Void Voyaging

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So I'm gonna guess that we 'eat' Magicka, hence why we're getting less hungry over time despite the food we've been eating doing fuck-all for us: our Magicka passively refilling is enough to feed us.

As for why it's taking so long, perhaps this is one of those low-Magicka planes where recharging is slower than normal, maybe we have huge Magicka capacity, or even both.
 
magicdownunder said:
Rachael seems like an awful person.
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Let's say you're a fifteen year old girl left alone in what may as well be an apocalypse as far as your situation is concerned. Not only that, but you have to take care of a child as well.

Now consider that the child was brought to you when you were nine. The one who brought her is a human-looking monster that's almost pure white outside her eyes and some black markings. Only, this monster didn't bring the child to you, but to your grandfather, who it decided would take care of the child after it got rid of you so he could focus on your replacement. When your grandfather rejected that plan, the uncanny monster grabbed him in its immovable grip and ate him in front of you, leaving you with the child and ordering you to look after her.

Alone with no other company, you struggle and toil to eke out a living in a dangerous and harsh remote region of the world, unable to leave and knowing that things won't get easier. The child you're forced to look after grows ever more similar to the monster who ate your only remaining family before your eyes, losing a little more color and emotion seemingly with each passing day.

How much longer will she even be human? How long until she turns on you? Wouldn't it be better just to kill her now?

Sometimes you wake up from nightmares of teeth and blood and everyone you ever knew being eaten alive. Sometimes you're there with them.

Those times, waking up with that slowly changing burden, that diseased child that cost you your own caretaker, clinging to you. Staring at you in your sleep with unblinking eyes that you swear glow faintly in the dark just like that monster's. Feeling phantom teeth rending your flesh, seeing the shades of your family being feasted upon in this waking nightmare even as you take in the peaceful sight of the basement you call home.

How would you react? How many times do you think you might have come close to ending things, one way or another? Living this way for six years, both of you only getting worse instead of better.

Can you even trust yourself around her in those times? Why does it matter?

She doesnt care about you, about your safety, about your happiness or wants. Hell, she doesnt even care much about her own safety lately, making it even harder to take care of her. Yet she's the only one there, the only thing keeping you from being completely alone.
 
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[x] Catch some extra fish for Rachael and Kiska
-[x] Escort Kiska home and then find a quiet place to just sit and think.

With all the great parental rolemodels in Voyager adopting these kids will only be positive and prosocial for everyone involved!
 
Chapter 11: Seeking Solitude
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    • [X] Catch some extra fish for Rachael and Kiska
    -[X] Escort Kiska home and then find a quiet place to just sit and think.

    It's another half hour of effort to bring in four more fish, these uneaten since the idea of gorging herself on something that didn't seem to fill her up was unappealing. She'd tried with the trees and didn't particularly care to repeat it with fish even if they were far better than expected.

    Kiska obviously didn't agree, since she ate a large amount of the first one... relatively. She was such a tiny thing after all and the fish was larger than Rachel.

    On the topic of Rachel, they had decided to head back to the basement to drop the food and child off with the teen. At Kiska's quiet groan of discomfort upon standing, Voyager had helped the child onto her shoulders before stacking their scaly spoils in her arms and setting off.

    ------------------​

    Rachel was asleep when they arrived, curled up on the bathroom floor for some reason.

    With Kiska's assurance that she could look after them and that she'd lock the door, Voyager draped a blanket over the sleeping girl and made for the exit. Giving a whispered farewell to the sickly child, who she was glad to note still looked a bit more enthusiastic than she had that morning, the armored girl left her to her work of cutting up the fish.

    Closing the door behind her, she looked up at the sky to see the sun was halfway through its descent to the horizon.

    Breaking into a run, she passed broken vehicles and a couple skeletons in the street. For some reason, she half expected the dead bones to get up and attack her. Why that was, she could only guess. Most likely it had to do with all the talk of ghosts, but at the same time, it felt as if there was more to it. As if she had experience with living skeletons.

    Creaking, the aged skull turned to stare with blue fire in its eyes and a curved sword in its bony fingers. It would need to be lashed together with dried tendons or even metal fittings lest it fall apart as easily as those roaming the forgotten crypts and ancient fortresses dotting the countryside.

    Shaking the oddity away, she kept up her run, simply focusing on her path until she arrived at the top of the island. She wasn't sure if it was a hill or a mountain, but it probably didn't matter. It was high enough to provide a good view of the area, the trees not growing beyond a certain point on the slop for some reason. On a lower summit she could see an odd structure, something like a white cross with multiple horizontal beams and a bunch of cables coming off of it. The jungle below rustled in the wind, the needle-leaves shaking visibly at her distance and the blue water lapped at the island in a steady rhythm.

