Level 8 - EXP 25/80
The Midnight Walk - Abandoned Lodge
Word Count:4389 +6 EXP
TV TIME!! #1
Featuring Blazermate, Sectonia, Roxas, and Mokou
Word Count: 4389
Amidst the commotion of White Team establishing a base for the night in the abandoned lodge, Tenna and a small group of his Shadow Guys he summoned throughout the night, will have transformed a corner of one of the bedrooms into a makeshift show stand. Nobody was entirely sure where he was able to find the camcorders that surrounded the rearranged stand made of tables and chairs, draped with an ominous carpet that radiated bad juju to any magic users for decoration. There were also more statues of his likeness.
While many of the Seekers chose to rest for the night in the confines of the abandoned lodge or hunt out for valuable resources to make the base more operational, it seemed that the TV Host was preparing to put on some form of impromptu entertainment. With a joyous grin, he danced merrily as his shadowy minions threw handfuls of confetti over him, inviting the other Seekers to come closer. “If you’re looking for fun! YOU FOUND IT! If you’re looking for NOSTALGIA! YOU. FOUND. IT!!!!” He cheered as many of the seekers walked past him.
This was going to be an awful mess to clean up, and little did the eccentric TV host know that he and his wacky cronies were going to be responsible for that at the end of the night.
Sectonia was responsible for cleaning up the place, although she delegated that task to her Antlers, only directing them instead of partaking in the cleaning action itself. She wasn’t going to sleep in an ugly building if she could help it. Once the Antlers had their jobs, she looked bored and hearing Tenna talk about entertainment decided to lazily buzz over to observe and see what was going on there.
Mokou herself had been mainly delegated with lighting the various fires that would keep the seekers warm throughout the night, additionally creating a few feathers for folks to hold onto for a nice bit of warmth should the fires go out. Her eternally bored eyes simply washed over Tenna for a moment as they shouted and gathered their onlookers… But, in a surprising twist, she actually came over to the corner where Tenna had set up, holding her hands in her pockets, “Nostalgia huh? Not sure if you can replicate what I would consider that, but I’m down for a bit of entertainment” she states as she pushes a chair out with her foot, quickly sitting down and folding one leg over the other.
Blazermate meanwhile was using her little tinderbox to light the main fire while Mokou lit everything else. She didn’t know what was so impressive about this skill, but once she lit the fireplace, some harmless fireworks went off around her and she knew she was ‘level 2 firemaking’, whatever that meant. With that done, she heard people gathering with Tenna making a big announcement and decided to fly over and see what that was all about, as no one really needed heals at the moment.
Nearby, Roxas had been busy making sure his Pokemon were all fed - a task that was getting increasingly big now that he’d acquired as many as he had. But most importantly, Scamp’s ears perked up at the sound of the gathering and he suddenly left the bowl of stew he’d whoofed down and started bounding over to satisfy his curiosity.
”Huh? What the- Scamp, where are you going?” Roxas called as he scrambled after his Boltund, not wanting Scamp to get himself into any trouble. So naturally he wound up around the camcorders and CRT alongside a few other Seekers in time to hear Tenna’s offer of “fun and nostalgia”. The Nobody didn’t have anything better to do, so he shrugged his shoulders and stuck around.
Once everybody had grouped up at the edge of the table (adorned with that awful rug), Tenna would pose happily, gleeful that there were SOME PEOPLE with a knack for fun. Oh… it was getting awfully boring. But once people had started questioning what Tenna’s plans for the evening were, he chipped up, more than eager to explain.
“Why! I’m preparing for a show! Where you lot will be my CONTESTANTS!” Oh. Well, it seemed like now they were being roped into Tenna’s plans since they had the bravery to be curious around the CRT. “You see! I can make fun anywhere, and today I have a SPECIAL program ready, just for you guys!” A gloved finger would stretch out toward the tiny crowd. Did those camcorders even work? Everything here had bad vibes, but maybe it was just the stress of being on the Midnight Walk getting to the mental fortitude of the Seekers.
