This quest has been rebooted here Fool's Adventures: The Reboot and the update in the spoiler...
Fool's Adventures: A Demon's Souls/Buffy the Vampire Slayer Quest
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The Old Version of the Quest: Episode 1 "Not the Welcome You Expected"
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
This quest has been rebooted here Fool's Adventures: The Reboot and the update in the spoiler below is now just a historical piece.
You don't remember the strike that killed you. Just the usual wrench of your Soul breaking and ringing like it did when you died and were to be revived by your loyal Prisoner.
You do remember the Slayer of Demons. An odd creature, garbed in cloak and hood and armor which obscured its gender and features. It fought you and your mirror images with sword and shield, deftly dodging your spells until it could stab you with it's long blade or bash you with its heavy shield. Thus you were whittled down and slain.
You were not disturbed by any of this, and you are not aware that most would be disturbed if this happened to them. You were simply occupied with trying to gather the pieces of your Soul from the mass of Fog which made up the place where you waited. Your Soul had been fractured quite badly in this fight and the pieces were floating around other pieces in a cloud of ringing shards. Under the ringing and the paths traced by the floating orbits there were whispers of memories.
Memories of a now very long dead Queen, who loved her husband and her people. Then the one sad night when she found her Husband did not love. He had hurt them. Her people suffered. Their pleas for mercy unseen and unheard, concealed from her by malice. Until luck and skill revealed the horrors.
These are small pieces of the fragmented memories of Queen Latria, The Ivory Queen, greatest sorceress of her time and benevolent, loving ruler. And the basis of you, an inhuman Demon forged in her likeness.
Something was wrong in the Fog around you. You could feel it through your fragmented state, pulling you from the brief flickers of memory. You reached with your magic, feeling the warping and twisting edges. The insanity. Your dear Prisoner had finally lost the last vestiges of his mind. In his flailing and raving he had warped the part of the revival spell that he held.
This was bad. You tried to repair the spell as it started pulsing and warbling with sparking magic, tried to wrap the broken ends together and stabilize it with an infusion of your Soul. But it screeched away from your grasp. Searing, melting, pain pulled through your Soul as the broken revival spell tumbled through the Fog, pulling you with it. You called out and tried to reach out for the Old Monk who had created you.
The Fog swallowed your cry and you felt yourself fall and fall and fall. The speed of your descent compressed the fragments of your Soul, squeezing it against itself. The pieces which housed the memories of Queen Latria pushed towards the forefront of you.
Your Soul shuddered with the change, and then you shrieked in pain as the revival spell spent itself compressing you into your familiar shape. You felt out with your magic as you clutched your spell book and record scroll to your chest with one arm, while the other three tore at the Fog around you as it threatened to crush you.
Something was definitely wrong. You could feel the wild soul magic of the Fog coursing around and through you, tearing at your arms and legs and dress and whipping your hair into your face as your hair ornaments clicked frenetically. You rapidly spent your own magical strength to dampen the forces ripping at you.
This felt like a form of revival, but you did not know of any revival which was this violent. It would have rapidly crushed the Soul of a human into fine fragments, to be quickly eaten by the Fog. It was going to crush you. Your strength was going to fail. You could taste it in your Soul.
And as you fell for another interminable moment, it did. The Fog crushed and smashed your Soul, damaging it as you felt your back slam into a hard surface. You felt your magic flee from you as the air was knocked from your inhuman lungs in a whumpf of sound, shearing through mental hands as it broke up into meaningless energy.
When your stunned mind started to come back to awareness you noted the dim and wispy bank of Fog wafting around you and the soft poking you could feel on your arms and feet. You also noted a few trees here and there through the Fog, rising around you into the night sky. The moon was a crescent and much like a grin hanging in the sky.
You slowly sat up, lingering pain poking your Soul and magical abilities as your hands were brushed by short grass. You could see and feel the Fog quickly flowing into you now, invigorating but also slightly disturbing. Standing was easier, you felt yourself recovering from the jolt. Your book and scroll were also still in your hands, securely held against you.
As the last of the Fog disappeared beneath the hem of your dress, you could see a graveyard extending into the distance all around you, little headstones and mausoleums interspersed with trees and strange lights on tall poles. Looking around you could see other more distant, strange lights and hear rumbles like thunder in your demon senses.
You reached out with your magic, searching and… came up against a precipice in your mind. Your magic was very weak. Lesser than even what your mirror images were normally blessed with, you could barely call up a Soul Arrow or a minor illusion of humanity as you were. You couldn't even float as you normally would, the grass tickling at your feet.
But you could sense the energy around you. This place was a font of magic. Dangerous and beating like the heart of a wild animal you could almost hear. It was not like the Fog or the Soul Arts, or even miracles, but it was a form of magic.
You needed to recover. You… yes, yes you needed to find somewhere to hide. You were physically fine, your demonic body tough enough to be fully functional after absorbing what little Fog came with you. But you were not a physical fighter, your immense strength found in your magics. A quick glance confirmed that you could not hide here. This graveyard felt far far too dangerous, every part of you could agree on that. The pieces of the Queen in particular did not like this place. Dark things lived here. You start walking very slowly, you haven't done it often, out of the graveyard with your dress and mantle trailing in a train behind you.
Pushing and straining with what magic you have you feel out the flows of the rather enormous mass of magical energy which seems to suffuse this… town. City? You could sense a very large number of human souls very vaguely so city may be apt. They are a possible threat, it is uncertain what the energy around here may have done to them. A little more effort as you pass a mausoleum with the name Alpert carved on it reveals two areas where the magic is quieter and less intense.
One is a strange collection of magic which repulses the other magic swirling in the air. You could hide there, cloaking yourself in the repulsing magic, though you think there are some human presences in the vicinity. The second is a building, large and sprawling and very isolated from human souls, you think. It is probably quiet and abandoned, with so few traveling near it that not many are likely to find you.
Where do you go?
[] The strange collection of magic
[] The large and isolated place
A/N: So. What the hell is this you wonder to yourself? Good question! This is me being kicked in the head by a funny bloodthirsty plot bunny. You, SV, shall play the Fool's Idol. She is an incredibly powerful sorceress Demon and a boss from the game Demon's Souls. She, and thus you, have been dumped into the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since it'll really only help I'll tell you the current time: the night before the first day of school. Episode 1 Season 1 "Welcome to the Hellmouth". Stuff is a bump in the night.
How this quest is going to run is thus: There will be no dice. This is fully a narrative quest, so you will have to use logic, magic fantasy logic, magic tropes, and good judgement to get what you want. This is why I will indicate on the character sheet the current strength of your abilities and health as understood by the several centuries old Demon you are.
Fights will vary in length, much like they do in the show, with some taking less than an update while others may span several for the more difficult Big Bads. Tactics will be voted on, but generally speaking the Fool's Idol is very good at what she does due to those previously mentioned several centuries of experience so you can trust her and I to fill out the details.
Like the show the meat of this quest however will be in character interaction, social drama and investigation. In fact the entire point of this quest, so the vicious plot bunny says to me as it stabs me in the brain, is seeing how the Idol will interact with major Buffy characters.
Write ins in general are not going to be accepted, unless there is a specific write in option present amongst the choices. If I think there is a need for a moratorium I will state there is one at the bottom of the update, though generally I don't think this will be needed since this is meant to be a fun low impact stress quest.
I will also be free most days and will answer any questions directed at me and generally try to be interactive with you folks. This does include reading through the thread and such like to catch things. Speaking of the thread, I have also decided to break this Quest up across multiple threads. Once each thread gets to approximately 300 pages I will stop it there and move the Quest to the next thread. This is for ease of reading for new players and categorizing of information for old players, and to mitigate build up of tensions as seen in larger threads.
I'd like to thank the existence of Penetrator Quest for part of the inspiration for this quest.
Please follow the rules of SV and be nice gentle-folks or else you will make Idol-chan sad. I don't want Idol-chan to be sad.
HAVE FUN!
Please hold for your character sheet.
Episode 1
"Not the Welcome You Expected"
"Not the Welcome You Expected"
You don't remember the strike that killed you. Just the usual wrench of your Soul breaking and ringing like it did when you died and were to be revived by your loyal Prisoner.
You do remember the Slayer of Demons. An odd creature, garbed in cloak and hood and armor which obscured its gender and features. It fought you and your mirror images with sword and shield, deftly dodging your spells until it could stab you with it's long blade or bash you with its heavy shield. Thus you were whittled down and slain.
You were not disturbed by any of this, and you are not aware that most would be disturbed if this happened to them. You were simply occupied with trying to gather the pieces of your Soul from the mass of Fog which made up the place where you waited. Your Soul had been fractured quite badly in this fight and the pieces were floating around other pieces in a cloud of ringing shards. Under the ringing and the paths traced by the floating orbits there were whispers of memories.
Memories of a now very long dead Queen, who loved her husband and her people. Then the one sad night when she found her Husband did not love. He had hurt them. Her people suffered. Their pleas for mercy unseen and unheard, concealed from her by malice. Until luck and skill revealed the horrors.
These are small pieces of the fragmented memories of Queen Latria, The Ivory Queen, greatest sorceress of her time and benevolent, loving ruler. And the basis of you, an inhuman Demon forged in her likeness.
Something was wrong in the Fog around you. You could feel it through your fragmented state, pulling you from the brief flickers of memory. You reached with your magic, feeling the warping and twisting edges. The insanity. Your dear Prisoner had finally lost the last vestiges of his mind. In his flailing and raving he had warped the part of the revival spell that he held.
This was bad. You tried to repair the spell as it started pulsing and warbling with sparking magic, tried to wrap the broken ends together and stabilize it with an infusion of your Soul. But it screeched away from your grasp. Searing, melting, pain pulled through your Soul as the broken revival spell tumbled through the Fog, pulling you with it. You called out and tried to reach out for the Old Monk who had created you.
