Tatterdemalion

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

SECOND PLACE
WEREWOLF MAGNET

Every animal knows that being hurt is bad. The beast from the woods jumps back, clinging to a bookshelf as it yowls in pain from the ice-cold thousand-teeth of the shadow clinging to its matted limbs.

No plan! Think in the now!

[9 on Heightened Senses. What’s the best escape route from Timmy’s shadow and Sam’s vengeance?]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

The words are whispered back into your fur. How funny that it takes a nightmare like this to bring them out of you. And speaking of nightmares, that... that thing is coming closer.

It’s somehow digging through the air, and its drill is studded with little bits of night and falling stars that chew through what is, only for a groaning engine to reconstitute reality behind it. The sight of a tunnel in the air is viscerally upsetting. It literally Should Not Be.

The machine comes to a whining, grinding stop level with you. It’s a goblin device, all burnished copper and flashing runestones and venting steam.

A door dilates with a hiss in the side, and Princess Hornet pokes her head out. She stares at you for a long moment through your work goggles. You stare at her. She stares at you.

“Do you need help?” It’s an actual question. Like, any other princess would be asking it teasingly, to tweak your nose. Hornet very literally doesn’t know if you need help or if she’d just be messing up your plans.

Luckily, you have Helya with you, and she thinks fast.

“Hornet,” she says, swinging herself from side to side, building up momentum, “Catch.”

You and Dandy are flung into the interior of the drill, which... is bigger than it should be. Like, wow. You shouldn’t be able to stand up, but the ceiling’s high and vaulted, and there’s a tea corner with wicker chairs and an array of untouched teas, and dials and buttons and levers everywhere, and pictures. A lot of pictures.

They’re drawn by hand, and oddly impressionistic. The sweep and curve of your neck, making you look like a desert wind caught in flight. Dandy, looking almost like a mushroom, mostly hair and robes. A goblin queen who’s all smile, her eyes unseen. Helya, sharp lines all over her suggesting muscle.

Helya is negotiating with Hornet, asking her to go back and pick up the others, and asking her if this thing is proofed against “changes in reality” given its strange properties. But you’re stuck looking at the pictures of you, and a sticker pressed up against one in particular, which is almost shamefully tucked behind a long sketch of Deep Hollow: “my friend,” in a golden star.

Aren’t dogs good at being friends?

***

Azora Howl!

One challenge remains before you! There’s an irate four-headed dragon, and a bunch of manticore gardeners, and they’re all going to try to stop you!

Stomp them down. Show off. Claim those golden apples.

***

Rita!

You drop lightly to the ground with a whisper of silk. Never underestimate the flexibility and cleverness of a Jedadi dancer.

Your adversary is there, atop that broom. She has the beautiful cat princess with her, your noble mistress who drives your heart to strange passions.

While the dragon is distracted, dance through the danger! Get an apple before the witch can secure you more readily! This is the last song, and you can’t give up now!

And be sure to blow your noble mistress a kiss and show her that it is in her honor, all for love of her, that you dare!

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 1

“Are you kidding?” Heaped up in front of Sara is the @SARAHPHIM. It’s swirls of berry, both dark and bright, shot through a creamy vanilla, with those little crunchy candy stars worked in. When you bite down on them, they fizzle and pop. It’s served in a speciality stained glass cup. “We wrecked face! Victor handled Vicki’s rampage by hijacking her skillwires, Euna saved the Shogun, I saved pretty much literally everybody else, even managed to save the life of a kid and her teddy bear, which, you know, that’s professionalism for you.”

Really, she should already be working the angles. Trying to figure out what a post-AEGIS career is going to look like. Putting her head together with Euna to scheme about what comes next. Posting exclusive ice cream brunch pics to the Golden Patron tier. But, well... she damn near burnt the hardlight out of her spine today. She doesn’t even want to touch her powers right now, much less promote herself.

Right now, she’s stealing from Euna’s ice cream, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with Ferra, and grinning at Victor, who looks like he needs to lighten up hard. Come on! This is a celebration!

Let’s party already!

[Sara marks Potential, and Ferra gets to shift her labels.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila I!

The snakes have finally stopped their fighting. Probably. They are circling around each other, warily, and only seem to have eyes for themselves. The laziest possible explanation is that they are infatuated with each other, but it is more likely that they are seeking to analyze each other's strength, and decide whether any more fighting is worthwhile, or whether it would be more profitable for the both of them to slink away and never see each other again.

Regardless, you are dealing with a much more pressing problem: the drill that has just burst out of the muddy, swamped grass, and is still going, tunneling through the very air itself. Behind it is left a tunnel of swirling water and wind and earth, obscuring the small form of the pilot at the wheel of this infernal contraption.