“IT’S. T. V. TI-” Tenna sat close to the edge of the table, directly in the center of the spooky rug, which, upon feeling his immediate weight, would clamp around him, just as his screen turned off.
”Uh, is he ok?” Blazermate said, noting that he hadn’t taken any damage, but unsure about how he felt after trying to do something cool. Sectonia meanwhile gave a joyful cackle, she loved fools making fools of themselves for the entertainment of others.
”Beats me.” Roxas said, tilting his head. Scamp, meanwhile, leaned forward and sniffed at where Tenna was standing and gave a curious bark of his own.
Before his allies could begin to worry about his well-being, The CRT’s screen would flash back on, displaying a program of an odd character walking on a beach littered with random objects. Little white orbs could be seen appearing on the camcorders as the screen on Tenna’s face began displaying text.
“A sentimental wheel partially indulges the skeletons. The people consider with a spirit. It is a mandible amidst an offending mirror. It is a vacuum. Amidst spirit. Meanwhile, the TV becomes under another’s will. Thus, your story begins.”
Suddenly, once the small, oddly-shaped character walked over and flicked a large button on the machine below the car, Tenna’s screen would flash to static before displaying a series of mishapen sigils. Without any time to react, Tenna’s screen would begin rapidly digitizing the bodies of the Seekers in attendance, slowly teleporting them inside his screen.
”Hey, whoa, what-!” Roxas started to exclaim in startlement before his digitization cut him off. Scamp gave an alarmed bark in concern for his trainer but ended up getting digitized right along with him.
Mokou didn’t even seem to react as she was digitized, remaining in her comfortable position despite the scene unfolding before her. Whatever sound she would have made was quickly cut off as the digitization quickly dragged her into Tenna’s TV Screen.
Blazermate was more confused than anything. Not the first time shes been digitized, but why was Tenna doing this and for what reason? He was nice right? Uuh…. well they did fight the Consul that ate them that one time, was this going to be something similar? Well, they had Sectonia, so they had firepower if they needed it. The bee queen herself only stopping her laughing when she started to be digitized, also a bit mad since this just happened out of the blue.
As the Seekers finally, as if in a deep sleep, began waking up, the sound of crackling thunder in the near distance disturbing them from their unnatural hibernation. The room they found themselves in appeared to be a suite room library, where three golden cheerful statues of Tenna were erected. The five seemed to have been separated from Tenna entirely, the cheerful CRT statues behind them being the only clue that the TV Host was somewhere to be found nearby.
The room was dark, and reeked of wet carpet from years of neglect. While it certainly seemed safe, there was an odd air about the place, along with oddly shapen ghostsfilling the lightning storm outside with a constant eerie sensation of being watched.
Other than the statues, and a large array of books, there was a large door, a globe of what appeared to be a generic planet, a painting of a hat laying on the floor, along with another painting (this one rectangular) of a cello, and a fireplace, opposite parallel to the door. There was also a pile of low quality flashlights to help the seekers with visibility in the dank statue room.
Upon closer inspection, the door was locked with two unique locks, one bound by magic, and the other nonspecial, seemingly easy to lockpick to the eyes of any experienced thief. The task at hand was simple for the group, seeing as they were locked in a room with no immediate exit.
”OK, what is even going on? Did he just teleport us into a dark room? What kind of game is he playing?” Sectonia was a bit mad since this whole thing blindsided her, but she wasn’t into smashing everything just yet. She’d wait for a response or something.
”Uhh…. Looks like its just an escape room sorta deal. Although I didn’t know he could do stuff like this. He didn’t seem to be that combat capable compared to you or Ganondorf, so… I don’t think we’re in any real danger? Uh still though, very confusing. Just look around for like, keys or something to open the door. They'll be in the globe or in the painting or a book or something.” Blazermate said, having done one of these for fun before. Although without anything to Scan, she might take a bit to find anything.
