Lugubrious

World of Light

Minigame Roulette - Witch One

Level 13 Ms Fortune (163/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (93/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (54/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1596

Having never participated in a game like this, Sandalphon absorbed the rules of the upcoming game from Ballyhoo with an expression far greater seriousness than one might expect of someone about to engage in a game of glorified hide-and-seek. Concentrating completely, she internalized both the tasks and objectives of the two teams and the advantages both brought to the table, since she couldn’t be sure which side she’d be on until the competition began. Her daily operations in DespoRHado had demanded subversiveness from her from time to time, but never had she been obliged to hide her physical form. Even without the potential spirit rewards, this minigame roulette offered a lot in terms of novel experiences.

Her powers of perception had made her wise to one other important detail about the Witch One minigame as well: that this would be the Seekers’ last one on the house before Ballyhoo’s Big Top started demanding recompense. Having immersed herself in the modern world of computers and software since her arrival in Midgar, and found herself remarkably suited for it, the archangel had experienced her fair share of shady free trials. If he considered that little aside -barely a slip of the tongue- sufficient warning and planned to pull everyone into a fifth game right after this, Sandalphon would need to intercede. Without full knowledge of the price point per person per minigame, she and the others could not afford to be caught up in all the excitement. With that in mind, Witch One would be the group’s final minigame today, and after doing poorly in two of them Sandalphon wanted to end on a strong note. With only two teams in play, after all, this last game was for all the marbles.

When she and the others arrived in Morgenstund, the archangel spared only a moment to look around. Given the quantity of allies at her side, it looked like she’d been assigned the role of ‘hider’. While Sandalphon would have preferred the role of predator versus prey, she could only play the hand the gamemasters dealt her, and that meant finding the perfect spot to hide.

Despite the festive autumnal atmosphere, Sandalphon scoped out the town through a strictly tactical lens. Theoretically it would only take one hider to win the game for the whole team by avoiding the seekers for six minutes, but this town didn’t seem that large, and its overall quantity of sufficiently sized objects would be limited. While using the unicorn horns on ordinary items would endanger the Seekers, she didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t use their hands or other weapons to sniff out illusions, blitzing through all the viable objects in each building one at a time. This would not be as easy as it seemed, especially given the roster of Seekers. By process of elimination she identified Kamek, Rika, Geralt, and Pit as her opponents. The first two she knew less about, but one could fly and the other could at the very least jump high and fall slow, which ruled out hiding on rooftops. Pit certainly had a lot of energy, and if his light arrows could seek targets, hiding in an isolated spot could be a bad idea. Geralt, as mentioned by Zenkichi, possessed superhuman senses, and of the four she most likely wielded the greatest intellect, making her the biggest threat. My apologies, Pit. With all that in mind, a target-saturated environment or a hard-to-find nook indoors would be best. Of course, finding somewhere sizable enough to accommodate her -not to mention her halo- would be difficult.

Around her, the other Seekers scattered. For a moment she considered trying to rally everyone to actually fight the Seekers rather than hide from them, given the hiders’ far greater numbers, but after Ganondorf’s outcry Sandalphon quickly decided against it. Time was not on their side. As the others spread out around the town, the archangel gravitated toward the library, the building with the most indoor space. Moving with unusual vigor -for her at least- she followed in the footsteps of Bowser, Midna, and Junior, a contingency plan forming in her head. Zenkichi, Goldlewis, Roxas, Roland, Blazermate, and now Ganondorf…perhaps even Pit or Geralt, if need be. Once inside the library, she ignored the chaos caused by the Koopa Troop and headed up to the second floor to search for a suitable prop. Unfortunately she could not find many good options, especially given the second floor’s limited area. Most of it happened to be a balcony that ringed the central atrium. In the reading nook above the doorway, however, Sandalphon’s ship came in. She found a grandfather clock, blocky but tall and thin, perfect for her to hide inside. She couldn’t say the same for her halo, though.

“Hmm,” the archangel mumbled, eyeing the rug next to the coffee table. With reluctance she took it and threw it into the air, draping it over her halo. Doing this felt a little sacrilegious, but Sandalphon knew of no specific prohibitions, so it should be fine. After that, she used her Mimic Veil to assume the appearance of the grandfather clock, then headed over to another reading nook to get some distance from the original. Two in the same area would be highly suspect, after all, and any attempts to destroy or displace the original would be clumsy and obvious. The archangel did not feel confident about this disguise, but hopefully this strategy would give her contingency plans the buffer they needed.

Compared to Sandalphon, Nadia did a lot less planning and overthinking. Instead she grinned at Therion, told him “You too!” and darted off the moment she arrived, scouring Morgenstund for the perfect hiding spot. While typically the cat instead of the mouse, she figured she could play the part of prey well enough–after all, she just needed to think like the hunter. If I were a seeker, where would I look…? Of course, compared to the average hider Nadia wielded one major advantage: she could make herself very small indeed. Instead of a hidey-hole, she needed the spot that would allow her to pull off her idea the best.

Her first stop was the Potter’s House. All those jars, vases, urns, and pots would be perfect for the scheme she had cooking–a plan so simple and yet so devious that she could not help but snicker as she scampered around. Unfortunately, there turned out to be a couple problems with her first choice, and their names were Roland and Therion. Both of them turned up at the Potter’s House as well. Even if it seemed to be a promising location, too many hiders in proximity only worsened the chances for everyone. That would be putting too many eggs in one basket, and while Nadia wouldn’t hesitate one nanosecond to give away a friend if it meant escaping, it would be better not to give herself any disadvantages.

Leaving the guys to it, Nadia skipped the workshop and moved on to greener pastures, literally. The moment she slipped into the Botanist’s House, a gleeful smile spread across her space. “Purr-fect.” This building, half a residence and half an overgrown greenhouse, was just what she needed. With plants and pots of all shapes and sizes it presented a lot of visual clutter, but that wasn’t the only sense it stymied. This place was a smorgasbord of earthy, floral, and herbal smells, cut by the heady aromas of burning incense that also contributed to a smoky haze. Those smoldering spices, gums, and resins made for a potent mixture; just one deep breath of the dwelling’s funky bouquet proved enough to confound the feral’s own sense of smell. This was going to be easy.

With only so much time on the clock, Nadia moved quickly. She selected a hanging pot by the entrance, reached down, and detached her lower leg to stow her foot out of sight. After hopping over to a tall, grassy shrub, she planted her tails inside it. Bit by bit she scattered herself throughout the interior, ferreting away each part of herself in a plant or pot just large enough to contain it. Her torso, the largest part of herself, she inserted between bags of dirt and fertilizer beneath a table, where she hoped nobody would look. Finally, she hopped her head into an empty spot on a shelf of succulents, wearing the Mimic Veil stripped off her now-discarded witch’s hat. Once her hand -hidden in a potted rosebush- snapped, the illusion of a clay pot appeared around her head. Just in time, the cat burglar was good to go.

Meanwhile, Goldlewis had a much tougher time. He couldn’t find any objects anywhere both big enough to hide in and not hilariously obvious. Keenly aware of the clock ticking down, he jogged around and examined several abodes in quick succession, but he couldn’t find any feasible spots. After a couple tries he gave up on the houses and headed for the central tower, the largest building not occupied by Bowser. In addition to a small dormitory with bunk beds, the barracks included an armory, and it was there that the veteran found his best bet. Arrayed within were suits of armor of all shapes and sizes, and when Goldlewis used his Mimic Veil in there, a suitably corpulent armor appeared around him. This wasn’t great still, but with time running out he couldn’t find a better option now. He just needed to stand still and hope that whoever stumbled in here was…well, stupid.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

Happy to leave conversing with these people of interest to his fellows, Lewa stood by and absorbed what they had to say. Anne had already given the Spirit of Air the impression of wittiness, but when her intuition about Gwen and Maokai turned out to be correct, the toa could help but be impressed. Her arboreal companion chimed in with some insights about the strange enemies that everyone faced, and since Lewa didn't expect him to be able to talk at all, he found the creaky timbre of the treant's voice particularly intriguing. While he didn't understand Maokai's reference to something called the Mist, Lewa did feel alarmed when his new acquaintance posited the existence of mortals inclined to harm the natural world.

Such a concept was utterly foreign to him; on Mata Nui, there was nothing that could be called civilization, just isolated pockets of tribal Matoran eking out an existence on their island home. While they didn't always live in total harmony with nature, its rules and patterns governed everything, an inescapable fact of island life. Really, Lewa didn't really know what going 'defiling nature' could even mean. At most he could conceive of harmful ramifications of say, Ta-matoran living in Le-wahi, where they might be inclined to fell trees to feed their forges. Or Ko-matoran living in Ta-wahi, where the cold-weather Matoran might seek to tame the lava flows' uncomfortable heat. But even a whole tribe working as one still probably couldn't inflict lasting damage on the ecosytem. Mata Nui was a wonderful land, but its natural forces were powerful. Here, though, Lewa had no idea. Could people really bend their environments to their will? Lewa looked around and the rolling fields, scarcely able to imagine it. 'Defile' was a scary word to him.