The Fog swallowed your cry and you felt yourself fall and fall and fall. The speed of your descent compressed the fragments of your Soul, squeezing it against itself. The pieces which housed the memories of Queen Latria pushed towards the forefront of you.
Your Soul shuddered with the change, and then you shrieked in pain as the revival spell spent itself compressing you into your familiar shape. You felt out with your magic as you clutched your spell book and record scroll to your chest with one arm, while the other three tore at the Fog around you as it threatened to crush you.
Something was definitely wrong. You could feel the wild soul magic of the Fog coursing around and through you, tearing at your arms and legs and dress and whipping your hair into your face as your hair ornaments clicked frenetically. You rapidly spent your own magical strength to dampen the forces ripping at you.
This felt like a form of revival, but you did not know of any revival which was this violent. It would have rapidly crushed the Soul of a human into fine fragments, to be quickly eaten by the Fog. It was going to crush you. Your strength was going to fail. You could taste it in your Soul.
And as you fell for another interminable moment, it did. The Fog crushed and smashed your Soul, damaging it as you felt your back slam into a hard surface. You felt your magic flee from you as the air was knocked from your inhuman lungs in a whumpf of sound, shearing through mental hands as it broke up into meaningless energy.
When your stunned mind started to come back to awareness you noted the dim and wispy bank of Fog wafting around you and the soft poking you could feel on your arms and feet. You also noted a few trees here and there through the Fog, rising around you into the night sky. The moon was a crescent and much like a grin hanging in the sky.
You slowly sat up, lingering pain poking your Soul and magical abilities as your hands were brushed by short grass. You could see and feel the Fog quickly flowing into you now, invigorating but also slightly disturbing. Standing was easier, you felt yourself recovering from the jolt. Your book and scroll were also still in your hands, securely held against you.
As the last of the Fog disappeared beneath the hem of your dress, you could see a graveyard extending into the distance all around you, little headstones and mausoleums interspersed with trees and strange lights on tall poles. Looking around you could see other more distant, strange lights and hear rumbles like thunder in your demon senses.
You reached out with your magic, searching and… came up against a precipice in your mind. Your magic was very weak. Lesser than even what your mirror images were normally blessed with, you could barely call up a Soul Arrow or a minor illusion of humanity as you were. You couldn't even float as you normally would, the grass tickling at your feet.
But you could sense the energy around you. This place was a font of magic. Dangerous and beating like the heart of a wild animal you could almost hear. It was not like the Fog or the Soul Arts, or even miracles, but it was a form of magic.
You needed to recover. You… yes, yes you needed to find somewhere to hide. You were physically fine, your demonic body tough enough to be fully functional after absorbing what little Fog came with you. But you were not a physical fighter, your immense strength found in your magics. A quick glance confirmed that you could not hide here. This graveyard felt far far too dangerous, every part of you could agree on that. The pieces of the Queen in particular did not like this place. Dark things lived here. You start walking very slowly, you haven't done it often, out of the graveyard with your dress and mantle trailing in a train behind you.
Pushing and straining with what magic you have you feel out the flows of the rather enormous mass of magical energy which seems to suffuse this… town. City? You could sense a very large number of human souls very vaguely so city may be apt. They are a possible threat, it is uncertain what the energy around here may have done to them. A little more effort as you pass a mausoleum with the name Alpert carved on it reveals two areas where the magic is quieter and less intense.
One is a strange collection of magic which repulses the other magic swirling in the air. You could hide there, cloaking yourself in the repulsing magic, though you think there are some human presences in the vicinity. The second is a building, large and sprawling and very isolated from human souls, you think. It is probably quiet and abandoned, with so few traveling near it that not many are likely to find you.
Where do you go?
[] The strange collection of magic
[] The large and isolated place
A/N: So. What the hell is this you wonder to yourself? Good question! This is me being kicked in the head by a funny bloodthirsty plot bunny. You, SV, shall play the Fool's Idol. She is an incredibly powerful sorceress Demon and a boss from the game Demon's Souls. She, and thus you, have been dumped into the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since it'll really only help I'll tell you the current time: the night before the first day of school. Episode 1 Season 1 "Welcome to the Hellmouth". Stuff is a bump in the night.
How this quest is going to run is thus: There will be no dice. This is fully a narrative quest, so you will have to use logic, magic fantasy logic, magic tropes, and good judgement to get what you want. This is why I will indicate on the character sheet the current strength of your abilities and health as understood by the several centuries old Demon you are.
Fights will vary in length, much like they do in the show, with some taking less than an update while others may span several for the more difficult Big Bads. Tactics will be voted on, but generally speaking the Fool's Idol is very good at what she does due to those previously mentioned several centuries of experience so you can trust her and I to fill out the details.
Like the show the meat of this quest however will be in character interaction, social drama and investigation. In fact the entire point of this quest, so the vicious plot bunny says to me as it stabs me in the brain, is seeing how the Idol will interact with major Buffy characters.
Write ins in general are not going to be accepted, unless there is a specific write in option present amongst the choices. If I think there is a need for a moratorium I will state there is one at the bottom of the update, though generally I don't think this will be needed since this is meant to be a fun low impact stress quest.
I will also be free most days and will answer any questions directed at me and generally try to be interactive with you folks. This does include reading through the thread and such like to catch things. Speaking of the thread, I have also decided to break this Quest up across multiple threads. Once each thread gets to approximately 300 pages I will stop it there and move the Quest to the next thread. This is for ease of reading for new players and categorizing of information for old players, and to mitigate build up of tensions as seen in larger threads.
I'd like to thank the existence of Penetrator Quest for part of the inspiration for this quest.
Please follow the rules of SV and be nice gentle-folks or else you will make Idol-chan sad. I don't want Idol-chan to be sad.
HAVE FUN!
Please hold for your character sheet.
Last edited:
Your Character Sheet
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Character: The Fool's Idol, bearer of the Doll's Demon Soul.
She is an inhuman creature of immense magical power in the form of a string-less marionette doll, a literal Demon. Though not a Demon from any type of Hell, she was instead created by another Demon called the Old Monk who was in turn created by the Soul consuming and reality warping Fog. As a Fog Demon she is sustained by the Fog and has some power over it and can use it to consume Souls for strength. The nature of her construction means her emotions are somewhat limited.
The Slayer of Demons finds her as an idol of worship amongst the prisoners of the Tower of Latria. Believing her to be Queen Latria her presence gave the prisoners hope and quelled insurrections, and they would come to her church to seek "redemption" from her. Redemption involved being taken up the Tower by gargoyles to be warped into Demon flesh by the Old Monk's machines. She did not harm the prisoners, only the Slayer when they came for her Demon Soul. In her fight with them she generally only attacked when approached after she appears and will leave them alone otherwise.
Without the direction of the Old Monk, her initial lack of interest in consuming humanity which comes from multiple sources, current lack of magical power, and the possibility in her mind that the power she senses in the town may have warped the humans into a danger, she is a cautious being whose first priority was hiding after she arrived. Her current priority is handling the sudden emotional and mental shattering caused by the death of the Old One, the font of all Fog Demons, and to deceive Angel and Buffy's gang.
With the attachment of the Glove of Mynhegon to her Knight, Annie, the Idol has begun to plot against the Master.
Name: N/A. Latria.
Health: You are physically fine. Your Magic is much closer to restored, with three of your major abilities returned to you essentially in full. Your mind is different and not as it should be, but there is a piece which is as it should be.
Ability: You can currently muster up enough mystic power to cast a powerful Soul Arrow and/or a strong illusion of humanity. Your Paralysis Sigil is at full strength and your Mirror Images have been returned to you almost entirely in full. Flight is yours again, after far too long in your opinion.
Inventory:
-Your dress and mantle
-Your record scroll
-Your spell book
-Your hair ornaments
-Your front door keys
Items not on your person:
In the Crawford Mansion
-Magical Iron Gauntlet
-The book Volumen ex Inferna Daemon
-A sprig of smoky smelling herbs
-Assortment of random low power objects
-A witches spell book
-A cylindrical incense censer, returned to its base state
-Undefined amount of mortal funds
-A Remington Model 870, with ammunition
-A phone, confiscated from a dead mantis monster
-A shiny leather purse
-A bottle of blueberry wine
-Moloch's Armor
Mundane
-A gleaming yellow blouse
-A golden sundress
-Three other articles of yellow clothing
-Three exceptionally trashy romance novels; a pirate one, banker one and vampire one.
Ritual Items:
Ritual of the Pit
-Skull of the rat warrior
-Kitchen meat knife with Angel's blood on it
Vehicles
-Silver convertible, four door
Long Term Projects: Study the Glove of Mhynegon and integrate it with Annie. Determine if there are other items of power you can use.
Minions:
-A beggar woman
Lair Locations:
-1902 Crawford Street Mansion
Nicknames:
-Witchy Girl/Gal
Thought of the Day: I'm glad that is finished, but what to do?
She is an inhuman creature of immense magical power in the form of a string-less marionette doll, a literal Demon. Though not a Demon from any type of Hell, she was instead created by another Demon called the Old Monk who was in turn created by the Soul consuming and reality warping Fog. As a Fog Demon she is sustained by the Fog and has some power over it and can use it to consume Souls for strength. The nature of her construction means her emotions are somewhat limited.
The Slayer of Demons finds her as an idol of worship amongst the prisoners of the Tower of Latria. Believing her to be Queen Latria her presence gave the prisoners hope and quelled insurrections, and they would come to her church to seek "redemption" from her. Redemption involved being taken up the Tower by gargoyles to be warped into Demon flesh by the Old Monk's machines. She did not harm the prisoners, only the Slayer when they came for her Demon Soul. In her fight with them she generally only attacked when approached after she appears and will leave them alone otherwise.
Without the direction of the Old Monk, her initial lack of interest in consuming humanity which comes from multiple sources, current lack of magical power, and the possibility in her mind that the power she senses in the town may have warped the humans into a danger, she is a cautious being whose first priority was hiding after she arrived. Her current priority is handling the sudden emotional and mental shattering caused by the death of the Old One, the font of all Fog Demons, and to deceive Angel and Buffy's gang.
