Avatar of Lugubrious

Status

Recent Statuses

25 days ago
Current Stalling falling blossoms in bloom
1 mo ago
Even if our words seem meaningless
1 like
2 mos ago
Time turning on us always
2 mos ago
Fusing into the unknown
4 mos ago
Coming back at you twice as great as you had thought
1 like

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.

Most Recent Posts

Cool. Two-way would be good with me, with the 'falling for' bit being an interesting angle if I understand it correctly. That said I'm also interested in what a three-way would entail, so I have no particular preference and will wait for Stern's thoughts.
Sounds good. I'll get a post up today or tomorrow. If Mae and Gamma are clear to engage (after receiving Faetalis' latest missive via a skeleton) any guidelines for handling the humans? That is, what level of agency do we have in making them or writing out their actions, or will you be playing all the humans?
Al Mamoon - Museum of Vanity

@Zoey Boey @Yankee


When Jesse suggested taking out the guards, Joker raised an eyebrow, although his mask obscured it. If the Shadows could move through the lasers and they couldn’t, any fight would be a tough proposition. At best they would need to confine the whole struggle to one of the nine subsections of the room, and the four were spread out between them. Avoiding an unnecessary fight completely would be the better option, although unfortunately he couldn’t be one hundred percent positive about the giant paintings working like they used to. To not risk further embarrassment he figured it best to use an alternative plan, and luckily, the FBC’s director offered a few more.

He considered Jesse’s ideas, noting as he did her excellent aim in being able to plant a thruster all the way across a room full of lasers. He doubted the Shadows. It probably went unnoticed with all the other brightly colored beams around. In the end, he found himself liking her first plan. “Going small’s a good idea,” he whispered. “We’ll be able to go right under the lasers, and if we need to hide, we’ll be small enough to use the plant pots.” As Jesse began to put the plan into motion, shrinking herself to less than a foot in height, Primrose came up with the idea of using one of the monsters from the last room for transportation. Joker considered it, but was not convinced. “Can’t strikers only appear for a short while? Go ahead if you like, but I think we might have a more surefire way to get over there quickly. Don’t we, Mona?”

The not-cat nodded. “Yeah, that’ll work. Alright Jesse, go ahead and shrink us!”

As a whole the team waited while Primrose made contact with the essence of the Makami. The hunting wolf spirit seemed eager for a companion, more so than the Hippowdon by a long shot, and the spirit linked to the dancer’s own, restoring a semblance of existence. After that, it was time to begin. One brief session of getting zapped later, the Thieves walked right through the no-collided vent grate and into the open. Being this low to the ground put things in a wildly different perspective, Joker found, but at least it wasn’t because he was Rattled this time. He shuddered at the thought and crouched beneath the bench while a guard plodded by. Once the coast was clear, he gave Mona the thumbs-up. “Okay, now!”

“On it!” The thief jumped into the air and disappeared in a puff of smoke. A second later the Morgana Car hit the floor, no bigger than a breadbox but large enough to accommodate both the three Thieves and their two new friends. “Not a moment to lose!” Mona’s voice came from the vehicle, his tail wiggling around excitedly in back. “Get in!”

Once everyone piled in, Mona raced forward. Across the golden tiles he zoomed, passing under laser after laser with a rather close for comfort amount of clearance. Twice he came to a gentle stop, both to avoid a guard’s patrol and screeching his tires while doing so, and once he threw himself into reverse to hastily correct after an overextension. Jesse’s remotely-triggered thruster saved the day there, distracting the guard long enough for Mona to skedaddle. In the end the car cruised straight through the employee access door without detection, either from the Shadows or the lasers. In contrast to the glitzy main rooms of the gallery the stairwell was a standard affair of concrete and and metal, although bearing a greenish tint, and once Mona let his passengers off he turned back to normal so that everyone could be returned to their normal size with the Tool Gun’s Undo button.

“Good work,” Joker told the team. “Even if we sometimes go in guns blazing, discretion is part of the Phantom Thief code. Let’s stick to it.”

The group climbed the stairs to the next floor. In a stroke of bad luck the employee access area they found turned out to be nothing more than a connection between two floors, rather than the extensive web that Joker hoped for. Still, he felt confident in their choice. If this place still had no basement, going up brought them closer to the distorted gallery’s sanctum, where any captives must surely be held. Jesse lent a hand by no-colliding the exit door so that Joker could poke his head through for a discreet look, and he was immediately struck by just how different this wing looked.



Here the subtly unnatural green tint that had tainted the staircase grew to a staggering potency. Everything seemed to swim or shimmer ever so slightly, as if the room was filled with crystal clear water. Sculptures of primeval beings, their gods and demons of stone and gold so lifelike as to seem frozen in time, stood in the open space; paintings of creatures and cryptids that seemed too lifelike to be the product of imagination hung from its walls. Joker saw no guards, and one door to the right. On the left end a couple steps preceded a raised section of honor, in the middle of which a stylized but no less ghastly portrait rested among lit candles. In fact, candles seemed to be the only light in the entire area, and there were a lot of them. Joker pulled his head in, showing the others his affronted expression. “Okay, it’s some sort of eldritch nightmare gallery in there,” he reported. “I’m sure everything’s cursed, so let’s just make a run for the exit on the right without looking at anything.

This didn’t seem to surprise the Thieves, and they got ready to book it. They waited for their leader’s signal before rushing through the door and to the right through a gauntlet of unnerving art pieces. Joker rounded the corner of one of the gallery’s four wedge-shaped dividing walls and in an instant became a dark blur as he dived back into cover. Standing in front of the door was a single guard, unmoving. “Looks like we can’t sneak by this guy. It’s probably a strong one,” he murmured. “But I can get the drop on it to kick things off. Get ready.”

He zipped forward as a blur once again, swooshing into hiding behind a statue’s plinth. Another dash brought him into the cover of a glass display case. Then he surged from the shadows, boosted off the wall, and landed on the Shadow’s back. “Show me your true form!” he demanded as he reached down and peeled the guard’s mask off. It contorted wildly, forcing him to jump clear, then melted into liquid darkness. Joker joined the others who pulled up in front of it, weapons out and ready to fight. A moment later the Shadow reformed in a wave of bone-chilling power, putting out every candle in the shadow gallery and plunging it into viridian darkness. From the void emerged an abominable thing that immediately unleashed an accursed scream. That hideous clamor filled all six with primal Fear. Instinct took over, and they turned tail to scatter and hide throughout the gallery. With a gibbering noise uncannily close to laughter, the Shambler began to stalk its prey.

Ms Fortune, Bella & Mirage

Level 4 Nadia (41/40)
Location: The Maw - the Belly
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Hat Kid's @Dawnrider, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Frog's @Dark Cloud, Mirage’s @Potemking, Mr. L’s @ModeGone
Word Count: 3746


Despite Nadia’s effort her opposition proved a worthy challenge--and since her adversaries were mere cushions, that made her feel pretty much worthless. Still, she grit her teeth and pulled, squeezing Bella out of her pillowy prison a bit at a time. Unfortunately a sudden cry shattered her focus, and reflexively Nadia crouched down with ears flattened and tiny razor-sized claws at the ready. Her bright eyes made vision in the darkness of the room not a problem, but even still she couldn’t see the source, as the heaps of household items obscured whoever it was from view. Other voices reached her from different directions, turning her ears this way and that. All sounded vaguely familiar in their intonations, but not quite recognizable in their pitches. Shaking off the eerie feeling that brushed at her, Nadia took a deep breath and got back to her task. If she wasn’t alone, all the more reason to get Bella out as soon as possible.

Luckily, the struggle didn’t last long. Reinforcements arrived in the form of a little boy in yellow, although since he stood taller than Nadia she begrudgingly guessed she needed to change her point of view. Either way she appreciated him identifying himself the moment he appeared, which cut through some of the confusion and confirmed in the feral’s mind that whatever happened, it happened to everyone. “Hey, Mirage! You know, you seem awfully childish all of a sudden. It’s me, Fortune. And this is Bella.” The minuscule Abyssal waved. “Here, take her other hand!”

A little grin escaped Mirage at Ms. Fortune's humor, enough to show a tooth missing among his pearly whites as he took the joke as a chance to help cope with their situation. "No kidding!" He responded, reaching out to grab hold of Bella's other hand. Her hand seemed small enough to disappear into his own, so he ended up grasping a bit of her forearm to help in pulling her out from her soft, cushiony doom.

With two sets of hands the task went quickly, and after only a few moments Bella was out. Even better, she managed to stand, despite the near-instant loss of the new power she’d gained. Her relief turned to confusion as she gave herself a proper once-over. “How could this happen?”

Nadia sighed as she gave a shrug. “Magic, I guess. We lost our stuff, powers, everything. But at least it seems like we’re thinking the same. And...I remember these clothes.” She took hold of her threadbare sleeve, feeling the cloth. “This was the stuff I was wearing before the Fishbone Gang adopted me. At first I thought we were just made younger, but...it’s more like I was sent back in time.”

Mirage slipped his goggles over his eyes, fingers slowly trailing the band around his head with disbelief. "Yeah, I remember my Ma giving me these. Said they made me look sporty and adventurous." He added with fond reminiscence. It seemed to make Nadia smile.

Still wearing a face of consternation, Bella shook her head. “I don’t remember ever being like this.”

“You mean, you don’t remember anything from your childhood? Like, at all?” Nadia asked in disbelief.

Bella tugged on her hair, shifting uncomfortably. “No…” She took a step back, nearly stumbling, but managed to catch herself with the help of her tail. “At least I can sort of walk. This must have been before my muscles atrophied. And they have less to hold up, anyway.”

“That’s good, ‘cause we’ve gotta get movin’,” Nadia declared. “My instincts’re sayin’ we’re not alone. We can’t fight like this, so if anything finds us, we’re toast. Let’s hurry up and find the others first. I heard voices from that direction.”

She scurried to the end of the sofa, hopped back onto the bed where she landed, and made for the other side. With a frown she noted that the furniture seemed much bigger than it should have been considering her size adjustment. If everything were to scale, that would have made her under a foot tall, which couldn’t possibly be right. The idea of being reduced to a kid in the first place was annoying enough without things being more unfair. She came to a stop at the other end of the bed and eyed the small drop. The bottom layer of this room appeared to be a sea of small objects like clothes, toys, and especially shoes like an enormous ball pit, albeit one that rose and fell in hills and mountains. Something occurred to her for the first time, making her gulp. “All these...th-these clothes and things. Were they all…?” She trailed off as horror twisted her insides, preventing her from finishing the thought.

With shoulders hunched and arms crossed she looked ahead. Some ways away she saw a mountain of pillows tumble down, with a telltale childlike figure sliding down it. This one she recognized as Bowser Junior, who must not have been as affected by the curse. Getting there wouldn’t be a problem. Nadia hopped off the end of the bed and onto the ground layer.

‘Into’ the ground would have been more correct, however, for she instantly sank to her belly button in the item pit. Alarm bells went off in her head, telling her to get out, but no matter how she tried to climb on top the small things kept shifting beneath her, sinking her back to firmer, more compacted footing underneath. With a snarl of frustration she found that moving through it was even worse than trying to push through an actual ball pit, since everything was irregularly shaped and tended to catch. “This sucks,” she hissed, but she didn’t know the half of it.

After a few more steps there came a clatter from in front of her, and she went wide-eyed in fear. Something was moving through the ground layer. It moved fast, it moved noisily, and most terrifying of all, Nadia couldn’t even catch a glimpse of it--only the items it threw into the air as it carved through the mess straight toward her. “Uh oh,” she muttered in deadpan fright, too desensitized to scream, before she turned herself around toward the bed and went as fast as she could.

