Current
Now running: World of Light: The Tale of the Dark Itself
4 mos ago
Forever and ever, amen
7 mos ago
Calling out from Scatman's world
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like
10 mos ago
Called into action - by threats that seem harmonized
1 yr ago
Tomorrow comes
Bio
Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.
Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.
To the new cat owners out there: here is the progression for your kitties. Starting with level 2, the order is:
Level 2: Another Active
Level 3: Another Passive
Level 4: Active Upgrade
Level 5: Passive Upgrade
And the order repeats with additional levels. Each cat can have 4 actives and 2 passives maximum. As a reminder, your cat gets a level upgrade per encounter (these encounters don't have to be the formal ones that reward bonus xp). However, if there is more than one cat in the encounter, the one that gets the upgrade is determined via two methods: whichever cat is lowest level, or if all cats are the same level, random chance.
Special note for all Mewgenics cats: instead of dying, they will be downed with a random stat-lowering injury. At that point, if they take three hits from ANYTHING while downed, they'll be permanently killed. Revival abilities will revive them, while an instance of healing will add an extra hit. If a cat ends a battle downed, it will not be eligible for a level up.
As much as everyone needed a break from the events of the Winterhold College labyrinth, a freezing high-altitude mountainside was not the place to do it, no matter how many pyro-infused monoliths or Red Antlers happened to litter the windblown ruins. Without their steadfast stagecoach, abandoned somewhere on the slopes below, there would be no refuge within this ill-omened place. The Seekers’ destination -and the end of their long trek through the inhospitable Frozen Highlands- loomed above them. Midnight Walk or not, the upward path was calling to them, and they could only put off their answer so long.
Even without the stagecoach that he had turned into the team’s mobile base, however, Edward was prepared to forge a path ahead. His implacable ironclad tank would plow through the drifts of snow and flatten the unseen hazards that promised to snag coats and sprain ankles. And if any minor threats poked their heads out just beyond the beaten path, the Seekers’ dreadnaught could count on his inventive new companion to wipe them off the face of Moon Mountain with a jury-rigged bomb. Edward might not receive his fair share of thanks, but Sandalphon knew that the team owed him a great deal for his hard work during this expedition, no doubt far more than they owed her. Any less helpful or solely combat-focused comrades who consigned themselves to merely being along for the ride could progress only because Edward allowed it. The archangel believes that the team’s lives and leadership could be safely entrusted to him, should it come to that.
As he prepared to set off again, his pack tightened and his new, unconventional weapon sharpened, Heismay was displeased to find that the gray-furred brother cats (whose collars, upon further inspection, identified them as Baconator and Whopper) would simply not leave him be. Relentless, dauntless, and shamelessly pushy, they chased him down wherever he retreated in order to rub up against him or attempt to climb him. He attempted to focus on the looted spirits, looking amongst them for a potential Striker. The Stargazer struck him as the most promising candidate, a more cosmic abomination to join the grotesque one he already wielded. Since neither Ace nor Heismay seemed interested, Heismay went ahead and spiritbound the thing, the Stargazer’s binding as unceremonious as its predecessor’s.
Stargazer A celestial emissary of excessive limbs and telescopic eyes, enraptured by the glorious cosmos. A formidable Striker with a relatively short cooldown, it can kick with many legs, strike with its telescopes, or charge up Astral Vision in order to blast and potentially confuse multiple targets
Over the course of a few minutes it eventually became clear that Heismay had little choice in the matter of whether or not these felines would accompany him on the treacherous road ahead. At the point where one of them managed to make it on top of his head, Heismay lost patience. He grabbed the young tom by his scruff, pulled him off, and sat him down in the snow next to his brother.
“That’s quite enough,” he told the two gruffly, crossing his wings. “As I told you already, you have no future with me. Are you both truly so eager to die on the long and dangerous journey that lies ahead?” He stared at the cats one after another, his expression severe. Baconator contorted himself to scratch his chin with one footpaw, while Whopper tilted his head in confusion and meowed. After a moment, Heismay let out a grunt of annoyance. “Tch. Fine, fine, very well. If you truly care so little for your safety, then do as you wish. Be warned, however, that I’ll brook no disobedience. In this company, you will be soldiers first and foremost. Am I understood?”
Whopper swatted at Baconator’s scruffy ear, and in a flash Baconator rounded on his brother to tackle him, sending both rolling through the snow.
Baconator Class: Fighter Str++/Spd+/Int- Active: Nip Inflict Bruise on a unit at melee range, increasing melee damage taken by 1 per stack Passive: Hit Me When hit by an ally, automatically performs a melee attack in the direction he’s facing. Damage taken by allies is reduced
Whopper Class: Thief Spd++++/Luck+/Str-/Con- Active: Steal Luck A weak melee attack. If this crits, siphon Luck from the target Passive: Burgle His basic attack gives him a coin whenever it deals damage
By the time that Heismay whipped the little hooligans into shape, the rest of the Seekers were ready to move out again. With only a disgruntled head shake at Ace, the eugief and his two new charges fell in with the others on the trail blazed by Edward’s ironclad as it began to rumble upward into the howling, wintry dark. Preferring a less bumpy ride that would agonize her half-petrified body less, Sandalphon rode atop a steed provided by Edward, her own newly-adopted cleric held close for warmth. Although it remained to be seen how effective the felines would be as battle companions, it reassured her to have more than ten combatants present for what promised to be the expedition’s final battle. The archangel struggled to conceive of how things could possibly continue to ramp up after Winterhold, but she imagined that she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out. At the very least, there still seemed to be some semblance of a navigable path leading higher up the mountain, rather than slippery slopes and sheer cliffs. Maybe, after everything they’d been through, the Midnight Walk still led the Seekers onward. Or maybe, as the Soulfisher once told Sectonia, they had lost their way along the Midnight Walk because they were meant to.
The Tale of The Dark Itself
Up, up, up they climbed. The wind whipped at their coats and capes, the unyielding stone fought against them, and the bitter cold seeped into their bones. Other than a handful of tough, mealy orange winterberries, the landscape yielded no solace. For Sectonia, this felt rather familiar, oddly reminiscent of the Sandswept Sky’s split mountain and Yellow Team’s grueling ascent. That particular climb, made all the more brutal by a powerful blizzard, had been so cruelly long and arduous that the peak seemed to leech the life itself from the Seekers’ bodies. Moon Mountain did not feel quite so impossible, but something strange about it seemed to turn the climbers’ thoughts back upon themselves, amplifying the doubts and fears that crawled and slithered around the edges of their minds, discreetly gnawing away at their strength. Maybe it was the abundance of shadowy recesses amongst the rocks from which dangers could spring–in which more than one traveler could swear they saw round, unblinking white eyes in their peripheral vision. Maybe it was the way that the stones were shaped, uncannily like faces, frozen in eternal torment. Maybe it was the way the wind died down, from a baleful roar to a mere whistle and whisper, so subtle that the sojourners might just be imagining it. Or maybe it was the way that the darkness closed in on them, making the backdrop beyond Moon Mountain fade away until there was nothing beyond the mountain but a pitch-black void.
Even the rumble and clamor of the ironclad tank eventually faded away. Heismay was dimly aware of it somewhere ahead of him as he continued to walk, his new charges trotting faithfully behind him, but he couldn’t see it anymore. Only the stone shards left behind by its heavy, crushing treads. At some point the person behind him -Blazermate- had fallen far enough behind him that she was nowhere to be seen when the Eugief glanced over his shoulder. Only after a little while spent traveling like this, with an occasional worried look out at the pitch-black void, did it seem to sink in for Heismay that this wasn’t normal.
Something was wrong. In the void beyond the mountain, something was moving. A gigantic, towering, indistinct figure whose nebulousness seemed a rare blessing. Heismay thought he saw enormous, squirming intestines, a glassy eye in its chest, and where its head should be…
”Dad!”
Heismay froze in his tracks, the eldritch giant forgotten as he whipped his head toward the path ahead. An instinctive reply died on his lips as his mouth hung open, suddenly dry. He wrenched off his hood so his long ears could unfurl in order to turn this way and that, trying to identify the sound’s source, but the faded echoes offered no clues.
After a moment, Heismay swallowed. “It can’t be,” he croaked as he checked on the cat brothers, suddenly very glad they were there. They were looking around, confused and alert, with their fur standing on end. “It can’t be…”
He stepped forward, past the corner of a protruding cliff, and made a bizarre discovery. In front of him lay a large alcove recessed into the mountainside, not quite a cave. It was home to a sort of town square, filled with a shadowy throng gathered before the gallows. A dark figure with furry, doglike ears and a tail, hung by the neck, and most of those in the crowd shared similar features. Angry voices, not quite distinguishable, cried out in rage. A handful of official-seeming figures with weapons, bearing either horns or very long, pointed ears, attempted to discourage the crowd from their prominent position atop the gallows platform. Within seconds, though, rioters began to hurl things their way, from rotten fruit and wads of paper to sticks and stones. Heismay’s eyes weren’t on the officials, though, but on the crowd. He hesitated at the edge, trying to peer between tenebrous legs and tails.
”Dad, where are you?”
“No!” Heismay’s heart was pounding. “This isn’t real! Tis some illusion!”
”Dad, I’m scared!”
“Damn it,” Heismay hissed. He looked down to find his cats, tensed up and ready for action. It would have to be enough. “You two, attend me!” He pushed into the shadowy throng. “I’m coming, son!”
Instantly, four members of the crowd rounded on him, throwing him back. They towered above him, all ears and tails and fangs. Heismay couldn’t make out what they were saying, but their voices were mocking. Thuggish. Dismissive.
“Bloody Paripus,” Heismay snarled, drawing his scythe. “Out of my way!”
Somewhere behind this scene, or perhaps ahead of it, Sandalphon fell to the hard, rocky floor with a cry of pain as a huge, taloned, obsidian-black foot crushed the head of her mount. With her pupil an empty circle, the archangel stared up at an immense draconic demon, faceless and horned. Around her, on a circular shelf extending out from the mountainside path, five archangels lay dying. Ramiel, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael…their forms might be shrouded in darkness, but she could tell who they were. Their contours were unmistakable. As the great demon receded, the five broken, battered bodies began to crawl and drag themselves toward Sandalphon, reaching for her.
”You left us…you killed us…”
“Why did we have to die?”
“You shouldn’t have lived…”
Saranwrap hissed at the shadows as she stood before Sandalphon, her fluffy tail extended as far as it could go. Sandalphon tried to reach out to her cat, her voice pleading. “No…run…I’m dead anyway…save yourself…”
Voices of wrath and despair swelled around her as the archangel fought in vain to stand, her body wracked by agony. The darkness was closing in.
Face your failure. Denial, resentment, ambition, obsession, cowardice. If you have no failure to face, you will have to fight one of four difficult Confession bosses, controlled by me. Overcome the darkness within, or be crushed by the mountain’s weight.
At length, the team of beggars returned to the rest of their group with the Cinder Ridge citizens’ handouts in hand. It took long enough that the sign was high in the sky by the time Bandit and the others reached the makeshift shelter set up near the spot where everyone had been dumped, and if the heat had been nasty before, it was downright oppressive now. In the intervening hours, the ragtag band’s numbers had continued to bleed off as former prisoners grew increasingly skeptical of the questing quintet’s return. Bandit didn’t pay the departed any mind; this galaxy was full of people who came and went all the time, and very few faces needed to be committed to long-term memory.
Once the jailbirds helped themselves to the donated clothes and a mouthful or two of frontier food, however, the whole gang could finally get this show on the road. Despite her earlier misgivings, Bandit was excited to finally get her first taste of this planet’s civilization, in a much more metaphorical sense than those who’d sampled the townsfolk’s spare leftovers. Neri suggested that the prisoners ought to seek gainful employment, in order to buy food if nothing else. That earned an amused scoff from Bandit. Maybe these organics had to go about their lives in such a humdrum manner, but not her. The world itself was her marketplace, and as it turned out, every vendor in town offered a three-finger discount. As long as she picked smart targets, timed her moves right, and took full advantage of the walking distractions around her, all the cash and batteries she could want were just one little heist away.
And if that didn’t work…well, Bandit sure didn’t have any other skills. Guess I’ll just die.
She glanced at Dusk when he suggested various occupations. While she doubted that anyone around here would trust these hooligans enough for security work (and rightfully so, given her stated intentions) what really intrigued her was his curious turn of phrase. “Western?” she asked. “West of what?”
When Kim mentioned not having weapons, Bandit smirked. Or she would have, if she had a mouth. While TABS-EVA androids were by no means built for combat, the handy-dandy energy saws hidden in her multipurpose forearms could deal some real damage to anything that happened to be made of flesh. Of course, she didn’t need to mention that ace up her sleeve just yet. Always keep ‘em guessin’, that’s what mama always said, Bandit thought, despite the fact that no concrete data on her mother currently existed in her databanks.
Moving at meatbag speed instead of Bandit speed made the trip to Cinder Ridge take forever. Maybe a nice slow amble through the wasteland conserved energy for the others, but for Bandit it was the opposite; her internal life support systems continued to drain her batteries as long as the sun beat down. Still, she was glad to have the company when the prisoner parade reached town. From the moment they first set foot in the dusty, sun-baked backwater, Bandit’s group got nothing but curled lips, narrowed eyes, and surly spits into crusty cuspidors. Clearly, the citizenry here didn’t take kindly to outsiders, and despite their donated duds the castaways definitely fell into that category. “These folks look mighty ornery,” Bandit muttered to the others, a fact made patently obvious by the plethora of sidelong glances and toyed-with sidearms. The android had been right not to come here on her own, but she wasn’t exactly in good hands, either. She had a bad feeling about this, and if shit hit the fan, the most she could expect from her new ‘friends’ would be a half-dozen bodies that might feasibly soak up blaster fire in her stead. Well…it wasn’t like she had any other options. It would have to be enough.
Neri led the group toward a raucous establishment of some kind, replete with strident voices, clinking glasses, and slamming mugs. The saloon didn’t strike Bandit as the sort of place that catered to destitute job seekers, but what did she know? At the moment, Bandit’s processor was in something of a rut when it came to figuring out what course of action she’d take, and in the meantime sticking with the group for the sake of safety in numbers seemed like the most sensible option. The minute the unfortunates crossed the threshold, though, Bandit realized that safety was the last thing she’d find here. An artificial being like her, with few inalienable rights and high scrap value, seldom lasted long in the cosmos without learning how to read the room, and the vibes in here were positively rancid.
Once inside, she let out a cartoonishly loud gulp and immediately took a hard right to distance herself from the others, her tarpaulin cloak brushing past a few churlish Dhasath as they rose to accost the intruders. A glance at her might prompt them to wonder what they were looking at, but by now they’d already zeroed in on the human intruders as enemies to direct their ire toward, so Bandit herself got off with little more than an ill-tempered shoulder check as she made her way to a discreet shadowy corner. She hadn’t even reached it before projectiles and fists started flying as the situation went south with shocking speed.
