The year is 20XX, and the world has not been consumed by nuclear fire. Yet.
You are...
You are...
(??? / Fist of the North Star:) Strawberry-flavored Determination
- Thread starter Drachyench
- Start date
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 7
- Recent readers
- 0
- Location
- Drachyench on Discord
The year is 20XX, and the world has not been consumed by nuclear fire. Yet.
You are Souther, adoptive son of honorable master Ōgai and successor to the South Dipper Phoenix Fist. Or at least you were these things.
Yesterday was your fifteenth birthday. It was to be a day of celebration that marked your approaching adulthood as well as the first true test of what had been taught to you. Instead you had been tricked into killing your adoptive father in what was revealed to be the final rite of your training. What joy you have once felt has turned to ash in your mouth, while the driving force that had carried you through your life until now has gone leaving an emptiness within you.
Now you find yourself standing at the mouth of a cave, sunlight shining deep into the enormous cavern ahead. You have climbed far up the slopes of some ancient mountain - Abbott, you think you once heard Ōgai refer to it as - since leaving the dojo at first light, but you aren't entirely sure why. Pausing before the abyss, you reflect. What has brought you to this cave?
[ ] You seek the spirit of death said to linger on the mountain, intending to join Ōgai in the underworld.
[ ] Rumor has it that one of the mountain's many caves crosses the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead. With his death as recent as it is, you wonder if your master's departing spirit may have left some lingering fragment of his warmth behind as he passed for you to find.
[ ] It is said that anyone who climbs the mountain never comes back down. Though you have no intent of dying upon these slopes, it remains a suitable site to abandon your capacity for love and emotion so that you may usher in a new era.
[ ] Ever since your master's death - the moment that made you drive all love and emotion from your heart - you have found yourself being called towards the enormous peak. Only now do you realize the siren's call, beckoning you to enter the lightless depths.
[ ] Write-In.
Note: I haven't done this sort of thing before, so bare with me if it's a bit sloppy or doesn't have the most consistent update schedule / plotting.
You are Souther, adoptive son of honorable master Ōgai and successor to the South Dipper Phoenix Fist. Or at least you were these things.
Yesterday was your fifteenth birthday. It was to be a day of celebration that marked your approaching adulthood as well as the first true test of what had been taught to you. Instead you had been tricked into killing your adoptive father in what was revealed to be the final rite of your training. What joy you have once felt has turned to ash in your mouth, while the driving force that had carried you through your life until now has gone leaving an emptiness within you.
Now you find yourself standing at the mouth of a cave, sunlight shining deep into the enormous cavern ahead. You have climbed far up the slopes of some ancient mountain - Abbott, you think you once heard Ōgai refer to it as - since leaving the dojo at first light, but you aren't entirely sure why. Pausing before the abyss, you reflect. What has brought you to this cave?
[ ] You seek the spirit of death said to linger on the mountain, intending to join Ōgai in the underworld.
[ ] Rumor has it that one of the mountain's many caves crosses the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead. With his death as recent as it is, you wonder if your master's departing spirit may have left some lingering fragment of his warmth behind as he passed for you to find.
[ ] It is said that anyone who climbs the mountain never comes back down. Though you have no intent of dying upon these slopes, it remains a suitable site to abandon your capacity for love and emotion so that you may usher in a new era.
[ ] Ever since your master's death - the moment that made you drive all love and emotion from your heart - you have found yourself being called towards the enormous peak. Only now do you realize the siren's call, beckoning you to enter the lightless depths.
[ ] Write-In.
Note: I haven't done this sort of thing before, so bare with me if it's a bit sloppy or doesn't have the most consistent update schedule / plotting.
Last edited:
Dromeosaur
Feathery Raptor of snowy planes and frozen sea
- Location
- The land of Trees and Squirrels
[X] Rumor has it that one of the mountain's many caves crosses the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead. With his death as recent as it is, you wonder if your master's departing spirit may have left some lingering fragment of his warmth behind as he passed for you to find.