She put all her hope on the unseen monster not being able to leave the ground layer and pushed through until she could sink her claws into the edge of the blanket that hung down and scrambled up. Mirage and Bella reached down and helped haul her up just in the nick of time, and as Nadia clawed her way back on top, the monster came to a sudden stop right below her. Which Mirage childishly mocked, pulling up his goggles just to tug the skin beneath his left eye downwards and stick his tongue out at it. “No snack for you today, buddy!” He boasted confidently.

Then the blanket corner went taut, its end clutched by the unseen foe, and it started to pull. Beneath Nadia, Bella, and Mirage, the blanket began to slide toward the edge, and them with it. The little feral released a guttural noise that sounded like she was being strangled and sprinted the other way as fast as her legs could take her. Mirage letting out a panicked “Crap, crap, crap!” As he regretted taunting the monster, but managed to keep pace. But Bella wasn’t so lucky. With a squeal she fell down onto the blanket and was carried atop it toward the edge of the bed. “Bella!” Nadia cried, reaching back with an open hand, but before the Abyssal could be yanked off the edge her snakelike tail lunged at the bedpost. Its teeth dug into the wood, turning it into a lifetime that saved Bella from certain death. Holding her breath, Nadia crept to the edge of the bedsheet-clad mattress and looked down to see the last of the blanket disappear into the ground layer. Only after a few moments of silent stillness did she realize how bad she was shaking. For the life of her she could not remember being more scared. Except once.

She got to her feet and brushed her hair back, her tail sweeping back and forth in agitation. With Mirage she helped Bella back from where she dangled, and all three stood at the edge of the bed. “...Jeez. The hell was that…?” Trying to compose herself and focus, she took a number of deep breaths in and out. “So. The floor might as well, uh, be lava.” She pointed a claw at the pile of pillows. “We need to get over there, but we’ve gotta stay off the ground.”

Mirage pounded his small fist against his chest with his signature grin back in place. "Well, at least it's not real lava-- I've been there, NOT fun." He said in a surprisingly nonchalant manner, all things considered, but the task before them made him try to tune into some optimism. "Alright kids, time for some hardcore parkour! Where you play for keeps and if you fall, you get eaten by a mysterious monster." He let out a small huff that was a mix of frustration and repressed fright as that optimism momentarily faded. "No pressure, no pressure at all."

The simple plan of action made her look at the terrain in a new light, seeking routes that didn’t involve touching the danger zone for more than a moment at a time. Up ahead the mess trended upward like a hill. Across the first stretch of junk she saw a large suitcase lying open, stuffed with drab clothing, and right after that a dresser on its side, halfway sunken. Then the hill seemed to come to a peak, and the pillow pile not too far beyond that. As she already knew, however, the suitcase was too far to wade to. “We need...some kind of bridge,” she thought aloud. Still a little nervous, she looked around her immediate surroundings. The four-poster bed with all its cushions lay at a slight angle with Bella’s sofa on the far side and a leaning bookcase against the headboard. By its foot an office chair poked up from the ground, the kind that swiveled. A small fan lay face-down in the junk near where the monster surely still lurked.

Mirage bit the inside of his cheek as he tried to think, scanning the area in front of them. If the game was keeping away from the ‘splash-zone’, then a small idea came to mind. “If it can’t come up to grab us, then we could hop across those big pillows.” He suggested, gesturing ahead at the assortment of throw pillows and cushions. “They might sink down if we stand on them for too long, so we’d have to keep moving.” He added, with a bit of concern as he looked down at Bella, noting she had issues escaping from the blanket issue they’d just experienced moments prior.

The tiny Abyssal looked embarrassed. “Um...I don’t suppose I could ask for some help? I can mostly walk on my own, but jumping might be a problem.”

Mirage's eyes widened for a moment, followed by a few blinks at her request. Back when he was a kid, he was the one getting the piggyback rides as he was the smallest. A complete change to now, where he was the tallest kid in their current small-numbered group. "I've got ya. You're looking at the best athlete to ever grace a galaxy-wide television network! Only... Slightly miniaturized." Maybe the 'best athlete' thing was a bit of a stretch since there were a few folks more agile and parkour-experienced than him, but he could keep up! Kinda! He could get Bella across this, at the very least.

“In that case, I’ll handle the pillows. We’ll use ‘em like steppin’ stones!” Nadia ran over and grabbed one. Thanks to its light weight she could haul it around easily, and after she dragged it to the edge of the bed she tossed it down onto the ground layer. It rested on top of the junk without sinking, and even when the feral dropped down after it for the sake of experimentation, it didn’t move. “Hey, it’s got enough surface area so that it doesn’t sink!” she called, glad for a lucky turn at last. Her principal concern, however, was that the monster might not care about the pillow. Such things didn’t come to mind when one pictured a safe platform or barrier, after all. But the moments passed without any stirring beneath the junk, and Nadia breathed a sigh of relief. “Looks like this’ll work. Toss me another!”

"No sinking, bonus!" Mirage cheered, glad one of his own fears was no longer a factor. Quickly, he made a small system with Bella where he gathered pillows and she began to toss them down to help Nadia in making her platforms. This process slowed a bit as Mirage began to burrow through some junk to try and reach bigger pillows to make travelling across easier, throwing an assortment of clothing and small household items to the side as he worked. As he dug through the junk, he came across a small but strange looking device that he only took note of because it seemed to have a trigger. A small, gray gun-like object kind of shaped like a top hat.

Picking up the device, he pointed it towards the leg of a somewhat large but useless to their traveling efforts nightstand and curiously pulled the trigger, resulting in a ‘POP’ sound as the gun shot out a similarly-colored projectile that stuck to the piece of furniture. Walking over, he attempted to recover the item to see if it was reusable, but even as he tugged, it seemed to be stuck in place in a very sturdy fashion. Brought back to reality as Bella called that they needed more pillows, causing him to tuck the weapon away in the side of his shorts as he went back to work.

One by one the pillows dropped into Nadia’s waiting hands for her to run out to the end of her makeshift bridge, pulling each behind her as she hopped nimbly between them. She worried about running out, but was relieved when she reached the suitcase with a few pillows still stocked up on top of the bed. She went back over to the bed just to make sure, then called up. “Okay, come on you guys! Be careful!” Before heading over herself, however, she reached out to snag the fan from the ground layer. It was just the right size and heft to be carried, and she couldn’t help but think it would come in handy.

Once past the pillows steps the trio hurried over the suitcase, across an almost too-big gap, and up the dresser. When they reached the top of the hill, however, they found it to be a cliff overlooking a big furrow in the ground level. Nadia crossed her arms. “Ohh, purr-fect...”

A shout from close by got her attention. She quickly spotted a little boy with dirty blond hair atop a cupboard. Running through Blue Team’s roster in her head, she figured that it had to be Link. “Over here!” she yelled in reply, jumping up and down as she waved. “Fortune, Mirage, and Bella! We’re headin’’ your way!”

Mirage offered a wave with one hand, having Bella on his back still as he hadn't particularly found a good place to set her down. He noticed Link seemed to have found a weapon of sorts, which was admittedly smart. He noted that after they got regrouped he should probably do the same, as something was better than nothing, even if he wasn't particularly good at swinging objects around. Not to mention having the strength of a small child on top of that. "How're we getting across, though? Can't just toss some pillows here." He questioned, noticing that Nadia seemed to be scanning for a solution.

Nadia re-evaluated her surroundings and realised there was a broom leaning against the edge of the dresser. Its head lay somewhere down in the middle of the ravine, but her head was full of dumb ideas. “Ooh, I’ve gotta try this.” With a grin that belied all the terror sustained only minutes ago, she grabbed hold of the broom handle and propelled herself off the edge of the dresser. “Here goes!”

Holding on for dear life she managed to pole-vault over the chasm and to the other side, steering herself toward a ripped-up green recliner. Although yellow stuffing protruded from its many slashes and holes, it cushioned her landing just fine. “Whoo!” she squeaked as she bounced down. “Nailed it!” Feeling more than a little better about herself she climbed up the recliner’s back to where the handle had come to rest. Another bright idea hit her, and she lifted up her new fan. When she turned it on it blew with a lot more power than she expected, and the broom shaft practically flew back to the other side. “Wow, that actually worked. Here, you guys try!”

Eyeing the broom, it was slightly concerning. Mirage was sure it could hold him, but the question was more if he could hold on. Eyes shifting around for a moment, he sat Bella down and held the broom, allowing her to get a grip first with her tail. He took a deep breath, fully investing in this attempt to go down as he dropped his weight on the broom. The entire way down, he was screaming, and as they made it to the bottom, that screaming was muffled as he landed face-first into some of the yellow-stuffing of the recliner, though it quickly stopped as he stood and regained his composure, noticing Bella with a slight head-tilt at his actions. Face red, he offered a light pat on the back to Bella as they hurried to catch up with Nadia.

After a few more hops Nadia slid down the side of a grandfather clock past Mount Pillow to land on the bed where everyone seemed to have gathered. This one was even broader than the one she woke up in, although it wasn’t the four-poster kind. More important, of course, was everyone on it. Blazermate jumped out to her immediately, as the Medabot looked fresh and full-sized. Makes sense for a robot, I guess. Everyone else, however, was in the same boat as her. She scampered up to greet them. “How d’ya do, fellow kids?” There seemed to be two junior Bowsers, one of which she took to be an ensmallened Bowser Senior. There was a boy she did not even remotely recognize as Geralt until he said so, and another boy she recognized just about instantly as the Cadet. “Hey there, monster pun-ter! Still got the one brain cell I think, so everything’s fine there. As for what I can do…” she put her hands up in resignation. “Zilch. I mean, I can see in the dark pretty well, and my claws are still sharp, but that’s about it. No Life Gem, man. I can die as hard as anyone now.”

She distanced herself from that gallows humor by checking a few of the remaining team members. The snow-white girl could only be Rika, of course. Having never seen Kamek without his robe it took a moment to realize the rather normal-looking Koopa must be him. And the brunette all done up with flowers and ribbons… “Sakura?” Nadia beamed. “You’re so cute! If I were still big I’d wanna scoop ya up, give ya a big hug, and buy ya ice cream or somethin’.” Only after spouting all that did Nadia realize that her friend seemed to be in bad spirits. “Oh...uh…”

She was saved as Peach arrived, floating down from some high-up perch thanks to her little parasol. Even as a four-year-old the princess was the very picture of dainty, but it was determination written on her features. “Hello, everyone,” she said, her voice the highest out of everyone’s. Doing her best to keep her composure despite the indignity of it all, she told the others, “Like Link I went up high to look around. I saw just one door, but no handle or anything. Must open from the outside. There are holes in the ceiling that stuff falls through, but I saw a vent in the wall, too.” She pointed to just about the exact opposite side of the massive room. “We might be able to get out through there, if we can get up somehow. As for a plan...” She glanced between the assembled heroes. “I figure there’s a good chance we can end this by tracking down the demons that caused it. Then there’s nothing stopping us from putting down that creep. But they’re way up at the top, and we’re down here, so we’ve got a long way to go.”

Nadia raised her hand like a schoolchild. “So you guys know, there’s something scary under the junk. I didn’t see it, but I saw it cookin’ through the stuff tryin’ to get us, and it ate a blanket tryin’ to pull us in. So we gotta stay on top of something.”

The grim expression on Peach’s tiny features left the feral feeling like she wasn’t the only one with a fun discovery to report. “I thought I saw something too,” she whispered, glancing upward with a hint of anxiety. “In the shadows, hanging from the roof. Upside-down.”

