If the map is oriented with the north to the top, then the island is a rough G-shape and you're heading down alongside a hill and then a river to the southwestern tip. The approach down the road begins with attempts to keep calm, with light banter and joking about what kind of mess you've found yourself in and Sekhmet ribbing you about how the Gods here clearly wanted to correct for your terrible love life IRL, given that they gave you a perfect icebreaker.
"Unlikely," Hikaru said,
barely able to keep a straight face. "Sylphan is a god of travel and trickery and expanded horizons, not of love. That would be Eranda or Flamma."
Sekhmet leaned on you for effect. "This is why Flamma in Her wisdom decided to assign me to this problem case as a wingcatte."
"Thanks for your support," you say, rolling your eyes. "It's not like I'm absolutely dying of thirst back home."
"Tell Delvar I don't need this armor for help in that arena," Ace says, rolling her shoulders. "Or if there's a God of Practical Armor And Sensible Shoes, let me know so I can pray to
them."
"That's Aurora," Alesha said. "Or maybe Scherzo in his less Conan moods."
Hikaru starts to say something, then stops, his finger stroking a nonexistent mustache.
"What's up?" Sekhmet asked.
"...Ace. Your armor is the canonical costume for temple shieldmaidens to Delvar," he said, distantly.
Ace glared at him. "Is Delvar canonically a thirsty motherfucker?"
You waggle your hand in front of your face, then after a second's thought think better of it and nod.
"Fantastic," Ace says. "Sensational."
Sekhmet falls back a little bit, keeping pace with Hikaru, frowning at him. "In other words, it's a thing that exists in the story. It's official. Is that what you're getting at?"
"As is Frankie Bacon's pet miniature Salamander," Hikaru said, nodding.
You frown. "The alky-catte back in town that wasn't stoned out of her gills?"
He nods. "I saw her feeding it at the victory feast."
"Yeah, she had complained about not having a labcoat, when I asked her why she was upset," Alesha said, scowling. "Pretty sure it was a deflection but I wasn't going to pry..."
"The
Natural Philosophy Dropout armor set glamour, yes," Hikaru said. "A community workshop item from last Halloween."
wikiwalk TN 10 said:
You're not sure what he's driving at, then Alesha groans and drags her hands down her face.
"What?" you say.
"It's fan stuff," Alesha says, and you echo Alesha's earlier gesture. You're still pinching the bridge of your nose. It's so
obvious now, you're so
stupid.
Ace looks at you, then looks at Hikaru, than looks at Alesha, flat-eared and blinking. "What?"
"I'm pretty sure there
are mustaches for Pixies..." you say through gritted teeth.
Hikaru nods. "-Just not the
Mustache Feelin'. Which means that our missing equipment isn't
just a nerf."
"Why the fuck would they take away shit that doesn't affect our stats?" Sekhmet asks.
Hikaru took a deep breath, and held it, the way you do to keep level. "That's
two excellent questions," he says, without elaborating.
So much for joking and banter on the way up.
When the trail disappears, Sekhmet starts scouting ahead. You're always relieved when they report back in over the Sendjewel - the responses are terse and in a low murmur, to lessen the chance of it being overheard.
They start leading you through denser wood and jungle, thankfully unseen by the local beasties - those that want to tangle with you, anyway, as you spy one of the enormous crabs scuttling away from you out of the corner of your eye, clearly unwilling to fight. It's still tenser than a violin string as you slip by, with only occasional slashes from Sekh's long knives to mark the way, and Alesha cutting away brush with her sword.
Finally, you hear them say:
"Clearing ahead, tree stumps lead to fort and dock on beach. Returning." And you sigh relief.
You emerge from the forest on the edge of the sea of stumps leading out to a sandbar with a small, makeshift fortress, framed by the setting sun, that's the reason this patch was clearcut. About two stories tall, with sharp tips and a small tower.
Lighthouse, you think.
"A couple dinghies just left for the galleon with most of the guards-"
You jump and twist to see it's only Sekhmet behind you. You decide not to punch her -
them - anyway, a decision that they're lucky didn't take more than half a second.
