Rising of a Strong Soul (Soul Eater X Shaman King)

Well, I figured that I should finally get off my ass and start writing, regardless of how bad I think it may be. Only way to improve, am I right? Without further ado, here I go.

---

It's a beautiful day outside. The sky is clear, a cool breeze is flowing, and the sun is laughing as per usual.

Yes siree, it's another wonderful day in… wherever the hell this is. Wherever you are, it's certainly a nice city. Indeed, you could see yourself staying here for a few days or so before you have to leave again. The townspeople also look nice enough, you could probably beg for some money or work some odd jobs. Refuel, really.

After all, this is:

[] Washington. Not DC, but the State. Easy
[] Texas. Medium
[] Indiana. Hard
[] Maine. Dear Lord Why

The lonely wanderer's life isn't exactly ideal, and never has been for anyone. Let alone a ten year old child like yourself. You can't count the number of times somebody has asked if you were a lost:

[] Boy
[]Girl

Or if you needed help finding your parents. Sure you managed to clean yourself off well enough, but the well-worn clothes and peculiar name should have been enough to set off alarms.

Seriously. Who in their right mind would name somebody looking like this:

Appearance:
[] Insert picture here

Name:
[]

Gah. Forget it. You manage well enough on your own. After all, you live in a world where the God of Death runs a school for kids to learn how to fight with, or be, Demon Weapons and hunt down evil witches as well as people that eat the souls of innocents.

You look down at your shoes and sigh. In all honesty, you kind of thought that half of all that stuff was lies anyways. Not all witches could be evil. You refused to believe that much at least. But at the same time, you couldn't deny the good that the DWMA did, as well as the horrors that evil souls committed. You were sure that there was more to the story, but what that was, you didn't know. After all, you were just a wandering orphan.

Eventually your feet take you to a park. You see a group of laughing children, just a couple of years younger than yourself, laughing as they chase around stubby little leaf creatures. Their bodies of ethereal energy surround the leaf core and float around.

The sight fills you with an almost aching reminder of your current state, but you can't say that it's all been bad. Still, you haven't played with other kids in… it feels like forever.

A hand claps you on your shoulder. "Do you want to play child?" You swirl around at the sudden physical contact. The hand belongs to a grown woman who laughs at your reaction. "Go on, join them. Children shouldn't stop themselves from some fun for no good reason."

The lady is dressed no differently from the typical citizen you passed on your way in. But you can tell that there's something different about her. She giggles as she notices your suspicious stare. With a wag of a finger, one of the leaf thingies floats over to you, barely missed by the children out of the cloud of so many.

"Here, this shikigami will keep you company until you leave. It should last you about two hours," the lady smiles again at you before walking to the side of the park where she keeps a close eye on the other children.

A shaman then. In this world of witches, Death Gods, and evil souls, those that claim to deal with the spiritual are an essential, if mysterious part of life. Seriously, nobody really knows how they get their powers, or how they govern themselves. Only a couple of things are certain about them: one, they never associate themselves with major organizations like the DWMA or any government. And two, they tend to run their own businesses and keep to themselves.

For this reason, shamans are treated with a mixture of fear, resentment, yet acceptance and joy from the average person.

The… shikigami, you think it was called, bumps into your cheek. You cradle it, feeling the strange flowing texture of its body. It's soft, and warm yet cool at the same time. When you poke it to try and touch the leaf within, the outer shell of glowy stuff stops your finger.

The whole thing fascinates you, and you continue to poke and prod at it. Before you know it, the two hours must be up because the shikigami dissipates, the leaf it was made out of floating down in the wind.

"Ah…" is all you can say as this occurs to you.

That night you sleep well. Or at least, you do until the explosion sends you shooting up, scratching your head on the underside of the hedge you're under.

You stiffen, both out of pain and out of the desire to try to remain hidden. Shouting voices can be heard, getting louder.

"-didn't think I wouldn't find out about you, now did you?"

"And I was so close too… Do you know how many people died because of that plane you shot down?"

"Ah, yes, but what about you? The one that didn't save them? Now that pesky shaman is doing all of the work… Must make you feel… Underperforming?"

"Kh! That's not what this is about and you know it!"

You can make them out now, two silhouettes in the night. A man that seems pretty unhinged, and a woman that's at the end of her rope.

"Ah, but what can you do now. You'll die like your partner. Killed by me, alone, and with you, goes the final threat to milady's great plan. Not able to take even the slightest clue back to your precious Lord Death. You honestly played yourself, retrieving the information the way you did."