After just barely getting clear of the melee, Bandit seated herself at a card table as if she belonged there, and grabbed the drink left behind by the Dhasath who’d gone off with his Kiellar buddy to try and corner Kim. A quick splash of the cold brew down her neck-hole helped cool her overwarm insides down, and she turned her sensor to watch the others fighting. Kim, Dusk, and the others could throw a couple good punches, it seemed, but the moment someone with a blaster showed up (local law enforcement or otherwise) the would-be heroes would be in for a lot more trouble than they bargained for. It was a lose-lose situation.
…For everyone but her, that was. Bandit’s mechanical fingers closed around a wagered coin left on the table. Five seconds later, the entire pot had disappeared into her storage cavity. With all hands balled into fists and all eyes on the slugfest, nobody would be minding the valuables they left behind. It was an opportunity that the greedy android couldn’t pass up. As pandemonium raged in the saloon’s center, she began to skulk around the room’s outskirts, carefully liberating the boozy, bullish patrons of their cash with the help of the veritable swiss army knives built into her arms. The easiest pickings, of course, were the men knocked out in the brawl, their limp bodies laid out on the floor with nothing to guard their pockets. Despite the chaos, though, Bandit tried to keep her head; her biggest problem, she knew, would be getting too greedy: picking the wrong target, and giving the game away.
Nothing like a brush with death to make life taste sweeter, Nadia thought. In her case, it made the seasoned shawarma wrap from Sahad’s halal cart extra savory, a sublime explosion of tender rotisserie meat doused with a fragrant, delectable garlicky yoghurt and tahini sauce. The fact that it came at an appreciable discount made it even better. Maybe it was just the drizzly rain on her face, but the feral found herself practically weeping in joy as she devoured her lunch alongside Beowulf, who evidently had enough of an appetite (hyper-caloric breakfast be damned) to go in for seconds. Nadia threw caution to the wind and joined him, happily stuffing herself with marinated lamb–a rare delicacy nowhere to be found on the avenues of New Meridian. “Not baaad,” she declared through a half-full mouth, which garbled her sheep impression slightly. “No way lamb is street food where you’re from?”
Sahad nodded with a proud smile. “Certainly. Shawarma can be made from other meats, but lamb is a time-tested favorite. It originated roughly two hundred years ago in Turkey from the ‘doner kebab’ and has been a Levantine staple ever since.”
“Turkey?” Nadia blinked as she chewed. “How did lamb come from turkey?”
Chuckling, Sahad clarified. “Oh, Turkey is the name of a country where I’m from. Well, it isn’t where I’m from exactly, but you know what I mean.”
“Gotcha, gotcha. Well, don’t I feel sheepish,” Nadia giggled.
Shortly after the two wrapped up their meal and began spitballing about what to do next, Nadia started to hear voices through her newly-obtained linkpearl. She heard Sakura’s tip, then the brief responses from Pit and Band. Frowning, she mulled over the new info, wondering if this concerned her. When Beowulf shot her a curious look she held up a finger to ask for a moment as she considered the situation. After a few moments, Band announced that the team would be getting the Avenger involved, so it sounded like this would be a big deal. That seemed kind of extreme, since how did they know that this tip was reliable in the first place? She guessed that the squad that would be deployed to the Tyrannian Plateau could give word on R either way, but still.
Ultimately, the feral had a decision to make. She didn’t really want to get into another life-or-death situation today, especially with someone at the top of the World of Light’s pecking order, but oh well. If anything, her run-in with Kazuya had proved that she couldn’t just run from her problems and hope for the best, even in a place like this. If trouble would find her either way, it might be time to come clean and do her part. It would be a good while until her next match, after all.
“Got a call from my team,” Nadia told Beowulf after a few moments. “Gotta go. Good luck with your matches. If things start gettin’ rough, head to the Mortal Kombat pools and find yourself some buff dude’s spirit to fuse with. I know it’s morbid, but we gotta do what we gotta do, right?”
The wrestler furrowed his brows. “If you say so. Take care of yourself out there.”
Nadia gave him a genial smack on the back, then stood up from the picnic table and set off at a jog. It seemed like the light but persistent rain plaguing Esaka was finally beginning to let up, and streaks of early afternoon light pierced the thick, gray clouds. She took that as a good omen, and once she found a spot, Nadia sighed before flicking on her linkpearl. “This is Ms. Fortune. Where we meetin’?”
Though Big Band had already started the gears in his head turning in order to tackle another new investigation, Primrose intervened to reveal that there was really no need to snoop around for any more information on the inbound Consul. Thanks to her earlier fact-finding expedition elsewhere in the Forbidden Kingdom, the dancer had all the intelligence she needed to dispel the mystery surrounding Esaka’s rumored visitor. “The Tyrannian Plateau,” Band repeated. He hadn’t heard of it himself, owing to his extended stay in Edinburgh MagicaPolis while the other Seekers set up shop in Mafia Town, Skyworld, and Meridi-at-han. One of these days, the detective figured, he should really just spend an evening in the Avenger’s bridge poring over the Lost Numbers’ map and data banks with a fine-tooth comb. Neither did Band recall hearing about Consul R before, so the Seekers probably had yet to tangle with him. With Moebius, it was like pulling names out of a hat: you never knew which letter of the alphabet you were going to get. Still, just a name or two was an invaluable tip. Now the investigators knew where they needed to look.
Primrose went on to mention an acquaintance in that area, although right now it sounded like she had no way of reaching her. Even if the team couldn’t call in for help, a contact could potentially help get new arrivals situated. Given the importance of this new mission, Band found himself thinking big right off the bat, as he considered requesting an emergency pickup from Esaka and redeployment to the Plateau. Interception sounded like the best option in order to minimize casualties and interference, but it would be a tricky operation even if the Seekers knew R’s mode of travel and timeframe. One bad assumption could lead to them missing their window, or worse, alerting Moebius. “Consul L traveled by air in a huge ship,” he recalled. “The rulers of this world ain’t gonna skimp on their own convenience. Or security, for that matter.”
When Primrose suggested gathering the crew, Band pursed his lips, thinking. “Honestly, we might not have time to sit everyone down and talk shop in person. I think we gotta radio the Avenger right now. Get someone to your contact on the Plateau to get eyes on R before he leaves, so we know when and how he’s comin’. We could Fulton up and go ourselves, but it’d be faster to get someone topside to do it while we gear up for a sortie down here. Dunno if we can loop the UN into it this time, not against a Consul…”
It went without question that he’d rather prioritize this over his own more-or-less-doomed tournament run, but unless other registrants followed suit it’d be only him, Primrose, and the Koopa Kids against R. It was a bad day to have misplaced five teammates.
If Band was right about their time table being short, then his suggested course of action made more sense than delaying the Seekers' leave from Esaka, and the Avenger could set its course for the Tyrannian Plateau sooner. "Let's contact them, then."
Primrose had tipped her umbrella in such a way that any passersby that might feel like snooping on their conversation wouldn't be able to see their faces, and the rain further dampened the sound of their already lowered voices. Anything to keep their discussion a little more private while they were out in the open like this.
"I don't mind touching down in the Plateau to coordinate things there if needed. I'm sure those Power Stone Games will be over soon too, I can take Therion or someone else with me," she said. It would be better than putting a group of the Lost Numbers in danger.
Band nodded, then activated his linkpearl to address the team. “Hey now. Accordin’ to Primrose, we’re dealing with R, consul of the Tyrannian Plateau. We’re gonna call the Avenger, let the folks up there know, and get ‘em to send a squad to the Plateau to find R and keep eyes on him. Once he’s on his way, we’ll intercept him ‘fore he gets here, and we’ll need all the help we can get. I’ll keep y’all updated. Band out.”
After that, he turned off his linkpearl and attempted to tap into the mystical power connected to him by the Seekers’ leader, trying to contact her from afar. The detective had no skill or experience whatsoever with mysticism of any stripe, but he trusted that the archangel’s own ability would make up for his magic illiteracy and enable this crucial connection. “Sandalphon?” At the name, a sigil manifested by his head -rather similar to the phone magic Primrose had learned, really- and after a moment Band cleared his throat to try again. “Uh, Sandalphon?”
“This is Sandalphon speaking,” a deadpan voice replied to him out of the ether. In the background Band could hear what sounded like a strong wind. “Mr. Birdland. Good to hear from you after not reporting in for so long. What is your status?”
“Uh…” There wasn’t really time to fill Sandalphon in on everything that Gold Team had experienced, so Band cut to the chase. “I’ll report later. Right now, we got a tip that Consul R is going to travel to Esaka from the Tyrannian Plateau some time today. We don’t want two Consuls in our hair, so we’re hopin’ to cut him off and sort him out ‘fore he reaches the city. For that, we need eyes on the Plateau. Can you put me through to the Avenger?”
Sandalphon took the news in stride as she got to work on Band’s request straight away. “One moment…connecting…you’re through. Commander, do you copy?”
A synthetic voice replied. “This is SJ. What’s the situation?” Once Band reiterated the news and his request, SJ came to a quick decision. “...Very well. We’ll set a course for the Plateau. Our intelligence on R is limited, but since much of the region is wilderness, his options for departure point are limited. We cannot involve the Avenger in the interception directly in case this is a trap, but we can drop additional supplies outside Esaka ahead of time if need be. SJ out.”
“Good luck, Gold Team,” Sandalphon added after the Lost Numbers’ commander signed off. “Sandalphon out.”
Almost as soon as the long distance call was disconnected, another person patched into the linkshell network. Primrose tipped her head and then pointed to her ear to inform Band to listen in again.
"You guys found out about the other consul already?! You work fast! But if we all leave the city won't that mess up our plan of getting to the Guardians?"
“We ain’t leavin’ for long,” the detective replied. “Not all of us, either. Just those who can spare the time. Gotta hope that’ll be enough.” He paused for a moment. “Band out.”
A second or two after everything went quiet, Band let out a deep breath and nodded at his companions. “Alright, let’s spread the word, get ready, then make our way out of Esaka. Whoever’s on the case, we’ll trust ‘em to steer us in the right direction.”
With Primrose of a mind to pay the Power Stone Games (and the Seekers involved in them) a visit, she, Roland, and Band needed to discuss where the nascent strike team would meet. Before they came to a consensus, though, an unexpected voice in their linkpearls interrupted them.
“This is Ms. Fortune. Where we meetin’?”
Band raised his eyebrows, then tuned in. “Fortune. Nice to hear from you. We were thinkin’ we’d meet up in that farmin’ village north of Esaka. See you there.” With that he nodded to Roland and Primrose, then turned to make his way out of the High Tier. For now, the Flame Clock could wait. The Seekers’ new objective was as ambitious as it was short-notice, and even more so than the raid against the Qliphoth it would be a test of their entire campaign’s ability to plan, coordinate, and act. To make this takedown happen everyone would need to be firing on all cylinders, and they needed all the right people for the job.
…
Aboard the Avenger, the squat and rotund Nopon inventor Tora, flanked by his faithful companion Poppi QT-PA-2T, waddled into the Bridge to find the seamstress Anais, the businesswoman Susie, and the eerie, insectoid Grimm, an odd group if ever there was one. After blinking a couple times in confusion at the two and glancing at Poppi (who just shrugged) Tora’s gaze landed on the airship’s robotic commander SJ, the automaton responsible for summoning him here in the first place. “Meh-meh? What everypon disturbing Tora in middle of important project for?”
As the icy wind scoured the mountainside, blowing flurries of snow and whistling through long-dead boughs, and Geralt took it upon himself to lead the survivors’ descent to Christmas Town, Sandalphon’s unblinking eye remained fixed on the two opposing Frederics. With no weapons, magic, or supernatural abilities in evidence, it didn’t make for much of a showdown. The fact remained, however, that one of these Freds must be true, and the other false. Well, admittedly both could be false, but that would make for a rather anticlimactic end to this sordid tale in the archangel’s opinion. Unfortunately, she could not sneak a peek at the conclusion of this confrontation with her External Information Network, since as far as her scans could tell, neither one of them exhibited what she’d call an ordinary human biology. That meant that the Seekers would need to deduce the real Fred’s identity the old-fashioned way.
Sandalphon considered what she knew. Edward had been the first to encounter what she’d presumed to be the real Fred, with a frazzled but otherwise mundane appearance. From the first time she’d scanned him she’d known about his abnormal biology, but chalked it up to him merely being from another world, unaware at that point about the potential doppelgangers in play. She’d witnessed two other Freds, the bitey one in the bedchamber and the dramatic one in the kitchen, both of whom struck her as patently false and had likely been wiped from existence along with the Winterhold labyrinth. Then there had been ‘Godhead Fred’ as the Cryptic Overseer put it, a ghastly and outrageous abomination that made mockery of the divine, which Sectonia had rightfully slain. As she considered the matter, she did notice a handful of cats lingering around the Seekers, but right now she needed to focus on the task at hand.
As Ace stepped in to try and keep the Freds calm while everyone talked it out, Sandalphon’s mind raced. She wished that she’d been privy to the conversation, as it were, that the Ace Cadet sustained with the silent, faceless Fred. At the moment, she had very little to go on, not much more than her own observation that while both Freds seemed to be biologically inhuman, one clearly made much more of an effort to look human while the other did not, and that just so happened to be the one demanding that his counterpart be slain. Sandalphon could not argue with Edward’s notion that each painted Fred deserved to live, but if one such ‘figment’ happened to be actively dangerous, malicious, or both, the Seekers were well within their right to make the world a safer place. It seemed like Ace and Heismay both believed the faceless one’s story, much to the dismay of the other.
“That’s absurd!” Frederic cried. “Why would you believe him over me when he’s clearly a monster? He’s dribbling, and he has four arms, for Pete’s sake. It’s not like I attacked you, either. If any Fred attacked you people, it’d just sign its own death warrant, anyway. They all just want the same one thing: to be the last Fred standing.”
Ramattra stepped forward. Out of everyone on the team, he had seen and spoken to the most Freds, and his experience offered him a solution that the others lacked. He posed the two Freds a question, heard out the talkative Fred, then tried to interpret the charades of the silent one. In the discrepancy between their stories, the Omnic found his answer. He called out the accuser, pointing out his flawed story. This accusation, on top of the others’ suspicion, proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. ‘Fred’ began to transform, and Ramattra called for Sandalphon’s intervention–needlessly. The archangel was, after all, always ready.
She hurled a Frost Lock freezing the Face Taker solid mid-transformation. A targeting device appeared in her hand, and as she took aim she lifted the other for attention, then pointed two fingers forward. “All troops, open fire!”
Everyone hastened to attack, bombarding the frozen Face Taker with a fusillade of bullets, arrows, and spells. Once Sandalphon completed her Headquarter Support Request, an airstrike descended to finish the onslaught with a well-aimed, deafening cluster bomb.
