminder, we’re here not just to find the Hermits and ideally talk with them, but also figure out what their connection to Reunion is, especially this supposed ‘deal’.” Until Wind Chimes got back in a couple minutes, everyone could look and ask around to find or collect whatever they could.

Up above, Sandalphon softly alighted on the roof. The topmost level of Sector V was a settlement in its own right, with walls and barbed wire sheltering a handful of shacks arranged around the colony’s open-air space. Its haphazard construction made it a collection of uneven up-and-down slopes, with plenty of gaps and holes that someone could easily fall through into the town below. There were tarps stretched out into, clotheslines, and piles of trash, but also a few beach chairs, grills, and even umbrellas. This was where the denizens came to get some air and sun without leaving the security of Sector V, although on a day like today there wasn’t much sunlight to be had. The few people up here gave Sandalphon curious and wary glances, as if she were an alien. Only one person rushed up to her, a young girl of nine or ten. She gawked up at the tall woman with an open mouth. “Are you an angel!?” she gasped.

Sandalphon stared down at her, unblinking. “Yes, my child.”

“Then, can you help me? Everyone says angels aren’t real, ‘cause if they were, they’d come down and help us, so if you’re an angel, you’ve gotta help me!”

Gently, Sandalphon knelt down and put a hand on the girl’s head, stroking her hair. “Then it would seem that I must help you. What can I do for you, my child?”

“My dog Buggy! He got out and I can’t catch him, he’s too fast!” Jumping up and down, the little girl pointed to another section of the roof. “He’s running around trying to get everyone to play with him, but I’m worried he’s going to fall! Can you catch him for me? Please!?”

Sandalphon stood up to her full height. The others could still call her if they needed her, but for now they’d need to do without her direct oversight. Not that she doubted them or anything. “Of course.”

[center][h3]Suoh - Beacon Mental Hospital, the Brainframe[/h3]
Midna’s [@DracoLunaris], Sakura’s [@Zoey Boey], Pit’s [@Yankee], Roxas’ [@Double], Luka, Gemma, Yuito, Hanabi[/center]

Though furious, the fights in the Stem Chamber didn’t last long. Though Painwheel, under Brain Drain’s control, managed to deal with Midna’s summons and strikers quite effectively, the Twilight Princess found better help in the form of Roxas, Yutio, and Hanabi. Working alongside them, she managed to lay low the facility’s arrogant psychic director, and without Brain Drain to direct her berserk energy, Painwheel and her rage subsided soon after. Though much worse for wear, their opponents were victorious.

Meanwhile, one Seeker and one Psych-OSF soldier challenged the rogue physics apiece. Though Luka supported Pit when he stood up to Sina, the gung-ho angel ended up doing the lion’s share of the work, sparing his psychic ally the anguish of bringing his Weight Hammer to bear against his own subordinate. As luck would have it, Pit certainly put his best foot forward, taking the fight to Sina despite her slew of cryokinetic tricks and roughing her up. Dexio, meanwhile, faced off against the potent tag team of Gemma and Sakura. He might not be a slouch in the raw power department, but both his foes were expert hand-to-hand fighters with physical strength to spare. Taking turns, they disarmed and then dismantled him, forcing him to make his escape. Put on the back foot, Dexio and Sina activated Brain Drive, but both Seekers knew they had an alternative to facing off against the rogue psychics’ second phases. Rather than go the whole nine yards, they made doubly sure that their opponents were past the requisite damage threshold, then unveiled their trump cards. Both Pit and Sakura managed to deliver their Friend Hearts without issue, but what happened next took them by surprise.

Rather than being instantly cleansed, Dexio and Sina exhibited some sort of adverse reaction, convulsing for a moment as prismatic light built within them. Then, after a tense moment, the lightshow came to a stop as suddenly as it started. With a loud pop, as if some sort of blockage had just been forcefully cleared, the two were thrown to the floor and restored to normal–a normal that neither their squadmate nor their captain recognized, lacking their former bulk and all inhuman features. Though still recognizably themselves, both looked like completely ordinary people. Dexio, with his short, rounded blonde hair and blue glasses, wore a yellow v-neck t-shirt and ripped blue jeans. Sina, with fluffy dark purple hair and pink glasses, had on a white tank top, and ripped dark blue jean shorts. They were, for the first time in a while, [url=https://i.imgur.com/QpLOZus.jpg]themselves[/url]. Next to them lay one spirit apiece: a sturdy, slate-blue, spiky [url=https://i.imgur.com/1Jf2CEN.png]Metang[/url], and a stout, long-haired, purple-skinned [url=https://i.imgur.com/rUS2hYF.png]Jynx[/url].