Some of his comrades had separated from the rest of the group, heading into one or another of the town's humble buildings. Hopefully Remilia would be able to help any locals who suffered injury during the attack, but Lewa didn't know what the others meant to do. If they'd resolved the crisis here, it made sense that everyone would continue on their way. Naturally the thought of sticking around to make Maokai's acquaintance occurred to him, but trees had nothing if not time, and while Lewa's homeland was under siege from the Bohrok his own time was precious indeed. "I don't imagine that the caravan would stay-wait here," he ventured after a few moments. "Perhaps we should say our goodbyes."

World of Light

Minigame Roulette

Level 13 Ms Fortune (160/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (90/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (51/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 1035 (Goldlewis) 1191 (Ms Fortune)

After putting Nadia and her spectacular wreck in his rear-view mirror, Goldlewis tried to pick up the pace. The timer in his cab’s dashboard marched ever closer to zero, after all, and if he meant to win he couldn’t afford to waste any time. So far his strategy had been a blend of speed and control, reasoning that any crashes or spin outs that resulted from an overabundance of haste would cost him a lot more time on the clock than caution. He didn’t overdo it like Sandalphon, but he still got outpaced by the likes of Captain Falcon and even Zenkichi. Now, though, he knew that he would need to pick up the pace to stay in the running. A little more familiar now with the city layout and the overall shape of its streets, he cranked up the music in his radio player and began to drive a little more recklessly. He flew off hills, skidded around sharp corners, and even took out small objects.

Goldlewis reached Payback Square, dropped off his current passenger, and drifted to a stop in a red zone just narrowly missing his next customer. “Southpaw Junction, and step on it!” the female NPC demanded. The veteran obliged, slamming his pedal to the metal to the sound of screeching tires. His arrow pointed him back toward Grapital Central, but while he knew he could weave through those twisting streets, the broader southbound avenue offered more room for acceleration. It featured one other bonus, too: ramp trucks. As long as he didn’t soar straight into the elevated railway, Goldlewis knew he could use those strategically-placed stunt vehicles to perform tricks, which he’d avoided in favor of solid fundamentals until now. “Better buckle up, ma’am!” he grinned, still not familiar with the concept of a non-player character. “I’m gonna take you for a ride!”

Now, with his engine roaring as the cab sped down the roadway, Goldlewis could really feel the wind in his hair. His heart pumped with exhilaration, and he couldn’t suppress a smile. Suppressing his common sense, he steered his taxi toward the first ramp truck he saw, and a second later he was in the air. “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaw!” he hollered, easily drowning out the screaming of the passenger in the back. All too soon the vehicle touched back down, with a quick rightward veer necessary to avoid a collision with a building. Just after getting the vehicle back under control, though, Goldlewis saw another ramp, and deftly drifted over to fly off it as well.

He reached Southpaw Junction ahead of schedule, his passenger shaken but still in the vehicle. “Thank ya kindly!” After snatching his cash from her shaking hands, he rounded up another customer that requested a quick trip to Jobber Flats, back where he last spotted Sandalphon. Goldlewis got there on the double, a little shaken by several near misses and a run-in with Junior’s paint hazard but satisfied with the extra dough. He didn’t see any sign of Sandalphon and reasoned that she must have barely left the area with the time she had left, though overall he had noticed fewer and fewer competitors around. Those with less driving skill, especially the few inclined to sabotage others instead of trying to win for themselves, were all getting eliminated. Already the relentless decline of the timers had thinned the herd by half or more. Those last two trips had bolstered his own time somewhat, so if Goldlewis could last just a little longer, a top spot could be his. Unfortunately, the saboteurs only got more dangerous once eliminated, using their own abilities to wreck havoc rather than their vehicles.

Unwilling to waste time hunting down a red, he settled for a yellow, only to find that the customer demanded a trip over Grapital City’s connecting bridge to Low Key Key. With Half-Nelson Highway a hotspot for saboteur activity, and too much of a detour anyway, he opted to go for the much narrower, much trickier southern bridge instead. He managed to avoid a drop into the drink, but he felt anxious to make up for the time spent on his cautious crossing, and after turning south Goldlewis entered the little town where he dropped his passenger off at a poolside. He spotted a red fare up the street, picked the NPC up, then had to pull off a three-point turn to head south again to get to the giant ice cream come. Unfortunately, this particular customer’s timer turned out to be incredibly strict, and just moments before Goldlewis reached the monument his passenger bailed. “You gotta be kiddin’ me. It’s right there!” He got no response, of course, and the veteran had to swallow his pride in order to find someone else.

Thanks to that incident, his timer suffered a blow that he never recovered from, even after two back-to-back yellow trips in Low Key Key (during which he saw, and waved to, Primrose and Therion in the latter’s parked car). His hesitation to attempt more reds ended up spelling his doom. Just as he drew near the tropical island’s lavish southeastern hotel, his taxi cab began to give up the ghost. “Gaghhhh, don’t you quit on me now, you stinkin’ clunker! Just a hundred more feet, c’mon, c’mon!” Unfortunately, his timer read zero-zero-zero, and no amount of coaxing would add more seconds to that fateful number. With a final sputtering cough, the car ground to a halt. “Awww, hell.” He smacked the steering wheel with the bottom of his fist in disappointment, only for the airbag to explosively deploy and flatten Goldlewis against the seat. “MMMPH!”

It took him a few moments to extricate himself, after which the veteran heaved a heavy sigh, shook his head, and moseyed down the road toward the hotel. While he waited for the game to wrap up, he could at least see if the drinks in this wonderworld were real enough to taste. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to wait; even if Falcon had the others beat by a country mile, only the person in second needed to run out of time for the game to reach its end. The moment Goldlewis reached for a mimosa, the tropical paradise around him began to collapse.

---

The moment Nadia got warped back into the giant roulette table that served as the Seekers’ minigame lobby, the feral looked around. All of her fellow competitors from Kooky Cabbies had reappeared alongside her, their positions seemingly random, but right now she cared about just one unfriendly face in particular. With almost everyone more or less relaxed after their taxi cabs stopped moving, it took only a second to identify her target by movement alone, given the warp-induced disorientation that led to directionless aggression. Now that Juri and Nadia were back in the real world -or a more real one than Grapital City, at least- they could give their feud a proper conclusion, and the feral planned to keep her word by showing the bully how dangerous a serious Ms. Fortune could be.

“Okay, let’s do this right,” Nadia muttered, drawing her dagger Athame from her belt with one hand as she sprayed blood on the floor from the other. When she hopped onto it, she could deploy her rigging, the mechanical arms unfolding from her backpack to swivel their cannon batteries in Juri’s direction. “I won’t miss you!” She fired missiles of condensed hydro energy like watery corkscrews, two salvos at once, and as all four shots homed in on Juri’s position Nadia transformed her legs with Fluffy Soft and sprinted after the missiles in an animalistic burst of speed.

Juri’s good reactions meant that she could turn and block the missiles the moment she spotted them, but burnout prolonged her blockstun long enough for Nadia to pounce. She lashed out with her tiger legs, first with a scratch and then with a knee. “Saved the beast for last!” A high guard reduced the empowered blows to chip damage, but the Marks they applied reduced Juri’s defense by a combined ten percent, which spiked to 40% when Nadia followed up with a wicked slice from Athame, even when blocked. “Knife knowing ya!” Finally, Nadia used her dramatic tension to unleash her classic blockbuster, Cat Scratch Fever. “Furserker Purrage!” She advanced with a relentless series of slashes, dishing out remarkable chip damage as she pushed Juri back. The final hit caused the martial artist’s back to slam into the roulette table’s central tower, stunning her. As Juri reeled and Nadia’s teammates looked on, either alarmed or just curious, the feral stepped forward with a Friend Heart in her hand.

“Haah,” she gasped, grinning. “You’ve had quite the slumber party. But it’s time to wake up!”

She drove the Friend Heart into Juri’s head, setting the vagabond free in a burst of light.

In just seconds the commotion was over, thanks to Nadia’s underhanded strategy. As Juri recovered, fully healed but also fully possessed of her memories, her attacker waved the others away with fingers crossed behind her back. “Nothin’ to worry about guys, just freeing my friend here.” Once she’d assuaged the others’ concerns, Nadia turned back to Juri. She didn’t bother insulting her with an offered hand to help her up. “Welcome to what I’ve been dealing with,” she told her old rival. Would the truth inspire her to rethink her ways and fight for the future, or sink her into a depression? Maybe it wouldn’t change much of anything. Regardless, the choice was Juri’s to make. “...Enjoy.”

By that time, Balan and Ballyhoo had appeared. “What an incredible, action-packed ADVENTURE!” Seemingly ignoring the violent confrontation, the gamemaster looked more animated than ever. “Good work transporting those travelers, everyone, but alas! There can be only one winner! And then several RUNNERS-UP!” His associate Balan provided a drumroll as Ballyhoo snapped his fingers, summoning a cloud of wallets with all the competitor’s pictures on them that contained their collective earnings. Cash poured out of them -though in a couple cases, a single butterfly fluttered out of them- and one by one they quickly ran out until only three remained. “In third place, Goldlewis Dickinson! In second place, Zenkichi Hasegawa! And in first place, Carnival Town’s very own CAPTAIN FALCON! CONGRATULATIONS!”