    It was a nice spot.

    Sitting down and basking in the sun's comforting warmth, Voyager just leaned back and admired the scenery for a while. Now that she wasn't starving and had some time alone, she was free to let her mind wander beyond immediate concerns.

    Status: ??? Peckish

    Choose    :
    [] Think on how you slowed your fall last night.

    [] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?

    [] More than anything involving yourself, you're more worried those two girls. They shouldn't be living like this.
     
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    • [x] More than anything involving yourself, you're more worried those two girls. They shouldn't be living like this.

    Our track for not getting people brutally murdered is not stellar, but if there is a time to try, it would be after we mind melded the whole crew turned a new leaf.
     
    [X] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?

    - - -

    The best defense is a great offence!!

    (Also I'm bias since I still think we should be locking Rachael in that tiny box too see how she likes it).
     
    [X] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?
     
    [X] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?

    Finally it's moving on to practical stuff. While flight is strategically more useful, proper manifestation of weapons and armor is more important to ensure survival in the short term. That and it should give a more comprehensive diagnosis of just how much damage there is to the other parts and systems by bringing them out, or at least attempting to.

    Hopefully sensors might be part of it too for more information gathering.
     
    [x] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?

    Step 1: Learn to bonk enemies
    Step 2: Bonk enemies
    Step 3: ????
    Step 4: force earn girls affection
    Step 5: Power of Friendship
     
    [X] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?

    Better weapons means we bonk enemies and that probably helps us stay fed. We need to be a good rolemodel for the kids, and that means showing them that a healthy diet is important to maintain.
     
    If she inherited some traits or knowledge of Cy, Salem and the good Doctor, she'd be Primarch-like. She already got the height.

    [X] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?
     
    Chapter 12: Arms
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    • [X] You noticed something odd when remembering your name. That feeling of weight around your arms, there and not there at the same time... what was that?

    As she sat there, just relaxing, her wandering thoughts inevitably made their way back to that strange sensation she'd felt earlier.

    Voyager; the name had come amidst a wave of impressions and brought with it an awareness of things she hadn't realized had been there all along. Most notable among them being the... phantom weight. It wasn't heavy in any real way, but lent her arms something like resistance, but without actually making it harder to move. An intangible obstacle that wasn't intended to impede her.

    It didn't really make much sense.

    Grasping at the nonexistent object, her sleeveless arm impossibly brushed up against what felt like a handle! Not a moment later, her vision swirled into chaos.

    An infinite expanse of darkness so devoid of light and substance that she couldn't rightly call it something so mundane as black. It was nothingness, no light or sound. Temperature didn't have meaning and not even a mote of dust could persist, what flecks of material she'd dragged along quickly broke down into more(less) nothingness.

    Paradoxically, she could see points of... something not light, beyond sight and all infinitely distant while brushing up against the flat, intricately engraved planes of her nine-sided body. Two felt familiar, tasting of places she'd been and things she'd seen. One was unknown and yet not and gave her a small pat before sending her on her way.

    And then the moment was over, her eyes once again looking out across the sea from atop the island. Only... now her hand was concealed beneath more of herself.

    Encasing her arm up to just before the elbow was a polished steel structure with nine sides, just as she had been in her dreams and in that vision. Upon reaching where her wrist would be, the metal flowered into nine petals that stretched out and she knew they were for stability... though their placement on her arm was odd since, now that she could see them, she knew they were part of her feet. Beneath where the landing braces unfolded from was a nonagonal spike coated in an extremely strong metal.

    Bending down to poke the ground, the tip of her foundation slid through dirt and stone with ease.

    Reaching out at the phantom weight with her other arm, Voyager was struck by the dichotomy of the situation. 'This is too familiar', she thought as the hand always hidden in her sleeve touched something. It was like she was already aware she could do these things, but she knew for a fact that wasn't the case. If she had known, then she would have know, it was that simple.

    'Stupid selective memory.'

    Grumbling to herself, she pulled at her sleeve to inspect her hand only to reveal nothing. There was no mechanical contraption, no metal plating, no spike or armor... and yet she could feel the change. Shifting within her arm, like gears moving and rods sliding into place. On a hunch, Voyager extended her arm straight out toward the open ocean.

    Opening her hand as if she was grabbing something round, a nearly flat bubble popped int being between her slender fingers. Minor adjustments to her digits moved the angle of the bubble. A thrumming heat in her chest was ready, wanting to reach out and touch the world beyond her.