At once, they both lunge towards each other. But before they get too close, you can only watch in horror as the man's arms change, dislocating to get some extra reach that proves crucial. The woman is skewered, hanging in the air with his arm through her chest.

"Mn, yes. You would have been trouble if you had your partner. Well. Time to dispose of the evidence. Then I'll go take care of that pesky shaman."

He shakes the woman off his arm and drops something on her before walking off. An explosion occurs, completely destroying her body, and the man walks off.

Now that the action is over, you can hear the screams of the citizens and you feel heat. Almost as if… Survival instincts taking over, you roll out of the bushes. A quick look around proves your worst fears to be correct: a fire.

Turning back to the site of the fight, you don't see the woman's body anymore. Just a crater, at the bottom of which is a simple skull badge.

Idly, you bend down to pick it up.

"See? The body's gone, there isn't any- Wait," your heart stops as you recognize the voice. The man has returned.

"Kid, get over-" "STOP!" His command is stopped by a choked shout, and your heart almost stops as you recognize the shaman that had lent you a leaf thing.

The lower half of her body is missing, but she sweeps an arm out. Dozens of leaf spirits surge as if on an invisible wind. The man shouts and covers his face, something happening to cause many of the leaves closest to him to catch on fire.

"Run!" the shaman shouts, "You must go to Death City! They'll hunt you down if you do anything else. No survivors…"

You stumble back, staring at the scene with unbelieving eyes. Another surge of fire from the quickly burning leaf cocoon tells you that this is all too real. Without a second thought you run, and you don't look back. The skull badge burns a hole in your pocket, a lead weight that at once slows you down but spurs you onwards. To Death City, Nevada. To safety.

---

Well. That got darker than I expected. But hey.

Anyways, vote in plan format please, and please wait for me to reserve some posts first. The difficulty/location vote is because this quest starts with you guys trying to get to Nevada. Hence, the further from Nevada, the longer and harder the trip. On the other hand, you can meet more people and do more things. So consider it.

HP: 3/3
SP: 1/1

Strength: 0
Agility: 0
Dexterity: 0
Endurance: 2 (Early Civilian)
Intelligence: 0
Soul: 0
Madness: 0
Courage: 0

Skills:

• Survival- Early Civilian: 0
• Stealth- Early Civilian: 3

Techniques:
None

Traits:

• Wanderer- You've traveled your fair share of distance. You're at least a little street-wise now.

Inventory:

• Skull Badge
• General map of the US
• Food and Water: 1
• Billy Anderson's Card- Roll 1d20. With a 5 and over, he'll pick up. You can then either talk with him or ask for a ride somewhere. Roll 1d20 with modifiers depending on current location and destination. Depending on the result, he may be able to arrange a ride either part of the way or all the way there. If you have a phone of course.
• Decent Disguise- -5 against rolls to recognize you.
• DWMA Address- The exactly location of Chicago's DWMA branch.

So we're working with a d20 system and a crap ton of modifiers.

Stats:
We have these. There are eight.

1. Strength
2. Agility
3. Dexterity
4. Endurance
5. Intelligence
6. Soul
7. Madness
8. Courage

The tier list is as follows:
As can be seen, every 20 points in a stat is a realm, and every five points gives a rank and a +1 modifier.

Next are Skills. There are skills for just about everything, and these work on a similar but downscaled way.
Things to take note of are that Stat-wise, the average character cannot go into the God realm. That is reserved for characters with special traits. Which you could get with some special finagling, of course.

Now, training. Training for all skills and stats besides Madness and Courage is simple. When you get the chance, I'll roll 1d5 and add that to the stat/skill in question. Easy peasy.

Next is combat. Combat is done differently depending on your character's playstyle. A witch will fight differently than a meister, and they're worlds apart from a shaman. But some things remain constant.

Every rank of Endurance gives you one HP. Any attack roll that succeeds does one HP of damage.

Every rank of Soul gives you one SP. SP can be used for a variety of things, but generally can be burned to use techniques that will do more than one HP if they hit. Assuming you burn them to attack, of course.

There's more to it, but I'll be updating this as your character discovers more.

Here we go. Kind of a short update that's meant to let you guys soak in this information and start trying to hopefully not die.
We'll be using this roll room: https://rolz.org/dr?room=Rising%20of%20a%20Strong%20Soul

---

Your feet hurt. A herd of wild beasts is rampaging in your head. And finally, and perhaps worst of all, your stomach is aching. You hadn't had a chance to eat the previous night, distracted by the shaman's shikigami.