The action was uproarious, but brief. When Sandalphon’s Freeze wore off and the Dissociation kicked in, its stockpiled damage proved enough to pulverize the false Frederic, splattering him across the snow like so much paint. On top of the mess lay a grisly but telling sight: a human face, skinned and stuck in a ghastly look of abject horror. Carefully, Heismay crunched through the freezing paint and lifted the face off the ground, pinched between his index and thumb claw. He then turned, approached the final Fred, and extended his hand to offer the painter his face. Gingerly the warped man accepted the scrap of flesh, plastered it atop the cavernous abyss in his head, and smoothed it out as if he were washing his face. When he raised his head, Frederic looked out at the assembled Seekers with big, watery blue eyes, nervously straightening his disheveled black mustache.
“Oh, thank god! It's back on! Egh. That feels better.” He let out a shaky, relieved sigh. “Thanks for that. For everything, all of you. The voices…the thing that took my face…all gone. A thousand thanks. I owe you, big time.” He clasped his hands. “Let me paint a duplicate of any piece of gear you want. Not guns or weapons- only clothes, other gear. I can only do this once, so think about it for a while, okay? But I owe you, and I want to do this for you.”
Heismay nodded with a tentative smile. “You’re welcome. Doing good is its own reward, as they say, but I doubt we’d decline such a reward. We’ll talk it over, I’m sure.” He glanced back at the ashy paint to make sure that the impersonator was still dead. “So…what exactly happened to you?”
After a moment, Fred’s gaze turned toward the cloudy night sky above. “It was a calm, beautiful night. The kind of night that needed to be immortalized in painting. There was something in the sky... I couldn't identify it, but I captured it anyway.” He looked down, staring at his four hands. They shook, either from the cold, from his own fear, or both. “It changed me. Whatever I painted... whatever it was... I will never be the same. Almost everything I paint now seems to come to life.“
Sandalphon immediately thought about what Primm said, about what Byleth saw, and what poor Satori read from her mind. Some kind of phenomenon or entity so eldritch in nature that the mere act of observing it, even indirectly, could irreparably alter someone. It was a terrifying notion, but luckily, whatever Byleth witnessed through the Observatory’s telescope in the maze seemed absent from the World of Light’s sky, out here. Otherwise, there was no telling what fate would befall the world and its populace. She shivered. “Frederic. If you can provide this service more than once, or help in other ways, we would be happy to offer you a safe home at our base. You would no longer be a prisoner, but one of us, a welcome member of our team. A hero, helping to save the world.”
“A hero?” Fred smiled wryly. “It sounds absurd. Childish, even. And yet, after seeing you save so many strangers, myself included, it seems almost credible. I could follow the others to Christmas Town, but perhaps this is the meaning I’ve been hoping to find and capture in my art. And I do really owe you, regardless.” He pursed his lips. “A few minutes to think about it, if I may.”
He seated himself by a lantern to warm up as he mull over the invitation, leaving the Seekers to settle down after the brief burst of excitement. Even after everything a handful of the cats from the labyrinth had yet to move on, and to their credit they’d barely flinched from the noisy lightshow that spelled the Face Taker’s end. As carefully as she could so as not to agonize her joints, Sandalphon knelt to stroke the white-striped, moss-colored fur of a scruffy, tufty, cat. Her long whiskers, tired eyes, and shriveled frame with much more fur than body gave her a very world-weary look, and the human part of Sandalphon could not help but pity the poor creature. The old soul at her feet had seen and lived through so much, and there was no telling what day might be the kitty’s last, and yet she still wanted love. A place to belong. “It looks like both our days are numbered,” she murmured quietly, slipping one arm under the cat’s belly in order to lift her up. “For as long as they last, let us spend them together.”
“Meeeeeeeow,” the cat replied. Sandalphon narrowed her eye at the feline’s heart-shaped collar. Saranwrap, she read. How exotic.
While Sandalphon found a kindred spirit, Edward interviewed a scrappy-looking cat, and Ace continued to enjoy a misshapen tabby’s affection, Heismay held back. If what he’d seen in the Dice Room was any indicator, these felines were uncommonly intelligent and capable fighters and a number seemed eager to find companions among the Seekers, but the eugief planned to exclude himself as a candidate. He shuffled away from the others, toward a dead tree. With the peak of Moon Mountain in sight, the heroes had plenty more action ahead of them, so he hopped up and hung upside-down from a sturdy branch to take this chance to rest. He closed his eyes until he heard a curious meow below him, at which point Heismay cracked open one ruby-red eye and looked down, knowing what he’d see.
Two young cats stood beneath him in the snow, gray in color, similar enough to be half-brothers, perhaps. The stripier of the two sported green eyes while the other featured a snaggletooth and knobby knees. While the latter hung back, looking a little nervous, the former sat on his haunches and reached up with fuzzy gray paws to try and bat at the bat-man like a dangling cat toy.
Heismay closed his eyes and turned his face away. “You had better throw your lot in with someone else, little ones. I am unfit as either parent or guardian. Just leave me be.” When the brothers did not retreat, Heismay let out a sigh, then extended his claw. “Look, over there. Young Roxas has several pets already, and he treasures each one. Our Cadet knows his felines, see there? You’d do well in his care. Perhaps become hunting companions. And Edward would no doubt offer stellar tutelage, master of beasts that he is.” He curled his lips, quiet for a moment. “I can avail you nothing.”
Unfortunately, neither cat seemed to get the picture. They remained right where they were, prompting a weary groan from Heismay. Maybe he’d overestimated these beasts. Why would they be able to comprehend his speech? To show that actions spoke louder than words, Heismay swung forward and flapped down, jogging back toward the group in an effort to get away from the brothers. Nevertheless, he could hear their little paws pattering through the snow behind him. “How are we doing?” He crossed his wings, ignoring the cats at his feet. “We should not dally long. With no stagecoach, time is not on our side.”
Nadia half-expected golden letters to materialize in the air to officially begin the fight, but this was no tournament match under the purview of the Heavenly Principles. Kazuya glared at her with murderous intent in his red eyes, malicious enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. That look told her that this would be a good old-fashioned street fight, no holds barred, with lives on the line. Nadia had fought for her life plenty of times before, whether in this world or her own, but it never got easier even if her sunny smile suggested otherwise. Hopefully Beowulf, who at times seemed to think that everything (no matter how dire) was part of a highly staged wrestling match, could sense the gravitas of this situation and break kayfabe.
At the moment, though, Beowulf seemed to be looking around in an effort to find the camera crew shooting this particular backstage brawl. After a moment he shrugged and raised his hands. “Okay, ready to rumble!”
Kazuya needed no further invitation. He dashed toward the two in a peculiar fashion, moving with a very fast stutter-step just as fast as a run, although not quite as committal. Right now, Nadia really wanted nothing to do with this murderous psychopath, least of all to rush straight at him. What she really wanted was to run away, as far and as fast as she could. By surviving the attack on Banishing Flats, though, she’d proven that this man would need to handle her personally in order to get his revenge. All this for some sneakers, she thought, but some men were just that egotistical. This cruel tyrant would just keep on hurting people unless she put him down. And she couldn’t do that without getting closer.
Launching forward, Nadia closed the distance on all fours, then pulled her own hand off as she rose. A spray of blood from her stump splattered Kazuya in the face, rendering him blind, and after she reconnected her hand the feral whipped her arm back down. Her hardened nails glinted as she pulled off less of a claw slash and more of a chop, meant to slit the devil’s throat in a single razor-sharp slice.
Somehow, though, Kazuya shrugged off her blinding blood. He stepped to the outside and dipped, expertly dodging the claw slice by centimeters. Nadia had only a split second to register the sizzling steam that rose from his luminous red eyes, then the gloves fist inches away from her face, and then all she saw were stars. She stiffened and stumbled backward, her body in shock, as the punch blew her head clean off her shoulders, kept from flying into the pool only by the cords of muscle fibers that kept it connected to her neck.
Her head swung down and dangled behind her, next to her tail, as her vision swam. Had he broken her nose in one shot? It sure felt like it. In that moment of pain and uncertainty, Nadia changed her mind. “Buhhhh…” With her most genuine death rattle she slumped to the ground, her limp limbs splayed at unnatural angles, as if her body had only just now realized it had been killed. Extra blood leaked from her seams, dripping between the planks around her in a rather convincing fashion. Kazuya couldn’t possibly know about her ability to play dead, after all. Once he thought her slain by his own hand, he wouldn’t know any better than to leave her alone. It was a perfect pivot…almost.
“Fortune!?”
Crap. She’d forgotten about Beowulf. Nadia cracked open one eye to see the wrestler rush Kazuya with his triple charge attack, Wulf Blitzer. “Ao, ao, awooooo!” His foe sidestepped the first charge, backdashed away from the second, and then sidestepped again to put himself at medium range. As Beowulf grabbed his chair and turned to hurl it, Kazuya leaped forward with a flying thrust kick that struck him square in the chest. “Gah!” He flew toward the halal food cart and just barely missed it, skidding to a stop by the rest area’s railing.
With a grunt, Beowulf used the cart to help pull himself up just in time to block a back leg snap kick from Kazuya that pushed him back into the railing. He looked up to see an overhead chop incoming and blocked it with his wrestling belt, then hopped in order to strike with Naegling Knee Drop on the way up.
That actually took Kazuya by surprise, which meant Beowulf connected and could continue with an aerial knife edge chop into a double Wulf Blitzer, forward and downward. After bringing his foe back to the ground, Beowulf extended with Cheap Pop, a quick stomp, then went for his microphone drop. He held it just long enough to go for a reset, but Kazuya saw straight through it, blocked high, and grabbed him for Gates of Hell. The savage back-breaker followed by a dismissive straight kick sent Beowulf flying, and he belly flopped to the floor only a foot or two away from Nadia.
He lifted his head up, inhaling sharply through gritted teeth, and was shocked to see Nadia’s fallen head winking wildly. Stunned by the macabre sight, he just stared for a moment before swallowing and giving an almost imperceptible nod. Maybe the wrestler’s kayfabe ability would come in handy after all.
“You MONSTER!” Beowulf pounded the floorboard dramatically, his tone one of almost cheesy dismay. The catgirl’s estimation of his acting skills plummeted. Sniffling, Beowulf rose and pretended to wipe tears from his eyes as he turned to face Kazuya. “Such cruel strength…! You won’t get away with thiiiiiiiiis!” With a bellow he charged, his gait clumsy and slow as if overcome with grief. Kazuya, sneering with disdain, lowered his arms as Beowulf approached. When he dodged, the wrestler overswung with such exaggerated strength that he practically threw himself over the railing behind Kazuya, wailing as he fell toward the pool. “Waaaaaaaaaaagh-!” SPLASH!
A second passed before Kazuya peered over the railing. He found Beowulf floating face-down on the water’s surface, looking like a washed-up corpse thanks to his wolf pelt, and saw no need to besmirch his clothes by examining him any further. “Imbeciles,” he muttered as purple bat wings sprung from his back. “What a farce.”
With a powerful beat of his wings the devil disappeared into the sky. Once they thought he was gone, nearby onlookers began to emerge from their hiding places and approach the field of battle, searching among the aftermath. As far as Kazuya encounters in Esaka went, there was much less damage than usual, thanks mostly to his targets not putting up much of a fight. Splashing and sputtering from down below, however, alerted the citizens to the fact that Beowulf was still very much alive. He swam toward the nearest place where some off-duty fighters and yokai could help him up, and while that was happening, the much grislier-looking ‘corpse’ began to move as well. Nadia schlorped her head back onto her neck, wrung out the excess blood, and dusted herself off as she got to her feet. As Beowulf approached, soaking wet, she shrugged with a wry smile. “Honestly? As one-sided beatdowns go, not that bad.”
“Says you,” the wrestler sighed, shaking his head. “I’m gonna have nightmares after seein’ your head like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re alive somehow, but my heart just about stopped. Never do that again, okay?”
The feral giggled. “No pawmises~”
Beowulf sat down at a picnic table, waving off onlookers with assurances that he was fine. Things were settling down and getting back to normal pretty quickly; fights like this were not exactly uncommon occurrences in Esaka, after all. “Well, I’ve seen the leaderboards. If I’m gonna win Tekken, I gotta face that guy again. I barely scratched him!” He threw his hands up in resignation. “Whoever’s writing this storyline coulda given me a fightin’ chance, at least!”
“Hey, you got a couple good hits in! Really helped meowt by gettin’ his attention off me, too!” Nadia plopped down by the wrestler and patted him on the shoulder. “Aw, cheer up, dude! You got a couple more days before the main event. Get some more fights under your belt, maybe a couple spirits, and you’ll be fine. And hey, maybe someone’ll take him out before then.” Beowulf gave her a doubtful look, and she shrugged. “Look, all the other Seekers want him dead too. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” She looked up at the sky, narrowing her eyes against the drizzly rain. “Would’ve been nice if he dropped a hint about where he’s goin’. Can’t see a thing through this purrecipitation.”
As the conversation trailed off, and Nadia began to feel her nose to make sure it wasn’t broken, a young man with long brown hair approached the two. “Afternoon. Just wanted to say, congrats on surviving Kazuya. That’s definitely a win in my book; the man’s infamous for a reason. And thanks for not wrecking my cart while you’re at it.” He gestured toward his food stand. “If you feel like celebrating your ‘win’ with a bite to eat, I’ll give you a discount as thanks. It’s Lebanese food, straight from my home country. Satisfaction guaranteed.”
Grinning, Nadia turned to Beowulf. “I’ll bite!”
“Gotta keep our strength up,” the wrestler agreed. The two stood to follow Sahad to his cart, careful not to step in the blood Nadia left behind before the rain washed it away.
As Primrose strode forward to contact the UN agents, Band hung back, turning to face a different direction and feign being otherwise occupied to keep his attention discrete. When she lightly bumped into Mila, she took the MMA practitioner by surprise. The sight of the tall, gorgeous, and well-muscled dancer stunned Mila for a brief moment, as if she’d been starstruck by a random encounter with a celebrity, before she stepped back to reaffirm her personal space. “Oh, hey there,” she greeted Primrose with a friendly smile as the other two agents looked over. Her voice was higher than one might expect, with no trace of either a New York nor Spanish accent despite her heritage. “Yeah, these are pretty good! I mean, the hotdogs are just, y’know, run-of-the-mill, but the sausages are nice. Whatcha thinking of getting?”
As the conversation began, Band furrowed his brow slightly. Did they really need to be taking this angle with UN agents? They ought to be allies, after all, ready and willing to help one another when possible. Then again, maybe Primrose didn’t really trust them, and she could very well be right to distrust them. The Seekers could never truly count on anyone still under Galeem’s spell.