With the attachment of the Glove of Mynhegon to her Knight, Annie, the Idol has begun to plot against the Master.
Name: N/A. Latria.
Health: You are physically fine. Your Magic is much closer to restored, with three of your major abilities returned to you essentially in full. Your mind is different and not as it should be, but there is a piece which is as it should be.
Ability: You can currently muster up enough mystic power to cast a powerful Soul Arrow and/or a strong illusion of humanity. Your Paralysis Sigil is at full strength and your Mirror Images have been returned to you almost entirely in full. Flight is yours again, after far too long in your opinion.
Inventory:
-Your dress and mantle
-Your record scroll
-Your spell book
-Your hair ornaments
-Your front door keys
Items not on your person:
In the Crawford Mansion
-Magical Iron Gauntlet
-The book Volumen ex Inferna Daemon
-A sprig of smoky smelling herbs
-Assortment of random low power objects
-A witches spell book
-A cylindrical incense censer, returned to its base state
-Undefined amount of mortal funds
-A Remington Model 870, with ammunition
-A phone, confiscated from a dead mantis monster
-A shiny leather purse
-A bottle of blueberry wine
-Moloch's Armor
Mundane
-A gleaming yellow blouse
-A golden sundress
-Three other articles of yellow clothing
-Three exceptionally trashy romance novels; a pirate one, banker one and vampire one.
Ritual Items:
Ritual of the Pit
-Skull of the rat warrior
-Kitchen meat knife with Angel's blood on it
Vehicles
-Silver convertible, four door
Long Term Projects: Study the Glove of Mhynegon and integrate it with Annie. Determine if there are other items of power you can use.
Minions:
-A beggar woman
Tall and red haired, Annie was a beggar woman you found and subjected to Soul manipulation that turned her into a channel for Hellmouth energy. She is madly loyal to you and not entirely sane, though more in her right mind than she was when you found her. She currently looks decently dressed, and cleaner than when you found her.
With the successful attachment of the Glove of Mynhegon it has fully replaced her right arm.
Annie's Thoughts: Ow, but what is my friend up to?
With the successful attachment of the Glove of Mynhegon it has fully replaced her right arm.
Annie's Thoughts: Ow, but what is my friend up to?
Lair Locations:
-1902 Crawford Street Mansion
Nicknames:
-Witchy Girl/Gal
Thought of the Day: I'm glad that is finished, but what to do?
Last edited:
Episode 1, Part 2 “Oh. This is very strange”
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Episode 1, Part 2
"Oh. This is very strange"
"Oh. This is very strange"
You decided to head for the large and isolated, safe, place. Getting there might be challenging considering the distance. Walking onwards you shortly see the edge of the cemetery through the trees. You can see more poles supporting those strange lights and a long strip of… road, though it is not like the roads you know. Neither are the carriages traveling on it which produce the thunder like sounds.
You can briefly sense human Souls inside the carriages and the carriages do not seem to be living creations. Hmm… Your extremely weakened state convinces you to hide under a seeming. With a twist of the Soul and a pervading ache in your magical nature, your form ripples into the image of a young human woman.
You are shorter, but still tall and graceful for a human, with long and wavy black hair. Your skin is still pale, but your second set of arms are hidden and your tattoos concealed. You know your irises would be brown, lightened from the black they normally are. You leave your hair ornaments, book, and scroll in place but replace your garments with an ankle length homespun dress and a lowered hood of gray wool. Your feet remain uncovered, the touch of base earth not bothering you.
This is just a fragile image you have molded however, the most basic of basic forms of your mirror image ability. You will have to be very careful not to come into contact with people as they could sense the difference through touch and break the seeming. Something similar would happen if you hit any inanimate object at speed.
Carefully approaching the road you stop briefly in the pool of a light post to examine it. It is a very strange thing, not powered by magic as you understand it. A closer look has you thinking it is not magic at all, but harnessing a different energy much like what is found in storms. How odd. Something to consider later when you are concealed from this malefic energy in the air.
Thundering rumbles catch your attention again and you look to your left, watching the approaching lights on one of those carriages as they briefly sweep over you. Its sleek metal body passes quickly and you can feel the rumble in your feet as it passes. You track it as it goes into the darkness before turning down a side street and out of sight. Definitely another thing to examine later.
Homing back in on your goal you start moving quickly across the comfortably warm road surface. Reaching the other side you turn left and gracefully follow the stone path laid besides the road, heading deeper into town. Looking around you can see most of the buildings near the cemetery seem to be homes, at least in the direction you are heading. The strange collection of magic is somewhere off ahead of you and to your left, east of the cemetery and generally in the same direction you are headed. Your goal is somewhere deeper in and to your right.
As you walk you examine what you can of the sleeping Souls around you and how they interact with the magical energy in the air. The energy is slippery and cunning however, and does not bend to examination at your current strength. Stymied for the moment you shift to simply watching the energy for disturbances more closely.
The walk is mostly uneventful for several minutes with homes on your right with little fence wrapped yards and the cemetery on your left. The hints of grave rot mixed with blood are more pungent in this area than you might expect. You briefly consider the possibility of there being lots of murders in the area.
One other strange thing is that there are many of those carriages sitting near the homes on patches of stone. There are many different shapes visible, with the most common being a small thing with four doors. They are all luxuriously furnished with glass windows. There are also a few which are larger and have some kind of bed for carrying things in the back. How odd. You don't have time to stop and examine them though, you must reach a safe lair.
As you near an intersection and one corner of the cemetery you sense something moving rapidly from the east towards the cemetery, disturbing the ambient magic. It is a sucking, swirling, rumble pulling greedily at the energy around it though it is incredibly hard to pinpoint as it does not seem to have a Soul.
It is connected to blood, you think to yourself. Though it is not the cause of the grave rot and blood scent. It seems even faster than the carriages, though you are uncertain of that. Definitely a threat.
You watch the waves it creates in the ambient magic as you make it to the intersection and make a right turn, heading south now. There is definitely some manner of powerful creature living in the cemetery. Likely several.
After walking for a few more minutes you can smell salt on the air, the grave rot covered it before. The sea? You do not slow as thoughts of oceans flit through your head. You can hear another carriage thundering along in the distance, getting louder. There's also some kind of yelling and heckling underneath it.
The carriage turns the corner jerkily and then wobbles it's way extremely quickly down the street. Laughter and some kind of thumping music emanates from it loudly. The Souls within seem rather young to you. One flaxen haired young man in a colorful coat is hanging out of it precariously, some form of drink in one hand and the other on the roof. He sees you and releases a piercing wolf whistle.
"Yoooooooo! Pretty lady!" The carriage makes an abrupt jerk, "Woahahooooo crap! Drive better you idiot!" and the heckling shifts targets and volume rapidly from you to someone else in the conveyance.
"Screw you Blayne!" another masculine voice blasts out of the car. As it drives past you see a pair of… feet? Yes, a pair of feet is hanging out of the back window, covered in some form of shoe. The vehicle shoots past, "Blayne" dipping back in to yell at the "driver", the wind of its passage ruffling your hair a little.
Reaching up you fix your hair with one hand, the other still gripping your mystical possessions. The vehicle disappears around a corner behind you as you continue on. Distant chants of "The Bronze, the Bronze, to The Bronze!" echo back to you.
The rest of your journey is essentially uneventful as you travel the streets of this town. The sea scent eventually fades as you leave the houses behind and pass a few shops selling food and other conveniences you think, though a lot of them are unrecognizable to you. Then you leave those behind to and arrive in an area with many more trees and much grander homes with larger spaces between them.
Your goal quickly comes into view after that as you near another intersection which declares the street going left to right as "Crawford Street". The ambient magic you have been sensing is quiet in this whole neighborhood and there are very few Souls around. The home itself is aesthetically interesting but completely empty and surrounded by a tall wall.
Perfect for your needs. You cross the street and turn to follow the wall, running your left hand along it as you go. It is suitable to be warded against intruders, sturdy and whole. Good. You come upon an enterance gate and examine its padlock critically. With a gentle push on the bars the gate swings open with a soulful creak as the lock and chain clangs to the ground. Hmm, that lock needs to be fixed. You walk into the enclosure and carefully shut the gate behind you, turning to look at the building.
It is grand enough a part of you whispers, and the windows are well arranged. The building is obviously old and well worn but that does not matter to you. You walk up the stone laid out in front of it and ascend the steps to the front door, a grand double door affair of oak. You trace it gently. It is old and stable enough.
Reaching out you try the handle. It is locked. Not wanting to damage your future security you back out of the entryway and look around for another way in. You find several ground floor windows on the building and decide to see if they will open. Moving around the building you find all of the windows are securely fastened from the inside, though they would open outwards if unlocked. There is a glimpse of a garden area through one set of windows. The building seems to be mostly furnished as well, some stuff covered in sheets and some not. Perhaps the previous owners could not take them with them?
Walking back closer to the entrance you consider the wall and secure your book and scroll to your hip. Then you reach out and stab with your fingers into the patterned brick and mortar with what Demonic strength you have. With that you climb easily up the side of the building onto a small sub roof. Looking around you spot a possible window leading into a bedroom. Moving over you carefully prise open the window and slip into the musty smelling room.
Pulling it closed behind you and locking it you find yourself in the master bedroom. Much of the furniture here is sheet covered, though the enormous bed is not. Walking around you consider the walls and general size of the room. There are two doors out, one partially open and revealing a hall. The other is closed and you move towards it.
Pulling it open you find some kind of odd tiled room. To your right is a massive tub with a drain in it and strange little spigots on one side and up further on the wall at head height. Walking in there is also a mirror running along the left side of it. Tilting your head to the right you just look at it for a moment.
Some poking around in old memories tells you that this may be some kind of bathroom fit for an empress. The gold filigree definitely speaks to it. This is suitable.