Though getting third took Goldlewis by surprise, it did lift his spirits. In the end, his focus on the objective had given him the edge over Bowser, who'd committed a bit too much to chaos.

Ballyhoo held out his empty palms, then turned up his hands, revealing rift tokens between gloved fingers. He hurled them like throwing knives, five at Falcon and four at Zenkichi, then did a backflip before launching the last three at Goldlewis. Finally, he took off his hat and threw it, which whirled through the air above the crowd dispensing consolation tokens to everyone else. Sandalphon received hers with a nod of approval. Now even those who had yet to place in any of the minigames could reach that slot machine's much-lauded ‘pity’ and get what should be a valuable spirit. The games weren’t over just yet, however, so everyone had one more chance to earn a real payout.

For the fourth time, Balan and Ballyhoo spun the roulette wheel. When the boo ball finally stopped, it lay in pocket number thirty-four. “GASP!” The gamemaster cried, using the word itself instead of the actual sound. “Could it be? The fourth and final minigame in your collective free trial session before we start charging you is none other than WITCH ONE!” He declared it with such bravado that it echoed through the lobby, though as it petered out the rising sense of anticlimax forced Ballyhoo to clear his throat. “...Ahem! It’s a fun new twist on an old classic, a favorite among gamers of all ages, time periods, and IQ levels! So listen up!” After landing and leaning on his cane in a saucy pose, Ballyhoo began his exposition. “The rules are simple. You will be divided into two teams. Four of you will be seekers…”

“Aren’t we all Seekers?” Nadia muttered.

“...And the rest will be hiders! The hiders will have ninety seconds to find somewhere to hole up in our quaint little town. When that time is up, the seekers’ hunt begins! They must find all the hiders within six minutes to win, and if they fail, the hiders will be victorious! How to find someone, you ask? Simple! Just poke ‘em with your very own unicorn horn! Just don’t poke something that isn’t a hider ten times, or you’ll eliminate yourself. And be aware: the hiders have a trick up their sleeves! The MIMIC VEIL!” Ballyhoo opened wide and coughed out a classic witch hat with a veil of cloth wound around it. “Snap your fingers while wearing it, and you’ll create an illusion of the nearest valid object around yourself to hide inside! You can adjust it a little, but too much movement will break the illusion! Use it to hide yourself in plain sight! Especially because we’re disabling all abilities that would RUIN THE GAME by making yourself unfindable! And the seekers will get faster the longer they chase someone, so you can’t run forever! AHAHAHAHA!”

Nadia couldn’t help but smile. “So it’s just hide and seek, huh? ‘Find’ by me!”

The terrible pun earned her a look from Sandalphon, her pupils briefly in the form of targeting reticles.

Goldlewis, meanwhile, rubbed his head. “There ain’t much I can fit inside, I reckon,” he muttered. “Maybe a wardrobe, or somethin’...?” Well, after unexpectedly placing in the last minigame, he couldn’t complain too much.

“Get ready to hide and/or seek then, gamers!” Ballyhoo exclaimed. “Let the minigame begin!”

---

Once immersed in Balan’s new wonderworld, those designated as ‘hiders’ found themselves wearing witch hats in a whimsical old town of cobblestone streets and wooden cottages at nighttime, decorated thoroughly in the pumpkins, hay bales, candles, and props of Halloween. The flickering flames inside oil lamps and jack-o-lanterns illuminated crimson leaves, orange grasses, and colorful candies nestled inside bowls on the cottages’ doorsteps. All these buildings, however, featured fully accessible interiors, furnished with a selection of small and large objects. Which ones counted as ‘valid’ turned out to be based on the size of those who used their Mimic Veils; a valid object was whichever one could completely encapsulate the user in his or her current configuration, which ruled out the small props for just about everyone.

Still, this own offered plenty of places to hide. The Potter’s House, full of ceramic pots and jars of all shapes and sizes as well as ovens and bushels of coal for firing them. The Weaver’s House, full of quilts, blankets, and tapestries hung all over the walls and furniture that filled the abode with ghosts of cloth. The Mason’s House, full of statues of various people and creatures plus slabs of uncut stone. The Botanist’s House, an overgrown dwelling with plant pots and pantries full of magical flora and fragrant incense. The Ironworks, with all sorts of cauldrons and safes on display. The Tavern, laid out for a feast, with its many barrels and cloth-draped tables bowing beneath the weight of giant fruits, vegetables, meat slabs, and pies. The Stables, where sacks of feed and storage crates surrounded pens where fake animals lay. The Barracks on the bottom floor of the tower, with various suits of armor and crates of ammunition. And in the center of town, the two-story Library, its bookshelves towering over sprawling study tables.

Meanwhile, the four seekers wound up in a waiting room to hang tight while their opponents hid themselves. This took the form of the otherwise inaccessible potion laboratory at the top of the town’s tower. It featured a large brewing table with a cauldron and wealth of magical ingredients that could be processed and combined to all sorts of amusing effects, as well as a talking skull that could offer explanation or advice when prompted–or scream when hurled out of the window. Each prospective seeker also got a rainbow-striped shank, evidently their ‘unicorn horns’. And if none of that tickled their fancy, the four soon-to-be-seekers could just talk with one another, though given who’d been selected -Pit, Ganondorf, Geralt, and Rika- any chat between the four of them was bound to be interesting.

World of Light

Minigame Roulette - Kooky Cabbies

Level 13 Ms Fortune (164/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (88/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (47/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 3254

With a shake of her head, Sandalphon cleared up the last of the dizziness that accompanied her warp into Balan’s wonderworld. When her pupils blinked back on, she immediately took stock of her surroundings, and the archangel couldn’t help but be impressed. The first minigame began in a cozy penguin village at the foot of a mountainside, featuring a climb that turned out to be much larger than it looked but still fairly self-contained. Then Film Those Freaks deposited her in a vibrant sky garden and demanded that she explore the horrific Old World below, the length and breadth of those murky depths unknown. Now, however, she appeared to be in an actual city. Sure, it seemed to be limited to an island in the middle of the ocean, but its hitherto-unseen scale offered a whole little world to explore–or drive around, as it were.

Right now, Sandalphon stood in a four-way intersection with her designated taxi cab, and around her lay the small, hilly suburban neighborhood of Trophy Heights in Grapital City’s well-to-do northeastern district. She couldn’t help but be interested in a residential area like this, given its sheer novelty to her. Wherever she’d lived, space had always been at a premium, with skylines and sightlines dominated by the architecture of mankind, choked by stone or concrete to the point of claustrophobia. That went for both Midgar and her long-lost City of Grams, differentiated only by their relative heights. Here, though, there seemed to be plenty of room around the houses, with well-kept green lawns, healthy trees, and flowering shrubs. It struck her as rather pleasant, refreshing even, but in the end she wasn’t here to sightsee. Most importantly, this neighborhood lay on a hill, and from here she got a good view of the city. It featured a very irregular layout, the sort that grew over time rather than got made all at once, but the only people she could see were those who stood in color-coded zones awaiting pickup. Already the sounds of engines echoed through the streets, drowning out the breeze and birdsong. It was past time Sandalphon added her own voice to the chorus.

Once Ballyhoo’s thunderous voice announced the game’s commencement, the archangel jumped into her cab’s driver’s seat, light as a feather. Cars had been an inescapable fact of life in Midgar, especially down in Detroit, which as she understood it boasted some history in the world of automobiles. By that same token, though, she’d never owned nor operated her own vehicle, instead relying on public transport. Still, few denizens of medieval worlds could claim to have adjusted to modern life better than Sandalphon, and if she could figure out supercomputers or social media, she could figure this out too. Beneath the hood, it might as well just be magic; what mattered was how well someone could use it. After spotting the manual, Sandalphon calmy flipped through it, speed-reading each page. “Right…right. This should be simple.” With graceful fingers she turned the key in the ignition, put the car in drive, and then pressed her heel against the gas pedal. The taxi cab lurched forward like a hungry beast, eager to tear up the pavement, and came just short of hitting a stop sign before Sandalphon slammed the break. “What power,” she murmured, smoothing her hair. No wonder Midgar suffered so many car accidents. After one more jumpy start, Sandalphon reigned the monster in, and set off at a brisk cruise through the burbs. A green trip would be a good place to start.

If Sandalphon respected the power of an automobile, Nadia craved it. On many of her ‘expeditions’ from Little Innsmouth to New Meridian’s affluent uptown she’d seen motorcars parked or driving around, and a few on the silver screen, but she’d never gotten the chance to so much as ride passenger in one. Such luxury items were elements of a world foreign to her, so far out of her wheelhouse that she’d only ever been able to dream of cruising the city streets herself. Now, however, she couldn’t avoid it. Her very own vehicle lay right in front of her, sitting pretty on a little parkway surrounded by the cherry blossom trees of Mixed Martial Park, just south of the Gainsville Swole Foods Market. And as far as she understood what Ballyhoo said about fares and stunts, she just needed to drive around faster and crazier than anyone else. Plus, it sounded like she couldn’t crash her car, nor injure herself in the process. This minigame really was a dream come true!