Instead of gawking or questioning their sudden restoration, Luka rushed over, kneeling between them. “Dexio? Sina? Are you two okay?”

The young woman rubbed her shoulder, looking herself over. “I’m…normal again. I feel…and look, just how I used to!”

“That goes for me, too,” Dexio confirmed. “We’re how we were before joining Psych-OSF.”

Luka looked down at the prismatic motes beside them. “Those spirits…you were fused with Pokemon to gain psychic powers?” Sina looked toward Dexio, who after a moment nodded sheepishly. The confirmation made Hanabi furrow her eyebrows as she remembered what Roxas had said the other day. It looked like the divide between those with and without psychic abilities had led some people to take drastic measures.

“Just like Armstrong said last night,” Gemma pointed out. The big man was standing nearby with his arms crossed, a stormy look on his face. “That doesn’t explain why you attacked us, though. What happened?”

Sina winced, as if dredging up those memories was painful to her. “We were…here before. After what happened to Peach yesterday, we were trying to find out what happened. Telling everyone who would listen. Nobody believed us, not until the Chairman showed up himself. He said he’d show us everything, and sent us with some of his men to come here.”

“Then…that man! The brain with the robot body! After the Chairman’s men told him to ‘fix’ us, he pierced us with those needles. I remember blacking out…then it’s all a blur. Did we really…attack you guys?”

Luka shook his head, clasping a hand on both their shoulders. Though still cold and wet from his attempted drowning, he had nothing but compassion in his heart. “Well, whatever happened, it’s over. You’re safe with us now, and you’ll be alright.”

Gemma, meanwhile, looked over toward where Midna knocked out Brain Drain. “It sounds like…like personality rehabilitation. It’s supposed to be a treatment for mental problems, but it’s been banned for years because of the potential for brainwashing.” 

Before anyone could do much of anything else, an orange psychic field began to appear in an open spot in the room. Yuito’s eyebrows shot up. “A Transport power? Someone’s coming!”

“Like we didn’t have enough to deal with!” Hanabi snarked, hefting her staff.

When Transport went off, however, the man that appeared was one most people here recognized. Tall and lanky, with dark green hair and purple skin, [url=https://i.imgur.com/yUN6Nz6.png]Crenshaw[/url] stood flanked by a couple men. Together, they looked almost exactly like the group that spirited away Peach yesterday morning. “It’s you,” he said aloud, astonished. “The new recruit I graded…and a number of you from the old subway tunnels yesterday.” Shaking his head to clear his surprise, he clasped his hands together in a businesslike fashion. “Ah, pardon me. I can explain–everything.”

“Crenshaw…” Luka crossed his arms. He looked deadly serious. “Go on.”

The psychic obliged. “I’m a member of the OSF splinter faction, the Seiran Garrison. We’ve been watching this facility closely. Relieving Brain Drain here of his excess, well, brains.” He glanced up at the Brainframe. “When our man staking out the place reported another faction on the premises, I came as fast as I could.” He held up his hands placatingly, as if physically weighing his options. “Back in the tunnels we wanted to avoid involving you if we could. The fewer people who know, the better, and if word gets out, the conspiracy will take steps to make sure that word is silenced. But it seems like you’re all willing to take the risks, determined to reach out and grasp the truth.” He clasped his hands again, holding them against his chest. “We took your friend for her own safety, and for yours. But if you want to see her, we can take you there too. To the Supernatural Life facility, hidden away in the depths of Deep-Paris.” He turned his gaze upward. “Just give us a moment to take as many of these brains as we can. You’ll find out why we need them soon enough.”

While they went to work, the Seekers got a chance to recap, regroup, recover, and explain. If they looked for Brain Drain, they’d find that he’d already awoken and absconded to save himself, leaving his lab -and Painwheel- behind, no matter how much that must have stung him. After conversing with Gemma, Dexio, and Sina, Luka teleported each of them out, then returned. “Gemma will take them to safety,” the captain explained solemnly. “But I want to see what’s become of my cadet for myself.”

“I’m coming too,” Yuito announced. “I need to see the true face of Psych-OSF for myself. The suffering it has caused…Hanabi, you don’t have to-”

His friend shook her head, her burgundy ponytail whipping from side to side. “Wherever you go, I go.”

Once the Seekers wrapped everything up here, the journey could commence.