Seeing another door you open it and walk out into a hall with a bannister running along one side. Leaning on it with one hand you look down into the entrance hall a good way below you. Looking left there is a straight stair down and an alcove with a spiral stair going up. You head down the stairs to the first floor, your book and scroll rustling against your hip softly.
The walls are made of many differently sized gray blocks that jut outwards a little at different distances somewhat randomly. There is also decoration with various paintings and other trappings of high class wealth. The floors are smooth stone with various soft white rugs which caress the feet, patterned with angular patches of color.
As you enter a sort of sitting room you catch a faint scent of rust on the air which makes you pause before it fades again. You walk into the dining room and see a dark wood table with several chairs around it and an empty candelabra. You then find another strange room through another door.
There are strange devices all over the place in here. Moving over to the largest you open it and get a lingering blast of cold coming off its shelves but it is otherwise empty. How odd. Closing it you walk back out and head through another door on the right.
You find the enclosed garden and determine it has massive skylights in the roof, one of which in the far corner is currently partially open and dripping a small amount of water onto one of the long beds. There are small plants growing around the room, most on the edge of death. Moving inside you lean over and brush your hand over some wilted white flowers close to the door. Tulips a part of your memories supplies as their sweet scent rises into the air. You look around the rest of the room, brushing a plant here or there before turning to leave, ignoring the internal balcony up some stairs for now.
There's a rustle and then a quiet thump behind you. You gracefully spin around and see a… man behind you. Something is wrong with him. You cannot sense a Soul.
"Hahahaha, a fiiiiine girl like you shouldn't be here, sweet." The roughly garbed man-thing growls, his pants and shirt somewhat ragged and smelling of dirt and rust, as he shakes a finger at you. You tilt your head to the left.
"Is it yours then?" Your quiet bell-like voice seems to take the thing off guard. A shudder goes through it as it growls like a dog, lank shoulder length brown hair rustling as it hunches forward.
"...No. But that doesn't matter. You're mine now, sweet!" His face distorts into a gargoyle like visage as he lunges for you!
This is amusing.
Dun dun dun! Combat tutorial! The Vampire Mook is after your blood!
[] Laugh your classic laugh and launch a Soul Arrow into its face to stun it. That should give you enough time to reveal your true power and kill it.
[] Deceive it by screaming and fleeing through the door, surprising it with your true form and then killing it with Soul Arrow.
Don't worry too much about this guy, he's noodly and new, which is in part the reason you didn't sense him. As such these are just two choices on how you want to see him served.
So funny story, I actually had a good bit of difficulty reminding myself where the hell Angel lived in the first season of Buffy as I'm not up to that episode yet so I had to double check he wasn't living in here already.
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Episode 1, Part 3 “My place, not yours”
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Episode 1, Part 3
"My place, not yours"
"My place, not yours"
"Hahahahahahahahaha!" Soul Arrow. Your tinkling, echoing, and inhuman laughter rings out as your glowing white spike of Soul Magic slams the man-thing right in the chin. The creature stumbles and howls as the arrow burns and tears at its flesh.
You rise up to your full height and drop the seeming, your arms unfolding elegantly and your mantle swaying gently. The man-thing squeaks in fear like a kicked cat at your appearance.
"Oh shith." It slurs through its ruined jaw as it tenses to do something but...
Pew. Your next dart smacks into its gut and it grunts in pain as the arrow takes another chunk out of its flesh.
"Hahahahahahahahaha!" You laugh again to taunt the creature.
Then, howling through its ruined mouth, the man-thing runs at you again. You flit out the door, mantle billowing, and wait as it tears out of the room, slamming the door into the wall as it passes and rattling the glass panes. It is fast. Turning in a blur its arm comes racing for your throat. But you are also fast. Before it can reach you your next Soul Arrow and two right palms slam into its sternum. You can hear it crack as the thing flies back into a wall and then falls over onto its hands and knees.
"Theh Mastah wi' drin... your ...h'art's bloo..." It attempts to groan pretentiously at you, and then tries to scurry back through the door like a little coward! Not having any of that you reach out lighting quick and grab its leg, causing it to flop heavily to the floor and squeal adorably.
You tug it toward you and then slam it down again when it screams. Grabbing it by the back of the neck with your upper hands you rise up and, placing a lower palm against its struggling back as it claws at your hands, you core its torso with a quiet murmur of "Soul Arrow." It puffs into a cloud of dust, and a howling cry of magic as the force animating it begins to dissolve.
With a mental twist you catch that force in your Fog, consuming it utterly in a burst of billowing white and gray chaos all around you. It was instinct that made you do that. Twitching slightly you are somewhat repulsed by the metaphysical taste of the creature.
No Soul, just energy. Like some kind of horrid tasting drink or scent. You gather the Fog around you and find that it has expanded a small amount. Pulling it back in you note that you are slightly stronger, though the gain is smaller than it should be. Pitiful.
Your amusement fading you turn back to the garden and enter it. Looking around you don't see anything to close the skylight with, not even on top of the balcony at the back, so you just shoot the bar propping it open with a Soul Arrow. It clacks shut behind you as you leave, mantle flaring. You will need to secure those later.
Returning to your sitting room you take a moment to try and search the area with magic, feeling the surroundings as it ripples out around you. It returns nothing. Judging it safe for now you decide to stay in your true form as you finish exploring your new home. It occurs to you as you ascend the stairs that you likely missed the creature who attacked you because it was too weak to properly disturb the ambient magic suffusing this strange town, which was the main focus of your attention.
Hmm… Considering the essence of the thing you just killed it is obvious the other thing you sensed was a similar but much more powerful creature. Reaching the second floor you mount the spiral stair and head up.
The third floor seems to be mostly a series of five connected "rooms" arranged in a rough square. It would make a great working area you determine. You start to search around for the central pillar of the house, it will be a useful supplement to your warding, and find it near the stair down. A quick perusal of recent memory confirms this piece goes all the way down into the sitting room. Good.
The furnishings are rather sparse up here, the floors mostly uncovered stone. The cold on your feet is comfortable. There are a few shelves along the walls and a large cushioned chair in the furthest room from the stairs. You drift back to the stairs and ascend again. The fourth level is much smaller and just two bedrooms with more attached bathrooms with the central pillar continuing upwards into it.
"Hmmmm." You begin to hum the opening bars to a hymn you used to soothe the prisoners in the Tower. Drifting, almost dancing, down the stairs you return to the garden and slowly ascend to the internal balcony at the back of the room that you had mostly ignored. Easily flipping your legs over the balcony railing at the top you rest your lower hands atop the rails and look out over your new home. You are satisfied with this place.
Moving on to other things you gently pull out your spell book from where it had been sitting on your hip, and open it. Flipping to the entries on Rituals you consider your next course of action. Before anything else you need to recover your magic.
Examining yourself closely you confirm that a lot of that will take time but there are rituals you can perform which will bring you closer, though not completely, to full strength. Large amounts of Souls, or potent Souls are best, or… hmm. Paging through your book's aged yellow pages you come upon an old ritual of the Northern Lands from the time of the First Scourge which involves slaying a beastly sinner with a Soul blessed weapon, in a hall of metal, under the light of a lunar convergence. Its original intent is to bestow greater power upon a Soul Arts practitioner. But, you see within it the means to restore a sizable fraction of your power if you can fulfill the conditions and if it works with the energy hanging over the town.
Putting that aside for a moment you come back to the idea of using Souls to recover. It is an option as natural to you as ritual, you are a Fog Demon, but the risks are higher you think. Firstly you are nearly certain now after thinking about what you have sensed that the Souls of this town are at least loosely influenced by the malefic magical energy emerging from somewhere in this place. What that would do to you if you attempted to consume just a Soul and left the energy be is uncertain.
The animating force of the Man-Thing was similar to the malefic energy, which considering what the animating force did for you is not a good sign. With the overtones of consumption and vauge similarities to the Fog in both energies consuming a Soul in this cursed place could weaken you.
Secondly, there is also the general weakness of the Souls in this town. No great heroes or strong creatures. It would take many Souls constantly consumed in order to make a dent. Then, thirdly, there is also the sheer number of humans with their strange devices which could be used to flee or to harm you. You are mildly disturbed, your hum turning into a metallic grind in the back of your throat, at these thoughts.
A different thought occurs to you and you tilt your head to the right, growl quieting, hair ornaments clacking. Perhaps…. You need to test the effects of this town's magic on your body and Soul but consuming it directly is not possible without a conduit. It is far too slippery and cunning for that. You also need to determine if you can consume a Soul in this town without damaging yourself. Perhaps you could use a Soul as a channel and consume some of the energy before it can consume anything of yours, like it might if you are focused on just eating the Soul. You are a Fog Demon, your nature, your Soul, is an instrument of chaos and gluttony. This could work.
Satisfied with that option you return to the unfinished thought regarding the Beastly Sinner Ritual. It will likely give you more all at once, depending on how powerful the Sinner is. You obviously need a Beastly Sinner. You also need a hall of metal and a Soul blessed weapon. You can find the first in this strange town, you are certain. Perhaps that "Bronze" place will be suitable. The name fits. The second you can provide if you have time to set up and gather your power beforehand. The Beastly Sinner… well from the context of the ritual being developed during the First Scourge it means a creature whose Soul has been consumed by the Fog and begun to destroy its fellows in madness. Glancing at the spot where the Man-Thing died you think one of those will do quite well.
The tricky part is the convergence. Closing your book and holding it in one hand you push off the railing and drop smoothly to the ground to head upstairs and out the window you initially came in through. You stare upwards at the grinning crescent moon and the strange stars in the sky. Looking down at your book you begin to piece together a sounding effect, a similar gathering of power to what you will do to make a Soul blessed weapon.
After a little under an hour piecing it together from old Latrian and Boletarian text fragments you extend as far as you can with your magical senses. Spreading yourself over the entirety of your new home, you begin to chant wordless sounds. Simple notes in C# that deepen as you go. Fog flows out from under the hem of your robe, acting as a mirror to reflect what you are doing into the sky. Descending three octaves you finally get a return a handful of hours later after the moon has set. The Fog around you laughs and burbles like a small child before whispering in your ear like a lover.