"Follow that drill," you say, pointing dramatically at it. Easier said than done-- but you care about results. One way or another, you're going to use that device in order to go straight to the heart of this labyrinth, find Alina Cascade, and use her to steal the Caduceus.

***

Adila!

The chaos of the whirlpool is a foaming, roaring torrent. The earth sags and gives way underneath your paws. The entire room seems to be folding in on itself, collapsing, the ceiling bending down with a groan that suggests it's going to give way at any moment. Helya is, well, she's making her own way up, as she always does. This is about you, champ. This is all about you, and your refusal to let Dandy down. To not give your all to save her.

You can't be forced to blurt out your feelings about her and then not save her. That isn't how any of this works! And deep down... you know that, don't you? In Hyperborea... your Hyperborea... a happy ending can be deferred, but not lost. Eupheria can be wounded terribly by the failures of love, but she cannot be beyond saving. And as long as there is strength in you, Princess Dandelion of Feloria will not be abandoned.

You burst through to her. Only your eyes could see her down here in the midst of the mud and muck, her curly hair flowing all about her like a net, her hooves digging a groove in the mud, shaking and trembling like a spooked horse. You clasp your jaws around the roots and pull with all of your strength, and then some. Lights burst and flash behind your eyes, but then they come undone-- and all the earth around them, too. Dandy throws her arms, still entwined in roots, around your neck, and you leap like a dolphin from the water even as the room folds in on itself completely, standing stones and trees and all.

You fall.

And then your rear paw is grabbed. Princess Helya Laynasdottir holds you up, dangling from the last handhold she could find in the collapse. She makes holding your weight by one hand look easy, even though the strain must be immense. Dandy wraps her legs around you to avoid from flipping over, and buries her face into your neck, clinging so tightly she almost chokes you.

Her shoulders heave with... well, with what must be a whole jumble of emotions.

There's something coming up towards you from below, but you have a moment here. A moment to think clearly at Dandy, even if you add in little woofs. Just you, and her, and Helya stopping the two of you from plummeting to your dooms.

What do you think at her?

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

Some people would see a cyborg thundering towards them and would dive out of the way. But not @SARAHPHIM. She makes a very Joestar-like pose, thumb and forefinger making an L at her chin, and unleashes hell. She’s given her generator enough cool down to spin up painfully hot again.

The gaps are precise and tight. It’s possible that someone might be able to weave their way through, if they knew exactly what they were doing and had superhuman reflexes. Maria tries to bullrush her way straight through, which works as well as trying to body a tidal wave.

Maria slams down, parts whining and sparking, a foot away from @SARAHPHIM. The barrage surges outwards, back, and around @SARAHPHIM for an explosive finale.

@SARAHPHIM cracks her neck, does her best not to fall over herself, and goes for the money shot. Her flight harness pulls her up just enough that, when she brings her foot down on the back of Maria’s head, it doesn’t break her nose. She grinds her heel down, emphasizing her complete and total victory, then saunters down the cyborg’s back.

She picks up the teddy bear and makes a big show of dusting him off. “Don’t worry, sir,” she says, hamming it up. “You’re under @SARAHPHIM’s protection.”

Then, teddy bear tucked under her arm, she rockets up out of the disaster zone.

Of course she’s not going to go find the kid. Firstly, there’s still Vicki to take care of, and who knows where Euna’s gotten off to...

And secondly? When the kid gets the teddy bear back, she’s going to get him back cleaned and repaired by the best in the business. She’ll even have Angel-IKA check if this thing has any accessories. He’s coming back a hero.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

There's nothing like princesses working in concert. You race up the back of the Snake-Husband as, together, Tashanna and Shazari lure it in its battle with the snake-wife towards the hole in the ceiling. Behind you, Helya races, making it look easy; every buck or undulation in the furious snake's battle doesn't even seem to phase her, even though it's all you can do to keep your footing.

There! Your window for diving into the torrent is tiny, but it's there, as the Snake-Husband rears up and rakes the flooded checkerboard with his eye lasers. From the top of his head, you can leap--

***

Mittens!

It's that defiance that makes you push yourself against the thorny bars, ignoring how they prick you painfully, and poke one of your bound hands out to catch Red. As you clench your fingers around it, dragon's strength floods through you, and even as your floral bindings tighten and redouble in response to your sudden swell of power, it looks like you might, you just might have a chance here, even as Kazelia lets out an exhausted sigh and crumples onto the grass and the Cage That Walks tries to race you into the garden. No, forget that! You're not going to let yourself fail here, are you? Not when Kyouko and Kazelia lie defeated and drooling in the grass... no!

You are a princess of Ilumina! And if Rita doesn't remember you... you'll climb to the top of this labyrinth with your bare paws if you need to, and fix everything!