[center][h3]The Under - Kingdom’s Edge[/h3]
Level 12 Nadia (65/120)
The Koopa Troop’s [@DracoLunaris], Primrose and Therion’s [@Yankee], Sectonia’s [@Archmage MC], Jesse’s [@Zoey Boey], Ganondorf’s [@Double], Rubick’s [@Scarifar], Artorias’ [@Dark Cloud]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 2621[/center]

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wC0ZLbBPDY&ab_channel=Br%C3%B3colisGostosinho%F0%9F%A5%A6[/youtube][/center]

After leaving the Organization girl to be inundated with questions by the others, Nadia walked over to the newly-summoned jumping puzzle, stopping in the center to stare upward with her hands in her pockets. Above her floated an array of fluffy white clouds arranged haphazardly from just above the cavern’s floor all the way up to the powerfully luminescent lightroot that dangled from its ceiling, spread across a horizontal range a couple hundred feet in diameter. It was a lot to take in, especially considering that she needed to follow in that odd-looking quadruped’s footsteps and get all the way to the top in order to keep progressing forward. That meant a very, very long fall if she missed a jump, and as her predecessor demonstrated, a cloud would vanish once touched, meaning that she couldn’t just idle in place as if bouncing on a trampoline. Once she set off, it would be go, go, go from the start line all the way to the finish, but as intimidating as that sounded, Nadia couldn’t help but be excited. This would be a true test of her agility, and between her double jump, airdash, and Charge, she felt pretty well-equipped to take it. The thought of asking Kamek for a mount didn’t even cross her mind. With an eager smile she crouched down, waved her tails as she built up blood pressure in her legs, then cannoned skyward with an exultant yell. “Nyaaaaaahooooooo!”

In short order she realized that this was even more fun than she anticipated. Each soft, springy cloud bounced her up about a dozen feet no matter where or how she landed on it, making it so easy to gain altitude that she left the ground behind in a matter of moments. From there, she could reliably double jump by somersaulting in any direction at her leisure, exchanging her upward momentum for greater maneuverability. If she needed to cover more distance, a blood-propelled airdash worked perfectly, but at the lower reaches of the cloud formation the puffy white pillows were so plentiful that she seldom needed to. While landing on a cloud would bounce her up, she could pass straight through them from below, sometimes allowing her to scale several at a time without even needing to move. Her fears that this would become a monotonous, methodical chore were dashed the moment she first encountered a coiled spring lying atop one of the clouds. When she brought her new Mantreads down on it, the spring launched her upward in a burst of speed that made her ears, hair and tail whip in the wind. “Whoooooo, yeah!” she yowled, a huge grin plastered on her mug as her heart raced. Each spring sent her quadruple the height of a regular cloud, but things didn’t stop there. Rarer still were the actual trampolines that rested on the occasional cloud, bright red with a yellow dot in the center, and landing on those hurtled her even farther upward. Aiming for these sped up the catgirl’s progress dramatically, allowing her to make quick work of the jumping puzzle.

As Nadia climbed higher, the going got a little tougher, though for the adventurous feral that just kept things enjoyably interesting. Clouds became more spaced out, and false platforms that would break the instant she or anyone else touched them showed up. With her speed and agility she mostly avoided the bugs that belabored the the Koopa Troop, but some [url=https://i.imgur.com/rBjfptd.png]Booflies[/url] did meander into her airspace. At one point Nadia hit a spring that launched her into a Boofly’s underside faster than she could maneuver out of the way, and the hefty blow knocked her off course, threatening to fling her out of the cloud column altogether and into freefall. That was the only time Nadia ended up needing to use Charge, blitzing back to safety as a bolt of lightning to resume her climb, and a few moments later the feral got her revenge by bouncing on top of the offending Boofly until her Mantreads ruptured its bulbous body like a water balloon. “How’d you like that shoe, fly? Hahah, serves ya right!” Nadia called down after it as she resumed her climb.

Not long after her near-disaster, she chanced upon a stroke of good fortune instead: a funny-looking propeller hat, complete with colorful stripes. When she snatched it from the cloud it rested on, its propeller spun up immediately, carrying Nadia with it as it soared upward for hundreds of feet. It really got her blood pumping, and though the joyride ended far too soon, Nadia quickly realized upon discarding it that she’d almost reached the top. Not too far away hung the lightroot, its glare blindingly bright at this range, but by averting her gaze the feral spotted what looked like her destination. A large, rocky overhang hung out from one of the cave walls on the same side as the recess that harbored the protruding top of Pizza Tower, which she hadn’t even noticed passing. Once she got high enough, all it took was a final push consisting of an airdash into diagonal Charge to seal the deal.