Once again Nadia shivered. “Great. This just keeps gettin’ better.” She moved to the edge of the king bed and looked off into the darkness, trying to spot either the new monster or the escape route Peach saw. “Guess we’ve gotta make our way over there.”

The princess moved up to stand beside her. “While I’m not saying to split up, we shouldn’t travel in one big pack if there are enemies around. We’ll attract more attention and get in each others’ way,'' Peach advised. Her eyes landed on Nadia’s fan. “And let’s keep an eye out for anything that might be of use in the junk, but be careful you all don’t put yourselves at risk of the monster below. And we may want to be careful about how much more noise and spectacle we make.” Though she managed to hide it, her heart beat like mad. This was not going to be easy, but they were going to make it through. “Let’s go.”

Navigate through a bizarre obstacle course of lost things, your route yours to decide. Keen eyes and opportunistic hands may find Paired Tools. Be wary of the nomes scrounging here and there. Move quickly but quietly, lest the hanging shadow descend

Big Band

Level 2 Big Band (15/20)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon
Fox's @Dawnrider, Mao's @Potemking
Word Count: 1194


As one might expect, no revelation leaped from the woodwork, but Band played as patiently as he listened. In the shade cast by the awning of the Hound Pits pub the minutes went by to the tune of cozy noontime jazz. Many citizens passed him by, some with a curious glance at the new musician putting a little soul into their lunch breaks. Every now and again someone stopped in front of him to listen, to listen like stethoscopes to a few of the beats from Big Band’s big heart. Fewer still dropped a coin or two in the metal inspector’s hat, but ever so often one fell nonetheless, the first few in silence and those afterward adding a little golden percussion as they clinked off the forerunners. Band cared more for murmurs than money, however, and needed no encouragement to validate the music that flowed through him, so used the clatter of currency in his hat as a way to pass the time.

It was after the eighth coin that something unusual caught his eye. A group of three coming from the south toward the pub. A young man with white hair, glasses, and a coat as red as his eyes that he wore off the shoulders led the trio, while a woman with striking pink hair and a blue overcoat followed behind. Around the two milled a little girl in red with blonde hair and long ears. A strange group with no common denominator save its relative youth, Band observed. They could harbor no conceivable relationship, and even them being friends seemed rather unlikely. Yet the kid displayed no distress, which put a sock in any notion of kidnapping. As the trio passed him by, the little girl turned a face of wonderment his way, but the young man put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Klee,” he told her, purposefully not looking Band’s way. “We’re almost there.” She looked sad but allowed herself to be led off into the Hound Pits. Band knew it served as a restaurant as well as a bar, but two youngsters taking a little kid there further solidified his curiosity. He attuned his instruments to listen in.

After a few moments of recalibration, during which he made some meaningless adjustments to his saxophone for the sake of any onlookers, he started up his lowkey song once again, and started to eavesdrop. “....course stupid bird-legs had to go and kick him. What a mess,” he heard what could only be the pink-haired woman saying. “That’s what I appreciate about you, you know. Not going overboard every chance you get.”

“Whatever,” a male voice replied, belonging to the white-haired guy. “You talk about me behind my back too, whenever it’s you and Cass? And keep your voice down, will you? Don’t need anyone figuring out we know her ‘til things blow over.”

A small voice then piped up, which Band guessed came from the little girl. “Um. Mr Mao, can I have some pizza? Back home Jean would let me have some of her pizza from time to time, and it’s my favoritest thing!”

“That’d take too long.” Mao, as the detective noted his name to be, did not sound quite as harsh as he did when talking to his other companion. “We’re just here so miss bubblegum here can wet her whistle.”

“Hey, can’t a girl be thirsty?” Bubblegum protested. Although probably a nickname it worked well enough in Band’s head to identify her by. “My throat was parched from all the running!”

That seemed to annoy Mao even more. “Maybe it’d be fine if you didn’t yack so much, ever think about that?” He took a deep breath and allowed the edge to leave his voice. “Anyway, we’ll come back and have a pizza later, okay Klee? After you hide your treasure.”

“Okay!” That seemed to convince the small girl. Band played on, ruminating over the information as the trio lapsed into relative silence. His instincts told him something wasn’t right about these three after all. Mao and Bubblegum clearly didn’t get along, and only the former seemed to care much about little Klee, unless Mao was somehow in charge. It reeked of forced cooperation, a happenstance arrangement orchestrated by a third party for some purpose. All of a sudden Band felt rather like seeing what Klee’s treasure might be.

A few minutes later the trio left, and after they disappeared around a corner to the south the detective abruptly rose from his kickstand, surprising the woman who’d stopped to listen to him play. “‘Scuse me, sugar. I’ve got giant steps to take.” He took hold of his hat with a mechanical pincer, emptied its contents into his waiting pouch, and then replaced that hat atop his head. After a tip of its brim he was off.

With a veteran’s grace he tailed the strange trio, putting the absolute maximum distance he could afford between them and him at all times. Given his size and distinctive appearance they would absolutely be alerted if they saw him even once, but they never did. Klee’s frolicking kept the others’ attention from wandering too far. He followed them to and a little ways up Al Mammon’s main street. Just before a small building, little more than a tollhouse, by Band’s standards, they split up. Mao and Klee headed down the alley between the tollhouse and neighboring building, while Bubblegum yawned and leaped against the toll house itself in a way that barely made it look like she was guarding the alley.

Band seated himself in the shade of an open-air cafe for discretion.. “Iced tea,” he told the man behind the counter, who nodded and poured him a glass. For a handful of minutes he reflexes, alternating between taking sips and peeps, until he spotted the trio leaving. They headed back the way they came. Band kept cool until the three disappeared from his sight, then dropped a gold piece on the counter and got to his feet. He stomped over to where the strange group separated, noting that the toll house appeared to be some type of small commissions office on the way, and went down the alley.

Sure enough, right behind the building he found some loose tiles sprinkled with dirt. He crouched down and removed the tiles, then dug at the disturbed earth with the edge of a french horn until he found a box. A quick dusting revealed letters scribbled across its top in red paint. “My treasure,” Band read aloud, and with delicate pincers he opened it. He let out a long breath that made his pipes sing. “Tsk. This little girl of mine…”

Inside the box was a bundle of bombs. Unfortunately for him, they appeared to be magical, as they sported no technology of any kind but pulsed red every now and then as they stretched and contracted slightly. Although presented with fascinating evidence he kept a lid on speculation for the time being, and considering that these magic bombs appeared to be primed to go off some time in the near future, thought instead about what to do right now.

Al Mamoon - Museum of Vanity

@Zoey Boey @Yankee


Nobody expected combat to begin with the bang it did, courtesy of Jesse. Two of the oni bowled over, as surprised as they were angry, when the woman pulled a couched into them from behind with potent telekinesis. The Thieves watched, impressed, as she then smashed it into the irate ogres’ fronts too, rolling them away with a few brand-new breaks and bruises in the midst of a storm of unintelligible curses. Angriest of all was somehow the untouched Tantroni, but he ran Jesse’s way when he should have been counting his blessings, since she plugged him the next moment with a handful of shots from her Service Weapon. Its bolts blasted black essence from the oni with each hit, dealing significant damage, but if anything the oni got even madder. With a lot more gumption than Jesse gave it credit for, it performed a flying punch to close the distance as she strafed sideways, and struck her arm. It didn’t really hurt, but at its cursed touch Jesse’s temper instantly flared red-hot, but it did not by any means put the two on an equal playing field.

Meanwhile, Primrose called upon her magic with a characteristic dance, strategically waiting just long enough for the bludgeoned oni to get to their feet and run up alongside the Makami and Demon Nut. Then she unleashed her dark magic, blasting all four at once, and the Thieves followed her example. Joker came down with a vertical slash through the Suspicioni’s eyes, Mona dealt a rising slash to the Makami that fluttered its entire paper-like length, and Skull pulled a shotgun from literally nowhere to pump the Demon Nut’s eye full of buckshot. His weapon’s report resounded through the room as the demon swung its muscular arms, landing a glancing blow to Skull’s shoulder. “Ow!”

“Hey, watch the gunfire! We don’t wanna pull reinforcements!” Panther warned him. The Makami lunged for and bit her but dealt only minor damage. After pushing the paper wolf away Panther pulled from her Lamia side to unleash Ominous Words. “Sssuccumb to your dessspair!” she intoned, and a purple wave struck the Makami that stopped it in its tracks. It sagged downward, every ounce of fight gone from its body. Mona wasted no time calling upon Zorro to whip up a concentrated whirlwind, but even after getting torn up by it the Makami didn’t resist as Mona sliced it in half with his scimitar.

As Joker pulled his knife from the disintegrating corpse of the Suspicioni he summoned Arsene to kick its buddy away, but the wily ogre used the weight of its head to dodge out of the way and sock Joker in the guts. “Guh!”

“Nahah! Didn’t like that one, didja?” the Contrarioni taunted.

An impulse rose within Joker’s gorge, as undeniable as vomit, and he couldn’t help but let it out. “I liked it plenty,” he heard himself say. “Arsene!” His Persona went low and punched high in a dizzying uppercut that sent the oni into the air. As it came down Arsene let fly a powerful roundhouse kick that shot the little demon right over Primrose’s head and into the wall behind her where it smacked into one of the Madarame banners and plopped to the ground.

“Nice one, Joker!” Panther called.

Once again he felt himself claim the opposite. “That wasn’t anywhere close to ‘good’,” he told her.

“Uh, okay?” Rather than consider that any further, Panther went to help Skull with the Demon Nut. Though the demon was strong, the boy could take a hit or two, and was using his speed to batter his hard-shelled foe with relentless swings from his pipe. “Dance, Carmen!” At her bidding her own Persona appeared to throw a blazing fireball at the nut and roast it alive.

While it flailed, Skull took his chance to jump forward and stomp on its shell. He reeled back for a full-power overhead swing. “Batter up! Hyah!” With a mighty crack his pipe caved in the front part of the shell, and the monster opened wide. Rather than try to finish it off himself he stepped out of the way to let Panther shoot a fireball of her own into its mouth and torch its innard for good. The demon began to dissolve, and the two thieves shared a high five.

Joker and Mona came over, and provided that both Jesse and Primrose finished the oni they’d been dealt, the team reunited after the brief scuffle. “That went pretty well, huh?” Mona grinned.

“Not even a little,” Joker admonished him, before clapping a hand over his own mouth. Now everyone was looking at him, and it made him want to die inside.

“What are you talking about? You’re being really weird all of a sudden. Did one of them brainwash you or something?”

“No, I’m not!” Joker insisted, pointing toward the ashes of the oni Primrose took care of. “That one must have done something to me.”

Mona rolled his giant eyes. “Hold on a minute. Zorro, use Me Patra!”

“I won’t, let’s go.” Joker declared, but he stayed still, red with embarrassment. As the cat’s Persona cured him, he shook his head, grimacing. “Yuck. That’s a nasty curse.”

Skull nudged him in the ribs. “Hey, at least it was just a curse! Some people just contradict everyone naturally. Ain’t that right, Mona?”

“Uh, no? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Now fully recovered, Joker steered the conversation back on track again. Luckily the party-wide Me Patra cured the Tantroni’s curse on Jesse as well, leaving her as temperate as ever, and Joker looked to her for a hand. “These usually just swivel open. Can we have you no-collide them whenever we go through?” he asked, allowing her to lead the way through the vent.