Sekh raises an eyebrow and tries not to smirk. "- hi, nice to see you too Deeds, meaning we have maybe an hour to clear things out for
el caballeros tromping around behind us slowly. We won't be spotted coming in."
"Are they actually knights?" Ace asks.
"Some of them, probably," Alesha says. "Miles Valencia is
definitely a knight."
Sekhmet nods. "We will need someone to go in and lower the gate. That
could be me but I'd like
some backup, I don't want to be up DPS creek without a tank if I can help it."
You walk forward.
"Okay," Sekh says, nonplussed, "can you climb the walls?"
You consider it, thinking for a moment, walking up and looking for footholds and handholds in the rough wood.
athletics modified by jump bonus said:
Then you remember you're a fucking anime character now and jump over the palisade wall like you've got wires attached to your girdle, landing in a perfect superhero crouch on the bailey.
Mission status:
Sick.
You're undoing that extra-long sash you wear as a belt as Sekhmet goes "Okay, that works, now throw me a - that works too."
And then you're in, and Sekh drops down to work on the gate's lock.
There are kids in what's labeled the treasure room, and this is when you're very sure that the Gods here won't mind you cracking the skulls of the people keeping them there.
Adults, too, of each of the kiths: mostly humans and foxfolk like you, but the occasional towering scaley Koboldt in irons or ubast with drooping whiskers or diminutive Pixie. There's a rainbow of skintones and facial features, too. At a glance, it's easy to tell that a lot of them are very, very tired and hungry - and they blink, and cringe, at your approach.
There isn't much you can do about that, but you can shatter the locks on their manacles with a kick.
One of them, a human teenage girl with olive skin, looks directly at you after you do that. "You're not with the other Adventurers?" she asks.
"Fuck those guys," you say. "I'm here to get you home. All of you," you say to the crowd, pointing out the front. "Guards are gone, we're getting you out of here and home, move it!"
"That's... I don't know where home is from here," she says.
You sigh. "Where are you from? What's your name?" you say, crouching down to her level.
After a moment, she decides to tell you. "Shadi," she says. "Shadi bin'Tayeb Rahman. I came here from Viacruz to sell cloth, and -"
You offer your shoulder to cry on. "A ship back to Viacruz is coming," you tell her. "I'm on my way there myself. If you're very fast, we might be able to get the stuff they stole from you before we get out. Be quick."
And you smash her chains, too.
She rubs her wrists, then her ankles, then hugs you - once, hard, leaving you blinking and slow to hug back - before she heads out along with the others. Once you're done, you head out along with the rest of them -
Perception said:
And are only just in time to block some kind of spell with your face. It makes your head swim and you drop to one knee. It
burns, whatever you got hit with -
A hideous, strangled battlecry and the woman it came from flying towards the one what did it to you snaps you to your senses as you grit your teeth and call on Cleansing Winds. The paralytic, necrotoxic venom in your system flushes in an instant and you rise to your full height, between yourself and the escaping prisoners.
"Stay on the coast, up to the town of Costa Dulce, we'll stop them here!" Alesha says, striding up past you with the wizard in tow.
"I am really sick of your face," comes the snarled response of -
- you have met someone who looks more ridiculous than Ace, if only barely. You also note that the scepter topped with a strawberry is, apparently, canon as this joker twirls into battle in a steel-plated dress over very pink and green and cream colored robes. Her hair is blonde and up in twin tails, and
those are poison blasts she's shooting from the wand.
"All the things you could pretend to be, and you want to be some kind of magical girl slaver," you snarl at her.
"Like you're pretending to be a hero?" she asks, as she gets into an honest-to-goodness batting stance with her goddamn princess wand.
She parries Ace's strike, sliding her scepter across it, drawing sparks. Behind her, her companions - in much lower-key, less garish equipment - get off the boat and into position, narrowly avoiding Ace scattering most of them like tenpins as she crashes against a woman in very Conquistador-looking armor.