His attention briefly wandered to the Jeon Ryok Residence nearby. Primrose had recommended that he and Roland experience what she’d called ‘ki tuning’, and the immense palace definitely looked more like a place of spiritual learning than a hospital. Since his new Headlok arms from the eggheads in Lab 8 had been useful but not enough of an upgrade to guarantee him wins in bracket, maybe he owed it to the team to be scrounging for any advantage he could get at this point. He was a little hesitant, though, and not just because he doubted that the tuners could squeeze in an appointment while Primrose was making friends. There were lots of elements of Esaka, both architecturally and culturally speaking, that a born-and-raised New Meridian native like himself would find ‘foreign’, but few wore their heritage on their sleeves like the Jeon Ryok Residence. It was a little intimidating. Band had never heard of ki in his life, for one. His cyborg body featured plenty of instruments that could be tuned, but ki? The detective hadn’t the foggiest.
Still, if it was for the sake of the mission, he’d give it his best shot. Just not now.
He glanced back in the direction of Primrose, listening in. The charismatic dancer had worked her magic, tactfully turning a casual chat about frankfurters and condiments toward the many wonders of Esaka itself. She described the Flame Clock without naming it directly, framing it as a sort of one-of-a-kind tourist attraction, and it seemed to ring a bell. “Oh…I think I’ve seen something like that!” Mila exclaimed. “Up at the Top Tier. It shows up on the Four Kings’ broadcasts from time to time. A big, donut-shaped glass full of purple light, set into the plaza between the four skyscrapers.” She pursed her lips, giving Primrose a sad look. “Oh, but access is restricted. No way you’re seeing it in person.”
“Well, not if you just waltz up there,” Darli grinned as she stepped forward, dwarfing her luchador companion. “But the guards live and breathe the tournaments like everyone else. If there’s a big match goin’ on, you might be able to slip in for a li’l looksie. But you didn’t hear that from me.” She winked.
A few moments later, Big Band’s linkpearl lit up. He heard Sakura’s voice as she made a public service announcement for the team, sharing a juicy detail. “Another Consul?” Band frowned. As the governors who ruled each territory throughout the World of Light, the Consuls had a lot on their plates. If two were about to meet in Esaka, that couldn’t mean anything good. They could simply be getting together to plan their next skirmishes between their respective colonies, but the detective worried that they were joining forces to take action against the Seekers, or worse, the Lost Numbers.
A moment later, he heard Pit on the linkpearl, who requested more information and said he’d look into the matter himself. Band nodded to himself. It sounded like he and the team captain were of one mind.”
Thinking about the other details that Sakura mentioned about the Consul in question, Band tried to remember the map of the World of Light he saw in the Avenger’s bridge, specifically the Forbidden Kingdom. Northwest. Northwest. While he did look at it prior to his deployment, he couldn’t fully remember the region’s layout. If nothing else, though, the Seekers had a direction, and their exploits yesterday against the Jack shipment had proved that if they could identify where this other Consul was coming from, they could intercept and maybe eliminate him. At the end of the day, the removal of one more Consul (even temporarily) could only benefit the campaign.
Once Primrose rejoined him, Band addressed his companions. “If Sakura doesn’t find out anythin’ else, we oughta get in touch with the Lost Numbers,” he murmured to her and Roland, the latter of whom had been able to hear the announcement thanks to his brand-new linkpearl. “If we can figure out the Consul’s stompin’ grounds, we might be able to figure out which way he’s comin’ from, when, and how. With a strong enough strike force, we can take him out before he and Esaka’s Consul put their heads together.” As he spoke, he felt around the inside of his trench coat. He still had the Fulton Device he (and the other Seekers) had been given just before deployment, so they could pay the Avenger a visit in person. He had no guarantee that the Lost Numbers could give him the info he wanted, but since the members of Moebius were essentially public enemy number one, the Lost Numbers had to be keeping tabs on them.
Band’s gaze returned to the UN members. “I doubt Esaka folks would know much about another colony’s Consul, but we could try ‘em, and if not, see if the Lost Numbers know what’s up.” He narrowed his eyes. “Actually, I’m curious who Sakura heard this from, too. Consul activity ain’t your everyday gossip. Guess I’ll ask next time we meet up.” Since there probably wouldn’t be matches high-profile enough to distract Top Tier guards on day two of Pools, pivoting toward this new lead made sense, but Band was open to suggestion.
One by one, the threats amassed by the Cryptic Overseer crashed against the Seekers’ shore and were broken. Sectonia disposed of the misshapen monstrosity with extreme prejudice, but only minimal difficulty. Heismay, the Ace Cadet, and Ramattra challenged the eerie Stargazer, which proved its strength through a mix of various resistances and punishing attacks, but with Blazermate to assist them the trio ultimately triumphed. Mokou engaged the Cryptic Vulture in a high-flying, spectacular dogfight of ghostly and fiery projectiles, and after some back-and-forth finally incinerated the reanimated bones. And finally, Roxas and Ganondorf tag-teamed the fearsome, four-armed nightmare dentist in a barrage of light and dark, skillfully withstanding its oversized dental tools as they dismantled the mechanical malpractitioner.
Heismay, doubled over and hyperventilating from his back-to-back fights, couldn’t help but remember the room full of corpses with toothbrushes and strange metal headgear. A mad doctor the size of a Gauntlet Runner seemed like just the kind of nightmare that could have slain them. “Tis a rare blessing we met with no such thing ourselves,” he wheezed at Ace. He they had encountered the giant dentist after arduously cleansing the Forgotten Commune, they could have easily been too weary to contend with the Coven.
Once the dentist crumbled into ash, a victim of its own grisly drill, the phantom of Sandalphon that served as her game piece automatically moved across the remainder of the Dice Room’s board. When it came to rest on the one-hundredth space, a burst of fireworks went off, and the ghostly Cryptic Overseer glared down at the heroes responsible. ”Damn it all, I can’t believe this crap! I went all in, stacked the deck against ya, and thanks to you jokers I still went bust! Gaaaaah…” The giant floating skull sighed and shook his head. ”Welp, I guess that means you’re good to go. Get the hell outta here!”
The giant double doors swung open, revealing a dark and snowy mountainside beneath a cloudy night sky. Cold air blew in, and the denizens of the labyrinth needed no further invitation to get out. Students, shopkeepers, couriers, and cats all made a break for the exit, stampeding out the doors to freedom. The Seekers got moving as well, Sandalphon using the staff Edward had given her as a crutch as she hobbled as fast as her Petrification Disease would let her. After a moment, though, she found herself lifted into the air by some unseen force as little Alice ran past her, and though momentarily alarmed Sandalphon allowed the psychic cat to carry her out.
Scoffing, the Overseer watched everyone leave. ”Yeah, you better run! Don’t let me see y’all ‘round here again! I’ve got a work to do. Gotta remake this place from scratch, do it all over again. Ain’t nobody gettin’ outta here next time.” In quick succession, the other rooms of Winterhold College began to collapse in themselves, the cacophony of destruction growing louder and louder behind the last few escapees as they hurriedly made their way out. Then the doors slammed shut, and for a brief moment, all but the biting wind was still.
It took Sandalphon a moment to adjust, both to the low light and the bitter cold. Maybe she’d just gotten used to the more temperate climate within the labyrinth, but it felt even colder out here than she remembered. Once Alice gently set her down, Sandalphon examined her surroundings and found them totally unfamiliar. There was no sign of the snowfield with the spent Drilldozer nor even the college itself, just a mountainside outfitted with some desolate ruins including the giant double doors built into the rock wall itself. White grass and snow-laden dead boughs poked up between the wind-eroded stone bricks around her, though there were a couple magical lanterns seemingly providing heat, which the college survivors and cats crowded around. A section of the ruins a story or two above the Seekers jutted out over the void, and there some kind of statue sent a beam of blue energy up into the night sky. Maybe this exit had deposited everyone higher up the mountain? When Sandalphon looked upward, she saw the moon looming overhead, very close indeed.
The archangel took a quick head count. Two teammates were missing. “Any word on Tenna or the professor?” It turned out that the last Seekers to see them were Ganondorf and Ramattra, respectively. The former had parted ways with Tenna in the labyrinth, while the latter watched Layon disappear into a hole shaped just like him. Sandalphon pursed her lips and considered the matter, her pupil a loading ring. If Tenna had still been wandering when the labyrinth collapsed, could he have been evacuated to the Christmas village by the Cadet’s felyne rescue squad? She couldn’t say for sure if that sort of demise was something the cat crew could save him from, but she thought it likely. As for Layton, she did not venture to guess what had happened to him, but she could read between the lines and tell what had become of him. Without the two of them, White Team was down to just ten. We can’t keep a new recruit for the life of us, Sandalhon thought dryly. At this point, the only new recruits to actually stick around for the past few days were Edward, Ramattra, and Heismay. It was a sobering realization.
For another moment she stared at the double doors. The spirits from Sinners’ Inn hadn’t been among the survivors. Had they managed to persist thanks to their ghostly nature? She hoped so. Such kind, innocent souls deserved to rest easy, not be the disposable playthings of some other, evil spirit.
Sandalphon turned her focus to the people still here. A quick cast of Angelic Wings helped sooth anyone still suffering at the battle, and it also helped get the survivors’ attention, many of whom already recognized her as her team’s leader. “We’ve escaped Winterhold College, but our goal lies at the top of the mountain. Yours should be to get to safety.” After geographically positioning herself, she pointed her staff down the mountain in a particular direction. “There is a village to the south at the foothills of the mountain with food and warmth to spare. I recommend making your way there via the Midnight Walk. You’ll need to descend a stone lift and cross a chasm, but it should be doable.”
Byleth stepped forward, shivering from the cold thanks to her particular fashion sense. Behind her stood Primm, Thops, the aphid twins, the silent alchemist, Aramis, Diosdado, and a ton of cats. Primm and Aramis stood arm in arm, keeping one another very warm. “You have our deepest gratitude. We’ll make our way down. Good luck with your quest.” Sandalphon bowed her head, glad to have helped save so many people, and the survivors began their trek downward. For better or worse, Winterhold College was over with.
Destination Reward: 55 EXP Tale Completion Reward: 10 EXP Identity Crisis Achievement: Ramattra, Ace Cadet (Made more than one Fred dead) Achievement Reward: 5 EXP Extra Rewards: Professor Layton spirit, Godhead Fred spirit, Stargazer spirit, Cryptic Vulture spirit, Nightmare Dentist spirit, Satori Komeji spirit, Crystal Sage spirit, Hauntome spirit x2
..and a cat! That’s right! If you so choose, you can adopt one of the cats from the Palace of Earthly Spirits! You can choose a class miniboss cat like Lucy or Alice (they start out stronger but have less growth potential) or you can make your own using the Mewgenics Kitty Maker website. Create your own cat with a class of your choosing, and it can level up and gain additional actives, passives, stats, or ability upgrades after encounters (depending on how many other cats participate). This is a great way to cultivate a powerhouse with useful abilities, either as a dedicated companion or spirit fodder
…Or was it?
As the survivors departed, one hung behind. Though still rather frazzled in appearance, Frederic appeared to be greatly relieved by the death of so many painted Freds. He did not seem to be at peace, however. Approaching Edward and Roxas, he cleared his throat. “Excuse me. About the paintings…I can tell that most are gone. The voices are much quieter, and I almost feel like myself. I have some medical supplies, and they’re yours by way of thanks. But…it’s not over yet.” He extended his hand and pointed a quivering finger at the four-armed painter standing in the snow, staring at him with the void where his face ought to be.
“That one. Right there. That’s the last painting. You can see it, right? Faceless. The most terrifying one of the bunch…b-but with all of you here, you can definitely take it! Please!”
The faceless painter shook his head, his hands held up in placation.
“Wait a moment,” Heismay piped up with furrowed brow. “According to our hunter, that one tells a different story. He claimed to be the original, and that his face was stolen by an impersonator.” The eugief stared at Frederic. “By you.”
Fred’s lips curled in disbelief, his mustache quivering beneath big blue eyes. “W-what!? That’s insane. I’m the original, who painted all the others. Just look at me! That…that thing, it’s lying! Trying to trick you, I swear!” He pointed at the faceless one again. “Y-you can’t…you can’t let it fool you! Come on, I’m the real Fred! ME! You’ve got to believe me!”
Ace - Level: 9 - Total EXP: 546/90 Level 7 Heismay (73/70) Ramattra Word Count: 2984 (+3)
The dimmed lights accompanied by the dark blanket of stars overhead certainly set a new mood within the Dice Room. The various battles with enemies summoned one after another had a fast paced, chaotic feel. Now there was a different sort of urgency thrumming through the space. Out of the pair of monsters summoned, it was very apparent which was the larger threat.
A cold sweat had broken out on the back of the Ace Cadet's neck. Today had been stress upon stress upon stress. The uneasy, nauseating, prickling feeling that had clung to him since waking up in the college hadn't once disappeared completely, though here at the final stage it had come back to full force, a constant distraction. Even so he wasn't about to shirk his duties, and the hunter stepped up to help fight the Stargazer.
The long range bowgun was reloaded and fired twice to start, one bullet meant for the being's body and the other the glass lens of one of its telescopes. Both hit home but resulted in minimal penetration, even against the lens, which apparently had a constitution less like glass and more like a dense eyeball. Unlike the Coven and its candles, which confronted him with an immense amount of vitality to chew through but took normal damage, the bowgun shots seemed less effective against the Stargazer than they should have been.
For a moment after the otherworldly thing appeared, Heismay bided his time and observed from afar as he caught his breath. This bizarre blend of organic and inorganic matter, more reminiscent of a Human than anything he’d fought so far, proved difficult to anticipate. It seemed to lack a true body, with a multitude of limbs and telescopes that protruded from a dark, cosmic mass. The shape of its tubular organs made him think of cannons, though he seriously hoped their function did not match their appearance. With so many bystanders around, any enemies that favored area-of-effect would cause serious collateral damage. Despite the fatigue accumulating from back to back fights, Heismay knew he needed to act fast.
“Steel yourself, good hunter!” he called to his rattled companion. “Escape is within our grasp!”
"Right!"
Assuming that the Stargazer would be as resistant to dark magic as it was piercing damage, Heismay began the fight with another invocation of the Exemplar. “Abomination, vex them!” The misshapen monstrosity arose to unleash Prelude once more. An unseen force shunted the Stargazer toward Heismay and the Ace Cadet, opening blighted sores across its night-blue form. In response, the Stargazer stared with its many eyes, its gaze intense enough to ignite panic within its foes. Afraid for his life, Heismay beat a full retreat with his bullet jump, latching onto one of the chamber’s walls well out of the thing’s reach.
Ace faired a little better, as though the Stargazer's stare sent a chill down the Cadet's spine and froze him in place, it was only for a moment. He pulled on his experience facing down larger, vicious foes and forced himself through the feeling. And if this thing resisted the damage of the bowgun, then he'd just have to try something else. Ace withdrew his long sword, preparing to lash out with the blade instead.