There will be a convergence. Tomorrow after the sun has set and the moon is high. A great and grand harvest. The Magic in the air will burn with a connection between a gifter and a receiver. A perfect eventuality for you.
A tiny laugh escapes from the depths of you. With your paths laid before you, what do you do?
Please pick one of these.
[] Go out and hunt down a Soul to test your theory about consuming the Magic in this town.
[] Search for a "hall of metal" and prepare for the convergence. You will need to still find a Sinner.
[] Search for another Man-Thing to serve as a sacrifice in your Beastly Sinner Ritual. You will still need to find a "hall of metal" and prepare for the convergence.
This one fought me a bit, though not the combat. It was mostly the explanation bits which came after that. I also made a bit of a goof.
My memory of the Crawford Street Mansion from the show is really spotty, I honestly don't know if I saw the episodes where it appeared, its been more than twelve years. I was a Smol Bungie. Nearly wrote myself into a continuity error there. As to why it's more damaged in the show than here, put that down to the Order of Aurelius using it for a while and also just generally existing in Sunnydale unused before then. Any further continuity errors you can just put down to my currently spotty experience with the show.
Also, the show never used much of the Mansion so I have taken the liberty to decide that it has four floors and one of those will be an excellent workroom for you guys later. Fun times ahead.
E: OH! Doh! I forgot my second goof. In the opening I describe how the health stats on the char sheet are what you think of your abilities, I meant that to mean in combat. If you have time the above can happen though there are very distinct limits I have in mind.
Next time on The Fool's Adventures, the Idol goes shopping!
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Episode 1, Part 4 “Going shopping”
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Episode 1, Part 4
"Going shopping"
"Going shopping"
Rituals are all about preparation. You had little need for them during your time in the Tower of Latria beyond the revival spell, but your predecessor the Queen made good use of them. Returning inside you head to the first floor to deal with something quickly before you leave to find the hall of metal you need.
Looking around for a key to the front door takes only a few minutes, and you eventually find one hidden in a cupboard in the kitchen. Forgotten and dusty, but usable. You hang it on your hip next to your book and scroll. Leaving in your seeming, you secure your new lair behind you and then head to the gate. You pause there momentarily to tie the chain into a knot around the gate.
Under the light of the moon you walk into town again, keeping a wary eye on the magic in the air. You decide to head north first, heading straight up Crawford Street, hugging the shadows between the lights.
It is quiet as you travel, passing homes and grocers and buildings you have no name for but obviously have some use for human business. At one point an hour or two in you pass near a very tiny hole in the wall building selling liquors and spirits from the smell with a raucous handful of adults piling up into one of those large vehicles with a storage bed in the back. The clothing is rather strange, as is the prevalence of shoes. No matter, you have no need for shoes.
They do not notice you in the shadows across the road and you move on, using the repelling magic you sensed before as a landmark.
After some more time searching later, as the sky lightens with the approaching dawn, you begin to sense another spot of magic very close to you. It is much more chaotic and… muddled, than the repelling magic. Turning away from your current path in another neighborhood of quaint homes you head for it through the alleys and streets.Cutting a path through the town brings you to it quickly, revealing a small little blue and white hut entitled "The Magic Box". Tilting your head to the right you taste the air around the building. The slide of magic on magic is clearer now. It feels like a bunch of individual and small magical sources squished into close proximity.
You cross the street to it and peer into the windows. On the shelves you can see a plethora of magical knicknacks and oddities. Glancing up at the sky you take note of the time and the location of this place in relation to your lair. Your workroom would look good with the more powerful items present in the little hut, though none of them will help with your current plan.
After this ritual to gain some of your magic back is complete, you shall take them.
Delaying no longer you move on, heading toward the center of town as the sleeping Souls start to stir around you.
The sun is fully above the horizon and day is in full swing when you reach the source of the repelling magic. It is a building with several tens of dozens of Souls mingling around it. Circling it unseen at a distance from the shade of a nearby stand of trees and buildings, you have found the people in this town to be almost willfully unobservant, you spot a sign entitling it "Sunnydale High School".And then… you sense something else entirely. Head whipping toward a larger crowd, hair ornaments clanging, your eyes narrow and a low metallic grind rumbles in your throat. A powerful Soul is among them. The thought whispers through your mind as you reach out with your magic. Yes… She is quite strong, touched by shadow.
You cannot locate Her with your eyes in the crowd however. The bodies of the other young ones block your sight of Her. A loud clang diverts your attention to see a young boy fall on the ground near some stairs, a flat, wheeled contraption rolling away from him. A girl approaches him and you watch them begin to converse. You are about to turn away, until a closer look at the girl reveals a… well in her Soul.
She has mage potential, her Soul dances to the magic in the air. You ponder this development of two strange Souls so close together in silence for a time. Watching them, tracking them as they head into the building. You do not gain a glimpse of the strong shadow touched Soul again.
Receding into the shadows of the trees and homes around you, you circle the school. You can vaguely track their Souls through the walls. Tension crackles through you as you contemplate what this discovery of strong Souls means. Another pulse of your magic seeking out more knowledge and the accompanying weakness you feel pulls you out of your reverie.
You turn away from the school, striding back into your search. Such a strong Soul… I must hurry. Your thoughts speed along your course as your feet eat the sidewalk.
As your trek continues and with the sun climbing higher and higher in the sky, the amount of people around begins to increase rapidly. To avoid attention you stay amongst the alleys. Your search has carried you toward the edge of a neighborhood, where a pair of rails which go off toward the horizon is embedded in the ground.Just on the other side of the rails you can see a maze of older and worn buildings. The scent of hard work and fire, with a hint of grave rot and blood, permeates the air. A smiths quarter, after a fashion. Haunted by a creature. There is another scent however, a subtle scent of hot metal and congregated Souls which pulls you forward. You will find what you need here, you are certain now.
Drifting inwards you carefully scan the various buildings around you, tracing the scent. To meet your needs, two criteria must be met. First your location must have the four corners, the walls, and the roof be clad in metal or preferably be made completely of metal. This shall satisfy the "of metal" criteria. You find many options which partially fit this criteria.
Large warehouses with walls partially of stone or brick, wrapped in corrugated metal. One enormous brickwalled structure with the scent of old machinery and gears clinging to it. Several other locations which are partially ruined and abandoned. A few incredibly old buildings with frames of metal and wood planking as the walls, rank with fish scent and smoke. The variety of slightly off choices is enormous.
Your second criteria has to do with that scent of "hot metal and congregating Souls". To be a "hall" in the style of the Northern Lands, and eligible in their ritual for a Lunar blessing like you are seeking, it must be a place of merriment. Where Souls gather to dance and let the drink flow freely. They must open themselves to the power of companionship within it. And this nature must permeate into the metal of the hall for it to work as a location, a focus for the ritual.
It takes several hours of seeking, following the scent past a plethora of slightly off foci locations, and the sun nearing the far horizon before you find it. A building whose four corners are strong and hearty metal beams and its roof and walls are corrugated steel.
The Bronze.
It is soaked in the scent of hot metal and Souls. You watch from around the corner of another building as a small trickle of people enter it and faint music emanates from it. Some are young, wearing colorful jackets like you saw that "Blayne" boy wearing, while others are older but clearly do not watch the children.
Slips of paper, money you gather, exchanges hands between patrons and the fat guard seated at the door before they can enter. Anticipation wiggles through you as you drift past the rear of the line, listening to the inanities of the small crowd as they chatter. Unmindful of your presence among them.
"I heard that she--"
"I saw this amazing dress Becky! You gotta-!"
"Dude, check that out!"
"So Vic, I heard that this one guy was found--"
"I'm serious she was wearing this--!"
It runs on and on, winding like a babbling brook of sound, as you round the corner of the building unnoticed. Running your hand along the wall you feel the building with your magic. It will do very well for this. There are some flaws in the structure, it was not purpose built for this, but they are small and do not matter. The name, the primacy of metal in the construction, the permeation of hot metal and Souls, all come together to make it suitable.
You find a backdoor into the building, more of the music leaking out from beneath it. Examining it critically you judge that you could force it open after blasting the lock. As you lean closer however, you get a nose full of that grave rot scent and blood. The essence of the Man-Things lingers in it.
Is this one of their hunting grounds…? You wonder to yourself. Your head tilts to the right, ornaments chiming gently, as you consider this fortune. Perhaps they too are drawn to the scent surrounding this building. You retreat from the building, plotting, your Soul bubbling gently.
Your lair and the Soul blessing awaits.
Reaching your home, as the sun dips completely below the horizon, you untie the knot of chains with a groan of abused metal and enter into your yard. To do this you will need to prep your work room. Securing the gate again you enter your lair, dropping your seeming and heading into the strange room with the cold box.
Searching through it you find two knives. The longer has a blade nearly the length of your forearm, reminiscent of a single edge dagger, while the other is about half that. You walk almost noiselessly up the stairs to the third floor and your work room. Examining the open spread of the floor you elegantly drift to the center and spin slowly in place, examining the floor and ceiling.
Digging through your memories provides you with an appropriate circle design. Taking one of the short knives in your upper right hand you carefully cut the tip of your pointer finger on your upper left hand. Focusing on the wound you push your Fog laced ichor out of it and, walking widdershins, scrawl a perfect circle into the floor. Feeling the circle's energy begin to build under the careful ministrations of your Soul and hands you draw a square into the circle, each corner meeting the inner side of the circle.
When the final black and gray line meets its fellows you feel the circle "click" into place. Examining it extremely closely with your mystic senses you verify its integrity. It hums quietly in your mind, perfectly formed. In the physical world it is an almost silvery piece of elegant geometry.