The feral practically dove into her cab head-first. While she did see the instructional pamphlet, she proceeded to ignore it. She’d seen people drive these things in movies, so how hard could it be? She twisted the key and pushed the lever as far as it would go, then slammed on the gas. Her cab shot forward, tires squealing, and obliterated a little flower stand in an explosion of multicolored petals like confetti. “NYAAAAAAAGH!” As she panicked, her heart pumping adrenaline-spiked blood through her veins, her vehicle rumbled right across the grass and onto the sidewalk, at which point she took a sharp turn and screeched sideways into the metal poles out in front of Swole Foods. The loud, violent impact jolted it to her core, even if it didn’t actually inflict whiplash, and Nadia’s head flew from her shoulders into the passenger’s seat. For a moment she just lay sprawled across the seat with her fur on end, hyperventilating. Only after a moment did she reach over, grab her head and set it down atop her shoulders, still bug-eyed.

Then a giant grin covered her face. “Wow, I almost ate shit already! That was in-car-edible!” With her head back on her shoulders, though, she could see the big digital display on the dashboard, the yellow numbers counting down. “Oh, right!” She’d almost forgotten the game’s strict time limit, which meant that if she wanted to maximize her fun, she’d need to hurry up and start driving people around. As luck would have it, a pickup zone lay only a few hundred feet behind her, its unmistakable yellow flashes nestled between a burger joint and an apartment with an unused billboard on its roof. “I tax-see you!” Nadia yelled. “Be right there!”

Not knowing how to reverse, she hit the gas and swung around to the left to perform a wide loop. Her path took her down the red-brick street, then back into the park, where she immediately ramped off a rock and flew straight into the trunk of a cherry tree. “GUH!” As the tree snapped in half, her car slammed down right back where it started, on top of the flower cart’s wreckage. Nadia shook off her discombobulation as best she could and accelerated once more, her tires sending splintered boards flying behind her as she zipped down the park path, through the arch, across the street, and into the pickup zone where the power line brought her to another abrupt stop. Nadia’s head spun, her eyes rolling around in their sockets. “Ooh-hoo-hoooo,” she slurred, trying to slap some sense into herself. “Hunka junk…stop when I let off the ‘go’ button, would ya…?”

“Get me to Haymaker Park!” a voice announced suddenly, the surprise helping jolt Nadia from her stun state. When she spun her head around she found someone sitting in the back of her taxi, probably the person who’s zone she’d crashed into.

“But there’s a park right there…” Nadia informed the man, pointing over at the cherry blossom grove she’d partially demolished. When her passenger didn’t respond, her gaze shifted to the numbers above his head, also counting down, then at the yellow arrow above the taxi itself that seemingly pointed her where she needed to go. It looked like her first trip had already begun. “Uhh, you got it champ. Just hold tight!” The feral pressurized and then released two blasts of blood from her arms, just enough to push her cab backward, and just like that she could veer to the left and get moving. Every couple seconds, she looked straight up to check the arrow so she knew where to go.

After a premature right turn at the end of the street that resulted in a destroyed fire hydrant and sky-high water spout, Nadia shook the water from her hair and pushed eastward through a straightaway that included the extra-large parking lot of the Squared Circle Outlets. While she needed to weave around some slow-moving vehicles, the feral quickly found that she could just bounce off obstacles like billiard balls, using each impact to get her back on track. Her passenger started complaining, but Nadia barely heard him. She left the parking lot looking like a junkyard and headed around the Backspin Courts apartment complex, if by ‘around’ one meant ‘straight through’, since she turned the place’s tennis court into her personal shortcut. “Screw it, we ball!” A less ingenious driver might have opted to go through the parking lot, but Nadia went through the complex itself. After squeezing out from between the bleachers, she motored between the apartments, narrowly missing a dive into the central swimming pool. Of course, she clipped the edge of a building on the way out the other side, tearing out a chunk of bricks. “Whoops, left a resi-dent in that one!” When she emerged from the second passage, she found a vibrant green park in front of her, surrounded by a low wall. “That’s gotta be it!” Cranking the wheel, she slid to another stop against it, her heart still racing as she smiled ear to ear. “Whoo, I wheelie did it! And in record time!” She turned around in her seat aglow with triumph. “Here you are, mister-!”

There was nobody there.

“Huh!?” Nadia stood up, peering down into the footroom to see if he’d hidden himself -or gotten lodged- down there. Unfortunately she could find no sign of the man, and she realized that he must have flown the coop. “Come on, what a wimp! Un-cab-elievable!” She plopped back down on the upholstery, dejected, as the car continued to creep forward. Had she been too rough…? “I was just following the arrow.” Well, she couldn’t afford to overthink things now. As she saw with dismay when she looked at the timer on her dashboard, her clumsy joyride had cost her precious seconds with nothing to show for it, so she needed to pick up another passenger, and fast. Luckily she could see another pickup zone in the parking lot for the apartment complex, just down the street and to the right. This one appeared to be red, but the feral knew that beggars couldn’t be choosers. She propelled the taxi down the road, grinding along the wall the whole time, then veered into the red zone where she used a parked car to stop. “Hurry hurry hurry!” Nadia yelled at the dude as she hopped out to shove her taxi away from the obstruction. Once the NPC sprinted over and vaulted into the back seat, she dove back into the front. “Where to?”

Her passenger said something, but the cat burglar didn’t really hear it. Instead her eyes lay on the timer, having noted that she got a few seconds of extra time just for picking someone up. After a moment, the part of her brain responsible for evil deeds connected the dots, and a suitably mischievous smirk spread across her face. “Yeah, whatever,” she told her NPC. “I got a better idea.

By the time Nadia initiated her new strategy, Goldlewis had already hit his stride. Unlike many of his comrades, the veteran boasted plenty of experience navigating a vehicle through tricky city streets, and if he could handle a huge hummer just fine even a large taxi cab would be no problem. While he did enjoy driving his Mammoth around Midgar’s Sector 07, especially the occasional solitary nighttime cruise along its highways, Goldlewis always felt like a bull in a china shop, unable to unleash the beast. Now, with a disposable cityscape and no repercussions, he finally found catharsis in a taxi cab styled like an old Cadillac. Goldlewis sped through the streets with just one hand on the wheel, the other casually hanging over the car door. He commanded his vehicle like a cowboy would a horse, knowing when to speed up and when to slow down, calmly muscling aside other cars when necessary, and almost never broke stride except to pick up or drop off. For the most part he stuck with yellow trips, sometimes spending a couple seconds to pass up reds or greens to do so, since they seemed to be the best blend of risk, reward, and time. Though neither as quick or daring as the likes of Captain Falcon, nor as inclined to do stunts to boost earnings, his rock-solid performance paid dividends in terms of time and money alike.

Goldlewis covered a lot of ground, burning rubber from the Offsides to Brawl Street, from Brawl Street to ABS Tower, and from the Gazebogon to Southpaw Junction. While on the move he focused only on the road, but while waiting for customers to climb aboard he could take a quick look around, and marvel at Grapital City’s many sights. From the incredible Grapital Building, where a giant statue of a wrestler held the highest part of the building on her shoulders, to the ancient-looking bell tower of Old Abseil, this place constantly amused him. Naturally, the antics of his fellow Seekers stood out most of all. Some of his allies turned out to be absolute menaces behind the wheel, like the Koopas and Juri, though they menaced their passengers almost as much. Goldlewis managed to dodge Blazermate not once but twice, and at one point he caught a fleeting glimpse of Sectonia as he zoomed past her. Of course, right after that Captain Falcon zoomed by him. Man’s probably got this in the bag, the veteran reckoned. He saw Zenkichi doing rather well for himself and, judged by his enthusiastic whooping, having the time of his life in the process. Even if he wasn’t as vocal, Goldlewis had to agree: this was fun.

Nothing tickled his funny bone more, though, than what he saw after drifting to a safe stop in Jobber Flats. After spotted the distinctive triple halo of Sandalphon, he noticed the archangel herself as she came to a halt at a stop sign, where she proceeded to wait for an NPC driver to make a left in front of her. The sight left Goldlewis gobsmacked. “Are you…obeyin’ traffic laws!?” he hollered.

Hearing his voice, Sandalphon turned to look his way. “Of course,” she told him, her voice deadpan. Goldlewis could just barely see the timer on her dashboard that indicated just under twenty seconds left. The passenger in her back seat, an old woman, seemed to be sound asleep. “Proper observation of vehicular protocols is vital for the safe and efficient conduct of modern society.”