You hear a
snap, see a bubblegum-pink ward flare to life to stop a crossbow bolt inches from her thigh, and hear Sekhmet's disappointed "
tch" from the bailey behind you, ears flicking that direction and betraying thier position to Strawberry Shortcake here. You take her angry glare at your newly feline companion as an opening for the only welcome to this world she deserves.
"Kaiser...
KICK!"
"What the -"
She spins to parry with that gaudy-ass scepter, and you actually land on it.
And through it, driving it out of her hands and into her face, sending her sprawling towards Alesha.
You land in a crouch, breathing heavily, muscles burning from exertion. You draw your hand back so a bullet can talk to it, because your body
really doesn't want to hear it's thunderous report, a ward of wind blowing it off course - and you're even more tired.
"Keep up the pressure!" Alesha bellows, and for a moment a shaft of sunlight illuminates her face, and you think you
can. You draw yourself up, watching her clash her sword against the vambrace of The Champion Of Strawberries Or Whatever, and rise to your full height again, turning to the team of 6 that Ace is trying to keep busy but can't.
Not on her own.
You scream your own battlecry, leaping into the fray while they're distracted and joining the melee near the docks, a whirlwind of kicks and punches and elbows and knees, but something is wrong - the archer wheels your fist away, the goth pixie dude with the skull on his rod ducks, and actually that was a very satisfying kick to the conquistador's chest that sends her staggering back.
You hear sizzling sounds behind you and hope they're Hikaru trying something.
"Damn, can't deal with a scrub monk, Valerie?" hoots the necropixie.
"Don't. Call. Me. That," the armored girl snarls, swinging a sword where you were a second ago.
The jump back took more out of you than you realized. You're swaying, it's hard to think and right now you need to think.
emergency overdrive: said:
EXCEED LIMITATIONS
Gain 16 Temporary Stamina!
You think you're going to punt the necromancer into next week so that Sekhmet, slipping behind him, can finish the job.
With a kiai, you spring back into new life and bring your knee into the pixie's stomach; he hovers in midair for one long instant, and Sekhmet stabs him in the back, and
twists.
You look away and grit your teeth and even then hope that guy wakes up in a cathedral two days later, unharmed. To answer for crimes against the Auroran church, maybe.
The archer looses an arrow.
You grab it.
Not expecting that outcome, or the dopplered yell from Ace, you drop it the moment she drops the archer, and look back to Alesha near the door. She's in a whirling, furious duel with the Worst Magical Girl, punctuated with flashes of pink and gold; you see Alesha lunge too low, leaving an opening while she recovers from being off balance.
Which the girl in pink exploits to catch Hikaru in the back with a glowing pink heart-shaped blast.
You don't even remember using Zephyr's Grace: you're just there in an instant to drop a heal on the both of you and stammer something to Hikaru that he has to wave off as you pull him up. Alesha slams her shield with her sword and says something you can't make out, as you turn to kick the magical girl in the - sceptre, apparently.
She smirks.
Hikaru whips his wand at her belly, says one sussurant syllable, and flattens her with a lightning blast.
"Are you okay. Are you okay? Are you okay," you murmur.
"I'm fine thanks to you. Miles should be here soon. Are
you alright?" Hikaru asks.
"Never better," you say, grinning.
And then you pass out.
What do you dream of?
[] Home.
[] Family.
[] Love.
[] Religion.
[] This world.
Who should you apologize to first?
[] Alesha.
[] Hikaru.
[] Sekhmet.
[] Ace.
[] Shadi.
Are you alright?
[] I'm fine. I'll be more careful in the future.
[] I'm fine. This is just a game anyway, right?
[] I'm fine. I'll be fine as long as you're all here with me.
[] I'm fine. I'll just train more, get stronger.
[] No, no I'm not. (Not available until your Resolve is at least 5.)
Approval voting on these. Vote opens at midnight and goes until Thursday, with a supplemental vote and dice rolls then if not the final update of Chapter One.