The overhang took the form of an upward slope in the direction of the cavern wall, very much like a hill with a coating of soil atop of the stone and even patches of grass somehow nourished by the lightroot’s glow. Nadia landed at the foot of this ‘hill’ on all fours just to make absolutely sure she didn’t fall backward off the edge before rising to her feet. Her heart beat like a drum in her chest and her throat felt a little raw from all the exertion, so after a moment she sat down to rest until everyone had reached this spot. It took practically that entire time to comb out and untangle her long hair, whipped as it was into a frenzied mess by all the gymnastics she’d done during her ascent. “Not that this hasn’t been fun, but I could’ve really used a short cut,” she muttered aloud. The sooner she got her locks trimmed again, the better. As she took a better look at the overhang, though, she felt less confident about encountering a barber -or even a mirror- in the near future. This hill featured dozens of tombstones, and at the top the stone of the cave wall had been carved into the somber facade of a mausoleum. [i]That kid did call this next place ‘the Crypt’,[/i] she thought offhandedly as she collected her hair into a ponytail with the help of a strand of muscle fiber. [i]I guess we’ve got a grave matter ahead of us.[/i]

Once everyone stood reunited, they proceeded to the top of the hill. There, inside the mausoleum facade, they found a room of aged stone brick dimly lit by black candles that burned with an eerie blue flame. On the far side were a set of heavy stone doors, enchanted and sealed tight. In front of them sat a heavy stone desk with a number of papers on it, whether loose or in ledgers, as well as an inkwell and feather pen. Nobody sat there, but a bell sat near the edge, tantalizingly shiny, next to a small, neatly-written sign that read ‘ring for assistance’. Though a little wary, Nadia went ahead and tapped the bell. [i]Ding![/i]

[center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrrsy1igbwA&ab_channel=GearsforBreakfast[/youtube][/center]

The instant the bell’s hollow peal rang out, a field of swirling purple clouds surrounded the room. “Gah, I knew it!” Nadia yelled, more annoyed than surprised. From behind the desk, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/W1D9hBy.png]purplish shadow[/url] sprang up and loomed over documents and Seekers alike, his eyes and smile a brilliant yellow.

“WHHHHYYYYYYYYYY HELLO THERE!” the Snatcher greeted the heroes enthusiastically, his voice suitably slimy and ethereal. “Hello and welcome, esteemed visitors, to the Crypt! Will you be interested in entering this fine afternoon?”

Though tensed up and ready to fight, Nadia kept her hands off her weapons as she looked up at the Snatcher’s leering face. “Uh, yeah actually. Can you get us in?”

“Of course! The Crypt offers free admission year-round. All you need to do is sign the EULA.”

When she heard that word, Nadia drew a blank, her brows scrunching together in confusion. “The…eula?”

“The end-user license agreement!” Summoning a thick sheaf of paper, the specter offered it to Nadia. “Think of it as a legal contract that one must consent to and abide by in order to enter and enjoy the Crypt. You know, terms and conditions, rights and restrictions, all that jazz. Don’t worry about the details, just sign right at the bottom, and we’re good to go!”

When Nadia took the contract and held it up to read it, the paper unfolded, reaching all the way to the floor and then some. After suppressing her astonishment, she narrowed her eyes and tried to read it. All the complicated, impersonal legal jargon quickly made her head spin after just a couple paragraphs; she wasn’t absorbing any of it, and she actually yawned. “Holy moly. How does anyone actually read this thing!? What kind of stuff’s in it?”

“Pretty much nobody does, actually!” the Snatcher told her cheerfully. “It’s more of a formality than anything. It’s just limitations of use, prohibited activities like smoking and fighting, waivers, legal penalties for breaking contract, yadda, yadda, yadda. Nothing fine upstanding folks like yourselves need worry about, I’m sure!”

At that, Nadia’s ears perked up a bit. “Oh, well, yeah, sure. We’re just passin’ through anyway, I won’t do anythin’ bad. Cat’s honor!” While she meant that, she ultimately didn’t care all that much about whatever stipulations she was supposedly agreeing to. As far as she was concerned, it was all superfluous legalese that didn’t practically mean anything. And what was the worst the monsters here could do if someone broke contract anyway? Attack them? The Seekers were no strangers to fighting their way out. Nadia went ahead and signed the EULA given to her, using her not-so-legal name of Ms. Fortune. Immediately the contract rolled up and poofed away, and the stone slabs leading into the Crypt began to slide open. They would smash together to crush anyone who stepped inside illegally, but as a contractor Nadia had nothing to fear.