With neither the means nor the time to respond to that, Goldlewis could only stifle his chortles and drive away. “Bless ‘er heart.” From there he went west, driving around Old Abseil and then into Grapital Central. According to the arrow overhead, his current destination lay somewhere around Payback Square, if he had to guess. With his focus on the road and its obstacles, he didn’t notice the steadily growing roar of an engine -or the increasingly loud yowls- until a taxi cab flew off a stopped ramp track and sailed over the roadway, Nadia Fortune behind the wheel. Shocked and unable to look away from the airborne vehicle until it smashed with a deafening noise into the office building on the other side, where it got completely stuck. “What in tarnation!?” As glass shards rained down Goldlewis instinctively lifted his arm for protection, trying not to swerve into anything. He managed to salvage the situation without any major collisions, but a couple glancing blows left his passenger on the verge of quitting, so he needed to be careful. “Girl’s off her damn rocker,” Goldlewis grumbled, shooting one last look up at the crash site before he sped away.

After a moment, Nadia sauntered out of the hole in the office building and across the body of the car protruding from it. She seated herself on its rear bumper like the edge of a diving board, hundreds of feet above the ground. She exhaled slowly, delighted but battered and exhausted from her reckless journey through Grapital City. Ever since she enacted her strategy of picking up and then squandering passengers as fast as possible to game the system for all the bonus time it was worth, she’d wreaked havoc all over the place. Her number one priority had been to seek out all her friends as they drove around and give each a love tap (or a ‘car-ress’, as she called it) with her vehicle. In short order she’d turned this round of Kooky Cabbies into an impromptu game of bumper cars whenever anyone ran into her, or her into them rather, which happened much more often. All good things must come to an end, though, and her strategy couldn’t ultimately beat the inexorable march of time. Better to go out on a high note, she reckoned.

As she sat surveying her territory, however, one of the competitors currently in Grapital Central piqued Nadia’s interest: a woman with short black hair styled in horns, wiry of build and foul of temper. Back in the minigame lobby the feral got a brief glimpse of this woman, but that hadn’t been the first time. Half-forgotten memories were resurfacing from her time spent in Carnival Town, all centered around a certain aggressive vagrant who always waltzed around town like she owned the place: Juri. “Well, well. Look who the cat dragged in~” Though technically a criminal herself, Nadia always stood up for the little guys, while this churlish martial artist preferred to beat them down, so naturally the two had come to blows. Neither definitively got one over on the other, however, and their rivalry came to an end when Nadia finally skipped town. Now that she’d returned, however, the feral had half a mind to pick her feud back up where the two left off. As Juri’s cab drew near, Nadia gathered herself up on her own cab’s bumper, and when the time was right the cat burglar pounced.

Nadia struck like a bolt from the blue, dropping directly onto Juri’s hood with her Mantreads. With her effective weight nearly tripled by her fusion with Massachusetts, the impact partially cratered the indestructible front of the car in the much more destructible roadway and launched Juri’s passenger straight from the rear seat to the pavement. “‘Scuse me for dropping in!” the catgirl announced, grinning mischievously. Despite her changes in form and fashion, she still looked enough like Nadia Fortune to jog Juri’s memory and reignite old flames. “Well if it isn’t my ol’ pal Juri! It’s been so long since we’ve scrapped, you’ve got me Han-kering for a rematch!”

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

It didn't take long for the otherworlders to completely exterminate slimes both small and large. The wide open area gave Lewa a good view of both hamlet and surrounding countryside, so when he saw that no enemies remained, he told the merchants and guardsmen of the caravan that he'd be right back and made for the beleaguered village. Gali or Kopaka might have remained cautious in a situation like this, taking time to assess the aftermath of the battle before relaxing, but the toa of air felt pretty confident that no stragglers had managed to slip through his allies' fingers. By the time he drew near, the villagers holed up in the town's center had begun to reemerge, at which point they found no trace of the slow but inexorable horde that had driven them into a panic--only the collateral damage to the terrain left behind by their inexplicable saviors. Fortune really had favored these people today, delivering them heroes that made those menacing monsters look like gnats in comparison. It was a good thing, Lewa reflected, that all these people brought to this world alongside him happened to be altruistic, and not at all the sort to take advantage of the clear power gap in play here.

Of course, now that he arrived, Lewa didn't really know what to do or say. He couldn't take credit for saving these people, so any attempt to follow up on the others' efforts now would be too little, too late. Plus, he couldn't be sure that his appearance would go over well with them in the first place. Gripped by despair at the brink of destruction, the inhabitants of Aventon had been desperate for any help, and they'd witnessed his heroism firsthand. If a big biomechanical warrior showed up out of the blue here, his reception might be a lot cooler. Then again, they seemingly had no qualms putting their safety into the hands of that huge tree monster, so who could say? And right now, nothing interested Lewa more than Maokai. Since his arrival in this world he'd been forced to accept the existence of purely organic people and animals, but plants were nothing new to him. Mata Nui featured plentiful plant life, and nowhere was the flora larger or lusher than Le-wahi, but in all his days Lewa had never seen a tree stand up or walk around, much less fight. If there was an upside to getting snatched away from his island home and leaving his people undefended, it had to be marvelous sights like this.

While the others spoke to and followed up with the townsfolk, Lewa remained at a distance in the vicinity of Maokai, fascinated and bent on further examining the twisted treant. If he and Gwen, as the blue-haired woman introduced herself, harbored some degree of familiarity with one another, he hoped that even if Maokai preferred to remain uncommunicative, the scissor-wielder could shed some light on who the strange pair were and what they happened to be doing here, other than coming to the aid of some helpless humans.

World of Light

For the current challenge, these might come in handy. Sorry that I couldn't find named locations for the eastern part of the map, I guess the game died too quickly.

Full Overhead View

Isometric 3D View

Grapital City with Names

World of Light

Ballyhoo’s Big Top - Minigame Roulette

Level 13 Ms Fortune (160/130) Level 8 Goldlewis (84/80) Level 7 Sandalphon (43/70)
Roland, Sectonia, and the Robot Girls’ @Archmage MC, Midna and the Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt and Zenkichi’s @Multi_Media_Man, Pit and the Octopath Travelers’ @Yankee, Roxas and Ganondorf’s @Double, Juri’s @Zoey Boey
Word Count: 995

With a hard time limit in effect, courtesy of the oxygen system, none of the teams who finished their filmmaking challenge needed to wait around for very long. Just after the last quartet’s upload finished and they received their earnings, all of the sky gardens began to warp and dissociate just like the mountainside had in the first minigame. This fascinating new wonderworld, a sharp juxtaposition between idyllic islands and nebulous nightmares, quickly collapsed, and all eighteen Seekers found themselves shunted back to the game lobby alongside their two new acquaintances.

This time, they found Ballyhoo already on the scene when they arrived, eager to deliver the final results. “Welcome back, everyone! Enjoy your time chasing down cryptids in the Old World’s dismal depths? Whenever you’re done playing, make sure to rate our minigames on a scale of one to five stars, so we know what to keep in rotation! And now, without any further ado, THE STANDINGS!” He gave Balan his cue, and the green-haired mystery man sounded off a crisp drumroll from a drum set he’d manifested for just this occasion. “In third place: Bowser Junior, Geralt, Goldlewis, and Midna! In second place: Roland, Sectonia, Therion, and Primrose! And finally, in illustrious first place…Juri, Ganondorf, Sandalphon, and Zenkichi! Congratulations, everyone!” He snapped his fingers and a huge stack of rift tokens piled up atop his palm like pancakes. “And if you didn’t make top three, never fear, ‘cause at least you’re not leaving EMPTY-HANDED! TOKENS FOR EVERYBODY!” His other hand moved at a lightning-fast speed, dealing out rewards like a clay pigeon launcher. After only a moment, everyone had received their just desserts, and it was time to move on to the next step.

By now, everyone knew this song and dance, so Ballyhoo wasted no time in getting straight to it. For a third time the massive roulette wheel spun to life, the ivory-white ball rattling around its wooden circumference again and again until it finally grew tired and began to seek shelter. Nadia watched, a fresh neon green drink from the robotic fridge in hand, as the ball found itself a home in pocket number two. “Wow-ee!” Ballyhoo sang, beside himself with excitement. “Looks like you’re all in luck, because you just won the grand prize: our most popular minigame, KOOKY CABBIES!”

The words exploded in the air behind him as he announced the name of the game. After posing in the air, the gamemaster launched straight into his typical explanation. “This one’s nice and simple! You’ll take on the role of a taxi driver in a big city where LOTS of people need to go PLACES, and FAST! It’s your job to pick them up, drive them there, and drop them off as quickly -and nonlethally- as you can to earn that sweet, sweet MONEY! You’ll start with just ninety seconds on the clock, but you can earn bonus time too, so the better you do, the better you’ll…FARE! AHA! AHA! AHAHAHA!”

Eyes narrowed and arms crossed, Nadia flicked her tail back and forth. “I don’t get it.”

“Passenger difficulty is divided into easy, medium, and hard,” Ballyhoo continued. “Which you’ll see by the color of their markers: green, yellow, and red! Take on harder passengers to get bigger payouts, or do stunts en route to earn extra dough! Whoever’s got the biggest haul when everyone’s out of time, WINS! Ladies and gentlemen, START. YOUR. ENGINES!”