Overcome, Mittens!

***

Azora Howl!

Eewwwww! This room is so, so provincial! You're not going to go trooping through all those weeds, are you? No, you are not. What luck that in the last room, you managed to get a witch's broom! With a hup, hup, up, you hop side-saddle onto the broom and make it slowly rise over all these nasty thorns.

It looks like the golden apples on top of that hill are what you're supposed to get. You should take both of them! You deserve them, you know. You deserve everything. When you win, you're going to make Queen Eupheria crown you Super Awesome Princess of Everything so that everyone has to grovel and do what you say, and then you're going to make all those Iluminans fan you and bring you sweets.

Yeah! But while you're heading on your way, zipping along, you notice some more princesses, ugh, trying to get there before you. Why don't you mess with them a little? You have such wonderful witchy powers, after all. Maybe you should put a collar on that cat, or wrap up that dancer in her own veils, or even go pinch your nerdy little sister!

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

“Better watch out, Maria~!” Hardlight blasts the kiosk, fired at an angle. @SARAHPHIM has always had trouble with curving bullets, but she can shoot from a controlled position no problem, rattling Maria’s nerves as she jauntily keeps up a barrage. “I’ve got backup, you know! A whole army of stuffed animals! The bunny rabbit should be more than a match for you, given how badly you got wrecked by a teddy bear.” If there’s another thing Best Tiger is good at, it’s a dismissive sneer.

“Man, I’m glad I don’t work for AEGIS any more. Those post-incident reviews were always a pain, you know? Blah, blah, collateral damage.” The barrage continues. It’s the hot whine that needs to keep up. She needs Maria’s nerves as frayed as possible. “I don’t even want to imagine trying to explain how I got taken down by Mister Teddybottoms. Does that go under Room For Improvement or Media Apology, do you think? Because I can promise you that @BlackSunOfficial is being spammed with the teddy bear emoji right now.” Did Sara join in with a well-timed retweet? Yes. “By the way,” she adds, crossing her fingers that she’s not going to have an awkward conversation with the kid later, “I really hope you, like, actually pulverize the bear, because it’ll be absolutely hilarious to have proof you’re finally punching at your weight class!”

And then the piece de resistance: Maria’s headset chirps with DUMBASS.MOV. It’s from @SARAHPHIM’s stream feed, showing her flailing one-armed at a stuffed bear.

Sara grins, puts her hands behind her head, and counts down from three.

[10 on Provoke into making a stupid berserker charge, with a side of “doesn’t lash out against the teddy bear because that would prove Sara right”]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Dandy!

You try to pull yourself up again. You fail. Again. Based on the way that this vast bog is rushing past you on its way through the hole that the snake made, on the way it’s pummeling you and making serenity and peace very difficult... well, you’re running out of air faster than you were expecting.

Though that’s not the only reason you’re panicking and letting the air trickle out of you as your heart keeps jumping like an Askaian on a hot tin roof: it’s because you took a leap trusting Adila would catch you, and she’s nowhere to be seen. Spots thrown behind your closed lids. You trusted she wouldn’t lose, and... well, look where that got you. Tangled up in roots and drowning as a bunch of muddy water rushes past you too slow to do anything useful at all.

That girl! She’s got you coming and going. She thinks she’s too big to fit and she’s letting that scare her off from finding her place, and she can’t pick between you and an actual wild devil...

So what?

The thought’s surprising. You dig your fingers around the roots and try to slow your heart despite the torrent all around you.

Because you could even share her with a Devil if it meant getting to see her right now. Even if she couldn’t save you... you don’t want to go alone. You don’t want her to worry for the rest of her life, moping over whether you’d gone into the light mad at her.

And that’s a want big enough to keep the last bit of breath between your teeth, even as the roaring in your ears drowns out everything else. It’s a want you’d dig yourself out of your own grave to follow, see if you don’t.

***

Adila!

There’s... lots of water. It’s pouring! It’s making a mess. You were covered in the mess. Dandy was covered in mess too.

Dandy.

Dandelion.

You’re a guard dog, aren’t you, Adila? You’re supposed to protect. You’re supposed to be a good dog.

If you can’t help Dandelion... you need to bring someone else to help her. Someone you can trust. Pick a princess and then go swim up that deluge!

***

Kyouko!

You’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to be doing this. For one thing, a cheerleader cheers! She doesn’t do the thing worth cheering about! That’s just common sense. You’re a trophy, something to be won and shown off, something to encourage real princesses.

But Kazelia’s so innocent and silly, and if someone doesn’t take care of her, who will? She’s so smart and so dumb all at the same time, and you’d rather be kicked off the team than see her fail. Not here. She’s got to win.