Ramattra was quick to assess the situation from the back line, before delegating himself into intervention of Stargazers attacks. Able to avoid it’s terrifying gaze by the distance between the Omnic and his enemy, he remained calm, providing a shielding body to any allies who were close enough to gather behind him. “Try not to look into its eyes! It’s… making Heismay unlike himself!” Ramattra called out, able to notice the panic-inducing gaze it instinctively flashed.
The clumps of hands and legs would grasp and cling at the floor clumsily, scootching the beast closer to the battle field. It stood still for a moment, fixing its gaze on the Omnic who had turned his back to it. One of the telescopes retracted for a moment, along with any adjacent ones, before extending impossibly long, striking Ramattra square in the back. A low gurgling voice could be heard under the mass of cloth and limbs. “Help me… fix you…”
Blazermate listened to Ramattra, noticing that this thing didn’t really have weak points and just sticking to healing. She cleansed Heismay’s panic to help him out, and she’d need to go about doing this whenever anyone else panicked. At least she didn’t need to look at the thing to heal people in most cases.
“Evading dangerous foes is standard fare for me,” Heismay objected as the sudden panic died down. As the Stargazer attacked Ramattra, the eugief sprang off the wall and unfurled his wings to glide over his target to look for an opening. An overextended limb, perhaps, or an unaccompanied telescope. However ominous this thing was, his scythe could still slash and sever, especially with an affliction like Blight applied to make his blade cut all the more cleanly.
With both Ace and Ramattra facing it in melee range now, the Stargazer reared up, then trampled forward to kick at them with many legs. If its appearance suggested the distant wonder of the cosmos, its fighting style seemed to be one of brute force. It was a welcome departure from the expectation, for some at least. With blade in hand the Cadet evaded the stomps and kicks to stay just shy of outside his own range until he spotted a better opening, stepping in and parrying one of the Stargazer's limbs with a wide angled slice. To his dismay, however, the slash did not seem much more effective than his gunshots had been, although it did manage to hit more body parts at once.
Ramattra transformed into his Nemesis mode- blocking as much impact from each of the Stargazer’s legs as possible. With the monstrosity’s attention now shifted to the Cadet, he charged a punch with Alchemist Brew, delivering a devastating blow square in the Stargazer’s central mass. The Omnic felt satisfied with his attack, but easily foresaw the monster becoming more aggressive with him in such close proximity.
Grappling whatever limbs and telescopes were most exposed, the Omnic attempted to hold the cosmic entity back from his allies, offering them a chance to strategize and counterattack. He was sure to take the bulk of whatever damage the Stargazer could inflict, however he remained cautious of any unusual abilities it had yet to bring about.
At that moment Heismay descended, dropping as the Assassin to try and plunge his curved greatsword into the Stargazer’s body. It sunk less through the uncanny cosmic mass than he would have liked, so he yanked the blade out, reverted, and unleashed a flurry of scythe slashes to try and get as many hits in as possible while Ramattra held back the monster’s fury. If he could lop off any legs or telescopes to hinder the Stargazer, all the better.
As Heismay attacked, and Ramattra grappled with it, the Stargazer’s lens widened. Stars began to shine within its myriad eyes, increasing in celestial brilliance by the second.
Ace had continued his attack with the longsword until Ramattra started grappling with the monster, giving the Cadet the chance to back off. It wasn't a great feeling to know his weapons were ill equipped to deal with the Stargazer. If its body was tough enough to resist slashing and piercing, that left impact damage - but his shield, the only real source of blunt damage he had, was basically ruined. Time for another plan, then.
With space to swap weapons again, this time the Cadet withdrew the great bow and quiver. If he could rely on his allies to deal damage, then he could focus on utility. Though it was going to be more trial and error, trying anything was better than doing nothing. Ace popped a vial of poison coating into position before drawing and shooting, the arrows themselves not any better at hurting the Stargazer but at least able to deliver toxins with every hit. And with a wider angle view Ace was able to better see what the creature was doing.
"It's planning something...!" he warned. Regardless if it actually had the intelligence to make and execute a plan, the fact was that it was charging up for something. What the outcome was going to be was hard to tell. Without a reliable way to stagger the Stargazer, Ace instead swiftly swapped to the airborne stimulant of Haste Rain, which he shot up above to quicken Heismay and Ramattra in case they needed to beat a hasty retreat.
Once it began, the invigorating rainfall boosted Heismay’s already-impressive speed to even greater heights, but the Eugief wasn’t blind to what the Stargazer was doing. He found it too inscrutable to be able to say whether or not the Stargazer was planning something, as Ace suggested, but it did look like it was charging up. Since his scythe’s slash damage was more or less tickling the creature, Heismay had no delusions about finishing it off before its ‘plan’ came to fruition, so once the starlight reached peak effulgence he bullet jumped away. “Ramattra, get clear!”
A second later, the Stargazer unleashed Astral Vision. Streams of hydrogen and helium gas, superheated to the point of becoming plasma, blazed from its telescopes in a deadly laser light show. It proved almost impossible to evade, although seeing as the creature was preparing for an attack, Blazermate was ready herself and jumped into her team and used Holy Word Salvation to make them all immune to the damage of the oncoming attack and healing everyone for 30% of their hp. It didn’t make them immune from anything but the damage though, so any lingering statuses, such as its confusion would still affect them, but in Blazermate’s case her rain coat saved her from this effect most of the time. She still had her projectile shield if this thing tried that again, but that was it for defensive skills. For Offensive though… ”Uber is ready. Anyone wanna see how their attacks work under Kritz?”
Spared a grievous injury by Blazermate’s timely intervention, Heismay breathed heavily as he shook his head. “Twould be a waste on me. My weapon is ineffective.” He did, however, assume his Assassin form to launch a Mudo at the Stargazer in hopes that it would compound with the poison whittling away at its vitality. Instead, the Confusion that he mistook for mere dazedness as a result of Astral Vision meant that he accidentally fired the dark magic at Ramattra, much to his own horror. “What!? I didn’t-!”
The Omnic had staggered back from Stragazer’s Astral vision, but could not evade Heismay’s misfire. “Augh!” Ramattra groaned, now looking back at his companion, whose embarrassed expression clued that he had missed his target. His anger quickly subsided, and his focus returned back to the battlefield.
In much the same boat as Heismay in regards to his weaponry, and having chosen to stick with the bow that had a slower rate of fire than either his bowguns or blades, Ace went to decline the medabot's offer as well, though not without a spot of gratitude. That laser light show would have engulfed all of them if it hadn't been for her after all. "Thanks for the save Blazermate, but-!"
But soon the secondary effect of the transformed creature's attack was revealed. The lasers had been so dazzling as to instill dizziness and worse in those that saw it, and the feeling of Ace's head swimming did not fade even after the light did. On top of the discomfort of being enclosed in Blazermate's protective bubble itself, Ace meant to make even more distance between himself and the Stargazer - but at the same time that Heismay's bolt of magic went wide enough to endanger Ramattra, the hunter instead stepped towards the celestial monster, directly into its path. Alarm gripped Ace, and he felt his limbs betray him as he tried to make a last ditch evade attempt. It was like the signals between his brain and body had been scrambled, and as the Stargazer stormed forward seeking to trample the heroes beneath its many legs, it ran right over the Cadet.
Having glanced back at Heismay’s misfire, Ramattra’s attention was drawn away from the dazzling beam that surely affected the rest of his allies. Seeing the Cadet in a prime moment of need, the Omnic called Kashmir from its ball, and ordered him to “Use Avalanche to create cover! I’m going in again!”
As the Cadet was kicked and trampled with dozens of feet both large and small, the Omnic flung his Mimic Tear striker to the floor, bounding upwards as he transformed into his Nemesis form and crashed into Stargazer with the momentum of his bounce. As the two large masses clambered back to their feet, Ramattra looked back at Blazermate, who stood ready with her offer to use her Kritzkrieg. “I’m ready! Charge me!”
Well, someone took her offer and she was going to use it. Charging Ramattra, his appendages and eyes glowed with an electric blue as all of his attacks now did critical damage on top of what they did before. As Stargazer didn’t have any critical resistance, what had been it taking very little damage had changed to it taking massive damage from Ramattra’s amplified attacks.
With no natural resistance to the blunt force of Ramattra’s burly punches, each mighty blow from the Omnic’s fist being amplified were now leaving considerable wounding. The Stargazer continued to kick its blue legs into the Omnic’s body, but overall, each interaction ended with the cosmic entity taking the most damage.
For a moment, the telescopes on the beast’s face shifted, indicating that it would boom out to Ramattra again. Recognizing this attempt again, the Omnic ducked out of threat’s way, watching as the telescope shot out into empty air, before the contraption retracted, and the Stargazer recentered itself on the battlefield, surely preparing another attack. “It’s weak. I can tell by the zeal of its attacks. Your weapons aren’t very effective? Then let me use my fists.”
As Ramattra took center stage, Heismay remained at the sidelines for a few moments waiting for his vision and head to clear. Given his damage output, involving himself in that crushing melee would do a lot more harm than good. His condition improved in time to hear the Omnic’s declaration loud and clear. Heismay glanced down at the scythe still clutched in his talon and grunted. “Hm.” He stowed the weapon and ran forward, quickly picking up speed. After a brief moment spent circling around, he zeroed in one of the telescope lenses as the Stargazer prepared to swing it, then bullet jumped in to deliver an upward kick. He wasn’t trained in hand-to-hand combat, but he was of able body and a mind to help. The bludgeoning blow got deflected upward, allowing Ramattra to continue to focus on offense for the few seconds until his crits ran out.
The Stargazer's struggle against the Omnic took up enough of its focus that the unfortunate Seeker that had been stuck beneath its rampage could crawl out from under it. Ace practically threw himself from the Stargazer's shadow between a pair of its legs, landing with a tumble outside of its stomping radius. He'd definitely taken a beating, but he was still up - even as the confusion still clung to his brain, slow to dissipate. He would have jumped right back into helping Ramattra with combat if not for that. Instead he stayed in a kneeling position, catching his breath and making sure that when the daze finally did fade, he would be ready to fight again if the rest of the group still needed him.
It seemed like Blazermate's boost was doing a lot to help Ramattra deal as much damage as possible and he was really close to sealing the deal, but when the kritz faded the Stargazer still stood. It was good then that when Ace finally recovered enough that his senses and thinking were clear again, he'd already pulled one of his arrows out and prepared it for firing by scraping it along the ground a few times. When he was drawing it hard enough across the floor to create sparks that didn't disappear but instead bounced around the arrow's head it was ready.
After a breath he called, "incoming!" to give his fellow Seekers a heads up, then swung the arrow in a wide, low semi-circle with its tip sharpened on the rough ground just before nocking it. He sucked in air and held his breath as he pulled to its maximum draw weight, the arms of the bow curling in at a harsh angle. The hunter held the string to gather power in the shot for several precious seconds, twisted it just slightly, then released it with his exhale. The Dragon Piercer whistled through the air as it surged forward, a deadly sparking drill meant to tear through the toughest of hides that couldn't be fired without an opening like the one Ramattra afforded to them. It struck the metal of one of the Stargazer's telescopes and then kept on going straight through.
Heismay watched with bated breath as Ace’s Dragon Piercer tested its mettle against the Stargazer. Would it be enough to fell the fiend? After a brief but tense moment, the spiral shot finally drilled through, tunneling cleanly through the Stargazer’s semi-corporeal, semi-celestial form. It let out a guttural, gurgling sort of sound, and a second later its struggle came to an end as the starlight left its many eyes and its many legs went slack. Its body dissolved near-instantly, as if swallowed by its own darkness, and only a spirit remained.
After she bid Roland farewell, Nadia began to make her way south through the Mortal Kombat pools at a brisk jog. And as she went, she did her best to keep her wandering gaze to herself. The feral liked to watch the action as much as the next person, especially with such an incredible variety of fighters, skillsets, and abilities on display, but it really affected the entertainment value knowing that either kombatant could wind up decapitated or worse at a moment’s notice. Sure, she could plaster on a smile and pretend things were all fun and games with the best of them, but even for someone who’d survived the Qliphoth there was only so much blood and guts she could take before her puns would get morbid enough to give the game away.
Before she reached the World Warrior section of the pools, however, Nadia found her path through a gazebo-like rest area interrupted by a ghostly white yokai. “Ah, good morning, madam!” Waving, the spirit moved directly into her path.
Nadia slowed to a stop with a somewhat wary smile, not sure that much good could come from a conversation with a Mortal Kombat enthusiast. “Heya. What can I boo for you?”
The yokai crossed his arms importantly. “Well met. You are Ms. Fortune, yes? I, Whisper, am a humble butler, and quite the knowledgeable fellow if I do myself. I happened to see your match against Taokaka earlier, and I was impressed. I must confess that I wasn’t familiar with your game, and when I looked into your history, I found out why. Been a while since you’ve competed, hmm? Spent the last year or so polishing your skills?”
“Uh…” Nadia swallowed, not exactly thrilled that someone had been poking into her business even before Whisper alluded to what could only be a past self. She’d never seen Esaka before, after all, so if Ms Fortune had entered a tournament here a year ago, it must have been a previous iteration. No Seeker liked thinking about that kind of stuff, her least of all. The feral licked her dry lips and tried to answer. “Ehe, yup! I’m not kitten around anymore!”
Whisper seemed pleased. “Splendid! Your results so far speak for themselves; Taokaka and Bullet are not fighters to shake a stick at! In fact, I’m considering sending a donation or two your way. That said, I do have some notes.”
The prospect of getting paid would have put dollar signs into Nadia’s eyes if not for the yokai’s killjoy caveat. “Notes?” Nadia asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Oh, yes! I am well-versed in the art of fighting, at least on a knowledge level, and I’d be more than happy to impart my wisdom!” Without bothering to wait for a confirmation, Whisper began to rattle off his advice. “For one, you dropped an important combo. Damage is great, but consistency is better, you know!”
Nadia blinked at him, not even remembering what combo he was talking about. “Uh, the whole thing’s kind of a blur…”
Without skipping a beat Whisper continued talking. “What you should do is fewer launchers. Easier to keep your combo going if you don’t have to chase your foe down! Plus, you should end every combo with a super. Reversal supers are punishable, you know. They’ll get you killed! In fact, it’s better to end a combo earlier with the guaranteed super damage than risk it dropping. Oh, and your blocking could definitely use some work. Taokaka was opening you up like a tuna can! Here’s what to look out for…”
The more advice Whisper offered, the more his words sounded like ringing in Nadia’s ears. His tone of voice ranged from low to high and deep to flat, which made for an odd and distracting manner of speech. Of course, the real problem was that Nadia didn’t like being told what to do, especially by some cartoon ghost who’d never actually thrown a punch in his life (or lack thereof). If not for the chance of a donation she would have already brushed him off, but she couldn’t afford to disappoint this particular fan, even if his pedantry was really, really boring.
…Or could she?