He and Balan began flying circles around the Seekers, posed as if driving invisible cars. As the latter worked his magic, the players’ worlds began to spin as well, and after a moment everything melted away in the surreal centrifuge.

---

When everything finally stopped spinning, the contestants found themselves spirited away once more to a brand new wonderworld. This time it took the form of a sprawling city spread across two islands connected by a handful of bridges, one a sprawling brick-and-asphalt metropolis of elevated highways and highrises, and the other a tropical island with houses not too unlike Carnival Town’s arrayed around a towering volcano. The sun setting on the oceanic horizon cast everything in gold, from the sparkling water to the clouds in the royal blue sky. This time, everyone appeared separated, scattered across the conjoined islands. Unlike the previous two minigames, it looked like this one would be a free-for-all. However, the competitors weren’t totally alone, either. They all received one stalwart companion: a custom convertible taxi cab tailor-made to their dimensions, bright yellow with black and white checkered stripes.

For once, Goldlewis was in luck: out of all the black tech he’d been obliged to use while in Midgar, cars were the only non-magic machines that tended to gel with him. Even in a brand new world, he’d never be able to dispense with that critical aspect of Americana. Figuring it was finally his time to shine, the veteran jumped in to find a key already in the ignition, and when he turned it the engine roared to life. Conversely, Sandalphon surveyed her ride with much less enthusiasm. She tended to prefer public transportation, so even if she could intuit this vehicle’s operation without too much trouble, she doubted that she possessed the skill or the daredevil energy to ace this challenge. Still, the archangel was nothing if not zealous, so she put herself behind the wheel with the resolution to wield this vehicle like a weapon of war.

And of course, Nadia didn’t have the faintest idea how to work an automobile, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying, or failing, or trying again. Everyone in that boat would have to learn as they went, since after just a couple seconds, Ballyhoo’s voice blared through the city’s storm sirens.

“Welcome to Grapital City! Are you ready to RUMBLE? Then put your pedal to the metal, ‘cause it’s ready. Set. GO!”

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lea

A safe distance away from the thick of the fighting, Lewa continued his efforts to mop up the slimes attacking the caravan's flank. They weren't exactly quick, but the gelatinous monsters spread out in order to try and get past him, so the toa of air kept himself constantly on the move. Fortunately he possessed more than enough speed to keep pace with the oozy onslaught. As alien as these things were to him, both in how they lived and died, his strategy for dispatching the pests worked well, and Lewa's only got better at it as he went. As the prairie winds swelled around him over the course of the fight, making the grasses dance to a tumultuous beat, he found himself in his element. With that wind at his back, he had enough momentum on his side to cleave through his attackers and disperse their jellied masses, rendering them little more than splattered remnants in the dirt and noxious fumes in the air. The handful of blows he'd taken prevented a perfect victory, but they were nothing that his armored body couldn't handle.

With the caravan's flank successfully defended, the triumphant toa could turn his attention toward the main battle for the village, and lend a high-spirited hand if necessary. Right away he registered the presence of new threats on the way, similar to those he'd already helped expunge, but much bigger and stronger. During the battle so far he'd noticed something foul about these amorphous enemies, like a dark stain of unknown origin, and even from this distance he could sense an even deeper sense of corruption emanating from his fallen foes' larger kin. Such was this loathsome dark aura that they could evidently detach and eject pieces of it, lobbed through the air like clumps of magma from the mouth of a volcano. Lewa knew instinctively that he did not want one of those hitting him. Still, he doubted that even these super-slimes would pose any real threat to his fellow otherworlders. After all, to a toa there wasn't much difference between a Fireflyer and a Hoto Bug. They all squashed just the same.

Case in point was Rayne's gigantic explosion. So far the Knight Witch had given a modest account of herself in comparison to those from Gensokyo, working remarkable magics more for helpful and considerate utility than egotistical destruction, but this blast dispelled any shadow of a doubt that Lewa couldn've possibly had about her power level. And from there, she went on rampage, doing much more in seconds than the toa of air achieved in minutes with a jaw-dropping display of magic. Not to be outdone, Anne strutted her stuff as well, wreaking havoc on both distant mortar-slimes and scattered strays. Without much to do, all things considered, Lewa kept close to the caravan as it gave the battlefield a wide berth. If by some miracle an enemy managed to get past Anne, he would make sure that the merchants and guardsmen came to no harm.

With this glorified slaughter all but won already, Lewa's real problem was the war within. Seeing Anne and Rayne go to work made the toa of air realize that he wasn't just last place in terms of ability, but distant last. Still, he swallowed his pride and held firm. He just needed to stay positive and keep looking forward. None of this mattered--only getting home.

World of Light

Film Those Freaks - No Pleasure Cruise I

Midna and Kamek’s @DracoLunaris, Geralt’s @MULTI_MEDIA_MAN, Level 8 Goldlewis (72/80)
Word Count: 4131 (+5)

”Yeah I do!” Jr replied to the question as to if he knew anything about tech and video making, before saying that ”I watch a whole bunch of stuff on UPipe back home when i get internet time. Stuff like Boyadi Piranha plant, MrDorrie, Chomps Jr. and- ” jr began to list off some of his favorite series and creators before remembering ”aaaaaand you have no idea what those are. Right. Obviously”

”But can you work these- Minda waved a hand at the torches rather than the camera as an added display of her ignorance ”-things to make this ‘movie’ with?”

Rather than reply, Jr instead let out a snort of a laugh, pointed at her head and said ”look at your helmet, it's huge!” before slapping his knee and laughing at her some more. As for what was causing his giggling fit, well, the diving bell had been made big enough to fit the princess’s helmet as well as her head, and with how much the top prongs added to her height, well, it was a touch oversized, something the increasingly dismayed twili found out as she patted it down with four hands.

”how… how bad is it?”

”Here, look” the prince replied, before picking up the camera, turning the device upside down, then turning the display around so she could see both it and, upon it, herself, which sent her groaning into 4 sets of hands. Goldlewis, who had been trying to hold in his mirth, broke down at this point and shook with silent laughter.

“It is rather large.” Geralt bluntly added, before looking at Junior. “So, I take it you’ll handle creating the…recording? While we handle defense and anything else you need us to do.” Geralt was more than okay with Junior taking the lead on this one, given that he was the only one here with any exposure to that sort of thing. Whether Goldlewis’ world had the kind of technology or not, if he had no idea how to use it, he was effectively in the same boat as Midna and herself.

”Can do” the prince replied along with a thumbs up as he turned the camera back around in his other hand and got a bit of a feel for how to get at least slightly decent shots on it.

Putting his hands on his hips, Goldlewis gave an affirmative nod. “Sounds like a plan to me. You’re the boss, li’l man.” Compared to the first minigame, the veteran felt a lot more engaged by this one already. Whereas his previous task amounted to little more than a rigorous physical exercise, this demanded expertise and creativity, and would apparently involve braving the ominously named ‘old world’. And who wouldn’t want to see a monster or two? He assumed that the actual scare factor would be low, given the Big Top’s whimsical aesthetic. Granted, Ballyhoo did say that there would be a hit point system involved, but actually having stakes just made things more exciting.

After grabbing a flashlight, which was black tech even he could handle, the veteran turned his attention to the diving bell that hung at the sky island edge. “Well. If y’all’re ready, I reckon we oughta get started.” On the way over, though, he glanced around the verdant garden, and not just to admire the flowers and fruits. He took note of a simple machine with a monitor and a large slot, some sort of receptacle for the camera judging by the helpful indicator. He suspected that was where the team should deposit the device once they were done. In addition to the power station, he spotted a freestanding touchscreen a good five feet or so in height, equipped with a coin slot. Curious, he moseyed over, and after a quick inspection decided that it must be a point of sale system. “Some sort of item shop,” he reported, running a finger over the coin slot. As the gears turned in his head, he pulled out the consolation token he’d been given after Connected Climbing Chaos, one eyebrow raised. “Huh, we’re s’posed to use these? Takes money to make money, I guess.” He looked through the shop’s offerings with greater interest, wondering what could possibly justify the in-game usage of his reward. For the most part, it looked like light sources or filming gadgets. “Anythin’ tickle your fancy?” he asked Junior.

”hmmmm” the prince mulled over the list as he used a knuckle (rather than a claw tipped finger) to scroll through the list of things commenting ”don’t need any defendy items we’ve got that in spades… I can heal stuff so we are fine there” before assessing that it might be worth getting ”a better torch so that we can see the stuff we’re filming, and one of those boom mics would let us get better sound? Would mean people are gonna have to carry those around instead of weapons though”

”I’ve got arms to spare for that at least” Midna offered, waving two hands while holding her currently removed helmet with the other two.

“I can focus on tracking and can try to slow anything down with Yrden if they prove a challenge.” Geralt added, completely lost on the kind of technology they were working with.