    So she let it.

    Wind roared outward from her position, forced away in a thunderous crash as a tiny green star streaked through the mid-afternoon sky. Fractions of a second passed before the dot twinkled out, passing the horizon and going straight on into space.

    Staring down at her hand incredulously, part of her felt as though she should have expected that from a kilometer long railgun that shoots plasma... because that was what her arm was apparently.

    A full minute later, a brilliant green spark flashed and died on the horizon just outside her eyes' field of view, but she caught it anyway since her eyes seemed to be aesthetic more than necessary. With how fast that ball of plasma had been flying, it must have gone really far before exploding. It was a self-contained magnetic packet, so it shouldn't have had enough energy to prevent destabilizing before exiting the star system... but that would have taken much longer, so it probably hit a rock or something.

    Shaking away the errant thoughts and randomly appearing insight, Voyager looked around in wonder at the fact her surroundings didn't appear damaged at all. With the amount of wind and sound she'd caused, she expected more than some dust to have been kicked up. How strange... but she'd been growing rather used to strange things, why should this be any different.

    Well, either way, probably didn't want to do that again so soon. For whatever reason, she'd been feeling less and less hungry up until she'd fired that off. Now she felt like a snack would be good... too bad she still didn't know what constituted food for her inhuman body. The only thing she'd found that her body liked beyond taste so far was the blue powder that leaked out of her when she scratched her forehead yesterday.

    She could try to eat her own blood, but that hardly seemed like a good way to fill up.

    Status: ??? Peckish.

    Choose    :
    [] Return to the girls and make sure you didn't scare them too much.

    [] Head over to the larger island nearby in search of food and information.

    [] Your shooting might have attracted more ghosts. Patrol the town until morning just to be sure.

    [] Write-in.
     
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    • Alright, so what did we just bomb into oblivion?

    [x] Your shooting might have attracted more ghosts. Patrol the town until morning just to be sure.

    We need to do that again in close quarters. For science.
     
    PieceThruWar said:
    The only thing she'd found that her body liked beyond taste so far was the blue powder that leaked out of her when she scratched her forehead yesterday.
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    Eezo eh? Too bad there aren't, or shouldn't be any in this place. But maybe the other things here also glow blue could be to her taste...

    As for the vote:
    [X] Head over to the larger island nearby in search of food and information.

    Since that was as energy-wise costly as expected, more sources of food/fuel has to be found to recharge, or else she'll need to keep eating what little is left from the girls.
     
    Echoes of Lunacy
  • Sidestory
    • Echoes of Lunacy​

    Voyager was about to leave when her eyes caught something. There, up in the sky, was a bright, eye-catching, full moon.

    She didn't know exactly how long she stared at the celestial body. Nor why she did so with such intensity.

    Her sleeved hand itched.

    She looked down at her hand, trying to discern the cause. Finding none, she returned her attention to the moon.

    Then back to her hand.

    And back to the moon.

    This continued again and again. She had long lost count of how many times.

    Her breathing was heavy. Sweat dotted her brow. Her heart hammered in her chest.

    'What is this feeling?' She wondered to herself. What was once mere disquiet was slowly turning into a mounting sense of dread. 'What is happening to me?'

    She gazed upon the moon once more.

    '... It's mocking me!' She thought, before shaking her head. With that deranged thought, she knew she had to act quickly before she did something she might regret--though what, she wasn't certain.

    She forced her eyes to the ground, shoved her hand into her pocket, and walked away.

    She removed neither eyes from ground nor hand from pocket until the first light of dawn caught her attention.

    And with that, she slumped and breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. She did not know why, but she felt like she had been tested and she had passed.

    So, with the burden on her shoulders immeasurably lightened, and an easy-going, proud smile fixed on her face, she returned to her business feeling like there was nothing she could not accomplish.

    She tried to ignore the gnawing feeling she had that this was only the beginning, and she would have to repeat this trial again every time she sees the moon; and that resisting would only get harder from here on out.
     
  • Sidestory
    • Chapter 13: Ghost Patrol
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    • [x] Your shooting might have attracted more ghosts. Patrol the town until morning just to be sure.

    It was a good thing she'd had the foresight to keep watch on the town.

    Night had fallen a few hours ago and Voyager had run into three ghosts in that time. One actually hadn't waited until dark, attempting to ambush her in the jungle a few minutes after she'd decided to head back. The other two had come sprinting out of the sea as she passed, as if spat out by the water itself, making her wonder how many more might be lurking in there.