Secret technique? Secret technique.
Secret technique? Secret technique.
- Location
- Drachyench on Discord
Made minor edits to the Quest's third paragraph for clarification. No changes made to the premise, setting or options.
~~~
[X] Rumor has it that one of the mountain's many caves crosses the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead. With his death as recent as it is, you wonder if your master's departing spirit may have left some lingering fragment of his warmth behind as he passed for you to find.
You try, unsuccessfully, to suppress the emotions that well inside you at the thought of your adoptive father. Happiness, pride, love. Despair, guilt, anger. A bittersweet laugh itches at the back of your throat, held back only through sheer force of will and the knowledge that it would take hours to regain your composure if you did.
What you're doing is the epitome of a childish endeavor and you know it. Chasing after fantastical rumors and literal specters in the hope that they can make everything be alright? It's absurd. And yet, it is all that you have beyond your blood-stained title as a member of the Nanto Rokusei. And without that hope, you can only imagine what bitterness and loss will do to your heart.
Focusing through tear-blurred eyes you try to peer down into the shadowy cavern. You can see no paths down the rocky slope, its sharp decline the only reason daylight illuminates as much of the cave as it does. Various roots and vines creep along the uneven ground like webs between branches, but with so much debris and crevices it's hard to tell where any of them are coming from or going. Far down the rocky slope you can see that the ground eventually levels out for a few meters before spilling over into an enormous sinkhole. From where you stand at the mouth of the cave you can't tell how deep the pit is, merely that its scale suggests far less stable ground than the vegetation implies. It's easy looking into the cavern to guess the origin of the rumors.
If there is even the slightest credibility to the stories you heard, you will need to enter the cave to find out. What will you do?
[ ] Investigate the outer slopes of the cavern. In the very least the circular route will provide you an opportunity to observe the pit from different angles, and may revel a path hidden in one of the shadows.
[ ] Cautiously approach the pit in the center of the room. It would not surprise you if the ground is even less stable than it looks, and you have no intent of this being a one-way trip, but if anywhere on this mountain connects to the Underworld then the hole ahead of you is as good a place as any to start your search.
[ ] Boldly approach the sinkhole within the cave. Wiping away your tears you think back proudly on the training you have undergone until now. You have both practiced and fought on worse terrain than this, and with the ceiling as high as it is you begin assuring yourself that the whole floor would need to give way before you suffered any risk of falling in.
[ ] Turn back down the mountain. You have been acting foolishly up until now, there's no reason to risk being trapped out here in this… place, when Ōgai saw so much more in you.
[ ] Write-In.
~~~
[X] Rumor has it that one of the mountain's many caves crosses the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead. With his death as recent as it is, you wonder if your master's departing spirit may have left some lingering fragment of his warmth behind as he passed for you to find.
You try, unsuccessfully, to suppress the emotions that well inside you at the thought of your adoptive father. Happiness, pride, love. Despair, guilt, anger. A bittersweet laugh itches at the back of your throat, held back only through sheer force of will and the knowledge that it would take hours to regain your composure if you did.
What you're doing is the epitome of a childish endeavor and you know it. Chasing after fantastical rumors and literal specters in the hope that they can make everything be alright? It's absurd. And yet, it is all that you have beyond your blood-stained title as a member of the Nanto Rokusei. And without that hope, you can only imagine what bitterness and loss will do to your heart.
Focusing through tear-blurred eyes you try to peer down into the shadowy cavern. You can see no paths down the rocky slope, its sharp decline the only reason daylight illuminates as much of the cave as it does. Various roots and vines creep along the uneven ground like webs between branches, but with so much debris and crevices it's hard to tell where any of them are coming from or going. Far down the rocky slope you can see that the ground eventually levels out for a few meters before spilling over into an enormous sinkhole. From where you stand at the mouth of the cave you can't tell how deep the pit is, merely that its scale suggests far less stable ground than the vegetation implies. It's easy looking into the cavern to guess the origin of the rumors.