Nadia’s eyebrows rose as she remembered something important. “Wait, I don’t have to put up with this! I’m rich!” As Whisper continued talking, she pinched his wispy tail between her fingers, moved him out of the way like a balloon, and went on her way. As much as Nadia wanted to have fans of her own, she didn’t need any who felt like they knew how to do her job better than she did. “Sheesh. All that blabbin’s gonna give me a phantom-myache.”
The catgirl reached the edge of the Mortal Kombat section without seeing any of the other registered Seekers like Pit or Yayama. Without actually putting in the effort to track them down, it seemed like the Pools tier was simply too big to run into them by chance. Maybe running into Roland had maxed her out on coincidental encounters for the morning. Either way, she was back in the World Warrior section, where the competition was still intense but butchery was minimal. Now she could stop and smell the roses a little, pausing to spectate whatever fights piqued her interest. Nadia watched the first round of a bulbous blonde man named Rufus bullying a zoning-happy hamster named Teemo, sat through the entirety of Lowain versus Makoto (catboy versus tomboy was a matchup she could definitely get behind), and caught the tail end of the boisterous brawl between May and Mike Haggar. Compared to Mortal Kombat, World Warrior competitors had a crazy amount of matches to get through. Nadia did not envy Sakura or Big Band one bit.
It was nearing noon by the time the feral reached the Tekken section, although the morning drizzle had yet to let up. Esaka seemed destined for an equally dreary afternoon. By now, Nadia had seen enough that she could differentiate Tekken and World Warrior matches by sight, for the most part at least. One tournament put extra emphasis on three-dimensional movement, while the other -slightly but identifiably more sedate- prioritized back-and-forth footwork to precisely control space. Although, if what Roland said about a Tekken registrant who could defeat anyone in a single pistol shot, maybe it was all just ‘anything goes’ in the end.
Once she found a bulletin board, Nadia could hunt down the man of the hour. She found Beowulf pitted against a cursed samurai decked out in crimson armor and a belly full of fangs. Though the undead warrior wielded his bloodthirsty sword without restraint, it looked like Beowulf was holding his own. He managed to block the katana’s blade with his oversized wrestling belt, then turn the tables by jabbing Bishaman with a microphone that he then dropped on the samurai’s foot in order to start a combo. “Mic check!” He unleashed a flurry of burly blows that ended with a clinch grab into diving wulfdog to get the audience cheering. In fact, he played to the crowd at every conceivable opportunity, which in turn hyped him up and frustrated his opposition. It helped to have his battle-forged friend from yesterday, Shina, cheering him on, and Nadia quickly joined in. Once Beowulf had the momentum, he dug his teeth in and never let go until his majestic Three Wulf Moonsault brought the battle to an end.
Even after the Heavenly Principles called the match in Beowulf’s favor, it was a little while before Nadia could say hello thanks to the crowd. Beowulf’s gang of adoring fans had only grown since yesterday, their numbers now pretty respectable for a mid-tier fighter, especially considering that it was only the second day of Pools. As she slipped through the dwindling crowd, Nadia could swear she saw Shina give Beowulf a playful squeeze. Whoa. They did get pretty chummy yesterday after their match, but maybe they’d grown even closer at some point after the group lunch. And here I thought Beowulf was too dumb to pull anyone, Nadia thought without an ounce of self-reflection.
As she drew closer, the wrestler spotted her and waved, smiling. “Oh hey, Fortune!” He narrowed his eyes. “Wait, that is you, right? You look a little…different?”
“Yep. That’s the power of spirits, baby,” Nadia told him cheerfully, before coming to a stop with her hands on her hips. “Nice work back there. Sword-a made that dude look like a sham-urai.”
Beowulf chuckled as he grinned. “Hah! He was a tough customer, but I’ve had worse. With the Wulfpack behind me, I feel invincible!”
His enthusiasm was infectious, but naturally Nadia was already smiling. “Oh yeah, you know how to work the crowd. With how well you’re doin’, you might have Tekken in the bag.”
“Hey, thanks. I hope so, but you know what they say. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched!” Beowulf snapped his fingers, remembering something. “Oh, by the way. Your friend’s lookin’ for ya. I forgot to ask his name, but he says it’s important. C’mon, I’ll show you where he is.”
The news made Nadia purse her lips. Between Roland, Big Band, Primrose, and now this, she couldn’t catch a break today. Maybe her solo act was coming to an end. The prospect of facing the others, not to mention herself, intimidated her. But if something important really had happened, she couldn’t shirk her duty to the team. It could be news from the Avenger, or maybe a breakthrough with the Four Kings. She sighed. “Okay, let’s go.” Beowulf turned to lead her away from the stage. Judging by how winded his match left him, they’d be traveling at a leisurely pace. After they jumped onto a boardwalk and got going, the feral gave her new friend a curious glance. “What did this guy look like, at least?”
“Black hair and eyes,” the wrestler reported. “Dressed pretty fancy, too.”
Zenkichi? Nadia thought after a moment. Although technically, that could also describe Roland and Kim. “Long hair or short?”
For some reason, that seemed to be a hard question for Beowulf to answer. “Um…I guess it’s on the longer side.” He scratched his head absently. Guessing that she’d find out what he meant by that soon enough, Nadia turned the conversation away from the mystery Seeker and toward Shina, her eyes full of mischief. Beowulf remained uncharacteristically evasive, but the slight flush in his cheeks betrayed him.
It took only a minute or so to reach the pair’s destination, a large rest area up against the Middle Tier’s wall that offered a couple amenities like a popsicle stand and halal cart selling gyro, falafel, and lamb platters. After Nadia and Beowulf entered, the latter looked around, bemused. “Weird. Said he’d be here.”
A chill ran down Nadia’s spine, and her ears flicked at the sound of footfalls, less like someone walking and more like someone landing. She whirled around and nearly went white at the sight of a Japanese man in a purple snakeskin suit, with black slicked-back hair, a deadly expression, and glowing red eyes. It was the man whose sneakers she’d stolen, who’d ordered the destruction of Banishing Flats and killed an untold number of people trying to get revenge on her. She gasped, tripping over her words and momentarily unable to speak, so Beowulf did so for her. “Yo dude, there you are! I found your buddy Fortune-”
“Beowulf!?” The panicked edge in Nadia’s tone as she found her tone stopped the wrestler in his tracks. “That is NOT my friend. He’s a purple demon and he’s trying to kill me!” Her brows furrowed as she bared her teeth. “Did you-”
Beowulf’s eyes widened. “Wait, seriously? I-I had no idea! He tricked me, I swear!”
Kazuya Mishima uncrossed his arms and began to saunter forward, his iron fists tight. Swallowing, Nadia sharpened her claws and sighed. “Dumbass…fine, let’s do this. And you’re helpin’ me.”
“Okay.” Beowulf shook his head, then raised his voice to yell at the other people in the rest stop. “Everyone, get outta here! Unless you wanna be collateral damage!”
With a sneer, Kazuya lifted his fists. “Cretins. It’s time for you to meet your end.”
Band nodded at Primrose’s inference. Given how important the Flame Clock was to the Consul’s rule over this area, he found it highly unlikely that it would be anywhere public-facing. And even if it was, entering the Top Tier would be a challenge in and of itself given all the security he saw during the Four Kings’ tournament commencement speech yesterday morning. The dancer went on to ask if he knew much about the Seekers’ new co-conspirators, the UN, and he was forced to shake his head.
“Only Chevalier himself and the others at that winery,” Band admitted. Really, he only remembered the Frenchman, Anji, and Dolores, the latter for admittedly less-than-virtuous reasons. She had been a lot finer than any wine the Winecup Hold had to offer, but that didn’t bear mentioning.
So far, Band had been a lot less involved with the so-called United Nations than he would have liked, and with less than stellar tournament results to show for it. Maybe he was just paranoid from his long years grappling with New Meridian’s seedy underbelly, but he had a hard time trusting people, especially those who came knocking with propositions of alliance. This world belonged to Moebius, after all, which meant that even if not everyone the Seekers met was against them from the outset, they could still be turned on the heroes at a moment’s notice. So far the UN hadn’t given the Seekers any reason to distrust them, but his team needed to be careful not to get too comfortable. There ought to be no trouble asking the UN for tips on where the Flame Clock might be, though, and if they were anywhere near as authoritative as they sounded it shouldn’t be too much to ask.
Band nodded. “Let’s pay ‘em a visit on the way up.”
He, Primrose, and Roland began yet another trip across tie Tiered City. Given Esaka’s sheer size and its obligate lack of centralization due to the shape of each tier, it sure felt like he spent an awful lot of time just walking all over the place. It didn’t take that long to cross any individual tier, but having to find and wait on the tier lifts (or circle around a tier from, say, Esaka’s north side to the south side) tended to exacerbate the team’s travel time even further. In times like these, the detective found himself sorely missing public transportation systems. And given the state of the bus service in New Meridian, that was really saying something.
Noon was fast approaching by the time the trio finally got within eyeshot of the gargantuan, fantastical hospital that housed the United Nations. This wasn’t Band’s first time in the High Tier, thanks to his hotdog dinner with Zenkichi the night before last, but it still impressed him just how different it was to the Middle and Low Tiers. It was like a completely different city, and much more futuristic than anything he was used to. Band was no socio-economist, but having such stark class divides probably wasn’t a good thing. Then again, considering what he and the others had seen an hour ago, maybe the Esaka’s structure was the least of its issues.
Getting in touch with the UN and asking about the Flame Clocks struck Band as a one-person task, and given Primrose’s familiarity with the Jeon Ryok Residence, she seemed like the prime candidate. Before the Seekers could enter the place, though, Band made a lucky find. He happened to see a hotdog cart along the road leading to the hospital, possibly the same one from the other night, and a handful of people were gathered there. One looked like a Hispanic MMA fighter with short dyed hair and a red sports bra, and another a masked Mexican luchador of short stature. The third, however, Band recognized as one of the agents present at Wine-cup Hold yesterday: the Madagascan carpentress Darli Dagger, with her colorful dreadlocks and boisterous attitude. Were these all UN agents, then, out to lunch? Primrose’s contact at breakfast had mentioned that the UN was up to something today, some kind of task that required the Power Stone Games as a diversion. It made sense that they’d have enough personnel to station additional agents at or near home base, though. A casual encounter over lunch seemed like a good plan to Band, and he certainly didn’t mind hotdogs again, so after a quick word with Primrose and Therion the three made their way over.
Sandalphon watched carefully as more and more fights began to unfold throughout the Dice Room, starting with the newly-arrived Blazermate and Sectonia against the many-headed monstrosity the Overseer brought in first. At first it looked like the two had the grisly being beat, since Godhead Fred was a big target for the bug queen’s spell barrage and could do little but spit streams of acid. The acid shut down Blazermate’s turret, but it proved ineffective against Sectonia. After a few moments, though, the false Fred’s hypnotic motions began to charm Sectonia’s antlers and turn them against their master. Fred even manages to brainwash Sectonia against Blazermate briefly. Luckily Sandalphon’s Angelic Wings purged that affliction, and despite its high constitution Godhead Fred went down not long after.
At the same time, the Ace Cadet and Heismay faced off against the Feastmaster and some fae warriors, which seemed like a challenge but nothing the two couldn't handle. Ramattra, meanwhile, dealt with a handful of posts followed by some dangerous denizens of the Grand Archives that Sandalphon had been fortunate enough to not encounter herself. The Omnic probably would have prevailed on his own, but with the help of Alice and Lucy, he definitely succeeded. With so many simultaneous battles, preventing interference between them was not easy, but for now the Seekers were skirting the line between too many does and too few.
That put the total of Sandalphon’s rolls at fifty seven, a far cry from the one hundred the Seekers needed. To make matters worse, plenty of Seekers had yet to reunite with their teammates in the Dice Room. The archangel knew that Edward had elected to tie up loose ends in the maze, but Tenna, Roxas, Layton, Geralt, and Ganondorf had yet to turn up or even check in, which seriously worried her. That was almost half the team, and it would be catastrophic if the rest were forced to evacuate without them. At least Mokou had arrived alongside Ace’s contingent, though for now she merely hovered above the fight, not volunteering but ready to take action if needed.
With Ramattra’s cat-and-mage chase winding down, Sandalphon knew she needed to pull in more enemies before the Overseer did so for her. Enough Seekers were here that she felt confident in rolling twice, so without further delay the archangel sent the Dice tumbling. Five, four, one, one, zero, and two made thirteen.
“My lucky number!” The Cryptic Overseer exclaimed. “Or it would be, if y’all hadn't done poor Dullain in. It ain't his fault he's butt-ass ugly, you jerks!” The big green skull cackled ominously. “Lucky for me, it ain't just Dullain in the Shattered Gallery anymore. Heh heh heh…”
When he opened a rift, something strange slumped through, landing in a tangled heap. At first glance it looked like some kind of cephalopod, with a number of very long limbs that curled and contorted in unnatural ways. When Sandalphon looked more closely, though, an uneasy feeling gnawed at her. Some part of it looked human, albeit stretched and warped well beyond the limits of what should be possible, with a bent, L-shaped head and at least a dozen elbows and knees total. Only the scraps of clothing dangling from its horrific form, its uneven white eyes, and the hat upon its head provided the barest hint at who it might have been. When it let out an unholy screech, Sandalphon did her best to put aside her horror. Whatever this was, it was an enemy, and the Seekers had to treat it as such.
Allowing her allies to decide who'd face it among themselves, Sandalphon rolled again. This time, the dice totaled twenty-one. “The Observatory,” the Overseer declared. “Nobody who went in there tried turnin’ off the lights. Wouldn't want that surprise goin’ to waste!”
As soon as the rift opened, the Dice Room grew darker. The Cryptic Overseer and his green lightning disappeared, replaced by the shimmer of stars, as if the night sky had overtaken the ceiling. In the gloom, a many-legged being took the field, staring at the terrified cats and astonished Seekers with telescopes that seemed to house the cosmos within. The Stargazer had arrived, and it found a room full of people, beautiful but wrong, that needed to be made right.
Primrose was right on the money about detective work: back in the day, on any given case, waiting was usually a majority of what he ended up doing. Waiting for someone to show up somewhere, waiting for someone to slip up, waiting for pieces to fall into place, waiting to hear back from someone, waiting, waiting, waiting. It was the part of the job that Band probably liked the least, but after so much time, he was damn good at it. Patience is a virtue, as they say, and all things come to those who wait.
Unfortunately, as he stared into the pool, he wasn’t quite sure what he was waiting for. His elegant associate had presumed that there must be some kind of infrastructure in place in Esaka to support such fast resurrections, allowing the city’s waste to feed back into itself. Esaka did, after all, present an interesting conundrum. As far as the Seekers knew, the World of Light worked because everyone housed lifelight within them, allotted by the Flame Clocks, and in order to fuel their own flames they needed to steal the flames of others. Thus, different factions existed in a state of constant war, pitted against one another by the Consuls who ruled them. Yet Esaka seemed to have no challengers, and nor did it send forth its many fighters to knock on the doors of its neighbors like Shinjuku or Meridi-at-han. Instead the people here preyed upon another, like a serpent devouring its own tail.