Grasping the short knife in your cut hand you remove the long knife and place it so that its point faces east. Pulling your spell book out with your lower hands you page to the proper chant and locate yourself at the northern half of the circle, the "head".
Taking a breath infused with Soul you begin to incant:
"Audīte mē! Per potentia Animae meae!" The circle burns to life with Fog light as your voice pounds the air.
"Propono aurae loricae et durum squama rumpam! Sub pondere invoco somnia nocte!" The glow reaches inward towards the blade, making it vibrate and flicker with shades of Soul light.
"Hoc durum erit fortis, hoc telum benedicat tibi cum meis!" The blade gains a golden sheen like flame writhing around it, hissing and snapping like a serpent.
"Interfice tuum adversāriōs, ENCHANT WEAPON!" And then with a sound like an in drawn breath before a roar all of the light flows into the weapon, leaving it glowing on the floor, almost sizzling in the circle.
Reaching down you pick it up with a lower hand as you secure your book and examine the shining golden blade. Passing it gently through the air you listen to the hum and watch the flow of the light on the blade. It is serviceable.
You had designed the ritual to work similarly to the Enchant Weapon spell used by the Slayer of Demons. However, via the ritual, you modified it to last for much longer at the cost of sharpness and power using your experience with spellcraft and Demonic nature. It will last till midnight on the night of the convergence, just a bit more than a day.
Resting it carefully on one of the shelves in your workroom you must now plan how you will spend the rest of your night. You still have a Beastly Sinner to find, and determining if you can feed on the strange energy by using a Soul as a filter.
What shall you do?
[] With the discovery of the Bronze you have a perfect hunting ground for a Sinner. Seek one out and disable it, taking it back to your Mansion.
[] Find and hunt a Soul in the night to test your theory about consuming the Magic of this town.
You get a plot hook, you get a plot hook, and yoouuuuuu get a plot hoooook~~~! Do the Plot Hook Dance!
For those curious this is a decent approximation of the incantation which is actual Latin, hacked together with my rusty and basic education on the language from four years ago and reads something like this:
"Hear me! By the power of my Soul! I declare that golden armor and hard scales will break! Beneath the weight of the sorcery I call this night! It shall be hard and sturdy, this weapon I bless with my power! Slay thy foes, ENCHANT WEAPON!"
It wouldn't be Buffy without bad Latin spell incantations now would it?
Also, I will take a break from writing an update on Saturday and will instead devote that day to just interacting with the thread. Come armed with your questions and comments and curiosities, I'll be happy to discuss them with you!
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Sunnydale Board of (nighttime) Tourism.
Breadnaugt
Even in Death, I'm still Tasty
- Location
- Britland
Welcome to the Sunnydale Board of (nighttime) Tourism.
Locations of interest:
Sunnydale Natural History Museum.
A larger and better funded Museum than you'd normally expect to see in such a small town. It boasts respectable Archaeology and Palaeontology departments. The Museum contains a number of exhibits and artefacts that are rumoured to be of a supernatural nature.
Someone might suspect a sinister individual was funding the Museum as a means of gathering magical items and resources.
Sunnydale Zoo.
A larger and better funded Zoo than you'd normally expect to find in such a small town. It contains a wide variety of animal enclosures, containing members of the animal kingdom from all around the world. Including a number of rare exhibits, containing animals not normally found in captivity. Several of these rare animals are the subjects of various myths and legends.
Someone might suspect a sinister individual was funding the Zoo as a means of gathering magical creatures and resources.
Sunnydale Cave Network - A Natural History Site.
While largely unmapped, it is speculated to be the largest cave system in North America - one of the largest in the world. Unfortunately, the cave system has proved highly dangerous to explorers and surveyors, making proper mapping extremely difficult, meaning the local cave system can not take its place in any record books.
All those spelunkers and cave divers going missing, you'd think there was something hostile down there.
UC Sunnydale.
A fully accredited University of California, UC Sunnydale boasts the most generous student loan rates in all of California and a higher student acceptance rate than any of its peer institutions. However, despite its sprawling campus and first rate facilities, it also has the highest student drop-out rate in the country.
You'd think someone just wanted to bring in a renewable crop of careless young people each year, away from home and without nearby friends or family that would report them missing immediately.
Kingman's Bluff.
A well known local couples spot, the Bluff provides a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean and is an excellent spot for picnics. Also a site of local legend; following an earthquake in 1932 which swallowed up a classical Gothic Church, leaving no trace of the magnificent structure.
It's like the world itself rose up to destroy the building. Almost like it was acting in self-defence.
Sunnydale Sewer System.
Not traditionally a tourist destination, but an item of local pride. The Town Founder, Mayor Richard Wilkins the First, was a student of civil engineering and believed a job worth doing, was worth doing right. Thus the town of Sunnydale boasts a sewer and drainage system greater than many Major Cities in Monsoon regions.
It's like an underground highway system. You could travel from one end of town to the other, without ever seeing daylight.
Locations of interest:
Sunnydale Natural History Museum.
A larger and better funded Museum than you'd normally expect to see in such a small town. It boasts respectable Archaeology and Palaeontology departments. The Museum contains a number of exhibits and artefacts that are rumoured to be of a supernatural nature.
Someone might suspect a sinister individual was funding the Museum as a means of gathering magical items and resources.
Sunnydale Zoo.
A larger and better funded Zoo than you'd normally expect to find in such a small town. It contains a wide variety of animal enclosures, containing members of the animal kingdom from all around the world. Including a number of rare exhibits, containing animals not normally found in captivity. Several of these rare animals are the subjects of various myths and legends.
Someone might suspect a sinister individual was funding the Zoo as a means of gathering magical creatures and resources.
Sunnydale Cave Network - A Natural History Site.
While largely unmapped, it is speculated to be the largest cave system in North America - one of the largest in the world. Unfortunately, the cave system has proved highly dangerous to explorers and surveyors, making proper mapping extremely difficult, meaning the local cave system can not take its place in any record books.
All those spelunkers and cave divers going missing, you'd think there was something hostile down there.
UC Sunnydale.
A fully accredited University of California, UC Sunnydale boasts the most generous student loan rates in all of California and a higher student acceptance rate than any of its peer institutions. However, despite its sprawling campus and first rate facilities, it also has the highest student drop-out rate in the country.
You'd think someone just wanted to bring in a renewable crop of careless young people each year, away from home and without nearby friends or family that would report them missing immediately.
Kingman's Bluff.
A well known local couples spot, the Bluff provides a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean and is an excellent spot for picnics. Also a site of local legend; following an earthquake in 1932 which swallowed up a classical Gothic Church, leaving no trace of the magnificent structure.
It's like the world itself rose up to destroy the building. Almost like it was acting in self-defence.
Sunnydale Sewer System.
Not traditionally a tourist destination, but an item of local pride. The Town Founder, Mayor Richard Wilkins the First, was a student of civil engineering and believed a job worth doing, was worth doing right. Thus the town of Sunnydale boasts a sewer and drainage system greater than many Major Cities in Monsoon regions.
It's like an underground highway system. You could travel from one end of town to the other, without ever seeing daylight.
Episode 1, Part 5 “Well… this is awkward”
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Episode 1, Part 5
"Well… this is awkward"
"Well… this is awkward"
Your weapon is ready. You have found the focus. All you need is the Sinner and the time of the convergence. The Bronze will provide a place to hunt them. You are ready now.
The trip back to the Bronze after securing your home is quick, your demonic stamina sustaining you as you speed along. The trip, however, is not entirely uneventful. You catch a familiar disturbance in the magic, tinged with the scent of feminine flowers on the wind. The creature you sensed once before, shortly after your arrival, now with a definite scent. It is near the Bronze. Another familiar scent also wafts toward you as you move, fresh grave rot and blood.
There are two.
One is much stronger than the other. You will attempt to avoid that one and hunt the weaker one which is only strong enough to leave its scent. Another thing to determine, what dictates the strength of the Man-Things.
The sounds and fresh scent of the Bronze reach you before you see it, the distant congregation of Souls now becoming dense as the night progresses. Reaching the corner you used before, you take a moment to observe the structure. The line to get in is much longer, and there is no sign of either of the Man-Things. Even the disturbance has quieted. But…
Your head tilts left. There are two familiar Souls in the Bronze. One strong, the other full of potential. Very close to each other. Unexpected. Where are the Man-Things then? Scenting the air and scanning around, you find no indication of them outside.
They are inside then, mingling amongst the mortal humans. Near those strange Souls. Circling around you head to the back, to wait. When one of the Man-Things emerges you will follow it and disable it, or if they both emerge you will isolate one and lure it away. You will avoid the strange Souled humans if you can. Such beings usually have strange abilities, like the Slayer of Demons or Queen Latria, and with the ambient magic around it is uncertain what they could do. What threat they could pose to you.
Glancing about you identify a suitable roof to watch from. Much like when you scaled the wall of your home, your fingers easily puncture the facade of the building you climb up. Settling in on the roof you focus intently on the Bronze, trying to track down the Man-Things and keep a wary eye on the strange Souls.
The masses of Souls part and differentiate under your focused gaze to a degree, splitting between what is likely an upper and lower floor. But you cannot locate the hollow spots marking the Man-Things, beyond a general warping of the energy in the lower floor of the building.
You will wait. You are used to waiting.
Sometime later, not more than an hour you watch the potential filled Soul separate from the masses. She is heading deeper into the building for some reason. A flicker of energy appears briefly near her. Tensing subtly you watch her carefully, the essence of a Man-Thing becoming clearer moving beside her as they move away from the other Souls.
A quick check into the mass reveals the strong Soul on the upper floor. She is agitated, her Soul writhing before it moves down into the mass. Switching back to the mage Soul you see a Man-Thing emerge, dressed in elegant clothing that smells of graves and blood to you, grasping the hand of the girl. The other Man-Thing is nowhere to be found.
The strong Soul is moving rapidly through the Bronze. She is searching for her… companion.
You are disturbed at these developments. They are not ideal.