“Hm, ‘escape room’... I think I heard about this kind of stuff before. Never actually went to one myself” Mokou comments, strolling through the room as an orange feather floated next to her, illuminating the area around her without the need for the flashlights nearby, “But if we’re looking for something, the best method I find is to just tear everything up. They wouldn’t leave the keys in plain sight” with that, Mokou begins doing just that, grabbing various items from the room (mainly the paintings from the walls and the rug on the floor) and casually tossing them to the side to look underneath them.
On closer inspection of the paintings, there were rectangular and oval-shaped chalk outlines on the wall adjacent, that began to fade with the test of time. A nail was smashed into the top-center area of each outline; nothing was suspended from either nail.
It didn’t take long for Mokou to connect the dots with the chalk outlines and the paintings, mainly letting out a sigh of annoyance at the prospect of doing proper physical labor for this, “Roxas, help me move these to the other wall. Put the rectangular painting with the rectangular chalk” she says, already carrying the oval painting to its designated position.
”Um… okay.” Roxas replied, moving to pick up the rectangular painting as asked. He glanced for a fraction of a second at the locks. He was pretty sure his Keyblades could open them without any trouble. But then… this was supposed to be like a game, right? He supposed it wouldn’t be as fun if he just cheated the locks open. Not after Tenna had gone to the trouble of setting this up. So he may as well stick to the rules here.
Aligning the paintings with the spots of chalk on the wall would make a series of clicking noises from within the foundation of the building. Suddenly, the fire rising from the fireplace would be quelled, giving the trapped Seekers a chance to investigate it. Looking up the fireplace’s ventilation unit revealed a large upward opening with a bright red light leading to an odd cave that formed quite a ways up. The cave was only big enough for one party member and required some agility and/or mobility to get upwards. Some rock formations protruded that could be grabbed.
”I’d rather not try to fit myself through something like this.” Sectonia said, having the mobility, but not the proper size to fit through the area.
The sight made Roxas glance between his fellow Seekers, ”Uh… looks pretty cramped up there.” He said, even as Scamp sniffed at the vent. ”I can make the climb if no else can…” He added, essentially offering to be the one who made the ascent. He assumed he was probably best suited for such a climb, given his agility and Flow Motion. But for all he knew, Blazermate might have wanted to make the ascent by simply flying up.
Looking at Sectonia who didn’t want to do anything and Roxas who was looking at her, Blazermate said. ”Yeah yeah, I’ll be right back.” and made her way upa dn through the tunnel.
Following the bright red light and entering the odd cave, it seemed to be emanating from, revealed a passageway, which opened into a cave of horrific stone faces all illuminated by an odd glowing red cube in the distance. While the vibes were certainly disturbing, there didn’t seem to be any threats lurking, so progressing through was easy for the strong-willed.
The cave seemed to wind aimlessly and nonsensically, though, and progressing towards the cube revealed a maintenance ladder leading over the next room, which appeared to be a large boiler room decorated with waterway pipelines. There was only one door in the room, which had a latch and a deadbolt that could easily be unlocked from this side of the room to allow teammates to regroup in the same room. Blazermate opened the door to let the other seekers through.
From a corner of a room under a blanket, an odd television set with four legs began to walk around aimlessly into walls and the Seekers. Its screen was turned off, although it seemed to have a power button on the backside, which was, if it could be caught. It walked around so aloof that it sometimes inadvertently avoided the grasp of those who chased it.
Sectonia, wanting this farce to either get to the point or be over, turned on the TV. Blazermate would’ve done it, but she didn’t know how CRTs worked as everything where she was from was flatscreened and needed remotes and everything. Meanwhile for Sectonia, CRTs were still in fashion in Dreamland funny enough.
Upon the power button being activated, the TV’s once staticky screen now froze, before turning off, then immediately turning on again, the two antennas suddenly appearing a lot more cartoonish. A familiar face appeared on the screen, as if suspended in animation. “IIIIME!!! Whoa, wait hold on? Where did my SWAGGER go?” Tenna resumed, immediately taking note of his odd new form.
The CRT had a lot to answer for, though it was pretty quick to notice that he was just as disoriented as the rest of the group. In his current form, he wouldn’t be able to offer support for the rest of the group.