If there is even the slightest credibility to the stories you heard, you will need to enter the cave to find out. What will you do?
[ ] Investigate the outer slopes of the cavern. In the very least the circular route will provide you an opportunity to observe the pit from different angles, and may revel a path hidden in one of the shadows.
[ ] Cautiously approach the pit in the center of the room. It would not surprise you if the ground is even less stable than it looks, and you have no intent of this being a one-way trip, but if anywhere on this mountain connects to the Underworld then the hole ahead of you is as good a place as any to start your search.
[ ] Boldly approach the sinkhole within the cave. Wiping away your tears you think back proudly on the training you have undergone until now. You have both practiced and fought on worse terrain than this, and with the ceiling as high as it is you begin assuring yourself that the whole floor would need to give way before you suffered any risk of falling in.
[ ] Turn back down the mountain. You have been acting foolishly up until now, there's no reason to risk being trapped out here in this… place, when Ōgai saw so much more in you.
[ ] Write-In.
LupineVolt
Now with 200% more Puns
- Location
- Michigan
[X] Investigate the outer slopes of the cavern. In the very least the circular route will provide you an opportunity to observe the pit from different angles, and may revel a path hidden in one of the shadows.
Lets get a little bit of perspective here.
Lets get a little bit of perspective here.
AZATHOTHoth
༼ つ ☀️_☀️ ༽つ
[X] Investigate the outer slopes of the cavern. In the very least the circular route will provide you an opportunity to observe the pit from different angles, and may revel a path hidden in one of the shadows.
- Location
- Drachyench on Discord
[X] Investigate the outer slopes of the cavern. In the very least the circular route will provide you an opportunity to observe the pit from different angles, and may revel a path hidden in one of the shadows.
Wiping away the tears in you eyes, you duck underneath the cave's mouth and begin hiking down. Despite the lack of a trail and relatively steep incline your passage is both quick and balanced: In a minute you're already halfway to the sinkhole, the various footholds and some nimble footwork more than enough to carry you safely. But even with you eyes only half-adjusted to the gloom you can see that the terrain becomes increasingly treacherous the closer it gets to the pit.
Stopping your descent almost two-thirds of the way down you take a good look around the chamber. Hiding among the many stalactites hanging from the ceiling you can see a small hole almost directly overtop of the pit. Though it's barely illuminated this late into the afternoon, you can tell that it's situated perfectly to allow a noon-day sun to shine down into the chamber. The ground to either side of the hole extends significantly further than that directly opposite from you, to your left sloping into a shadowy crawl almost flush with the cave's roof whereas the right-hand side stretches at least half a dozen meters before your vision's obscured by a curtain of stalactites. Straight ahead there's a good several meters between the sinkhole's edge and the wall, but whatever spare space there was between them has been taken up by a miniature mountain range of stalagmites. Close as you are you still cannot see the pit's bottom from where you stand.
In no rush to test any of the terrain skirting the sinkhole's edge, you decide to practice some caution and move in a vaguely circular path around the room. Presuming everything goes right you expect to be standing in roughly the same spot after just a couple of minutes, if not wiser for the effort then at least with some of your cautious curiosity satisfied. As you move to your left you need to slow down and watch your step when you pass over the first tangled cluster of roots and vines, their precarious footing almost leaving you feeling as if they're trying to tangle your feet sometimes. Partially climbing the northern wall afterwards reveals that its crawl goes far deeper than the dim lighting can penetrate, a blind grope of your hand finding its stone solid for at least a good two-thirds of a meter in. Just how deep into the mountain the cleft runs is be impossible to tell without coming back at another time with a portable light of some sort.