You weigh the situation quickly as you look at the pair heading down the alley away from the Bronze. This is the weaker of the two Man-Things, perhaps a little stronger than the first one you slew. His companion is not following him. The girl is obviously completely unaware of the thing next to her, too caught in the flowering of young attraction. She carries herself like a peasant or scholar, she is no fighter. She is also untrained magically and her Soul's potential unharnessed, you can see it. She is weak.
You scale down the side of the building, following after them, decision made.
Your bare feet are soft on the stone as you follow them from a distance, tracking them via the girl's Soul more than other senses. Though you do catch a few snippets of conversation on the wind.
"... I know a good… cream bar on…" The girl, excited and nervous.
"Really…" The Man-Thing, slightly bored. And hungry.
"...your clothes?" The girl again, a few minutes later.
"...home." The thing, more bored.
Their pace picks up a little as the thing speeds up, impatient. Looking around you realize the Man-Thing is leading her toward the cemetery where you arrived. Not entirely unexpected, its scent was all over the place and it is a suitable location for isolation. Something plucks at the edges of your senses.
A sudden burst of magical disturbance almost makes you hiss and reveal yourself. Turning slightly you scan behind you, focusing for a moment. Your hair ornaments clack quietly as you sense another flicker of disturbed magic. The other Man-Thing is approaching. You are now definitely running on a deadline.
You begin to close as they enter the graveyard, catching the tail end of a conversation.
"I know a shortcut," the Man-Thing says as it pulls on the girl's hand.
Spreading your awareness you carefully watch your quarry for any sign they are aware of you as you get closer. A mausoleum in the distance which smells like old blood, seems to be the thing's target. Sneaking through the trees you close to within thirty feet as they reach the mausoleum.
"This is scary, this doesn't seem quicker…" The girl is finally starting to realize something is wrong.
"Come on Willow, it is!" The false cheer in the thing's voice clearly doesn't reassure the girl.
"Hey, have you ever been in one of these before?" It asked. The thing had pulled ahead of her, but now it approached her, obscuring her from your view, reaching up to caress her face. What you can see of the girl around the back of the thing shudders at the touch.
Then it makes its move. In an explosion of movement and a feminine scream, "Willow" is tossed into the mausoleum. You move closer as the thing stalks into the doorframe, readying a Soul Arrow. You will shoot him while--
He whirls and growls like a rabid dog, his face contorting.
He sensed you… and you can feel the other Man-Thing approaching rapidly.
Whoops, look at those butterflies! Thomas here is a little more on the ball than his buddy the Mook, but he is a bit quick on the draw. Plus his other buddy is coming.
What do you do?
[] Deceive him by screaming in fright, babbling nonsense about going home. Then strike him when he approaches, taunting him away from this place and the approaching Man-Thing.
[] Shoot him in the face full force. Disable him and then deal with the Man-Thing which is approaching.
[] Deceive him by stoking his lust, complimenting his appearance and appearing attracted. Then disable him and deal with the other one which is coming.
The Idol is pretty sure she will be dropping the seeming at some point during any of these plans as she needs to do that to fight properly, though the deception by screaming route is the most likely to have that happen somewhere out of view.
Sorry this is shorter, you got to a decent place to stop, and I want you guys to have input on how you approach combat tactically after deciding to go hunting.
As a reminder I am going to be taking a break from update writing tomorrow and will instead be here for questions, comments and general discussion. Come armed and prepared! Next update will come out on Sunday and will be the last part of "Episode 1".
Then will come Episode 2 "Your Convergence".
Also @Breadnaugt kudos for the Tourism Board. It is excellent!
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Episode 1, Part 6 “Blood, Spells and Mischief”
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Episode 1, Part 6
"Blood, Spells and Mischief"
"Blood, Spells and Mischief"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaa no no no! NO! Don't hurt me, d-don't take me! I j-j-just w-w-wanted to g-g-go hooooome!" You backpedal, arms warding it away futilely, shrieking like a maiden you once gave to the redemption. Her imitated fear not marring your own thoughts as you showed false weakness to the predator. The Man-Thing snarls, enticed by the fear. Hunching forward it charges you, lunging with hands already striking.
"No! Get away!" Zhew. You scream as your "wildly" shot Soul Arrow hits the creature in the shoulder.
"You fucking witch!" You are already turning and running before the utterly enraged roar from the creature rips through the night.
As you run through the cemetery, still emitting imitated whimpers, you can feel it coming for you, a small hole in the world chasing you. On the edges of your senses you can feel the feminine smelling disturbance approaching, followed by a weak and flickering Soul. From the other edge you can sense the strong Soul coming, moving quickly for a human, a much fainter but steady Soul following her. The Soul of "Willow" seems disturbed and is moving to the door.
"I'll rip your blood out and give your heart to the Master you bitch! Com'ere!" Noting the information down you sprint faster, to the growling frustration of the thing behind you.
Spotting another mausoleum with a slightly open door you angle toward it. Reaching it you fling the door open with one hand and leap in. Landing flat on the first of two coffins in the building you turn to see the thing right there. Its hand gets around your foot before you shoot it in the shoulder again, causing it to flinch and scream, releasing your foot.
When it recovers you are regally standing on the coffin above this vermin, your seeming flung away.
"You have been chosen." Your bell-like voice emanates with inhumanity and power as you fling another Soul Arrow at the thing which it just barely dodges.
"Oh fuck you." It leaps onto the coffin and you gracefully leap away, almost dancing as you fire two arrows in quick succession into its legs. Landing on the other coffin, you see them connect just below the knees as the Man-Thing fails to dodge, blowing out fist sized chunks now that you are using the full power versions.
Screaming, the thing topples to the ground in front of the coffin. Taking a half moment to scan around with your senses you feel the disturbance and the strong Soul extremely close together. Fighting most likely. The three other Souls are fleeing.
Returning to your prey you see it trying to get up on its arms. Two more arrows remedy that attempt, singeing it near the elbows. Collapsing, it growls and glares at your four armed form.
"Bitch…" You are slightly amused at that. Descending from the coffin with soundless steps you approach the extremely weakened creature. You stand over the thing, contemplating how to restrain it, ignoring the hateful mumbles it aims your way. You spot a cut chain on the door which will do. Taking it, you wrap the thing's weakly flopping legs.
"Aaaaagh you bitch-demon that hurrrrrrrts!" The chain is still wrapped around it, regardless of that weak cry, the knot made in a groan of slightly stressed metal. The Man-Thing tries to flail and remove its bindings, but you simply grab its flopping arms and wrap them behind the creature with another separate section of the chain. Out of chain you look for something to gag it with.
Flipping it over you rip out a chunk of its shirt and a hunk of its fancy coat's hem, shoving the loose bits in and then tying the thick strip around it. Keeping a mental eye on the fight between the strong Soul and the disturbance as you do, you tense when you sense an even stronger and more evil disturbance move up from underground behind the Soul. Scanning around the other Souls are still fleeing. You turn away as the weaker disturbance moves away, after the fleeing ones.
You turn to stare down at your captured prey, its eyes wide and fearful as it watches you. Reaching down you caress its face.
"Rejoice." You whisper. It whimpers from behind the gag.
Grabbing it by the neck you drag it out, into the night.
***
Throwing your burden down into your garden you wait for it to regain some semblance of its wits. You were not particularly gentle when transporting it to your lair, though the trip itself was mostly uneventful except for the one instance you had to go into a sewer to evade a more populated part of town.Approaching it you watch it silently for a moment, considering the next part of your plan. During the move you had come up with the idea to interrogate this creature about its "Master" and nature. Reaching down, you rip the gag out and then sit on the edge of one of the nearby plant beds, hands clasped in your lap.
Groaning, the creature turns to you, its face human shaped again and rather bruised. It opens its mouth.
"You are dead she-demon. Darla will rip out your throat. She was with me and she will follow you." The thing glares at you, its eyes wavering in poorly hidden pain and fear. You look at the creature, considering what will make it give the most information.
"Your race is pitiful. Sodden pathetic vermin in the shadows." You kick it as it tries to interrupt, drawing on mannerisms you've seen before and your own instincts for deception. Roaring at the pain it breathes heavily as you remove your foot.
"We...ahhuff huff… we are vampires. We rule the night, you monster." Tilting your head to the right you hum quietly. Your face is entirely impassive as you stare down at him, unblinking. The name means little to you, not related to any of the blood drinking varieties of Fog Demon you know of. Mild amusement bubbles in you.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! You rule nothing. Your Master rules nothing. It is a coward." The "vampire's" eyes bulge in frothing rage at your laughter and insults. Roaring, it tries to attack you. You just watch it flail futilely.
"The Master is the oldest of us! HE IS STRONG! He will be free! The Harvest will free him! You! Will! DIE!" It screams at you as it continues to struggle to hurt you. You fold your upper hands under your chin and lean your head on it, an affectation of a mocking smile on your face. Your mind is, however, tearing apart the references and information dropped in that last sentence.
"Darla will come, and she will reduce this hole to ash." You nod along, humming gently in the back of your throat. Soothingly, mockingly.
"I felt her die you know, reduced to the dust." Your lie is delivered completely straight faced as you lean down to caress its face with both upper hands. You suddenly clench your hands and let the Fog spill out around you, let the thing feel your hunger as you brandish a Soul Arrow at its head with another hand.
"Tell me of the Harvest, vermin!" You say and push the arrow forward. The vampire screams and babbles nonsense at you as the contained Soul Arrow nears its face. The thing is bleeding profusely from your nails before it starts making sense.
"O-on the n-n-night of the crescent, the Master will g-g-give of his blood to a loyal servant! That servant will serve him as his Vessel! It will feed him by consuming mortal blood!" You dispel the Soul Art and caress the thing's face again at its panicked answer. What an interesting little ritual. You will need to record the details.
"Good, goooood." The vampire is nearly beside itself with fear and anger now, its eyes flickering around, seeking escape. You lean even closer and kneel beside it, your mantle partially covering the creature, making it flinch. Tilting your head to the other side you ask a question.