The place’s strangeness definitely warranted investigation, but Band couldn’t help but wonder if he and Primrose might be barking up the wrong tree. If there was something in the water supply, checking the city’s sewer grates would only tell them there was a problem; in order to figure out its source, they’d need to inspect the water treatment plant. Plus, this place was highly public. Maybe he was being too presumptuous, but Band would have expected Moebius to hide Esaka’s secrets somewhere with fewer prying eyes. Somewhere close to the lynchpin of their whole operation here, maybe.
After a couple minutes, the prismatic mote of the fallen fighter’s spirit faded away. Band blinked, double-checking to make sure he was seeing it right, but there was no mistaking it. Both he and Primrose had been watching diligently, and neither saw any kind of collector come to recover the spirit. It seemed as though that the people of Esaka treated them no more reverently than they did the ashes of the dead, which was to say, not at all. Band let out a sigh and shook water from his hat. “Well, it wasn’t what we wanted, but we got our answer.” He turned his gaze from the water of the Pools Tier up to the skyscrapers of the Top Tier. “If what we’re lookin’ for ain’t at the end of the line, it might just be at the start. I wanna lay eyes on the city’s Flame Clock.” It went without saying, though, that finding it, or even getting to a likely place to find it, would not be easy.
Before Band and Primrose could come to a conclusion, though, someone put in an unexpected appearance. Roland’s voice alerted them to the Fixer’s presence, and Band looked over his shoulder to find the quiet man beside him. He asked what the others were doing here even as Band wondered the same about him, although Roland’s first question potentially gave the game away. “Roland. You’re a long way from Tekken, eh?” Band would not have put it past such a jaded fellow to be down here to collect the spirits of the dead, but that wasn’t what he or Primrose were doing. “We’re tryin to figure out how Esaka respawns folks so fast. So far, all we gleaned is that it don’t got much to do with the dead spirits. Seems like they fade away here just like everywhere else.”
He tilted his head upward, toward the city’s upper reaches. “I was thinkin’ we oughta try an’ track down Esaka’s Flame Clock next. Even if we don’t get any answers from it, we can’t afford to not know if we end up tanglin’ with a consul.” He narrowed his eyes. “In Edinburgh, the Flame Clock was way up high, atop the highest point in the city. That’s where Moebius fled to heal ‘emselves up with the flames of the fallen, so that’s where we had our final showdown. If we don’t get a bead on it, ain’t no consul goin’ down for good.”
Although he could see the wisdom in that, Roland floated an idea of his own: what if the city’s Flame Clock were right beneath them, its face buried beneath the ashes so that the dead fighter’s lifelight could be absorbed directly? Band wasn’t sure about that, since it would have to be a truly mammoth Flame Clock to form the bottom of the entire Pool Tier, but he couldn’t point out any evidence to contradict him. Thus, Primrose and Band ended up waiting while Roland took a brief dive, swimming down to the pool’s sandy bottom to shovel aside the ash and see what lay beneath. It took a while, but in the end the Fixer came up short. Beneath the ash was only white tile, same as the pool’s inner and outer walls. Once he reunited with the other two, the three could get moving, although it seemed prudent to stop on the way somewhere in the Mid Tier so that Roland could get dry.
As they departed, Nadia watched from afar. She appreciated Roland for not selling her out. Somewhat curious about what they were up to, she considered following them, but in the light of day and across multiple tiers of Esaka it would be much harder to hide her presence, especially from Band. Still, she didn’t want to stay in the Pools, at least not in the grisly Mortal Kombat section. Maybe the World Warrior section would offer more sportsmanlike competition and less dismemberment. Or maybe she could trade places with Roland and traipse all the way over to the Tekken section to cheer Beowulf on. That sounded like a decent plan, so she got moving. And if the feral saw any compelling World Warrior matches on the way through, well, she had plenty of time before her next match.
Sandalphon’s pupil became a targeting reticle. “You have it?” She extended her hand imploringly as Ramattra produced a tiny, pale, shimmering sliver of unalloyed gold, intricate but fragile-looking. “Providential timing.” As his mechanical manipulator placed it in the palm of her gloved hand, she raised her voice as much as she could. “Byleth, come back!” A moment later and the cursed instructor returned. Her condition had worsened over just a handful of moments, her eyes widening vertically, her body beginning to distend in weird ways.
Recognizing one of the artifacts the aphid brothers mentioned, she desperately reached out a clawed hand. With no idea how to use the needle, Sandalphon pricked Byleth’s palm. For a split second the blackened flesh seemed to brighten, but the next moment the effect dwindled. This was no time for half-measures, the archangel decided. Before Byleth or anyone else could offer advice on what to do, Sandalphon took the needle between two proximal phalanges and punched it straight into the instructor’s chest.
Byleth gasped, which was significant in itself as her mouth had been sealed shut a second ago. In an instant she began to change, the mutations rapidly reverting as her usual skin tone swept back over her body. Her eyes turned from bloodshot yellow to blue, and as she squeezed them shut tears began to flow. Her lost hair and damaged clothing remained, but with remarkable quickness, she was human again.
Sandalphon’s pupil, momentarily a stress mark, became a capital T. “It worked. Thank Ilia.”
“Byleth!” Primm rushed to her friend and embraced her, teary-eyes. Thops joined them a moment later, a little more gingerly but no less wholeheartedly. Tipp and Pill bounced up and down in excitement, congratulating Ramattra on his lucky find. A chorus of relieved and happy meows issued from the nearby cats intelligent enough to dread a second horrific transformation.
As the tension in the room lessened, the bitter aftertaste of Satori’s fate watered down by the elation of a timely save, Sandalphon turned her eyes toward the other item the Omnic managed to retrieve: a huge die, held fast within an ornate wrought-iron frame. She’d noticed the instant he brought it in, of course, but saving Byleth had been her priority at the moment. Now, though, she could really marvel at the Seeker’s turn of fortune. “This must be it,” she pointed out, glancing at Edward. “The missing piece to the puzzle. We should be able to activate this room.” She furrowed her brow. “Of course, we don’t intend to leave everyone behind. One moment.”
The archangel activated her sigil in order to contact every team member scattered throughout the maze. “Attention, all Seekers. We have obtained the die and stand ready to activate the Dice Room. I am issuing the evacuation order: make your way to the Dice Room ASAP. I recommend opening doors until you see another door held open by one of Edward’s golems, at which point it and its fellows can direct you to our location. Bring all possible innocents. And if you should find an observatory, do NOT, I repeat NOT, look through the telescope. Copy?”
With her announcement made, Sandalphon took a deep breath. One of Edward’s golems had helped move the die to the giant game board on the chamber’s floor. She approached, reached past the frame, and laid one hand on the die itself in order to try and activate it.
To her surprise, it reacted on the first try. An electric jolt startled her as green lightning arced from the die and into the air. Fog filled the Dice Room’s upper reaches, pierced a moment later by ghostly green light as a giant floating skull began to emerge, followed by peals of sinister laughter.
”Heh heh heh heh heh…y’all are boned now,” the skull taunted everyone in a venomous southern drawl. ”Allow me to offer ya a belated welcome to this here institute of higher larnin’. Gotta say, it’s been ages since anyone made it this far. So, ya made it to ma exit and ya wanna play ma game, huh? Alrighty then, partners, let’s play!” A bolt of green lightning struck the die and it fell apart, becoming six smaller dice instead. At the same time, a ghostly copy of Sandalphon appeared on the game board’s first spot. ”One hundred spaces on the board, thirty-six rooms, six six-sided dice, and one chance to reach the end. Course, I reckon you’ll die tryin’ long before then!”
So Sandalphon thought. The master of this place finally shows himself. There had been an evil entity ruling Winterhold College, after all, yet she doubted that he’d been actively orchestrating everything. When someone tried to shoot him (Sandalphon didn’t exactly see who) the projectile passed straight through the skeleton, prompting a vile cackle. “Aww, you got me! I’m done for…not! Heh heh heh, this Cryptic Overseer ain’t exactly whatcha call ‘corporeal’, but nice try. There’s no gettin’ outta this now, and by ‘this’, I mean your grave.”
“Here’s how this works, varmints: when you roll a total, I’m gonna collapse that room and dump whatever’s in it right here, mind-wiped and chompin’ at the bit to kill ya. No time limits, but if ya take too long tidyin’ up, I’m liable to get bored and start collapsin’ extra rooms anyway, heh heh!” The Cryptic Overseer leered at Sandalphon. ”Well, you heard the rules. Better roll them dice, ‘fore I start rolling for ya!”
Sandalphon did not need any more time to understand the situation facing her team. This would be a race to reach the end of the game board as quickly as possible, without putting her team members at risk or accumulating too many enemies for those gathered here to defeat. She did not at all like the sound of college rooms being ‘collapsed’. Rather than the ceiling falling down, she pictured the chambers being erased, along with everyone inside them. That meant each roll could be someone’s death, even if she could theoretically win in as little as three rolls. Everything hinged on everyone getting here as fast as possible, and on luck. But she couldn’t delay the game’s start any longer. She took a deep breath. “Ilia, protect us.”
She shot one of the dice, which threw it into the others and sent them all rolling. A bell rang, and after a momentary cacophony of loud clatters, the dice came to rest, showing six, five, three, three, two, and six.
”Twenty-five?” The Cryptic Overseer sounded annoyed, but his dismay quickly turned to delight. ”That’s the Pool, which just so happens to have a secret underwater area none of y’all found. Including a handsome devil a reckon y’all don’t wanna miss. Say howdy… The labyrinth shook, and a second later, a rift opened over the spot Sandalphon’s avatar had moved to. A towering, monstrous amalgam of limbs and faces appeared, the eyes and mouth of its main head stretched across enormous rainbow wings. ”To Godhead Fred!”
A suitably imposing challenger, Sandalphon thought. But there were plenty of allies present, and she was already one-quarter of the way across the board. If her forces divided and conquered, they could definitely do this, even if time wasn’t on the Seekers’ side.
Big Band had imagined that his report might come as a letdown to Primrose, if not an outright source of worry given the Seekers’ dwindling numbers in Esaka’s four tournaments, but even for a seasoned detective it was almost impossible to tell what the dancer was thinking. Maybe she, like Band, was more stressed than she let on, but that could just as easily be projection on Band’s part. For all the gusto with which the team traipsed into Esaka two days ago, things weren’t looking so good today. With Ms Fortune, Zenkichi, Harry, and Juri all gone (or at least unreachable), the Seekers were down four people, and of the new allies they’d recruited here like Kim and Terry, only Yayama remained. On this cloudy, rainy Friday morning, it was hard to see the silver lining.
Of course, Band had learned long ago that indulging in doubts did nobody any favors. Rather than bring the mood down or try to analyze Primrose further, he accepted the dancer’s optimism, as well as her healing. Even with so little of his real body left inside his mobile iron lung, a little Warmth went a long way. As for her proposed investigation, he mulled it over with a thoughtful expression. Indeed, he had not failed to notice the somewhat anomalous nature of Esaka’s respawn process, but so far he hadn’t judged it relevant enough to the campaign’s interests to warrant looking into. Maybe he’d just assumed that the Consuls overseeing each pocket of civilization could customize the local system to suit their own interests. If Primrose thought there was more here than met the eye, though, it was as good a place to start as any.
Before he knew it, Band was on his feet and following the dancer through the Pools. He couldn’t help but stifle a smile at Primrose as he walked along. Beauty and brains, not to mention might and magic, able to steer and conversation and get what she wanted so effortlessly. The detective was glad she was on his side.
A clockwise path up from the city’s south side, where World Warrior matches predominated, brought the two to the western section of the Pools tier, where the city’s most savage fighters engaged in Mortal Kombat. Right away the Seekers laid eyes on a fierce struggle, surrounded by an unusual amount of spectators for a Pools match. On one side stood Cetrion, a regal nature goddess clad in seaweed and jade, supported by Geras, a musclebound titan whose eyes and seams shone with unnatural bright blue light, beneath Galeem’s red glaze at least. Against them stood the holy warrior Ky Kiske in flowing robes of white, whose Kameo seemed to be a robotic version of himself. These high-profile pairs, engaged in a majestic showdown, had drawn quite the crowd, but once Band noticed that this appeared to be a winners-side match, he and Primrose opted to move on. There wasn’t anything they could learn about the nature of life and death in Esaka from that match.
Not far away, though, another match had just concluded. Citizens and yokai, some elated and others disappointed, were drifting away from a narrow arena suspended just above the water. A few well-aimed questions at various spectators informed the Seekers that it had indeed been a losers-side match, and that the victor -a grim shapeshifter by the name of Nrvnqser Chaos- had just executed his opponent, one Mr. Mayhem. When Band approached for a closer look, he could see the spirit of a bald, tattooed punk with brass knuckles. He looked dangerous enough, but if half the whispers Band caught on the way over about Chaos and what he could do were true, Mr. Mayhem had been thoroughly outmatched.
The detective watched as the floating, robed officiant brushed the spirit and fallen ashes off the stage with a wave of his sleeve. The sooty remnants drifted down through the water to join the rest of the black, sandy sediment that formed the rest of the Pools’ bed. It was a terrifying reminder, right beneath everyone’s nose, of the death toll exacted again and again on the populace. Linkle’s words echoed in Band’s mind. To me, it feels like people have been living, fighting, and dying in this world for…for centuries.
After a moment, Band let out a wry laugh. “All that ash down there. It’s a wonder the Pools don’t run over.” He swallowed, his mouth dry, then glanced at Primrose. “What’s your next move, Miss Detective? I ain’t too keen to get my feet wet.”
The more Mortal Kombat she watched with Roland, the more Nadia realized that she really didn’t like Mortal Kombat very much. Of course, she was no stranger when it came to fighting for her life. She’d had a couple do-or-die scrapes back in New Meridian, and since coming to the World of Light (or…being reborn in it the latest time, she guessed) there had been deadly battles back to back. For the most part, though, her fights had been against monsters, or humanoid foes so single-mindedly bent on death and destruction that she couldn’t really feel bad, like the Abyssals. In Esaka, though, practically everyone was a living, breathing, sentient person. Some of the tournaments, she assumed, were like boxing matches where competitors were simply trying to win. In Mortal Kombat, though, they wanted to kill one another.
No matter where she looked, she saw kombatants trying to hurt, wound, and maim their opponents, with fatalities as the coup de grace. Sometimes fighters didn’t even reach the point where the ghostly officiants (who Nadia was beginning to despise) could tell the victor to finish them off; occasionally, a combo would end with a fatal blow there and then, which the spectators called ‘brutalities’. It all left a very sour taste in Nadia’s mouth. She could appreciate a thrilling fight between skilled competitors, but this was a bloodsport. The attitudes of the spectators around her, especially the yokai who dominated the tournament’s audience, disturbed her, and the fact that this barbarism existed in an otherwise fairly civilized city was downright jarring. Of course, she did not forget the fact that she’d essentially come here to loot dead bodies, but she was rapidly losing her stomach for it. Her pragmatic side had written a check that her sensitive side couldn’t cash, she guessed.