    She hadn't seen any signs of them while fishing, but if she kept doing so like she had that day, would she find herself attacked by ghosts in the water?

    They were easily dispatched at least, for some reason dying with much less struggle than the first she'd seen. It had to be something about the method, because ripping one apart took much more damage to put it down than when having it's chest or head pierced by her foundation spike.

    More could be seen on the far shore, pale shapes in ragged clothes wandering along the water's edge as if looking for a way to cross between islands without getting wet. Why would they care about that though? Didn't they come from the water in the first place? She would have thought-

    "Where are you?" Kiska asked, her voice doing that strange echoing thing to ignore the distance between them, causing Voyager to jump. "Do you need help finding your way back?"

    'Yes.' She immediately thought, but she wasn't thinking of the basement. She'd been somewhere, was doing something important before whatever made her lose her memories and wake up on the beach.

    Shaking the useless thought away, she spoke, "I'm not coming back tonight."

    "Why not?" Frowning, Voyager noted that the little girl was apparently back to empty monotone.

    "There might be more of those ghosts coming to check out what I did earlier. It'd be safer if I killed them before they can threaten you two."

    "Oh." Kiska replied flatly. "So that big bang was you?"

    A little guilty, she looked around even though nobody was there. "Yes?"

    "Rachel almost shot me when you woke her up like that."

    "What?!"

    "Almost. It's not her fault, I made a mess cutting up the fish you caught."

    "That's still no reason to almost shoot someone!"

    With a yawn that sounded really weird through the distortion, Kiska ignored her. "I'm going to sleep now."

    "Kiska! You can't just say these things and leave!" Voyager shouted, but it was too late. The child had already stopped doing whatever it was she'd been doing.

    To her complete lack of surprise, the conversation had caught the attention of another ghost, the woman's pale skin glowing in the moonlight as she leapt from an upstairs window. While glass rained down on her, Voyager spared a moment to wonder what the dead woman had been doing up there. If left alone, did the ghosts start searching the buildings for more people or did they try to act out some semblance of life.

    Whatever the case may be, upon hearing her shouting, the apparition's objective was forgotten in favor of an obvious target.

    Her plasma lance itched to fire on the dead woman, but she had to hold back. Shooting anything in town was probably a horrible idea with how powerful her gun was. Instead, she used that same hand to grab the ghost's relatively small head and lift it bodily into the air. Booted feel kicked uselessly at her face as its green glowing eye glared into her red.

    "Why are you all so angry?" Did these things think?

    Contrary to her expectations, the glow in the ghost's eyes seemed to dim and it opened its mouth to speak. "H-help m-m-me. S-so hungr-"

    The plea died, subsumed by a low, throaty growl as the dead woman's struggles doubled.

    That was... troubling.

    Status: ??? Peckish

    Choose    :
    [] These things seem to be wrapped in mystery. Kiska isn't with you to worry about her health, so you should take this time to study them more.
    -[] If they're mad with hunger, would feeding them restore their reason?​
    -[] Is there some way to keep them away from an area? Clearly they at least avoid water.​
    -[] If you're to understand Kiska's illness, you need to study the effect of their presence on humans.​

    [] Well, if she tried to eat you then you're justified in returning the favor, right? After all you're hungry too.

    [] Put her out of her misery.
     
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    • [ ] Well, if she tried to eat you then you're justified in returning the favor, right? After all you're hungry too.

    ...just a nip?

    Yeah, I actually thought that, but I don't want to, ah, give her an oyster treatment.

    What would we try to feed them with? Our own blood? It doesn't sound like a much better idea, but then I know nothing about Kankolle. Maybe giving them our blood is equivalent to sending our crew to board them or something...
     
    Nevill said:
    What would we try to feed them with? Our own blood? It doesn't sound like a much better idea, but then I know nothing about Kankolle. Maybe giving them our blood is equivalent to sending our crew to board them or something...
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    Don't worry, nobody knows much about Kancolle because there is very little lore to the series beyond kill enemy, collect waifu. This means almost everything in kancolle fics beyond appearances and some personality traits/stats of shipgirls is entirely headcanon/made up by the author. A lot of what is canon or at least commonly accepted is just ww2 facts based on ww2 trivia.

    Example: who or what the Abyssals are and what motivates them is unknown beyond the fact that some 'Abyssal Princess' are confirmed to be some dark manifestation of certain ships or locations. Different authors therefore show them differently.

    FYI, boarding only applies to ships and shipgirls. The captured ghost is neither, so you can't go sticking your crew inside them.
     
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