“That might come in handy.” Goldlewis shrugged. “As for me, after not doin’ so hot with that mountain climbin’ back there, I only got one Rift Token.” He stroked his whiskers while looking at Midna. “And you got third, but even then you only got three if I remember right. Well, it’s your call I guess. Me, I’m fine with what I got.” He flipped his token, caught it, and pocketed it in one smooth motion. Of course, someone could only look so cool with a big, dopey diving helmet on. “Pretty sure these glasses got a night vision mode anyhow.” He flipped down the tech lenses on his sunglasses to demonstrate, causing the built-in lights to glow red. If this mix of equipment gained from Jack-8 and Hank actually worked, it would be a stroke of good luck, and if it didn’t, well…at least he had that cheap flashlight.

”I can see a lot better in the dark than in bright light anyway, so I can help with spotting” Midna added, before saying ”but given that we only have to avoid coming last to get at least three more tokens, I’m happy to invest one of my winnings into improving all our odds of doing the same”

Following up on her word she opened a little portal on the ground which launched one of her coins up and out of it, before flicking the flying thing with a finger to make it fly perfectly into the slot. Actually buying the item too a little longer as she used the unfamiliar touch screen interface, but in a few moments she had acquired the very long stick with a fuzzy blob on the end

”So how does this-” Midna began to ask as she picked it up by the equivalent of the scruff of the neck and put the fluffy part right up in her face, only for her words to demonstrate how it worked by being a fair bit louder than they otherwise would have been

”I see” she said, before moving her hands down the stick and moving the mic away from her, and then saying, at a normal volume ”So it makes whatever is near the end louder. So we’ll be able to … hear what the monster noises better? Is that a good thing?”

”That- uh” jr began to reply with the information that that was not how microphones were supposed to work, before deciding that ”yeah sure” that was fine.

As for what it is for, he added that ”I mean, it’ll let us pick up anything anyone tussling with a spook says as well. So be sure to say something cool when you punch one. Or act scared? Cuz if we’re filming scary stuff and it's going on ‘spooktube’ then presumably the people watching want to be spooked as well? So we need to sell how spooky the stuff down there is instead of, you know, beating it up” hitting on the conceit of the minigame as he talked.

Goldlewis nodded. “Right, that follows. Guess that means I gotta act the part.” At first he’d wondered how complicated this whole ordeal could possibly be with just ninety seconds of film on the line, but there might be a lot of nuance to it. Regardless, unless Geralt had anything else to add prior to departure, it felt like a good time to head on over to the diving bell and get a move on. “Everyone ready?”

“Think so. So…we should act like these things are scarier than they are? Think I did well enough in that one play…” Geralt mumbled, though acting out a comedic play and acting terrified of something she could likely kill in seconds were two entirely different things.

”Something like that? Or just wary even? Basically let the spooky stuff be the focus rather than kicking its butt which isn’t very spooky” Jr replied, still trying to get the point worked out in his own head as well.

”It wouldn’t be a very good ghost story if the poor soul being haunted suddenly pulled a magic sword out of nowhere and stabbed the monster to death I suppose” Midna pontificate, before agreeing that ”So I think I understand it enough to get started”

Geralt nodded. “Agreed. Don’t kill any of the monsters, try to…show them being scary? I don’t really understand how you’re going to do that, Junior, but I trust you know what you’re doing. And then get back alive. I suppose after we have what we need, we don’t have to worry about holding back, though.” She mused.

With that, Goldlewis gave an officious grunt and turned to head for the diving bell. Even if Junior was technically the boss of this operation by virtue of his technical know-how, the little Koopa would be hard-pressed to keep up with his long stride, or outdo his commanding presence. Still, Goldlewis didn’t get too far ahead. Right now, he felt himself falling into an old pattern: the role of bodyguard. His job would be to protect Junior and make sure he got that footage back here, safe and sound, even if it meant being eliminated in the process. The veteran might not know the ins and outs of filmmaking, but dutiful self-sacrifice was something he was all too familiar with.

Once inside the diving bell, the big man stood by the door to close it and seal it shut once the others entered. While he waited, though, he laid his eyes on the terminal at the vehicle’s back. Its display showed vitals, including hit points and oxygen levels, for all four members of the team, as well as four measures of distance. They decreased as his teammates closed in, indicating their distance from the diving bell itself. Finally, just above the big lever that seemed guaranteed to begin their descent, he saw a selector with three options: the Factory, the Cruise Ship, and the Tunnels. Two of those sounded pretty ominous, but part of him suspected that the second option would be no pleasure cruise. After his last companion climbed inside, he swung the door closed with a squeak and cranked the wheel to lock it in place. “So, where we headin’?”

”A cruise ship? Are those spooky? I kinda wanna know” the prince said as he got up on tippy claws to take a look at the options while Midna shrugged, unsure as to what those were.

Goldlewis crossed his arm. “Why don’t we find out?” Using a knob on the console he selected the destination preemptively, but did not go so far as to pull the lever that would begin the team’s descent just yet.

Geralt hummed. “If it’s a ship, might be old or abandoned, with skeletons around to add to the ambiance. Tunnels are already dark, cramped places, so easy to understand how that might be scary. Not sure what a factory is, though…” She admitted, adding her two cents to the options. She wasn’t particularly attached to any of the three, though, and made no move to pick what she thought would be best, because she was out of her depth.

“It’s a kind of buildin’ where things are made. The same thing I mean, made lots o’ times. Mass produced.” Goldlewis waved his hand. “Don’t matter. If the li’l boss wants to see the ship, we see the ship, eh?” With a grin at the young koopa, Goldlewis reached out and pulled the lever.

---

With nothing to see and not much to hear outside of clunky machinery, Goldlewis and the others could only wait as the diving bell sank further and further down. It was a suspenseful ride, the tension growing each passing moment. The veteran had assumed that the crane would be lowering their vessel from the sky island to the ground, or maybe into the ocean, but from in here he couldn’t tell much of anything. Instead he considered the task ahead, gently stroking his whiskers as he thought.

“I ain’t ever made videos like this before, but I’ve seen my fair share of horror flicks,” he mentioned. “Most of ‘em ended up pretty schlocky. If ya ask me, the most important part of watchin’ somethin’ scary is the build-up. If you cram some critter down folks’ throats, it won’t end up bein’ frightenin’. Same if you keep usin’ jump scares, it gets old real fast. You gotta take it slow. Fleetin’ glimpses. Environmental storytellin’. Maybe somethin’ happens to someone, but you don’t get a good look at it. Then once you got them pins all set up, you can knock ‘em down with a big payoff towards the end.” He chuckled. “‘Course, I hope nothin’ ends up happenin’ to one of us. We could always stage it, though. Guess we’ll have to see how forthcomin’ these monsters are, heh.”

”If we need our own ghosts for the story, I’ve got two of those” Jr said, tapping two pokeballs while Minda offered a ”Skeletal knight on my end”

It wasn’t long after that that the diving bell slowed down. Eventually it stopped completely, but Goldlewis never felt any impact with the ground. Instead the vessel continued to rock back and forth slightly, as if suspended. He swallowed. “Why’d we stop? Is the damn thing broken?” Before messing with the control lever, though, he tentatively moved to the crank on the door. There was no water pressure holding it shut, and when he opened it, he revealed the side of a massive modern-day cruise ship. The diving bell was hanging in front of a huge hole in its side, connected only by its ramp. When he looked down over the edge, off to the side, or even straight up, Goldlewis saw nothing but infinite darkness, even with his goggles flipped down. “Guess we’re here, folks. Careful you don’t fall.”

Rather than test the ramp's integrity, the veteran jumped and airdashed into the hole. He landed in the ship’s interior, in what looked like a cross between a cargo bay and a junkyard, with crates and ruined automobiles stacked all over. Stranger still, everything was gray, completely homogenous in color and texture. It was eerily dark, with only ghostly light balls scattered around for illumination. Before Goldlewis could fully observe his surroundings, however, he spotted movement. With alarm the veteran registered something lurching out from the shadows, its form bulbous but humanoid, its stride slow and ponderous. “Well, that was fast,” he muttered before raising his voice. “We got company!”

A moment later the shape slumped into the light of the diving bell. When Goldlewis got a good look at it, though, he couldn’t help but be a little sheepish about his earlier alarm. It was a snail with arms and legs, exactly the same as the environment in color and texture, and though faster than a real snail it shambled around with such an awkward gait that Goldlewis felt like he could outrun it at a walking pace. Still, it was moving straight toward him, and the immediate encounter made him wonder just what else might already be closing in on his position. Making sure that he had solid ground behind him, he began to back away.

A moment after it came into view of the diving bell, there came the crack of gunpowder from within it and then a thunk as the musket slug slammed into the deck beside the snail man.

”How’d you miss from this range!” Jr exclaimed from behind the, going by the little green light, recording camera, as he pointed at the culprit: a briefly sheepish looking Minda.

That look vanished after a fraction of a moment before she lied ”I Swear I was on target?” to the face of the camera with the skill of a trained politician, before saying that ”Oh no, and now it's coming towards us!” as the snail man turned towards the source of the noise and started coming up the ramp.

”I’ll lead it away!” she insisted, before leaping off of the side of the bridge and into the void, only to land on the back of a summoned Flygon and use it as a platform to jump off of and then onto the ship herself. The slow monster turned to follow her as she led it behind some a stack of ruined cars, something the prince recorded after crossing a bridge of sideways cleaver swords held aloft by his Vespikan striker squad.