A short time later, the group reached the next room. They found the vent exit right behind a bench that prevented the grate from being opened, but no-collide worked just as well on the furniture as it did the metal cover. The team emerged to come across a large square room with walls dominated by giant paintings of nature. This apparently necessitated extra security, and the entire room was divided into nine equal subsections by rows of lasers higher than anyone could jump, with just about a foot of clearance between each laser as well as the bottom laser and the floor. Four guards patrolled the room clockwise, walking right through the lasers that promised to zap or at the very least detect anyone without the total immunity they seemingly enjoyed. As for hiding places, Joker could only see benches scattered along the edges and plant pots closer to the center, both of which would stretch his team’s hiding ability. He did notice one other detail, however, and in a whispered voice he relayed it to the others.

“We can go inside those paintings,” he told Primrose and Jesse. He pointed to the wall on the right. Each one depicted a scene of a desert, while those on the left showed a forest, and the far wall an ocean. Corner subsections each featured two, one for each wall that met there. “We’ll be able to move through to any of the same theme.” His gaze narrowed at an employee-access door on the far side. “That’s our goal. Problem is, there’s no painting in the far middle. Lasers in the way. And the guards could probably see us jumping in and out of the paintings.” If only, he reflected, he had his grappling hook. Nevertheless a few ideas swirled in his mind, but he wondered if Jesse might be able to come up with anything using the Tool Gun.

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (38/40)
Location: Bottomless Sea
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Hat Kid's @Dawnrider, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Frog's @Dark Cloud, Mirage’s @Potemking, Mr. L’s @ModeGone
Word Count: 2610




As the prismatic lightshow faded and the dreary, storm-clouded shadow took back over, a transformed Bella was left to blink a few times and shake off the light dizziness that accompanied the change. She noticed that it took a bit more strength to lift her arm, on account of the large gauntlet that now covered it, so that she could run her fingers through the pale yellow, spiral ringlet that lay on her bare shoulder. A moment later she noticed with a start just how much of her now lay bare and how much she now had to bare. “Eep!” She squeaked, hurrying to cover her midriff and chest, which her new gauntlets managed handily.

Nadia couldn’t help but giggle at her bashfulness, although she knew it wasn’t exactly fair of her, being so desensitized to such a state owing to her own manner of garb. She watched Bella redden as Sakura approached, noting the cute dynamic they seemed to have. Still blushing, the Water Princess tried to compose herself and answer the question. “Um...a little, um, exposed. But…” Tentatively Bella took a step forward, and then another. When she set her feet down her knees did not wobble and her legs held firm. Even if she would need a few moments to come to grips with her new sense of balance, she could walk, and the realization brought a joyous smile to her face. “I’m stable! I can move on land! That means...I can be a hero with you guys! Aaaah!” The Abyssal squealed in delight and sized Sakura in a full-bodied hug, squeezing the smaller woman from side to side. Only after a moment did she seem to realize where her auto-pilot had taken her and turn beet red. “Oh! Pardon, pardon!” She released Sakura and scooted back, covering her face in her massive mitts while her leviathan tail scraped back and forth across the deck like a dog’s.

As adorable as the exchange was, Nadia turned her attention away and back to the matter at hand. The last of the Guests disappeared into the nightmare vessel that represented one option, while the hallway behind her led to the other. Although for the moment no consensus had been reached regarding which path to take, everyone seemed in agreement that whichever future lay before them, Shippy was not in it. Nadia added her own agreement to the others’. “Yeah, poor Shippy’s suffered enough. No ifs, ands, or butts a-boat it. I’m sure Briney wants to see her too.”

“Sounds good. I’ll let her know.” Peach confirmed, then headed out across the dock, with her parasol a dainty but appreciated shelter against the rain. She got as close to the spray-spattered edge as she dared before waving to Shippy. “Hey! After talking about our options, we think you deserve a break, and should probably make your way back to Limsa! Please be careful on your way back!”

The figurehead of the living vessel nodded. “Okay, I’ll do that. I can’t wait to see the Captain again. Thank you all for protecting me as best you could, and good luck on the road ahead.” She pulled away from the sealab’s landing pad and took off. In only a few moments Shippy was on her way toward clearer skies and safer waters.

Peach jogged back toward the Sealab’s structure. As she approached, the screen blinked on again, showing the gathered heroes the metallic visage of Tyl Regor once more. “Still lurking at my threshold?” the scientist intoned, seemingly incredulous. “And here I thought you would have decided already, to get out of the rain if nothing else. My offer, after all, was more than fair. If I didn’t know better, I might think you were talking behind my back…hm?”

Suddenly he turned away in response to something offscreen, something that made his relaxed manner go rigid. “Wait, it’s coming now~?” he exclaimed, his voice a little muffled by its direction. “Are you sure!? Then we’ve little choice. Close the bulkheads!”

Just a moment after he gave the command, an alarm went off in the sealab interior, and giant metal plates started to slide together over the elevator shaft. At the same time the front door received an override and began to close as well, alongside reinforced plates. Regor turned to face the Blue Team members once again. “Sorry ladies and gentlemen, today just got a little too interesting for my blood. Now everyone, out of the pool! Unless you fancy being trapped!”

Being in the doorway already, Nadia dodged out of the way of the closing doors and back into the rain with a yowl. Peach hurried out of danger as well, calling, “We can’t all make it inside! Come on!” Spurred on by the knowledge that something was coming, unknown but terrifying enough to put the Sealab into a state of emergency, everyone gathered together in the center of the circular dock with eyes in every direction. After a couple seconds Nadia spotted something that left her with little doubt: a number of enormous red lights that gleamed through the low clouds and rain, growing more intense as their owner got closer and closer. Closer inspection of their movement, however, suggested that they must not actually be that close--instead, the source must be much, much bigger than it appeared at first. A horrible, bone-rattling groaning noise, like the shifting of titanic machinery, swept across the Sealab, and Nadia’s ears flattened against her head in fear.

In the end, she never saw exactly what it was. Nadia only ever caught a glimpse of a mountain of dark metal that made the Sealab’s upper portion look like a toy in comparison, followed by a wave of golden energy that surged outward from the colossus’ body. She was powerless to stop it, but when it struck her it left her surprised, for it exhibited no effect on her body. The same could not be said for the Sealab. At the wave’s touch its lights, systems, and even beacon blinked out. So did all of Blue Team’s electronics, everything with circuitry, including the Atomos and Blazermate herself. The whole area was plunged into darkness, except for a singular source of light: the open mouth of the Maw. Somehow, the accursed vessel was immune to whatever it was that so effectively knocked out all sophisticated technology. Peach screamed at the top of her lungs to be heard over the steely bellow that shook her crew to the core. “The Maw! We gotta take shelter, get to the Maw!”

“Don’t gotta tell me twice!” Nadia ran like her heels had wings, kicking up water with every stride even as her feet scarcely touched the ground. She hurtled up the Maw’s gangplank a moment before it began to retract, forcing the whole party to double-time it to get inside. Bella put her newly strengthened legs to work by sprinting up the ramp, and by the time Peach got there she needed to jump to get onto it as it pulled higher. Only grabbing Blazermate and saving the Atomos (via Kamek’s shrinkage and Bowser’s strength) gave anyone pause as they ran for their lives. Once up the gangplank there lay a short metal catwalk with railings that led straight ahead, and one by one the heroes barreled down its length and threw themselves through the light at the end.

“Oof!” Nadia landed on a slippery wooden floor streaked with rainwater. For once she hadn’t managed to land on her feet, having not known what to expect of the Maw’s interior. The spotlight that faced out through the doors had just about blinded her on the way in, and now that she was past it it cast the rest of the room in darkness. As best she could tell she now sat in some sort of parlor. Portraits lined the walls overlooking plush red sofas of an antiquated style, interspersed with little wooden tables bearing vases, flowerpots, and stoppered jugs. Square lanterns that gave off only a soft yellow glow hung over a long, floral patterned rug that led from one door to the other at the parlor’s far end, beneath a balcony on the floor above. It was a paper screen door oddly enough, the kind that slid open. She found neither hide nor hair of any Guests, but presumed they went through that door. Overall it seemed nice, at least for now, as the Maw’s hideous reputation lay at the very forefront of her mind.

As the last of Blue Team hastened aboard the Maw’s giant mouth slammed shut and the spotlight turned off, leaving nothing but darkness behind them. Nadia got to her feet, hackles raised and wary. The whole vessel began to move, both down and away from the Sealab and the unknown titan alike. She tensed up as the lights flickered, only to inwardly chide herself at being so fidgety. There’s enough to be scared of without jumping at shadows. she thought as her eyes wandered toward the second floor balcony. Then she froze as she realized there was a person there who had not been there before.

Bella gasped as she noticed too, which was enough for everyone to take note. From the balcony a slender woman in a dark brown kimono stood stock-still, her done-up black hair atop a white porcelain mask. Creepy, Nadia observed, and not a good sign of things to come. Though Peach instinctively reached for her boomshot, she composed herself to call up to the unknown figure. “Who are you? Are you the master of the Maw?”

For a moment it looked like her words brooked no reaction. Then, with a dignified slowness, the woman nodded her head once.

Peach swallowed. So this was the person in charge of the ominous vessel that demanded human tithes. This woman certainly gave off an unnatural air already. She wondered if the others would just start attacking, and though she felt the same urge herself she held out a hand to tell them to hold their fire. If this person meant them no harm, and could get them across the Bottomless Sea, it was worth thinking twice about trying to kill her. And didn’t her team just learn not to pick fights in this dangerous place? No matter if the nightmare in question was big or small. They had to see the pragmatism in it, at least for now; justice could wait until later. Peach found her voice. “Pardon our intrusion. We seek passage to the eye of the storm,” she said, only just now wondering for the first time if whatever that titanic thing outside was had actually been the region boss. If the guardian was just the biggest thing around, she had a hard time imagining that it was anything else, but she hoped not nonetheless. “Is...is that alright? We won’t be a bother,” she said weakly, speaking on behalf of the group’s more volatile members.

The Lady remained silent. Nadia thought her head tilted ever so slightly to the side, but a moment later the woman raised her sleeves. Spindly fingers extended from within, and the feral heard the soft clap of hands.

Below her, the paper door slid open wide. Whatever Nadia might have expected, it wasn’t this. Two demonic creatures with the lower halves of snakes slithered through into the main room. The monsters fanned out to either side of the door at a peaceful pace, their hands clasped together innocently, and in the lamplight the heroes got a better look at them. They sported crocodilian flesh, necklaces of threaded skulls, and elaborate hoods. Within the darkness of the hoods were concentric red diamonds in perpetual motion, shrinking toward a single central point. Only after a moment did Nadia realize that she couldn't avert her gaze from the mesmerizing display within one demon’s hood. Panic welled within her as she tried to move, only to find her muscles sluggish and unresponsive. Her sudden energy ebbed away; she felt sleepy, and the others faded from her view. “We’re getting…” she garbled in a daze. “Hypno...tized…” Any moment she felt as if she’d hit the deck, down for the count. But that thought filled her with rage. After all she’d been through, how the hell could she go out like this? With all her strength she dug her teeth into her lip, trying to keep herself awake with the pain.

For a moment she was fighting it, pulling herself back from the brink. Her fingers balled into fists, and she took a step forward. Then the hypnotic diamonds were replaced by beams of scarlet power, blasting each and every member of Blue Team. A strange feeling overtook her, like being immersed in an unknown liquid, and all the fight left her body. The floor fell away beneath her and she began to fall Nadia’s senses were overloaded. She could make sense of nothing. Everything faded to black.