None of the violence or discordant attitudes seemed to faze Roland, though. Nadia studied his expression for a few moments when she thought he wasn’t watching. Maybe he’d seen far worse atrocities in that often-alluded-to City of his. After a little while, Nadia decided to leave him to it. She patted him on the shoulder, told him, “Knock yourself out, buddy,” and turned to go.
At which point she spotted an unmistakable figure. Far above the average Esakan towered a giant man with a bell-shaped body, studying Mortal Kombat matches with the gravitas of a hardened detective.
“Oh damn,” Nadia muttered, shrinking back behind Roland. “It’s Big Band. What’s he doin’ here?”
Her first thought, rather on the paranoid side, was that he was here looking for her. When she got a better look in his direction and saw the lovely lady he’d come here with, she wasn’t totally disabused of that notion, either. Primrose? she mouthed. Based on their earlier rendezvous, Nadia believed that Primrose was content to leave her to her business. Plans could change, of course, but the feral was inclined to believe her friend.
At the very least, Primrose’s presence here with Band reassured Nadia that the detective hadn’t come to accost her. Maybe something had happened and they needed to find her, forced to come in person because she lost her linkpearl. Or maybe it was just a coincidence. Coincidences tended to be more rare than one would expect in the catgirl’s experience, but they had to happen sometimes, right? Maybe all the violence around her just had her tense. Nadia didn’t want to waltz up and say hello, but she could relax a little, convinced that they weren’t here for her.
But then…what were they here for? Two upstanding individuals like them probably wouldn’t be here to collect spirits. It occurred to her that they could be investigating something. Band’s detective outfit wasn’t just for show, after all. Nadia couldn’t help but be curious. Maybe it’d be worse staying within line of sight after all. At the very least, Band was not at all hard to find.
In the center of the amusement park-like complex that hosted the Power Stone Games, a communal break area awaited those who had finished their matches. It offered benches and picnic tables, a couple colorful awnings (originally meant to provide shade from the sun but just as good for shelter from today’s drizzle), and a number of (non-alcoholic) drinks and snacks free to Power Stone participants.
Of course, even if the contestants’ various matches had been very chaotic, one match did not make for much of a session. True to what Wang-Tang told those who’d duked it out in the Tong-An stage, there were plenty more matches lined up across the variety of stages available for play. Naturally, there were many more items to experience as well, which promised amusingly unpredictable brawls for many hours to come.
That wasn’t all, though. After the first round or two of Power Stone matches, a wave of new contestants rolled in, inspired to take part by the excitement they’d seen broadcasted from various TVs in the area. Thanks in part to the Seekers’ own participation, it looked like the Power Stone Games were getting the publicity that Chevalier had been hoping for. The new entrants came in all shapes and sizes, though many more Low Tier fighters took interest than High Tier ones. It wasn’t all fun and games, though. Among the prospective participants the Seekers could find some unfriendly faces, more familiar perhaps for their names rather than appearances: the ice cold and deathly silent Sergi Dragunov, the coerced pop star Lucky Chloe, the shirtless maniac Bryan Fury, and the brutish Muay Thai fighter Bruce Irvin. All four were G-Corp employees, and it was hard to imagine that they were here for a good time.
Ace - Level: 9 - Total EXP: 522/90 Level 7 Heismay (70/70) Sectonia, Blazermate Word Count: 2492 (+3)
The layout of this new room made giving each individual alcove a once over for anything that stood out (loose items lying around, out of place levers or switches, etc) pretty easy for the Seekers that trailed behind their eugief scout. There were no items that they could find, but the rooms did contain an assortment of white stone statues, twenty in number and more than a little menacing, but seemingly inert. After a look through -and a brief catch up with Blazermate who Ace was glad to see- the Cadet joined Heismay in the central room, glancing at the statue and the game on the table as Heismay made his observation. The game was unfamiliar to him, but moving around the table for a different perspective let him see that the small swordsman was right about the doors matching up. In a different situation it might have just been a coincidence, but as part of this labyrinth? No way.
"But each door just goes to a random room, right? Why lock any in the first place?" Ace wondered. "If we had a way to keep them stuck open, and then open a few at once, unlocking the others would make sense, but..."
He wasn't exactly seeing how the puzzle fit into this yet, but maybe one of the ladies had an idea. Ace himself was then distracted by the large windows when he turned to look at the rest of the room. His eyes widened and he made a beeline for the wall, made more literal by his new pet bee's wings buzzing from where it perched on his shoulder.
"Oh, whoa." He pressed his hand to the glass, peering outside. Not once did he assume they were stuck in an alternate dimension, so the first place his mind went was to wonder if the weather outside had suddenly cleared up, however unlikely it was. The second was whether they could get out using the window, so he slid his fingers along the edges to see if they featured any sort of latch. He found no such thing, though, and the more Ace examined the window, the less sure he became. While it certainly looked like a window, albeit one so frosted that he couldn’t see a thing out there, it could instead conceivably be a sheer slab of glowing crystal, or one behind a layer of glass, meant to create the illusion of radiant daylight. Either way, it didn’t feel quite right.
Eventually he trusted his instincts and turned away from it, hiding his disappointment with a shrug. "Guess escaping wouldn't be as easy as climbing out a window, huh?" With that ruled out, Ace summoned a smile as he regarded the others. "So we got statues and playing pieces. Anyone game to figure this room out or should we just tackle the next one?"
”Is this like, some kind of chess game? But I don’t see the other pieces.” Blazermate said, scratching her head. ”I’m… not good at chess…”
”Hm…” Sectonia said, looking over things. That didn’t seem quite right, and she couldn’t recognize the game. Maybe it was something from another world.
Heismay shook his head, surprised that this seemed to be a blind spot for the others. “No, not chess. An aristocrat’s game would be fitting, given our opulent surroundings, but this looks like three men’s morris. A simple game played by commoners on the ground, usually with sticks and rocks.” He pointed out the six pieces. “Each player takes turns moving one piece to an unoccupied adjacent spot. The goal is to be the first to line up all three in a row.” After a moment, he looked up from the board at the statue opposite him, permanently bent over the board in quiet contemplation. Heismay wondered if the others were waiting for him to make the first move, but he still felt indecisive, not sure what consequences that he might invite on the Seekers by playing this statue’s game.
”NEVER heard of that game.” Blazermate said, emphasizing the never. She was familiar with maybe marbles, pai sho, checkers, but not this game. Sectonia nodded, but in her case being a ruler, she wouldn’t be familiar with things like this in general. ”Does anyone else recognize this game?” she said.
Ace was the next to shake his head. Of course it was possible that this or a similar game existed in the world he came from, he hadn't seen it - though he never played many of those to begin with. "Doesn't seem hard to grasp based on Heismay's explanation though. One of you ladies wanna give it a try?"
Since Blazermate didn't seem very inclined to, he glanced at Sectonia and Mokou who seemed more cultured. He could easily imagine the queen's temperament translating into a refusal to lose such a game once she started playing it.
Sectonia noticed that Ace was staring at her, then looking at the statues, then glancing at her again. Almost wondering what she’d do about this game looking to her for guidance, or so she figured. ”Hm? I do not know that game. Dreamland barely has chess.” Sectonia said, saying in no uncertain terms she wasn’t interested either, but for the same reason as Blazermate, unfamiliarity with the game.
That earned the two a look from Heismay. His expression seemed to say it’s not that hard of a concept to grasp, is it? The Cadet himself could have volunteered, and maybe would have too even with the weird feeling still clinging to his back, but after a few moment's thoughts he had another idea.
"Oh, maybe we can keep some of these doors open if someone unlocks them," he said, trotting over to the closest outer room that was open. Those statues, while a little ominous, might be useful for something like that. After examining the doorway to be sure of where the gate would come down, Ace dragged a statue beneath it. As he did he said, "this might work, right? Keeping them propped open with these! And for the actual doors too..."
He pushed open the door that would take them into another random room and shoved another statue against it to act as a makeshift stopper just before actually looking to see where the new path led. As for the room he opened, it appeared to be a rather small, drafty attic room with a pale blue color palette and a glass ceiling that offered a peek at a strangely clear daylight sky, barely big enough to house a couple desks. The largest among them featured a large blueprint, covered with different shapes labelled things like ‘Undercroft’, ‘Pool’, and ‘Observatory’. Some of these were already connected into a network, while others floated free. This studio featured two other things: another door on the far end, and a melty, multi-armed painter with a bottomless pit where his face should be.
Now this was an interesting room, the hunter thought. Though he suspected these windows would be about the same as the ones in the room the other Seekers were in, they were still intriguing enough to pull his eyes towards them. The blueprints were especially compelling, what with the map-like drawing attached. He would be sure to look at that more in depth, but first was the most eye-catching thing, which was of course...
"Hole-y Jhen!"
The faceless man, who had taken Ace by surprise. The humbee with the Cadet tilted its head curiously. Neither hunter nor coromon sensed hostility from the man, but Ace made sure not to drop his guard entirely when he called out to the guy a moment later, noting that the man still had ears. "Uh, hey there. Can you hear me? I'm hoping you're friendly."
Eerily silent, the painter gave an emphatic nod, keen to make sure his gesture was well understood.
As Ace busied himself, Heismay climbed up onto the chair opposite the winged statue again. None of the ladies seemed interested in the game, so with Ace gone, there was only one option, and he’d hesitated long enough. Before he could reach his tentative claws out, however, an angelic sigil appeared by his head and Sandalphon’s voice rang out through the Postulant’s Parlor.
“Attention, all team members. Edward, Ramattra, and I have found what appears to be an exit from this structure, situated in the Dice Room. However, we believe that unlocking the exit requires satisfying a condition for an arcane device, and to do that, some kind of die seems necessary. Please keep an eye out for any dice in your path, particularly one of remarkable size. If you do find one, report to me, then attempt to obtain it. Thank you all, and please contact me if trouble should arise. Sandalphon out.”
Having recoiled in fright initially, Heismay sighed. “Chess, dice, and three man’s morris. I’m beginning to think someone’s playing games with us.” Sadly, as eager as he was to get out of here, he had nothing to offer to the Seekers’ leader. Truth be told, he’d forgotten that he could call Sandalphon for help during any of the fights he’d encountered so far, in addition to forgetting about his new striker. Such was the price of being a middle-aged man, stuck in his ways for decades, he supposed. It all worked out in the end, at least.
”Wait… I saw something that was a giant dice. ” Blazermate said. She then told Sandalphon ”I found one in a room. It was like some demonic looking room and the dice looked really dangerous. I wasn’t a magic user and it looked magic so it does exist. I don’t know how to get there though.”
It wasn't very long after Sandalphon's announcement before Ace came back to the others in a more genuine, better mood than before, a notable ardor on his face. He'd heard the archangel's words of course, and the prospect of getting out of the labyrinthian college lit a fire under him that had the hunter thinking about the best way to go about helping out. So back in the parlor he just barely contained himself from waving his arms in the direction of the drafting studio that was now open to them.
"You guys! Come look at this!" He urged. "I think this room has a clue about how we can meet up with the others!"
Sandalphon had mentioned the Dice Room, which was one of the places on the rough map the Cadet had found. If all of the rooms on the blueprint were already connected, it stood to reason that finding one of them meant that their group of five could just follow the path left by the other Seekers. Ace explained these thoughts aloud as he pointed out the drafting board.
"So if we open a couple more rooms to see if we can find some dice, then we can go right for one of these connected rooms! We gotta be near the end, so get hypeceros!"
He grinned, and made mention of the last glaring thing in the room to the others by patting a friendly hand on one of the faceless artist's shoulders. "We also have to keep an eye out for this guy's face - I'm pretty sure it got stolen and I think we should help him."
The way Ace so casually said something as grim as someone's face being ripped from them probably said something about his mental state at the moment, but that was neither here nor there. The one sided conversation he'd had with the man a few minutes ago involved a lot of miming on the artist's part, specifically the stranger using his four arms to gesture painting and then lifting a hand to his face hole and making a grabbing and snatching motion when Ace had asked what happened. It was hard to imagine anything else that the charades were meant to imply.
Now, even without fooling around the game board, there were two more doors the Seekers could try - and could prop open with the heavy white statues if they needed to.
To be honest, the hunter’s discoveries intrigued Heismay a lot more than the mystical statue’s game. Of course, he’d been much more alarmed -and subsequently wary- of the ghastly artist who’d been lurking in the Drafting Studio, but when Ace both explained the painter’s plight and demonstrated his harmlessness with a friendly gesture, Heismay felt a lot more sympathy. Although it was hard to tell without a face, the painter seemed touched by the hunter’s kindness and lack of fear when confronted with his unnaturally twisted form. The eugief released his grip on his scythe’s hilt and crossed his arms. “Something stole his face, you say? Tis not what Sandalphon asked for, but perhaps we should alert the others and put out a request of our own.” Of course, Heismay did not take his own suggestion right away; by now, the others were probably getting more used to his indecisive nature and preference for others to choose for him.
With the matter of the artist out of the way, Heismay turned his attention toward the other elephant in the room. The drafting table with the blueprint seemed more significant to him than anything else he’d seen so far. Poring over the different room tiles, he identified several free-floating rooms that matched the layouts of ones he’d already been to, such as the ‘Aurelian Nexus’ and the ‘Forgotten Commune’. What interested him even more were the ones that seemed to be connected. Maybe the other Seekers in the maze were finding ways to keep the doors in here open, like Ace was?
He lifted up a careful finger, extending it toward the blueprint. “So, this controls the labyrinth? Mayhaps we attempt a proof of concept.” He identified an unconnected room that seemed interesting, the Altar of Horton. After placing his claw on the tile, he dragged it to the large Postulant’s Parlor tile and snapped it to the room’s only other unlocked door, the one through which the five entered. He couldn’t hear anything, or feel any rumbles of movement, so the only way to see if it actually worked would be to open the door and check inside.
Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.
Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;">Current GM of World of Light. When it comes to writing, there's nothing I love more than imagination, engagement, and commitment. I'm always open to talk, suggestion, criticism, and collaboration. While I try to be as obliging, helpful, and courteous as possible, I have very little sympathy for ghosts, and anyone who'd like to string me along. Straightforwardness is all I ask for.<br><br>Looking for more personal details? I'm just some dude from the American south; software development is my job but games, writing, and trying to help others enjoy life are my passions. Been RPing for over a decade, starting waaaay back with humble beginnings on the Spore forum, so I know a thing or two, though I won't pretend to be an expert. If you're down for some fun, let's make something spectacular together.</div>
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