“Well, welcome to your first mini game!” A loud crash of lightning would ominously strike as soon as he finished the sentence, an odd, old timey logo reading “Mr. (Ant)Tenna’s Marvelous Mystery Board” would appear as if they were in some twisted game show
”What is even going on? Are you even in control of your own power here?” Sectonia said, annoyed so far with the lack of clarity or entertainment as it were at the moment.
“Have to agree with the Queen here. While I appreciate the decor, no instruction on what to do is a bit annoying” Mokou herself states, her eyes scanning the room around them rather than staying on Tenna.
Tenna, understanding the confusion of the situation, nodded to the best of his near-useless form’s ability. “There’s no reason to be alarmed. My minigames are fun and harmless! Oh wait! I have an instructional video to play! Hmm…” His reassurance would’ve been more appreciated if he had explained that there was no physical threat to the Seekers, and that everything they were The screen went staticky for a moment, a spooky jingle playing.
The video seemed to demonstrate ghosts being eliminated with an offscreen light source. While there was no audio accompanying it, the text on screen explained well enough what their objective was: “Defeat the most ghosts and earn the most points! Saves are worth double!”
“Well. That's all I have. There's normally a lot more preparation time and I get to review my plans, but this caught me by surprise!” While it wasn’t immediately clear what a save entailed, the Seekers knew they would figure it out soon enough, as before they could ask, a horrifically mauled ghost of a young woman suddenly appeared from thin air as she teleported next to a generator adjacent to the maintenance ladder they had just entered. “But you have to trust me. We are not in any danger.”
Mokou glanced over at the woman who appeared next to the generator, her eyebrow rising a fraction of an inch as she took a hand to point at them, “I’m certainly not, but I doubt they would agree with that statement” she says, not doing anything more to engage with the ghost in question.
The ghost seemed to eye the seekers for a moment, as if eyeing their motives for a second, before returning her gaze to the generator, slashing her rusted weapon widely at the machine, before disappearing again. The lights shut off immediately, only the faint light of their flashlights, Tenna’s screen, and Mokou’s feathers serving as sources. Sinister laughter filled the room as a loud clatter in the darkness revealed an unscrewed maintenance ladder, immediately followed by the door Blazermate had just unlocked, slamming behind them.
Tenna’s screen now had a 2-minute timer on its display, along with miniature icons sharing the tallies of each Seeker present. “GOOOO!!” Tenna shouted, initiating the count of the time. Ghastly voices began appearing in the room around them, an odd purple ghost appearing behind Roxas, its long tongue flailing in an attempt to make a scary face.
Of course, it didn’t exactly account for Scamp’s presence. The Boltund had been sniffing around the room suspiciously ever since they got there, and the moment the purple ghost appeared he barked a warning at Roxas who turned around and fired a mostly-harmless shot from his RockGun at the ghost. ”Thanks, Scamp.” The Nobody told his Pokemon gratefully. Of course, he wasn’t sure the RockGun would be particularly effective here. Based on the video, he probably needed some kind of light source… then it hit him.
Roxas fished around in his backpack and found the butterfly lamp he had found while scouting with Heismay earlier that day. Maybe that would do the trick? The ghost became frightened by the swinging lamp, the light revealing its monster-like face, before it let out a cry and disappeared. On Tenna’s screen, the miniature icon of Roxas would increase by one point.
The phoenix herself didn’t move for a moment. Then her hand suddenly snapped out as a yellow ghost appeared on her left, intending to scare the white haired girl… Only to have a flash of harmless but blinding fire thrust into their face, sending them screeching and flying away with a hand over their eyes “One. You all better start working, I don’t lose when I’m challenged” she says, already walking forward, the feather that floated next to her glowing brighter as it helped her hunt down the ghosts that were now in the room.
Suddenly, the room began filling with ghosts of various shapes and sizes, most keeping a cartoonish, or odd look. They hid amongst the dark in each corner of the circular room. It wouldn’t be difficult to claim one and capture a bunch of ghosts with one flash of light from any of the Seekers' sources they held onto.