How much time went by she couldn’t tell. In the darkness she didn’t move, or think, or dream. She only awoke to the some clatter nearby with a flinch, and groaned as she nestled deeper into her pillow. “Agh, ten more minutes, c’mon…” She settled in with a sigh, ready to nod off again. Then her eyes snapped open.

“Whah!?” she sat bolt upright, rubbing her eyes. As the bleariness cleared, she found herself smack dab in the middle of a big bed in a huge, dome-shaped room. Beyond where she sat she saw books, tables, chairs, pillows, shoes, and other personal objects and furniture of every stripe, heaped around the strange chamber like a giant junkyard of household items, with no visible floor. How far down it went she couldn’t fathom. How she got here she could only begin to recall. “I was...falling? ...Dang, good thing I landed here.” She rubbed her head and scowled as she remembered the demons. “Yowch. These people ain’t kitten around. At least I’m still alive.”

When she checked to make sure, however, she quickly found that something was wrong. Her outfit was different. Her arms, her legs, her everything--it was all short. The cuts in her arms were gone. “What the!?” She leaped to her feet but didn’t rise much. In a state of shocked disbelief she looked herself over, arriving at an indisputable conclusion. “I’m a goddamn kid!” she yowled at an embarrassingly high pitch. “I’m a tot! I’m tiny!” She wore a ratty pint-size t-shirt and shorts, just the sort of refuse that a homeless alleycat couldn’t say ‘no’ to. Nadia held both hands to her head, distraught. “Is this pun-ishment for all my childish jokes!? What the hell!”

“Ms Fortune? Is that you?”

Nadia whipped her head in the direction of the noise. She spotted another child stuck beneath a few cushions, a tiny girl with orange eyes, white skin, white hair, and an equally snow-white dress. A metal creature little bigger than an actual snake reached out from her back, trying to pull her free. “Oh, gosh. You too, Bella? At least it ain’t just me. Hold on!” Pushing aside her predicament, Nadia scampered over to help. She started pushing and pulling on the cushions and quickly found that she had only a four-year-old’s strength. “Crap! I’m crazy weak, dang it. Hang on a moment.”

Bella tried to smile. “Don’t worry. It’s pretty comfortable here actually, so it’s okay if you take a moment.” She extended her own stubby arm to be pulled by, looking mighty perplexed. “What happened to you? You look so...little.”

“Something turned us into kids!” Nadia growled as she took hold of the hand and pulled, her toeclaws ripping into the blanket. “Hey, can you wiggle around or something?”

“I’m trying!”

All Blue Team characters have had all of their fusion and level upgrades rewound,
and they have been physically rewound to the exact way they were at age 4
@Lugubrious I just read your recent post, realizing that the Grineer were referenced. Has Clem showed up in the Spirit list yet? If not I'm tempted to have him be my final character. All he say's is "Clem" or "Grakata", lmao I love how WF has trickled its way into the RP.


Clem has not appeared.
Al Mamoon - Museum of Vanity

@Zoey Boey @Yankee


Although there were ample reasons to be careful about barging straight into the lion’s share of the distorted gallery, the Phantom Thieves would not be dissuaded from their course, and they were glad for the extra assistance the two women elected to grant them. Primrose’s magical dances, as learned from prior experience, would continue to give them a vital edge in battle, and they’d already caught a glimpse of what the versatile Tool Gun could accomplish in the hands of an amateur. That Jesse would be capable of providing even greater utility, Joker did not doubt. In a brief but almost ceremonious series of motions the dancer equipped her new trinkets, including a mask that made her fit right at home among the Phantom Thieves and left the bare-faced FBC director as the odd woman out. Nevertheless, the entire group -masked and unmasked alike- made for the grand double doors at the far end of the courtyard. The vivid eyes of its swirling peacock feathers stared ruefully down as the intruders as they pushed their way inside.

The minute they stepped into the Museum of Vanity proper, their senses were assailed by the sheer quantity of gold, even in the entry hall. Whether light or dark, be it patterned in staggered squares on the wall or three-winged spiral on the floor, whatever the shade, it was one lustrous color. From countless hanging banners on the walls the goatee-wearing face of an old man stared out, smugly satisfied in his accomplishments. Neither Primrose nor Jesse recognized the Japanese symbols on the banners, but the Thieves evidently did. “Ugh,” Panther groaned. “The only talent that old coot ever had was ripping people off.”

“Stay on your guard, guys.” Mona warned. “We’ve come a long way since this palace but I’d bet you a boatload of sushi it won’t be just how we remembered it.”

Loosening his shoulder, Skull noted, “It’s gotta be in its own little world at least. So we’re free to cut loose, right?”

Joker nodded to both, and at a brisk run, moved forward into a lobby filled with multicolored couches arranged on diagonals among potted plants. Naturally it took only a few moments to run into security. Around the perimeter of the room a few tenebrous, masked guardsmen conducted a semi-professional patrol, pacing along specific routes. There was no sign of any ordinary guests, but on a couple of the couches an equally colorful batch of Tantroni, Suspicioni, and Contrarioni appeared to be in the midst of a heated argument, so the art adorning the walls went unappreciated. If this was anything like he remembered, Joker figured he wouldn’t see anything but Shadows inhabiting this place. On the left and right of the lobby slanted square doorways led in either direction, but a triple row of lasers blocked both.

After a moment's consideration, Joker veered toward the right. “If Madarame has a painter like Fox captive doing his work for him in here, it won’t be out in the open,” he declared. We need to get behind the scenes. Look for staff doors.” While most attention lay on the contentious oni in the middle of the room he led the way to the right. A guard reached the end of its path and turned to head his way, but the dextrous thief darted into cover. How exactly it would conceal him baffled common sense, but somehow he managed to practically disappear into the thin shadow cast by a potted plant, as far as the patrolman was concerned. Even when the guard passed within inches of his shadow it never seemed to notice, as if some supernatural force concealed Joker from its sight or it was just that laser-focused ahead, and it marched right along. Once clear Joker dashed out and made for a vent in the wall, which boasted a conveniently accommodating size. He crouched down and pulled on the grate, but rather than swing open it gave a terrific metallic sound. He winced, knowing it would draw attention. “Difference number one. Vents are sealed.” He glanced at Jesse’s new Tool Gun. “Unless…”

But moving to the next chamber would have to wait. Not only did the two guards come running when they heard the disturbance but the three oni did too. When the monsters ran up the guards melted into pools of shadow, only to reform into a Demon Nut that dragged itself across the flawless floor on muscular gray arms, and a hunting wolf spirit Makami that floated through the air. Together the five monsters faced the six interlopers, letting loose a variety of taunts as they prepared to give them a warm welcome.

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (33/40)
Location: Bottomless Sea
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Hat Kid's @Dawnrider, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Frog's @Dark Cloud, Mirage’s @Potemking, Mr. L’s @ModeGone
Word Count:


In the relative dryness of the open seabase door Nadia forced herself to try and pick the lesser of the evils presented to her. Although absent for the conversation with the black-coated stranger on Inkwell Isle and only tangentially informed by a couple offhand remarks, mostly from Sakura, she got plenty of bad vibes from the Maw all on her own. As best she could tell it was a ship that behaved more like a submarine despite its nonsensical enormity, roundness, and construction. It rounded people up, if the ‘Guests’ that the rather too smooth-sounding Tyl Regor differentiated from the evidently pride-inducing ‘Tubemen’ could be called people, but for what purpose he did not let slip. In fact, his mention of tubes and laboratories made it sound as if he’d raised these waddling things like livestock, which maybe accounted for them being so identical? If Nadia didn’t know better, she would have called them clones. Either way he seemed happy to trade them away as part of some unknown arrangement, and any transaction that involved living beings made Nadia remarkably disinclined to trust either the taker or the purveyor.

That, however, led right back around to the original problem: however sketchy these options were, the team would need to at least confront one of them. Arms crossed and lips pursed, Nadia drummed her foot on the metal floor as her tail swished back and forth. By now she felt pretty confident that her team could handle most any foe thrown at them, but from within the hazardous confines of enemy territory deep below dangerous waters? What if another huge sea monster just decided to bash against the Maw or whatever pipes and structures might be down there? Nadia shivered as the cold wind blew across her wet skin, but not just because of the chill. She decided to listen to what the others had to say.

Leaving Shippy and the Abyssals here would be nice if it worked, but it struck Nadia as irresponsible. “We’re not just gonna leave ‘em here to rot, are we?” she asked. “Plus, is it really safe here? Given the size of this place it’s gotta have a ton of dudes, and even those drunks had weapons. Tyler Gore or whatever his name was could have a field day with ‘em.” It was then that Sakura let fly a few details she apparently knew about the Maw, which soured Nadia’s opinion on the dubious craft even further. “Human sacrifice?” she repeated, bewildered by the sheer laughability of it. No way. No way in hell. And even then she felt only a small portion of the hatred of it that Geralt seemed to. “Pass!”

Bella considered the options given to her, from the practical to the absurd. The very idea of staying put or going home made her unhappy, since that meant turning back on both her newfound friendships and conviction to sulk off somewhere in aimless inaction, all because she couldn’t walk. No. Determination manifested across her features. She wanted to stay and fight the good fight, whatever the risk. But how to achieve that? Kamek’s idea gave her mixed feelings. “Shrinking?” Her mind instantly wandered to who might carry her and how, and her face reddened. “Well. If there’s no other options, then...I’m okay with that. But I’d rather go under my own power.” Bella clenched her fists. “I don’t want to sit around or run away. I can’t just do nothing, knowing you all are out here risking your lives for the sake of everyone. So however I can, I’m coming with you. Even if I have to crawl across the ground, or have my tail drag me.” Her attached leviathan swung around across the surface of the deck with a heavy creaking, as if to show it was more than big and strong enough to get Bella wherever she needed to go.

“There may be another way,” Peach suggested. She held up the Abyssal spirit taken from link, as well as the unclaimed spirit of Chicago. “Both of these spirits could walk. The Abyssal interfered with Link’s ability to do so, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll affect you the same way, and it might be enough to bring you up to par.”

She steadied herself as Bella practically lunged for her. “Please, then! I’ll take them both. As long as I can stay!”

Peach glanced around for any opposition, but there wasn’t a lot of argument that could be made against the Seaplane Tender’s heartfelt plea. To Bella’s relief the princess nodded, saying, “Go ahead right after we wrap up discussion, then. No need to get off track with a lightshow.”

By that time the conversation had taken a violent turn as the party considered employing force, both against the sealab below and against the Maw that loomed so innocently nearby, swallowing the Guests that toddled up its plank one by one. Sakura dismissed negotiation with Tyl in favor of beating her way through the gauntlet of underwater strongholds, while Bowser had a mind to commandeer the Maw. Nadia weighed the possible conquests. “Well, if we’re gonna fight our way, I’d say we’ve got better odds with the lab than that munk of junk,” she declared, twitching an ear at the Maw. “Even if there’s more goons down there and it takes longer, chances are they’re in the same ballpark as those jokers on guard duty. Technology can do some pretty crazy crap, but I’d take a techy place over a magic ship any day of the week. That thing just feels cursed.” She couldn’t boast a sixth sense capable of picking up on such things, but trusted her guts that the Maw was just no good.

Then the idea came up of bypassing both the sealab and the Maw to cruise right over the ocean aboard the Atomos. As much as Nadia liked the idea of just nope-ing right out of this whole dilemma, she somehow doubted that such an approach held water. “That’d be too easy,” she grumbled. “I mean, I’d love it, but no way it’d be that easy. I bet we’d get a mile before some gale-force wind swats us down or sea monster grabs hold.” She rubbed her head with a nervous laugh. “Well, I’m not tryin’ to be paranoid or anything. If you think it’ll work, I’m not gonna just go off on my own. But things always seem to go wrong when people decide to waltz down easy street, right? Like karma, or something.”