Then a moment later she asked ”How was that?” into a too closely held boom mic, causing Jr to whirl around with a little yelp to find Midna back among them again, the princess of twilight having shadow hopped back to them as soon as she led the monster out of sight.

Goldlewis scratched his head. “I dunno. That mighta been…overkill? It wasn’t all that threatenin’.” Just then, though, he spotted the same sort of movement in the shadows behind Junior. “Hold up…it’s back, right there behind ya!” He extended his hand in a dramatic point toward the snailman. When he realized that it approached from the opposite direction, he quickly amended his appraisal. “Wait no, it’s a second one! They got us in a pincer maneuver!” He turned out to be right when the first snailman slouched back into view, plodding toward the four Seekers. Of course, this was by no means a crisis, but Goldlewis was already beginning to see what the others had been on about. All this yelling and making a big, theatrical deal of the situation was actually pretty fun.

”You were saying?” Midna replied, with the kind of ‘I told you so’ tone reserved for when you were now stuck in a bad situation together and there was no positive but the ability to snark about it. She was also doing her best to maneuver the boom mic over whoever was talking to make sure their commentary was nice and clear.

“These things are smarter than they look. Dealt with enough monsters to know that. Even if they’re slow, one moment of distraction could be enough to spell your end.” Geralt gravely warned, definitely hamming it up, but the advice was still solid: Never underestimate your enemy.

Jr, having wildly swung the camera back and forth to get footage of both of them in what was maybe not the best camera-koopa-ship but which did imbue plenty of frantic energy to the footage, now swung it towards the scrap rest of the scrap and called out ”Maybe we can lose them in there?”

“If you got all you need, I got a better idea.” Goldlewis turned toward the snailmen and stood his ground as they waddled his way. “Y’all go on ahead. I’ll clean up.” He waited a moment more, then lunged forward. While the veteran left his coffin outside the scope of these minigames, he still had on the iron fists gained from his Jack-8 fusion. When he drove a mighty left hook into the monster’s ribs, the mechanism fired to add even more oomph to the blow, sending the snailman through the hole in the ship’s hull and out into the void with the sound of a shotgun blast. If these critters were both common and comically inept, the team had no further use for them.

The second snailman marched forward obliviously, and the next moment it met the same fate. With the threat passed, Goldlewis straightened up and dusted off his metal mitts. “There. No sense leavin’ ‘em around to bite us in the ass later.” He glanced at Junior, eyebrows raised. “Uh, pardon my French.”

”But we don’t have a donkey with us?” Jr replied with confusion, before saying ”Also I think I got the camera off before you kicked their butt, but might need to edit it a bit for the stuff you said before. If we can. Must be able to, right? Otherwise knowing when to stop filming and acting is going to be pretty tricky”

”Good idea, making sure we can toss them about though, and that they don’t just take hit points on contact or something cheap”

”Did it feel like you hurt it, or was it more or less the launching it out of here that did the trick?” Midna enquired as she ditched the gun she had indeed flubbed the shooting of into a portal.

Goldlewis scrunched his eyebrows together. “I didn’t feel anything break, to be fair. Like punchin’ a ball o’ dough. Guess I made the right choice aimin’ for the hole, but really I just wanted it outta here.” He crossed his arms as he looked at Junior. “Hey, cowboy. How much film we got left, anyhow?”

”We used just under a third, looks like?” the prince peered down at the camera, while Midna modded in thanks for the information about how to handle the virtual foes, before noting that they had ”about a fifth of our time down here left” after she checked her cheap watch.

“Then we’re makin’ decent progress,” Goldlewis declared. But they needed to do better than a couple of snails.

Though resolved to push further into the bowels of the cruise ship, the team didn’t get far. Barely did they get around a couple twists and turns in the cargo bay then the frontrunners glimpsed a strange shape just close enough to a ghostly light to be seen. Though difficult to make out at a glance, and motionless as its surroundings, its form featured obvious limbs, and other elements of clearly unnatural biology. When someone shone a flashlight on it, its beam revealed a freakish biped with scythe limbs extending from a round body covered in spiky protrusions. Most remarkable were its enormous bulging eyes, and as the light hit them their pupils dilated, shrinking down and then turning the Seekers’ direction.

Geralt’s face scrunched up in a bit of genuine disgust at the creature, which almost vaguely resembled a rotfiend, had one’s eyes ballooned to freakish proportions, and its hands mutated into needle-like stumps. “It’s spotted us!” She warned, stepping forward to put herself between it and Junior. “Ought to run, I don’t think we can fight this one!” Half-turning towards the camera and pointing behind Junior, she waited to make sure the others started moving before she risked turning her back fully on the monster. Ambiguous rules of the game or not, her instincts were fighting her on this the whole time.

With camera and boom mic turned in the monster’s direction, a recording light flickered green, and the show was on.

From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting)

Lewa

After stating his plan and resolving to try and stay more positive going forward, there was unfortunately not much more Lewa could offer to the strange band's ongoing conversation. What little the toa knew of society went straight out the window in this world, and he couldn't really speculate about either the nation or its inhabitants. Even with the current circumstances, he knew, one of his fellow toa might have fared a bit better in a situation like this. While Lewa fostered a connection with animals, Gali could connect better with the matoran (and humans mostly likely) by virtue of her keen and empathetic mind. Meanwhile, someone like Pohatu was a real people person, with a likeable personality and a knack for making pals. Among his brethren, the similarly gregarious Lewa counted the Toa of Stone as his best friend. Onua's sensibility and stout heart would have probably served him well, too. Only two toa might conceivably be worse off, given Tahu's aggressive, fiery temper and Kopaka's chilly, solitary nature. One would be more likely to get himself in trouble, while the other would probably isolate himself and go it alone. Regardless of their individual tendencies, Lewa missed them all. If he meant to reunite with them, he would need to stay strong and keep pushing forward.

To that end, he added some questions of his own to those posed by Sanae to the members of the caravan. Though he had a million questions in mind, he stuck to just those that concerned Lavielle. After all, this world's denizens were much less likely to understand his situation than his fellow fish-out-of-water, the otherworlders. And naturally, the greatest question -why me- he would reserve for the 'goddess' herself. Thanks to the merchants' cooperation, Lewa managed to assemble a crude understanding of Lavielle's position in this world and her relationship to the people, insofar as anyone in this world might know. This 'goddess' turned out to be quite the mysterious being, as distant and unknowable as the Great Spirit Mata Nui himself. The more he heard, the more Lewa understood just how unheard of it would be to meet with this being at all. It was a sobering realization, but Lewa kept a hold of himself. The impossible was just something that nobody had managed to do yet.

Gradually, Lewa settled in for the long haul. Days spent traveling agonized him almost as much as the days he spent languishing in and around the village, but there was one ray of hope: the possibility of actually getting somewhere. Compared to his island home, this world seemed immense, with much broader and less varied (not to mention less interesting) biomes. At least the journey spared Lewa one misfortune that it inflicted on his fellows: travel rations. Preserved meats like salted pork, hard tack that needed to be moistened with water or wine, young cheeses, trail mixes of nuts and dried fruits, plain beans, and just downright gruel did not make for fine dining, but that seemed to be how medieval travelers sustained themselves. As everyone journeyed, Lewa tried to foster good relations with the others, hard as it was. Those who already knew one another tended to be a bit insular. Anne interacted with him willingly, but the curiosity in her eyes as she examined him unnerved him somewhat--he wasn't some gizmo to be broken down and studied. The further the group got, the harder it would be for them to reach Millie again if she turned out to be important. Lewa didn't like total reliance on strangers for directions, but he did his best to memorize the lands he passed through. Very little broke up the monotony of travel, but when it rained, it poured.

On that day, things started slow, with a sighting of unusual slimes in great numbers. A quick scouting trip from Sanae suggested that the town had capable defenders in the form of an impressive tree monster and a human with huge pincers, but even capable defenders couldn't be everywhere at once. Lewa decided to help right away, reasoning that the caravan was slow enough that he could catch up easily, especially if the wagons gave the situation a wide berth. Of course, the toa wasn't the only one thinking about the commoners' welfare, and Fran was more than a little faster off the mark than he was. Watching her eviscerate slimes as he moved to insist, he couldn't help but wonder if there would be any left by the time he got there. It was a little disappointing, but there were more important things at stake than his personal pride. Instead of following in her footsteps, the toa heeded Anne's suggestion to help with the flank.

With a much smaller group of enemies, he could do his thing without worrying about Mokou blowing him up. That said, his axe didn't seem to be the best tool for the job; these bizarre creatures seemed to lack vital organs, or even a coherent form, and just chopping them only slowed them down. "Like fighting protodermis," he muttered. These slimes were more viscous than protodermis, though, and that gave him an idea. Working methodically, the toa used both bursts of wind and carving blows from his axe to splatter, then separate the slimes. Once divided up, the individual blobs could be flung even farther by his air currents, effectively negating each threat. Not as efficient as the others just vaporizing them, he knew, but Lewa was glad to be doing something, at least.