As you start climbing back down the north wall's slope, a modestly sized chunk of stone dislodges underneath your foot. Fortuitously for you it's the only stone that breaks away, cascading with a stream of pebbles towards towards the center of the room along with the end of a root that had been previously been buried beneath it. You can hear the cobble crack as it strikes something hard past the lip, a rattling sound echoing within the cavern for several minutes as smaller loose rocks pitter-patter over the side. While you still feel confident in your footing, the incident serves as a good reminder that this cave has a deservedly bad reputation in regards to safety.
The remainder of your lap passes without any significant discoveries or events. Besides the narrow ceiling shaft and the squeeze raised within the northern wall you find no additional entrances or exits connected to the chamber. The various roots and vines continue to defy all attempts to define where they begin or end, and if anyone or anything occupied the cave recently they either passed quickly or were quite thorough in leaving no evidence behind. You have no choice but to double back for some supplies from the dojo if you want to investigate this cavern further, but at least now you have two possible leads to-
"Hello?"
You pause mid-train of thought, unconsciously holding your breath. Was that a trick of your ears just now? Or of the wind whistling outside? It almost sounded like-
"Is someone there?"
No. It's not your imagination. Someone's calling out, and from quite far away by the sound of it. But where? The echo doesn't have the right ring to be coming from outside, and if the cleft was labyrinth enough to blot out any light they brought with them there's no way you should be able to hear them from all the way over where you're standing. The noise must be coming from down the pit. But then why didn't they call out earlier?
What will you do? Outside moving precariously close to the sinkhole's edge there's no way you'll be loud enough for them to understand what you're saying. You could just make a lot of noise to let them know you're in the chamber above them, or you could stay quiet and wait to see if it's you they're calling out to. Or you could ignore the voice entirely and leave, either doubling back for supplies or looking for another cave to continue your investigation from.
[ ] Approach the pit's edge and call down to the voice's owner. After your investigation you now know where to and not-to stand along the precipice, and it will be easier to communicate with… whoever, if you can both understand one-another.
[ ] Make enough noise to be heard. Whoever is down there, you're not about to stick your neck out for them just yet. You are, however, willing to let them know the chamber above them is occupied.
[ ] Remain quiet. If the voice's owner joins you in silence then it's likely they had nothing of importance to say. Meanwhile, if they keep calling out, you'll know soon enough who they're talking to and why.
[ ] Leave the cavern, continue exploring the mountain. You are here to see if there's any truth to the rumors, and if so search for remnants of Ōgai's tōki. People at the bottom of ditches are not of your concern.
[ ] Leave the cavern to return to the dojo. You are here to see if there's any truth to the rumors, and if so search for remnants of Ōgai's tōki. If the voice's owner is still there by the time you've come back with a rope and spikes then you'll deal with them then.
[ ] Write-in.
Wiping away the tears in you eyes, you duck underneath the cave's mouth and begin hiking down. Despite the lack of a trail and relatively steep incline your passage is both quick and balanced: In a minute you're already halfway to the sinkhole, the various footholds and some nimble footwork more than enough to carry you safely. But even with you eyes only half-adjusted to the gloom you can see that the terrain becomes increasingly treacherous the closer it gets to the pit.
Stopping your descent almost two-thirds of the way down you take a good look around the chamber. Hiding among the many stalactites hanging from the ceiling you can see a small hole almost directly overtop of the pit. Though it's barely illuminated this late into the afternoon, you can tell that it's situated perfectly to allow a noon-day sun to shine down into the chamber. The ground to either side of the hole extends significantly further than that directly opposite from you, to your left sloping into a shadowy crawl almost flush with the cave's roof whereas the right-hand side stretches at least half a dozen meters before your vision's obscured by a curtain of stalactites. Straight ahead there's a good several meters between the sinkhole's edge and the wall, but whatever spare space there was between them has been taken up by a miniature mountain range of stalagmites. Close as you are you still cannot see the pit's bottom from where you stand.