Bowser’s proposed assault on the Maw aside, it seemed as though everyone wanted to avoid the hungry vessel at all costs. As far as Nadia was concerned, that made for a pretty clear preference, unless people really considered a skip aboard the Atomos as a karmically acceptable option. She wasn’t about to declare the matter settled, though. Instead she watched as the eager Bella took in the two spirits at once, and transformed in a swirl of light.

Pest Control

Level 9 Tora (10/90) Level 8 Poppi (79/80)
Location: Sandswept Sky - Al Mamoon Cistern
Red’s @TheDemonHound, Laharl’s @Dark Cloud
Word Count: 4537


After leaving the Vizier and the queen’s court, Red continued to follow along with the rest of the group. Big Band continued to come along too which she wasn’t really opposed to. The detective was definitely an interesting man from the looks of it and, judging by his comment to Poppi, had a body and soul inside of him somewhere.

After reuniting with the other members of the group in the market and helping acquire some provisions, they finally meet with Validar’s Grimleal. They entered the temple and it certainly matched the same ominous aura that the vizier himself gave off. At this point it was pretty much set in stone that Validar and his group were not exactly good people, this all seemed very cultish and she’d seen enough of those to know how that goes. The lieutenants didn’t seem to really help with that notion either. A very sinister looking man, a guy that looked like he just crawled out of a grave and a rabbit lady that rivaled Band in size and rivaled Red herself in being ready to take action.

Now normally, Red would take this job regardless of her employers motives. As long as the money is good she doesn’t care what cause she fights for. But now, she was in a group. And she was planning on sticking with them so she decided she’d go with their decision, whatever that may be or whatever moral compass they followed. She didn’t have much to say in the talks especially after hearing how stingy they were with intel (a very big red flag from an employer) so she let Fox and the others take the lead. Which due to the morals of the group took a downward spiral and they ended up leaving and reconvening at the train station for more discussion on how to handle this fun new problem of theirs. Which seemed to be trying to get the resistance's side of the story after tracking them down, but doing some jobs for more coin in the meantime.

Red was gonna see about possibly tracking down the mimic or even the strange thief before Tora came up and asked if she’d like to help deal with the rat problem. “Eh, why not? Sounds like it’ll be some good practice till we get going.” Plus if she was going to travel here she might as well start learning about the other group members instead of just sticking to Midna like glue. What better way to learn about someone than fighting beside them?

'What better way to prove my superiority than fighting with some idiots.' Laharl thought to himself as he eavesdropped on their conversation, that job sounded like a walk in the park and although he was a prince he would do anything to prove he could handle anything even if he had to get his hands dirty. So he approached the crimson hooded mercenary and the Nopon, clearing his throat to get their attention. But since he hadn't announced his intentions earlier, or even cemented himself as part of the group, Tora and Poppi had already gone, and Red after them.

His mood immediately soured, it was one thing to be left behind once but more than once was annoying despite mostly being his fault. Laharl heaved an exasperated sigh as he watched Red disappear round a bend, but he wasn't going to simply let the three go do the job he wanted to do. No it wouldn't do at all to pass up his chance to prove himself capable to lead or at the very least deserve a bit more respect from the others.

So he set off in the direction he could see them heading as he quickly picked up his pace, following the group from behind at a short distance before finally making himself known halfway to the cistern. Laharl sounded exasperated, panting from trying to keep up with the group as they weaved their way through the streets of Al Mamoon. So after a few moments he shouted to get the group's attention "HEY! HEY! DAMN IT WAI-" he was suddenly cut off as his foot snagged his scarf and he tumbled onto the hard ground swearing and cursing his luck, most of his language was quite unpleasant to hear.

Tora and Poppi stopped in their tracks, turning to see the boy that accompanied the group from Parnasse. After sparing her Masterpon a glance Poppi jogged back toward the fallen demon. She came to a stop standing above Laharl and paused for just a moment. This moment marked the first time the two interacted, and Laharl's own ornery nature aside, he was reminded why now more than ever; in her third form Poppi unwittingly managed to cater exactly to several of his weaknesses. Of course, despite her hesitation at his anger she couldn't let a hurt child just lie there, and stooped to offer him her help. "You okay? Need hand?"

He had been about to open his mouth to say something, no doubt rude and derogatory but Laharl couldn't utter anything other than a panicked yelp as he scrambled away from the extremely attractive and heavily endowed robot "N-no don't touch me!" he sounded fearful of Poppi, and as Laharl got up slowly he never let his sights off her "I don't need a hand, I'm a demon!" he said as though it were enough to dissuade her from nearing him, and to those perceptive enough Laharl's body language was nervous and erratic.

Poppi blinked, confused. "Oh. Okay." Sighing inwardly, she could only conclude that she just wasn't equipped to deal with this kid. For the sake of future interaction she made a mental note that 'demons', whatever those might be, did not need hands, then left Laharl to his own devices. Tora shrugged as she returned to him, just fine with writing the ornery boy off, and the two went on their way.

Laharl brushed himself off, still shaken a bit but able to retain a bit of his composure enough to return to being a nuisance but not as much as before. He took a measure of precaution to stay away from Poppi and Tora, opting to take his place by the mercenary's side without a word between Red and the boy as they made their way to the cistern.

The walk into the cistern was otherwise mostly uneventful. Red walked a foot or two behind while the fur ball, evidently named Tora, and his robot companion, Poppi, talked about a few different things. Mostly it seemed to relate to the world they came from so she listened but didn’t add anything. Though she did start getting a bit closer when Poppi used her ice abilities to cool Tora down. She kept her skin completely covered at all times so while she was used to the heat she’d take any relief she could get. When Poppi noticed, she was only too happy to offer Red some diamond dust as well to mitigate the heat that the mercenary’s heavy garb worsened for her.

As Laharl walked with the mercenary he wondered exactly why Red was garbed so heavily, as it made little sense to wear such things in a place such as this. But he assumed she was likely hiding something under the folds of her crimson cloak, something she had to hide. Undoubtedly she was not human, but she would make a perfect demon if she were one.

Unlike the others the heat didn't seem to bother him, his upper body was bare to the elements and the warmth was a welcome sensation that reminded Laharl of the fiery planes in the Netherworld. He would do anything to feel the fires burning around him and to hear his vassalage grovel at his feet. Laharl sighed wistfully at the reminder of his current situation, it was unfortunate indeed that he was a mere boy to these people but soon enough they would see his true colors.

For now he would just listen to their conversation as it continued down into the sewers below, for now there was simply no point to say anything to the others as it seemed words wouldn't prove anything to anyone.

When they finally arrived she was happily surprised to see that it wasn’t some disgusting sewer like she had assumed it would be. And that it was actually kind of pleasant. “Couldn’t help but overhear you two talking about your homeworld on the way over here and I was curious. I heard you talking about Titans or something? And I was curious what the two of you are since I highly doubt either of you are humans.” Red asked the basic questions to the pair as they started looking around the sewer systems for the reported rat problem.

The trio made their way through the ancient cistern at a comfortable pace. With the ample lighting illuminating every corner they could see any potential threat coming from far off, unless something happened to appear from the water, so Tora happily took the extra travel time to tell his inquisitive new friend all about his home. “Yes yes, meh. Tora and Poppi from Alrest, a world that’s one big Cloud Sea. Everyone live on of enormous, super-gigantopon called Titans. They come in all shape and size, walking on four legs or two, or flying over or under cloud sea. Tora live on Titan called Gormott, in city of Torigoth. Until Rex-Rex recognize Tora potential and bring on amazing adventure, that is!” He struck a proud, dramatic pose to make sure Red caught on to how cool he was.

Poppi patted her Masterpon’s head. “Tora is Nopon, and Poppi is Artificial Blade created by Tora. Most Blades come from core crystals, but Poppi come from metal, circuits, and hard work of Masterpon.”

“Meh, meh. So many many days’ hard work...” Tora recollected in a hollow tone. He shuddered and shook his head. Poppi raised an eyebrow at him, and he hurried to stick on an addendum. “All worth it, of course! Tora is engineer and inventor, just like daddypon Tatazo and grampypon Soosoo, and Poppi is Tora’s pride and joy!”

“Aww~!” With a big smile Poppi reached down and scooped Tora up to give him a big squeeze before setting him back down again. For his part, her Masterpon looked rather ruffled and indignant. However much he liked Poppi, it seemed, he did not like being picked up.

The trio made their way across a small bridge and down a curved hallway away from the central cistern chamber, which Tora guessed went in a big loop. He couldn’t think of anything else to say about his own world without getting to extraneous detail, so he turned the question on Red. “What about you, meh?” he asked her. “Friend Red not look like human either. Looks cool but fierce and primal. Like Wulfric!” He remembered the monstrous blade Zeke awakened during the course of his group’s journey, before Galeem. Tora chuckled, his tone somewhat teasing. “Maybe Red big softie on inside like Wulfric too?”

“A sea of clouds huh?” Red could only imagine what that could look like. Endless rolling clouds with apparently giant creatures that acted as countries. “Man all of you guys are making me jealous. You guys and Midna both come from worlds that sound better than mine.”

Tora definitely seemed to be the confident type judging from his actions and speech. Very willing to brag, and if Poppi wasn’t here to counterbalance that she might’ve found him annoying. Though it seemed he had some reason to brag as he created Poppi who seemed to be fully sentient despite also being completely robotic. The only sentient machines they had back in her world had to have someone’s brain put in them. Or at least, that she had seen. Of course that ban on human-like machines made the possibility very unlikely. “So you’re a scientist or engineer of sorts? Definitely useful to have on a team, I'll give you that.”

Eventually the topic transferred over to her which she kind of expected. Though it caught her off guard that he was able to pick up on the fact that she wasn’t human so easily. With his technical skills and now this it seemed that weird speech pattern of his was not indicative of his intelligence and she felt a little bad for assuming so. “You’re right on the mark there. I’m not human, least not anymore.” She debated for a moment wondering if Tora and Poppi would react negatively to her history but figured it’s best to just rip that bandage off like when she told Midna. “I’m something called an Abnormality. Which is basically a really vague term used for a bunch of different monsters that they kept locked up in a facility deep underground. And I had the good fortune of being one of those monsters.” She gave a dry laugh in that last sentence to indicate her sarcasm. “And no, don’t think anyone in their right mind would consider me a softie. Though if you’re comparing this Wulfric guy to me he definitely sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

Although not the best judge of emotion, Tora picked up on a little of Red’s surprise at him realizing she wasn’t human. Well, humans didn’t have yellow eyes or that sort of charred-looking skin, did they? They again, it occurred to him that she might just be the victim of some horrible accident, and felt a little bad. Luckily for him the mercenary didn’t dwell on it, but instead shed a little light on her world.

She spoke of a clandestine facility for the secure containment of monsters, and of a nebulous ‘they’. Sounded like classical horror or conspiracy material, and not what one expected to hear as someone’s backstory. Poppi looked mournful. “Poppi sorry Red went through that. Locked up in cell somewhere sound like no way to live.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Tora agreed. “Red not seem bad. Probably just misunderstood. People make judgments too quickly, meh.” He stopped, turned to the mercenary, and held one wing over his own chest. “Take Tora for instance. Lots of people look at me and think, aw, cute little Nopon. Funny little team mascot.”

Poppi poked him. “That inaccurate?”