She and the Snatcher both waited for signatures from everyone else who was willing. Only when the last Seeker signed did the Snatcher clap his hands together. “That seals the deal, we’re in business! You’re all free to enter. Let me just grab this real quick…” As the mausoleum doors closed behind everyone, a flurry of purple lightning came out of the blue and struck them repeatedly. Though Nadia flinched on reflex, she barely felt the lightning at all, and rather than deafening thunder she heard nothing more than a series of weak slaps, like someone getting smacked with a crumpled up paper. After a moment, though, strange, wispy motes drifted up from each of them, like ghostly facsimiles of themselves. Suddenly, Nadia felt exceedingly empty inside. “And there we go! As per the terms of your license agreement, your souls belong to the NecroDancer for the duration, by which I mean ‘eternity’, and if you leave before your contract is up, he will definitely ‘end user’, ahahahahaha!”  Welcome to the Crypt of the NecroDancer. Dance ‘til you’re dead!”

Nadia groaned and hung her head, laughing dryly at herself for getting fooled so easily. Although she could pretty much predict how it’d go, she halfheartedly tried throwing Athame at the Snatcher anyway, and naturally it bounced right off. “Sorry, ‘Ms. Fortune’, you can only hit me when I turn blue,” the specter explained. “But blue doesn’t suit me. So if [i]you’re[/i] feeling blue, take it up with the NecroDancer! No fighting though, or your soul’s on the menu, ahahahaha!” As he dove back into the ground, his voice echoed through the catacombs. “FOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo[sub]ooooooooools…[/sub]”

With a sigh Nadia went to retrieve her dagger, crouching down by the doors. “Y’know, this is good, actually. I was just thinkin’ that things were a little too normal today.” As she stuck Athame in her belt, her ears flicked. “Hey…you guys hear music?”

When the team advanced, they soon found the Crypt to be a sprawling dungeon tomb, but it was far from dead silent. In each vaulted chamber, all with their own spooky themes, the checkered floors flashed alternating colors in tune to the beat. Speakers and boomboxes outnumbered the tombstones The [url=https://media.indiedb.com/images/members/5/4179/4178034/profile/tumblr_pfhea1Cg4w1u4zhato1_400.gif]skeletons[/url], [url=https://i.imgur.com/1I4pXAw.png]zombies[/url], and [url=https://i.imgur.com/uiuiOHQ.jpg]ghosts[/url] that crowded this place were completely non-hostile, perhaps also bound by the terms of their contracts even though their ends had already come. Instead they held up bones coated in luminescent mushroom juice like glow sticks, partaking in a never-ending rave, or boogieing out on the [url=https://i.imgur.com/SODV6Di.jpg]dance floor[/url]. Even floating [url=https://i.imgur.com/xiU3dzx.png]Sargassos[/url] (some with trumpets) and Plenty of other monsters and people seemed to call this place home as well, but even though tempers might run hot, fights never broke out here. Nadia did see a couple dance battles and rhythmic showdowns, so furiously competitive that she couldn’t help but wonder if the participants were dancing for their very lives. At some point the place looked less like a crypt more like a Halloween-themed club.

A little overwhelmed by all the stimulus present in the supernatural party atmosphere, Nadia stopped in the Crypt’s central [url=https://i.imgur.com/o7VL8SP.png]nexus[/url], a roughly cylindrical chamber of stairs, arches, and obsidian. Though it connected to many rooms and received a taste of the music in each, this seemed to be the only place without any active partying, where a number of dancers and celebrants were relaxing on break or just sitting in crestfallen silence. Skeletons seemed to be the majority here, so a [url=https://i.imgur.com/kFAjGW1.png]young blonde woman[/url] with a shovel stuck out like a sore thumb. Nadia also spotted a few people that seemed like instructors, some in the process of giving dance lessons. One, [url=https://i.imgur.com/81ePqBj.jpg]Nashmeira[/url], instructed in the use of a dancing art that made use of chakrams, while an [url=https://i.imgur.com/jDWDUed.png]elegant young man[/url] in pink taught ribbon dancing with cloth that furled like drills. A [url=https://i.imgur.com/AV79OPS.png]fox spirit[/url] would’ve been teaching a fan dance if he had any students, because he happened to be near the most popular trainers, a trio of [url=https://i.imgur.com/QrQ6u3U.png]short men in tracksuits[/url] who evidently taught combat breakdancing. There was even a magical-looking jukebox called ‘Leitmotif’ with the slogan ‘Discover your theme’ emblazoned on it.

“Sheesh. This place must get ‘rave’ reviews. Everyone’s just dyin’ to get in.” Nadia sat down on some steps, not sure where to even begin. Had she really lost her soul? If so, how was she going to get it back? Who was this NecroDancer, anyway? And maybe most importantly, did this Crypt place serve lunch? “Maybe we oughta break out the pizzas,” she told the troop, only half joking. “I dunno what to do, but whatever we end up doing, we can’t do it hungry, eh?”