A mistake, perhaps.

In any case, you stumble along, trying your best to keep off the roads while still being close enough to avoid getting lost. It's a tricky balance. But a necessary one. There were always stories of famous explorers and survivalists who managed to navigate solely off the light of the stars. But when you look at the sky nowadays, you'd be lucky to spot more than a couple of planes passing overhead.

Eventually it's too much to take. You manage to find a nice low bush, sparse as they can be in Indiana, and you pass out under it.

Roll: 17

Roll: 13

The night thankfully passes by uneventfully, at least as far as you can tell. It's so uneventful in fact, that by the time you wake up the sun is already setting again.

Well then. You guess you were tired. After the killing, blood, explosions last night, who wouldn't be?

Still, you're thankful. It's time to be moving, and the best time for that would be night. Or at least, you think it would be. Maybe you should wait for daytime?

In the day you could try and hitch a ride, although hitchhiking probably isn't as noble and safe as the stories some of the other wanderers you've met have claimed. Still, if there's any place to get hitchhiking done, it'd be Indiana. The Crossroad of America.

It would also be possible to find more food, copying what animals do. You've done it before, although there is a bit of caution that needs to be held in doing so.

Skill gained: Survival: 0

In the night you could sneak around easier, and it would be cooler which is a boon thanks to the sweltering summer heat. But the night brings other things too… You shiver at the thought of evil souls, the likes of which necessitated the DWMA in the first place.

In any case, the night would make travelling slower, thanks to your need to keep the road in view, and you'd have to travel closer to the main roads as well. Not necessarily a problem in the night, but in the day, when you'd have to sleep? Well there's a completely different host of dangers there.

There's probably more to it, but you have to make a decision now. Your body hurts, likely from all of the walking you did last night, but that would just make it easier to go to sleep again right now and wait for the sun to come out.

Hmm…

[] Travel by night
[] Travel by day

In any case, now would also be the time to plan on what you're going to do. Laying out all of the information you know, you reach a couple of conclusions.

1. You're in Indiana and you want to reach Nevada. Reaching deep inside your repository of possibly useful facts (by which you mean that old ratty map you keep in your pocket) you see that it's about 1,900 miles away. Well then.
2. You know that at your average, you go about one mile an hour. You tried counting once, just to see for fun.
3. You're probably being hunted. You don't know how good of a luck the obvious bad guy got of you, but at the same time you wouldn't put it past soul-y stuff to be able to track you down regardless.
4. You have no money, no food, and no water.

The information doesn't paint a pretty picture. Just travelling, assuming nothing bad happens, would take you a straight 1,900 hours. That's… a lot of days!

But you can't let that get you down! Because- because you can't!

Well with the basics all there, you've got a couple of options. If you really push yourself you could cover a lot of ground. The bad guys wouldn't be able to track you down quite as quickly. At the same time, you probably wouldn't meet quite so many people.

[] Spend about 12 hours travelling push yourself into the dirt. 1 action available, 1 encounter roll.
[] Spend about 10 hours travelling. Hard, but doable. 2 actions available, 2 encounter rolls.
[] Spend about 8 hours travelling. You can definitely do this. 3 actions available, 3 encounter rolls.
[] Spend about 6 hours travelling. An easy day. 4 actions available, 4 encounter rolls.

And if you go that fast, you should be able to spend the rest of the day doing other things. Preparing for the bad guys. Because you can't imagine that they wouldn't be able to catch up to a ten year old girl eventually.

You also imagine that you'll need some food and water.

[] Train a stat
-[] Which one?
[] Train a skill
-[] Survival
-[] Write-in
[] Try to hitchhike
[] Get food and water

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So vote by plan please. If it isn't obvious, you can stack actions by voting multiple times. If you go easy and take 4 actions, you can use all four to train your Agility four times. That'll be 4d5.

You currently have 0 food and water. Each day will use 1, and collection actions can fail, so I'd recommend not letting that stay stagnant. Similarly, if you get a big enough stockpile you can go a day without doing that.

Skills can be just about anything, but I reserve the right to veto things. So no training Marksmanship without any long-ranged weapon, please.

And finally, if it wasn't obvious enough, encounter rolls can be good, or they can be bad. Take more of those at your own risk. Don't worry about setting a pace too much though. You choose one each "turn"/day.