Red couldn’t stop herself from laughing a bit. These two really were innocent if they assumed she was misunderstood after she admitted to what she was. Though she did give a very vague description and it probably was best not to burst their bubble on that. She liked being given the benefit of the doubt like this for a change.

Brushing at his companion’s prodding hand, Tora admitted, “Well, it not totally wrong. But point is, people not take seriously. Nobody look at Nopon and think can be hero. But here Tora is!” He raised a wing into the air, clenched in triumph.

Poppi raised her own fist half-heartedly. “...Hunting vermin?”

“Meeeh,” he sighed. “It just small part of hero journey. We almost to mountain, after all. Soon we have three bosses under belt!”

Crossing her arms, Poppi continued onward, and her Masterpon followed behind. It was about time they got down to business, after all. “Let’s not get ahead of selves. Tora not beat big baddypon if get eaten by rats,” she told him as she went.

“Rats?” Tora looked amused. “Tora beat up ratties any day of week!”

“Hey, every job is a job that needs doing.” Red interjected. “It may not sound particularly hero like but it’s still helping people. Plus we’re getting paid so all the better.” She spoke as she began poking around some of the tunnels. Who knew a supposed rat infestation would be so hard to track down.

They continued to circle around the loop, finding a number of tunnels that led off in different directions. All were too small to allow easy access, so going down any would be an arduous ordeal even without the water flowing the other way--water that Tora could not guarantee the cleanliness of. Instead he looked at the runoff for any traces of an infestation. He spent a while moving along, focused on the streams of liquid, until Poppi tapping on his shoulder made him look up. “Meh? What is it?” When he looked at her she said nothing, but pointed ahead, and when Tora peered that way he realized his searching had been in vain.

Up ahead a black, tarry substance had spread from one of the tunnels to stretch across the main corridor, coagulating into weblike masses and clumps dotted with vile-looking yellow crystals. Near it, verminous creatures writhed aimlessly, and a wriggling, crawling horror suffused by black corruption squirmed on the ground.

Tora blanched. “Meeeh!?” he gasped, disgusted. “What is that? It look infectious!” He pulled out his Variable Saber and turned it on. Its energy beam sprang to life with a vibrant bwowm. “Poppi, switch to fire core. We burn it right out.”

Seemingly in response, however, the corruption shifted. In the middle of the mess a glowing yellow eye opened wide, and it took only a moment to fix on the newcomers. The entire mass seemed to groan, and both the Shadow Vermin and the Crawler became alerted to the exterminators’ presence. Tora steeled himself, wishing it had just been rats all along, and moved in.

And then Tora and Poppi found some sort of strange corruption of sorts. Red smiled under her mask as she looked up and readied her weapons. “But this job just got a lot more interesting than a few rats.”

First things first, she noticed that the corruption on the wall seemed to have some sort of control or communication with the creatures around it so she decided to pour a few bullets into the eye that opened up amongst it. Of course that was no excuse to ignore the minions coming at them too. After being satisfied with the several bullets she fired off she ran after the biggest of them, the horror, and leaped up to bring her axe down on what she was hoping was the creature's head.

A guttural shriek rang out, not just from the eye but the whole mass, as Red's bullets plunged into the orb. A putrescent ocher ichor splashed across black corruption and stone floor alike as the eye squeezed shut. Rather than wait for Tora to take point, however, she threw herself past the rotund guardian to challenge the biggest and most hideous of the verminous spawn. Her axe slid into the crawler's big, rubbery, slimy fore-tentacle without much resistance and parted it from the hole, but if this abomination even had something that she could classify as a head, the fore-tentacle wasn't it.

Laharl had been silent the whole time as he had followed the group through the darkness of the sewer system, now however he couldn't contain himself "Uhahahaha!" the boy laughed loudly drawing attention to himself, a wicked grin dancing upon his expression "I've squashed dissenters more despicable than whatever you are!" Laharl assumed a fighting stance with his fists held forth before the swarm in front of him, then with a flash his fists ignited with the light of burning hellfire before the tide of vermin.



Behind Red, Tora grit his teeth. This was just like back in Parnasse, with the damage-dealers plowing straight into the action before the tank could grab the enemy's attention. This time, however, there wasn't just a single notable foe he could jump in front of and block, but a number of small, potentially contagious monsters that now surrounded his companion. He couldn't spray fire willy-nilly either, lest he scorch Red herself, but he could quit bellyaching and get to work. Tora waddled after Red as quickly as he could with Poppi right behind to channel ether, sweeping aside the vermin with his flame-wreathed energy blade. Its concentrated burning power torched the little freaks in small swathes, allowing Red to worry about just the wretch in front of her.

Unafraid of the risk, Laharl threw himself at the mass of vermin with a sweeping motion of his fist burning several of the vermin caught in the trails of flame his punch delivered and dispatching the creatures that were struck by his blow. One by one each foe that fell to his attack fuelled his power, drawing strength from the defeated vermin. His flames grew brighter and his eyes burnt with determination.



As Tora entered the fray and covered her from the tiny creatures coming up around her. She nodded in appreciation but wordlessly returned her focus to the battle at hand. No matter what impression Red gave off normally during a fight it was clear she always put in all of her effort.

Though she didn’t anticipate what that creature would pull out next.

The crawler in question had flailed its tentacles like heavy whips in an effort to drive Red back toward its kin so they could take her by surprise, but since Tora and Poppi had her back it made its next attack personally. The awful thing reared back into a snakelike position and pulled back its lower membrane, and what Tora saw made him gag. Its entire underside was a vomitous conglomerate of corruption and small, malformed humanoid bodies, scarcely larger than children, and mushed together like sardines. With empty sockets and twisted, yawning faces they stared at Red, limbs weakly waving, and then from the crawler's underside spewed a cloud of nausea-inducing poison.

Laharl seemed unfazed by the vermin biting him but he had to force himself backwards away from the cloud of noxious poison that suddenly spilled from underneath the crawler, he gritted his teeth annoyed by the sickening smell it created. Kicking a few vermin aside with a low growl the boy, clenched his fists tightly as he readied himself to dispatch more of the smaller vermin.

Fortunately his wounds were minor and he was quite resilient to the poison the smaller vermin inflicted on him, so he kept swinging and burning vermin to a crisp while the others dispatched the bigger threat however one still remained...

The crawler's grotesque appearance didn’t bother Red as much as it did her companion. She’d seen far worse creatures back home for this to bother her but that poison gas was gonna cause some problems if she didn’t get out of there. She laid a few rounds into the bottom of the raised-up monstrosity as she scrambled to back up, holding her other arm in front of her face to try and limit her contact as much as she could and hoped the effects were minor.

She backed up to Tora as much as she could. “If you’ve got any good ways of keeping its attention I can get around behind it where that gas will hopefully be unable to reach and I’ll lay into it hard.”

As the mercenary fell back, Tora went in. "That Tora specialty! Here goes!" With the Variable Saber outheld he span around the poison cloud, scorching more of the lesser vermin. Once in range he raked the despicable crawler with a series of fire strikes. He strafed around it to avoid counterattack as he swung, swung, paused, swung, swung, pause, until the foul odor of burnt flesh stung his nose. The crawler did not burst into flame and none of the damage he dealt appeared to be definitive, but he was doing his job. Red could take action unimpeded.

Perfect. Tora was providing just the opportunity that Red needed, plus he was surprisingly good in a fight too. With the distraction In place it wasn’t too hard for Red to get around to the back of the eldritch creature and hopefully avoid the noxious gas. And with this opportunity she practically leaped onto it and started slicing into it as hard as she could, tentacles be damned. If she could get it bleeding then all the better.

A furious barrage of hacks and chops carved chunks from the crawler, whittling it down piece by piece. Even if the freakish thing could have come straight out of a nightmare, it was still a creature of matter at the end of the day, and not an especially quick or durable one at that. The pieces continued to twitch and squirm long after Red parted them from the whole, but soon enough she'd dealt enough damage that the leftovers could inflict more harm. She got off light in comparison, with only a few lashed cuts and a minor poisoning, and Tora fared about the same albeit with a little extra poison in his system.

Still, Tora and Poppi remained alert. The small fry continued to attack, jumping at the intruders in their domain to try and pierce them with stabbing tendrils. With her mechanical reflexes and inorganic nature Poppi lent Tora a hand, and when the pair got enough meter, the Nopon passed the Variable Saber. "Burn away corruption!" Tora called, and Poppi went in. Wings extended from her back as she jetted around, transitioning between fiery slashes and shotgun blasts of concentrated heat. Her assault seared the black corruption, which shrieked and shrank back, until the main eye bulged wide from the pain.

'Now it's time to prove yourself.' Laharl watched the eye, it's pained look a delicious sight for him to take in 'I'll enjoy this so much.' he thought to himself with a malicious grin. Without a second thought he launched himself at the eye with a running start, his fist leaving a trail of flame as he struck the eye with a lethal blow.

The corruption howled as the boy's fist sunk into the eye, his combined heat and strength bursting it in a shower of murky yellow viscera. All around, the black slime scorched by Poppi's efforts retreated. It relinquished the stony ground, stained by its foul presence, foot by foot. A victory--or so it seemed. Tora noticed with furrowed brows that the corruption didn't seem to be dying, but instead retreating. A moment later the oozing darkness fully withdrew into a shelter that lay hidden until now, buried beneath the mass, and as the corruption filled it the heavy stone body began to rise. It heaved itself from the cistern walkway and into the canal with a tremendous splash. A bulky construct of carved stone, dissimilar to the slender metal guardians employed by the Grimleal and out of place with the style of Al Mamoon as a whole, the Corrupted Custodian still loomed over the pest controllers from the canal, corruption weeping from its eyes. Tora's own were wide open in surprise, and he barely rolled in time to avoid an overhead slam that cracked the ground. He slashed at it with the Variable Saber, but the blade of flame did about as much damage as it might to an actual boulder. "Tough customer! Need Poppi Alpha." He warned the others, but as Poppi changed to her defensive form in a whirlwind of ribbons and sparks the Custodian raised its arms to smash the others flat.

Al Mamoon - Palatial Gallery

@Zoey Boey @Yankee


With a clear destination in mind Primrose and Panther made short work of the streets between them and the museum the lady thief now knew to be the one from her memory. Sure enough, as it drew near, she found herself staring up at those decadent blocks with the same contempt she felt back then. “Like that pyramid, this gallery -this Palace, really- was born from distorted cognition,” she explained to Primrose as they jogged closer. “This one belonged to a man with a legendary reputation as a painter and mentor, but we found out the truth: that he plagiarized the works of the young students he took in, stealing away their futures. So if we see an old man in a golden robe, don’t be afraid to beat him up!”

After finding the main gate stuck fast the pair came to a momentary standstill. On either side stood crowds of ordinary albeit panicked-looking people, those within eager to get out and those without eager to help, but no amount of manpower seemed able to dislodge the door. Rather than contend with the throng the two hung back by the wall, where a boost from Primrose’s handy Hippowdon got them up and over into the museum’s side garden. For the sake of mobility Panther changed into her Phantom Thief attire upon landing, then hurried toward and around the main building.

They reached the central courtyard just a few moments after Jesse returned Mona’s head to its rightful size, and thus arrived to see the masked feline jumping for joy. It set a jovial mood that instantly put Panther’s worries at ease as she glanced around everyone gathered. Mona, Joker, Skull, and Necronomicon all accounted for, though something was a little different about the alien spaceship she couldn’t quite put her finger on. The last person was a redhead, but as much as Panther missed Futaba, there was no mistaking this woman as both an adult and a stranger. She held a device that took Panther a moment to identify as a weird revolver, but if the others didn’t seem to mind, neither did she. “Hey guys!” she called as she jogged up, waving. “How’s it going?”