In no rush to test any of the terrain skirting the sinkhole's edge, you decide to practice some caution and move in a vaguely circular path around the room. Presuming everything goes right you expect to be standing in roughly the same spot after just a couple of minutes, if not wiser for the effort then at least with some of your cautious curiosity satisfied. As you move to your left you need to slow down and watch your step when you pass over the first tangled cluster of roots and vines, their precarious footing almost leaving you feeling as if they're trying to tangle your feet sometimes. Partially climbing the northern wall afterwards reveals that its crawl goes far deeper than the dim lighting can penetrate, a blind grope of your hand finding its stone solid for at least a good two-thirds of a meter in. Just how deep into the mountain the cleft runs is be impossible to tell without coming back at another time with a portable light of some sort.
As you start climbing back down the north wall's slope, a modestly sized chunk of stone dislodges underneath your foot. Fortuitously for you it's the only stone that breaks away, cascading with a stream of pebbles towards towards the center of the room along with the end of a root that had been previously been buried beneath it. You can hear the cobble crack as it strikes something hard past the lip, a rattling sound echoing within the cavern for several minutes as smaller loose rocks pitter-patter over the side. While you still feel confident in your footing, the incident serves as a good reminder that this cave has a deservedly bad reputation in regards to safety.
The remainder of your lap passes without any significant discoveries or events. Besides the narrow ceiling shaft and the squeeze raised within the northern wall you find no additional entrances or exits connected to the chamber. The various roots and vines continue to defy all attempts to define where they begin or end, and if anyone or anything occupied the cave recently they either passed quickly or were quite thorough in leaving no evidence behind. You have no choice but to double back for some supplies from the dojo if you want to investigate this cavern further, but at least now you have two possible leads to-
"Hello?"
You pause mid-train of thought, unconsciously holding your breath. Was that a trick of your ears just now? Or of the wind whistling outside? It almost sounded like-
"Is someone there?"
No. It's not your imagination. Someone's calling out, and from quite far away by the sound of it. But where? The echo doesn't have the right ring to be coming from outside, and if the cleft was labyrinth enough to blot out any light they brought with them there's no way you should be able to hear them from all the way over where you're standing. The noise must be coming from down the pit. But then why didn't they call out earlier?
What will you do? Outside moving precariously close to the sinkhole's edge there's no way you'll be loud enough for them to understand what you're saying. You could just make a lot of noise to let them know you're in the chamber above them, or you could stay quiet and wait to see if it's you they're calling out to. Or you could ignore the voice entirely and leave, either doubling back for supplies or looking for another cave to continue your investigation from.
[ ] Approach the pit's edge and call down to the voice's owner. After your investigation you now know where to and not-to stand along the precipice, and it will be easier to communicate with… whoever, if you can both understand one-another.
[ ] Make enough noise to be heard. Whoever is down there, you're not about to stick your neck out for them just yet. You are, however, willing to let them know the chamber above them is occupied.
[ ] Remain quiet. If the voice's owner joins you in silence then it's likely they had nothing of importance to say. Meanwhile, if they keep calling out, you'll know soon enough who they're talking to and why.
[ ] Leave the cavern, continue exploring the mountain. You are here to see if there's any truth to the rumors, and if so search for remnants of Ōgai's tōki. People at the bottom of ditches are not of your concern.
[ ] Leave the cavern to return to the dojo. You are here to see if there's any truth to the rumors, and if so search for remnants of Ōgai's tōki. If the voice's owner is still there by the time you've come back with a rope and spikes then you'll deal with them then.
[ ] Write-in.
LupineVolt
Now with 200% more Puns
- Location
- Michigan
[X] Approach the pit's edge and call down to the voice's owner. After your investigation you now know where to and not-to stand along the precipice, and it will be easier to communicate with… whoever, if you can both understand one-another.
AZATHOTHoth
༼ つ ☀️_☀️ ༽つ
[X] Approach the pit's edge and call down to the voice's owner. After your investigation you now know where to and not-to stand along the precipice, and it will be easier to communicate with… whoever, if you can both understand one-another.