Suddenly, Tenna’s 4 legged form began ascending randomly, something clearly manipulating him to float. “Woah! Who turned OFF the gravity!?”
A translucent purple ghost would reveal itself to the seekers, lifting Tenna in his oversized arms. The ghost cackled menacingly before attempting to make out of the room with Tenna in his hands.
He wouldn’t get far. Roxas vanished from sight only to teleport into the ghost's path and tag him with his StepSword. Probably not that harmful to a ghost, but maybe enough to free Tenna from its grip. Of course, Roxas also set about aiming the lantern’s light at the ghost as well, since by now he knew that that was the surefire way to defeat one and earn a point. ”Ready to do some herding, Scamp?” He then asked, eliciting a bark from the Boltund. Roxas’ strategy became abundantly clear: utilize his Pokemon’s nose to sniff out hiding ghosts and to help herd into the path of Roxas’ lantern light.
The ghost kidnapping Tenna would seem surprised at the light after being tagged, slinking away into the wall. Tenna’s screen would play a cheerful fanfare upon his safe return! The number next to Roxas’ name would increase by two points, putting him in the lead at three. The Boltund directed Roxas to the northwest corner, where two distinct laughs could be made out among the darkness.
The last three corners of the room hid more ghosts, if Roxas was fast enough, he could possibly get the ghosts in his current corner, plus another if he could beat his allies to the punch.
Well, that would be until Sectonia understood the goal and started throwing her multiplying projectiles around, filling the area with vaguely homing random split projectiles flying all around, bouncing off the walls, aiming for the ghosts as they passed by, and just causing the general chaos she caused on a battlefield in a localized area. Even her smaller rings of light were only barely smaller than Blazermate, and being fired in triplicate made them much more difficult to deal with. Add on a rain of swords in one area and well…. Wait, it was clear that Tenna hadn’t actually seen her unleash her rain of projectiles yet has he? She had been more playing minion master when fighting with him before.
Sectonia, unleashing a hellfire of light projectiles, was able to hit ghosts in half the room, specifically four, and blind the rest for the duration of the round. The timer on Tenna’s screen face was at the minute mark, which meant the Seekers were running out of time to secure more points. The number next to the tiny icon of Sectonia chimed four times and rallied her total to four. She was in the lead, just barely one point ahead of Roxas, while Mokou remained at one.
Blazermate meanwhile really didn’t have all that much she could do. Sure she could send Armstrong at a spirit or summon her engineer to make an automated sentry gun that’d get rid of any spirits that got close, but without anyone getting injured nor kritz being useful in a game like this, most of her kit wasn’t all that useful here.
The clock was running out. Only one corner remained for the Seekers to clear, any light source viable to reveal however many ghosts remained in the ominous game. While Tenna’s face blinked to the last half-minute of time, the disfigured ghost lady would appear behind him, shrieking as she wrapped her sliced arms around the small TV, beginning to carry him away. Tenna’s screen displayed a video of somebody blinding the ghost lady with a flashlight in the eyes, forcing her to drop the victim she was carrying away. Maybe the video was a hint to release Tenna from her grasp, the final corner still cackling with undead life.
But before the disfigured woman could make off with the television set that made up Tenna’s current body, an alarm would play from the screen, directing the Seeker’s attention to him.
The woman set the CRT man down, as if obeying a direct command from him. The screen showed the miniature version of Sectonia with a first-place icon next to her name. After a victory tune accompanying a short results screen finished playing, the Seekers would be able to see where they placed, along with possible rewards.
While at first glance it was unclear what the possible rewards and their associated ranks would grant the group members, that would need to be something they found out later, because a couple of minutes after the screen played, the Seekers would begin to digitize again, rapidly materializing from Tenna’s screen back into the real world.
Tenna blinked at them, dazed, the rug no longer clung around him, and the camcorders now behaved as intended. Rather than trying to play off what happened as another part of the game, Tenna explained to the Seekers, who were trapped inside his screen that the rug which had clamped around him forced him into the minigame without any offering of an explanation of what they were in for, and that the ranks would be important for the next time in the minigame’s attendance.
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