“Heya, Panth! Prim!” Skull greeted as the Thieves and their acquaintance turned to face the new arrivals, though for now Skull had eyes for Panther alone. “Whoa, I like the outfit. Makes you look like some kinda priestess.”

Panther laughed. “Oh, is that so? Well, if you’ve got any confessions, I’ll hear ‘em out!”

“H-huh? Now?!” All of a sudden Skull looked a little flustered. “Ain’t that something better said, uh, in private, or something?”

“What?”

“Save it. We’ve got a couple things to take care of, including a job to do,” Joker announced, getting his group’s attention. “First, just to get you two up to speed, we managed to catch this criminal-” He tilted his head at the old scientist, who gave a thin smile. “And apparently he’s worth a whopping thousand gold.”

Panther’s just dropped and her eyes shone. “You for real!? We’re rich!” She wiped the stars from her eyes and composed herself. “And I mean, that’s awesome. I think miss Midna mentioned that bounty, but I never thought there was a snowball’s chance in hell we’d find the guy.”

Thanking Panther with a smile, Joker continued. “Second, this is Jesse Faden, and she was just asking about, well, things.” He then addressed Jesse face-to-face. “And yeah, there’s something strange going on. The world has been engulfed by distortion, a spell placed over every soul. I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me, but that includes you, too. If you want to see the light, I’m afraid we’d have to beat the curse out of you. But that can come later.” He turned until he faced the second part of the Museum of Vanity, its much bigger, opulent, and distorted portion. “Before we do anything else, we Thieves need to search this place. I’ve got a strong suspicion one of our own is trapped here. You can take this man to the palace and hold onto the reward for us if you like, or join us inside while Necronomicon keeps hold of him.”

“So that’s why you came here,” Panther ruminated. “You’re trying to find Yu-, uh, I mean, Fox.” She nodded, eyes determined beneath her mask. “I’m in! If there’s even a chance he’s in there, I’ll gladly go through it again.”

Skull pounded his fists together. “Hell yeah! Let’s leave Madarame a few bruises while we’re at it!”

“Looks like it’s unanimous,” Mona announced as he regarded Jesse and Primrose in turn. “How about you two? Coming with, or heading out?”

Sectonia

@Archmage MC


When it came time to buckle down and solve the conundrum of the mimic, Sectonia used her newly-gotten knowledge of the area, her own unique abilities, and her royal wit to concoct a simple and effective strategy. It was a sound plan, and one that would have met with eventual but guaranteed success if not for one tiny problem she overlooked, which naturally revealed itself mere minutes into the mission.

As Sectonia lounged around at the outskirts of the operation, awaiting results an antlion returned to her with a long-eared merchant in tow. Even from this distance the irate look on his face was apparent. It took only a moment to spot and identify the big bug that must obviously be in charge of the rest, and the merchant hurried her way. “Hey, these are yours, right? What’s the big idea, sending these things barging into warehouses, hitting all the crates? They’re private property!” he warned her.

Provided the wasp queen promptly went ahead and explained what she was doing, the merchant raised an eyebrow. He took note of both her confusion and her unfamiliarity, taking her to be an outsider, so he crossed his arms and explained. “I guess you must be new in town? Well, ever since the so-called Resistance started pillaging, some Ruin Sentinels got sent over to guard the warehouses. Unauthorized entry provokes them, see? And if the intruder doesn’t leave, they attack. So unless you want your bugs smeared over the cobblestones, you better call them back!”

Ms Fortune

Level 4 Nadia (33/40)
Location: Bottomless Sea
Blazermate's @Archmage MC, Bowser's @DracoLunaris, Ace Cadet's @Yankee, Hat Kid's @Dawnrider, Sakura's @Zoey Boey, Frog's @Dark Cloud, Mirage’s @Potemking, Mr. L’s @ModeGone
Word Count: 1583


Trying to shake off the dread that crept over her when she thought of traveling deep underwater, Nadia refocused on her surroundings. Like her the others were trying to figure out this unfamiliar structure and consider the options that lay before them. Some, of course, found it tougher than others. By now Nadia knew she should already expect that, since Geralt came from a time totally devoid of modern technology, he couldn’t make heads or tails of the great shaft at the low point of the seabase. After Sakura tested the acoustic qualities of the pit in a rather endearingly childlike way, Nadia gave the Witcher a hand. “Oh, it’s just an elevator, I think. They’re handy devices that can move ya up and down inside buildings. Just stand on the platform, press a button, and down you go!” she told him. “Just make sure ya hold on, ‘cause this one seems pretty dang unsafe and if you fall off, well...you’re shafted!”

Back toward the main group, discussion briefly turned away from the path ahead to who the heroes might leave behind. From the team lunch Nadia knew that neither former Abyssal, or Link now for that matter, could move around that well on land. Logically speaking Peach could just take the Abyssal from Link, but that hardly solved the whole problem. Shippy, of course, couldn’t even leave the water, much less fit down that elevator shaft.

The same line of thinking occurred to Peach, who preceded Bowser back into the rain. She made for the living vessel, who currently struggled to stay close to the dock without striking it, and waved for the attention of her figurehead. “Hey! “Scuse me! Although we really appreciate all the help so far, there’s a chance we might be able to cross the Bottomless Sea by going beneath. Do you think you’d be able to make it back to Limsa on your own?”

Shippy considered the question seriously. “Maybe. I can avoid any danger I come across, but I would have trouble defending myself if it came to that.” After a brief pause she gave a suggestion of her own. “However, I think I can go underwater myself. I haven’t done it yet but I’m pretty sure I can, since I was given an Abyssal spirit. Although, since it’s only a little Abyssal in me it would be pretty slow, and my composition may not be suited to the water pressure.” Peach took the news into account, but did not expand her options. Monster-infested depths were not something to brave with a shoddy submarine.

Meanwhile, the Koopa King and his Hylian helper had approached the zonked-out guards with a mind to wheedle some information out of them. Nadia watched from the threshold of the seabase so as to put off getting drenched again, and could not help but snicker as Bowser went through an increasingly forceful gamut of methods to wake the two up. Finally, right after he resorted to light slaps, the pair jolted awake to freeze in alarm beneath his glare. With the authority of a man in charge Bowser berated them and their performance, then added a threat to report their misconduct to their supervisor. He spoke and acted with utmost genuineness, but when he relented to await their response, he was taken aback by what they said.

Both babbled their replies in totally unknown languages. The Grineer at least spoke in words, albeit alien ones, but the Scuttler just made indecipherable gurgling and honking noises. Neither seemed eager to try and reach for the small melee weapons, a cleaver and a club respectively, that lay at their feet, but what they told Bowser didn’t exactly help either.

After a few moments of this, a mechanical noise sounded out from behind Nadia, making her jump. She glanced over to where Jr and Sakura fiddled with the terminal’s less-than-perfectly labeled controls. “Nice, you got it working?” But the sudden activation came as much of a surprise to them, which put Nadia on alert. It looked like the confusion with the guards would need to be shelved for the time being. “Uh oh. Guys, someone’s comin’ up!”

She took a few steps back from the edge of the elevator and raised her claws in a fighting stance. Peach readied her weapon and got into position. When the lift arrived a few moments later, it leveled with the floor moaning under the combined weight of a bizarre load of passengers. Rather than jump into a fight, or even move forward at all, the group huddled together for safety, naked fear on their flabby faces. The tension ebbed from Nadia’s muscles as she straightened up. These things didn’t look like they could fight even if they wanted to. They were uniformly about five feet in height and almost as wide as they were tall, pitifully obese mockeries of people with sagging, sallow flesh. For more reasons than that, however, she did not feel comfortable calling them ‘human’. Though there were more than a dozen Nadia could only count three distinct varieties, two bald males and one female with a drab brown bun, and those of each variety were all uncannily identical to one another.

“What are you doing here? Who are you people?” Peach tried asking them, but the strange people only grunted and groaned. Like hogs. The elevator platform creaked beneath them.

A whooping noise went up from a device mountain on the wall and a screen lit up to show an unknown figure in molded sea-green armor that matched the styling of the structure. “Whatever is the matter?” he questioned in a deep, bassy voice. “We haven’t got all day, so get a move on, you...oh?” The yellow lenses in his helmet refocused on the Seekers in the hall. “Well, well, well. As if today wasn’t special enough already. Who might you be?”

Peach hesitated for a moment, but kept in mind everything the others had said. She needed to avoid every fight possible and reason with everyone who seemed at all reasonable. “I’m Princess Peach, and this is my crew,” she told the stranger, borrowing a nautical term. “Who are you? What is this place?”

“I am Tyl Regor, and this is my sealab. But my business here is my own. What do you want?”

“We’re trying to get across the Bottomless Sea to challenge its boss.” Peach Peach kept her tone as polite as she could as she asked, “Would it be possible for you to grant us safe passage beneath the waves?”

“Oho, are you now?” Tyl drawled, sounding amused. “Well, that may be difficult. I am but one of the four lords under the sea, and I hold sway only over my sealab. For now, anyway. We don’t exactly get along, you see. Regardless, the things in these waters are rather powerful, so much so that many could be called a boss, but the boss, hmm...would that I could say it was I, but perhaps you seek the eye of the storm.” His voice betrayed his intrigue. “I...suppose, if you are not here to sabotage my lab or trouble my wondrous Tubemen, it wouldn’t hurt to let you through. In return for a favor, that is.”

Peach put away her weapon. “And what might that be?”

“All in good time. For now, please let my, ah...Guests, pass in peace. I’ve got someone coming to pick them up. Right now, in fact!”

The sound of a horn, long and low, cut through the storm outside. With a glance at Peach and the others Nadia sprinted back up the hallway to stop on the threshold again and peer out across the landing platform through the mist and rain. For a moment she could see nothing but darkness, but a flash of lightning split the heavens, and it illuminated a dark pillar atop a mound--a lone smokestack atop a stony isle, bulling under its own power through the water as it drew ever closer. As baffled as she was intimidated by the impossible sight, Nadia tensed up and watched as the island began to rise. The island became the hat atop a much larger, hulking dome of haphazard metal plates even larger than the sealab’s tower, and Nadia realized it wasn’t an island, but a mammoth ship. As it approached, higher and higher out of the water, a gaping mouth swung open from its front. It came to rest against the sealab’s dock, and within the mouth a portal popped open. Yellow light flooded from within, followed shortly by a narrow bridge extending to the deck. The Guests, as Tyl Regor called them, waddled like herded sheep toward the bridge and made their way up, single file.

“Taken aback?” the sealab’s master chuckled. “It is indeed impressive, though not half as much as my Tubemen. I’ve no doubt that a luxurious stay aboard the Maw would be sweeter -and faster- than plumbing the depths, but my offer still stands. Find me in my atrium below if you’re interested. So long for now~” The screen blinked off, leaving Blue Team to watch the guests climb into the Maw and rethink their options.

Nadia gave a heavy sigh of resignation. “So our choices are, try to sail Shippy through the storm and drown, climb in this weird scary ship and drown, or work our way through four underwater bases and really, really drown. ‘Water’ we waitin’ for, eh?” She crossed her arms and shook her head.
@Lugubrious Thanks, hope to get that collab PM soon.


I sent it to you a half hour ago
My post for Laharl is done btw, also could someone tally the word count? I'll be working on a relatively short post for Frog tomorrow likely or if I have time, tonight.


Your word count is 476.
@Lugubrious Can Laharl join them?


We're partially through a collab for it. I can PM you the link if you like?
© 2007-2024
BBCode Cheatsheet