So you keep fighting. You’re used to weighted sleeves and hidden darts and ambushes with silk ropes, not shoving pom-poms in faces and doing acrobatic split kicks, but that’s Konkon spirit! Never give up! Invent new rules! Score!!

Then you see the glimmer of red from Kazelia’s bag, and know that she just needs a moment longer— just a moment— and that the gardeners won’t even give her that.

So you howl the terrifying war-yelp of your people and throw yourself bodily into several of them, feeling the prick of stingers all over as you buy Kazelia the time she needs to be the hero you know she is.

And then... well, even if she doesn’t save you, that’s okay. Everybody knows that the cheerleader gets saved eventually. You’re... the, the... you’re... distress, the, um...

The world slides into blackness far too early.

***

Kathelia!

Kyouko’s scream, ending in a gargled whimper, jolts you back to your senses for a moment. There. You wrap your fingers around Red and feel a surge of clear-headedness. Of strength. Of power.

The minute you drop this— which is troublesome, given that it’s in your dominant hand— you’ll crash. Hard. But right now, you feel... you feel like a nerd given strength for the first time.

For as long as you hold Red, you can access its associated power. It recognizes you as one of Alina’s friends, and will help you get it back to her. But where is she, anyway?

***

Rita!

You race nimbly through the foliage. You can’t stop, you have to dance, you have to get to the end so you can dance for the mighty Queen of all these lands and win your heart’s desire, once you can remember what it is you wish for most, and right now your dance is a wild, vaulting Rowani Rain-stomp, and you let out a yawp far bigger than your dainty frame. Then, through the trees, as you race past, you see something very curious.

There’s a cage, and it has legs. It’s marching up towards the garden, and all this overgrown shrubbery is bending out of its way. Inside is a figure in a sheer shirt, all tangled up in vines and scarf-leaves. You catch eyes for a moment, and she surges up, pressing herself against the thorny bars and letting out a muffled, desperate cry. Then the foliage between you thickens, obscuring her from view once more.

You’re so distracted you almost pirouette into chain-vines.

She seemed so familiar...

And so beautiful...

Perhaps she is your heart’s desire, revealed for but a moment by the labyrinth. Yes! Yes, that must be it! She is your noble mistress, who you wish to be reunited with once more!

Thus fortified, you dash on nimbly, untouched by weed or thorn.

***

Mittens!

You slump. Rita’s gone again. And the curse has run deep with her. When you looked in her eyes... she seemed confused. Did she even remember you?

You are being slowly marched through this dangerous forest by a walking cage of thorns and branches. You’ve been beaten. If Rita won’t come back... if Kazelia decides she’s got the best chance at winning... well, you’ll be stuck. Here. A failure. Like always.

What’s it like, knowing you were never going to win?

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

And I have updated her character sheet, though the fashion change won’t kick in until next episode

(She’s absolutely going punk Red Riding Hood)

Waiting on Sam’s reaction to Feral Elodie Event and Shadow Attack

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Jessamine!

The emergence of Princess Shazari of Jedad in her battle-armor from the throat of one of the Snake-Husband’s heads is glorious. She brings golden light with her, caught in the folds of her cloak, and her helm is burnished and glorious, wrapped round and round with images of two-headed serpents.

The Snake-Husband lowers one vast head and lets her alight on the ruined ground, stepping haughtily down.

“What have you done while I was putting our husband to rights?” She asks, loudly— but you almost miss the question, because the glass snake-wife has just projectile vomited a huge dog directly at Adila I, knocking both of them into an awful slimy tumble.

And then both serpents raise their heads and bellow so loudly that the whole labyrinth shakes.

***

Kathelia!

“SHE’S THE BEST, CAN’T BE BEAT, GOT A BUTT THAT’S SUCH A TREAT! GOOOOOO KAZELIA!!”

Kyouko is defending you too, buying you time with her pompoms and high kicks and cartwheels. Whenever a manticore gardener looks about to seize you, she’s suddenly there, waving her pompoms in their face and cheering loudly until they stumble back in confusion. That’s what buys you time to release Red, which... falls neatly out of its casing. Careful! Try to catch it!

It... falls into your bag and disappears underneath the bric-a-brac of the Labazaar. And that’s when one of the manticore-gardeners sneaks her tail around Kyouko’s frantic defense and stings you!

And of course, you know all about manticore venom. What does it do again?

***

Eupheria!

“I want an apple, Argyle!!!”

You stamp your foot and wait for your dragon to get out of the way. You’re his mistress just as much as the other Euphie is! But instead your dragon whines in confusion, shaking his silly head.

It’s so frustrating! Nobody ever listens to you!! Not even Argyle thinks you’re worth listening to, and you practically made him, bit by bit, scale by scale, palette by palette!

What does it make you want to do?