"Who is the Master's right hand? Their energy will make a good meal for me." The thing stares at you in silent horror. You grab its throat and stand, lifting it as if offering it to the gargoyles of the Tower.
"Who?" You ask again calmly, the Fog flickering and fliting all around you both.
"Luke! He is Luke! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!" The vampire can feel the Fog whispering at the edges, prodding its intense fear to near madness.
You drop the thing, letting it fall with a scream and clang as it tries to wriggle away from the Fog all around it. You walk around it, hemming it into a circle as you think.
"W-w-what do you want!" The thing is flinching and shrieking as you get close, trying to turn so it can always see you. You look down at it.
"You have been chosen." The vampire flinches more at your voice, an almost full body twitch.
"Chosen for what!?" It blabbers at you, rapidly approaching an insensate state at the fear it is feeling which has entirely swallowed its anger.
You do not answer the creature.
Reaching down you gag it again, ignoring its protests. You settle yourself back on the plant bed, letting the Fog whirl around you both, tasting everything around you and feeling it begin to seep into the area around you. The light coming in through the skylights indicates that it will be night for a few more hours before the sun rises.
The convergence is approaching, you can feel a tension in the air. It makes some sense to you that other practices of magic might also draw on the mystical power to be found in them, and it confirms to you that the energy of this town reacts to the cycles of the celestial spheres. As you expected to some degree. Most energy and magic does.
With this vampire now before you, you have all that you need to do the Ritual of the Beastly Sinner. Now is the time to wait. Rising, you ignore the muffled sounds springing from the captive vampire as you head to your workroom.
Inspecting the circle remnants on the floor you continue to let your Fog hang around you like a shroud. The circle has imprinted itself into the floor, tainting the area with Soul Magic. Beginning to mold this level into your perfect space. Standing in the midst of the circle you consider your next move.
The sun will rise in a few hours, but there is still time for you to hunt a Soul to test your theory on consuming the ambient magic. You will have to watch for more vampires, the disappearance of one of their own will likely agitate their "Master". Tilting your head to the right you wonder if it made them like you were made.
Springing into your mind from that thought, another option is to find a library of some form. Any repository of knowledge where you can seek out answers and elaboration on what this place knows of vampires. Their weaknesses and means of spreading in particular. They are far too plague like in their essence to breed like animals would. Perhaps you could also find out tidbits about what the magic around you is. The behavior of the mortals you have seen makes you disinclined to believe that the wider populace knows much. That building of knowledge and learning you found would work.
Both of these options mean you would have to leave your captive where it is. There is some risk to that, but only some. It cannot move well and even if it is able to chew through the gag and begin to scream the walls are thick enough and the mansion isolated enough that it should go unheard.
Your final option is to spend some time warding what you can of your lair, perhaps a sanctum here in the third floor. It would take you most of the day and allow you to have a safe haven to retreat to if required. Or if the Master decides to track you and his missing minion through some means and send others to attack you in your lair. That should be difficult with the trip in the sewer you took, but it is a possibility nonetheless.
What will you do while you wait for the convergence to come?
[] Go out. Stalk and hunt a Soul to test your theory of consuming the magic in this town.
[] Go out and seek a place of knowledge, starting with the school. Sneak in and find what you can on vampires.
[] Stay within your lair and ward the third floor workroom as a sanctum for defense.
End of Episode 1
Annnnd that's episode 1! Vote lock is as usual at 6:00 pm UTC May 21st. Episode 2 will premiere tomorrow a few hours after that.
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Episode 2 “Your Convergence”
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Episode 2
"Your Convergence"
"Your Convergence"
It is possible that you had left a trail pursuing vampires could follow when you took your captive to your lair. That tracking will take time, however, if they are using physical means, considering how you muddled the course you took via a dip in the sewer to avoid a more populated and active part of town. It seems likely they are limited to physical tracking as well, as you have not sensed much actual magic from them in your encounters.
With this in mind you reach for your spell book and scroll. Flipping to the sections on Warding, you begin to piece together a sanctum warding spell applicable to a single floor of a building. By your nature it will have to include the use of a Fog Gate, which will not weaken you to create if it is sustained by a warding spell.
Unfortunately you are too weak to sustain the creation of your Paralysis Sigil traps. They will come in time however. As you page through your book and read through your scroll's record of symbols you hear to your captive murmur and struggle down below. Towards the latter third of your recorded ward spells you find a suitable Latrian spell which can be converted into a ritual of some length.
You set about preparing the room, letting out your Fog to seep into the stone. By permeating the building its mystical structure can be twisted to accept the ritual more easily than it normally would. After you set the ward in this way, unless it is purposefully damaged, you should not need to actively repair it as your presence will renew it.
Taking the short knife you had used in the enchanting ritual from the floor you walk around the edges of the room clockwise. At each corner you create a circle and square arrangement out of your blood with the knife, smaller versions of the one in the center. They would act as anchors to what you are creating here.
It is as you are finishing the third anchor and your Fog is seeping into the last few corners of the room, making it strange to mortal sight and fearful to mortal Souls, that the sun rises. Rising from the complete circle you hear a sudden scream and smell burning things.
"Ow! OWWW! OWWWW OH SWEET HELLS! No no no no! Aaaaaaaa!" You are moving before the first of your captive's cries ricochets up the stairwell, book under one arm. You almost fly down the stairs and then simply leap from the second floor down to the first in a blur of graceful motion. The rapid pitter pat of your footfalls ends as you come to the door of the garden and see the tableau within.
Your captive, still screaming around the remnants of the gag, is trying to force his way away from the patch of sunlight his legs are caught in. You tilt your head right at the sizzling. This will be useful to you in the future.
With a grunt and scream the vampire manages to squirm out of the sun, though its legs were heavily damaged. It is breathing heavily, laying there and trying to recover for a moment before it notices you standing there. It raises his head to look at you, its face seeming mildly outraged.
"Really? You couldn't help a guy out when his legs are on fire?" You do not respond to his question. Staring at you for a moment more its head then slumps back onto the ground with a klunk as it mutters. "...freaking crazy demon women."
You make no response. Looking at the sky lights and tracking the position of the sun and where it will be throughout the day you judge that it will be fine where it is. Leaving your captive behind you return to your work upstairs.
The fourth circle takes little time to finish and the array of circles smoothly locks into place when you put the last line of your blood down. It would go faster if you were more powerful magically, but such things do not disturb you. Paging through your book you stand before the central circle. Humming in C# you activate the center, leaving out the other circles which will activate as you perform the warding ritual.
The circle you stand before opens and begins to glow. Turning to the appropriate pages you begin the chant which should take you most of the day.
"Moenia. Columnas. Tectum et area."
"Ego minati. Affer mihi salus."
"Ego minati. Nolite hostibus meis."
"Et nomen pacis. Protegas me."
You walk as you continue to chant, your path spiralling clockwise into the center of the circle. The energies you are channeling begin to surge as you start the second verse, causing whispers to emerge from the Fog.
"Moenia. Columnas. Tectum et area."
"Me exosus. Affer mihi salus."
"Esurio. Nolite hostibus meis."
"Et nomen pacis. Protegas me."
"Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuck me what is she doing now..." You ignore the quiet words drifting upstairs from your captive. The Fog you let loose before takes in the energy and your Demon Soul molds them both, while you slowly walk clockwise out of the center to circle around the room.
The energies become sturdy walls and sturdy columns of translucent energy layered over the walls and columns physically present. This first layer is nebulous and indistinct, solidifying as your third verse rings out into the air.
"Moenia. Columnas. Tectum et area."
"Ego minati. Affer mihi salus."
"Esurio. Custodi me pavit."
"In fame. Tantum victui meo necessaria."
The energy sharpens and becomes hostile to intruders as you move between each anchor circle. The glow from the center circle moves outward in concentric waves in the stone floor, like a stone dropped in a pond.
These three verses are chanted for several hours as you layer the ward slowly and carefully onto the walls, the floor and the roof of the room. Your feet take you around the room and all of the circles in a spiralling pattern. The sun is touching the horizon as the last words of the fourth verse leave your lips.
"Moenia. Columnas. Tectum et area."
"Ego minati. Affer mihi salus."
"Esurio. Custodi me pavit."
"Me exosus. Hostes terga."
"Sigillum, Fog Gate."
With a wave of your upper hands as you stand in the center, the Fog Gate seals this room. The ward slams into place with the toll of a giant tower bell. Closing your book and storing it on your hip with your scroll, you feel out the ward you have created.
It responds to your mystic touch, rumbling in your mystic senses like thunder. The ambient malevolent magic you had been sensing in the air has also been pushed into the distance. Separated from this space. That will be useful later for you, you can use more sensitive rituals without fear of interference.
As the sun dips completely below the horizon you can feel the convergence building. Walking over to the enchanted knife you test it gently with your senses. It is solid and the enchantment will last for several more hours.
Everything is prepared now.
You slide out of the Fog Gate, it disappearing into dormancy behind you. You find your captive resting curled on its side facing the door of the garden. When it sees you it tenses and freezes entirely. Its eyes are locked on the glowing knife at your hip.
"Ah. My wonderful Hostess..." You ignore the despondent speech and reaching down, grab the thing by the scruff. It quiets with a squeak at your touch. Using your other hands you gag it again with more of its own clothing. A twist of magic has you in your seeming, dragging the thing up with a hand, knife hidden on your hip opposite your book and scroll. Pulling the vampire after you, you leave your home and head into the night.
You immediately dip into the sewers at the first opportunity, you want no interruptions as you travel. The dank tunnels remind you of some parts of the Tower and its machinery. You do not feel any vampire presences disturbing the ambient magic as of yet. Perhaps they have already gone to begin their Harvest.
Your captive bumps and slides along after you as you drag it over the stones. Occasionally it dips into a stream or puddle of running water which makes it grumble, but you ignore it. It cannot escape you as it is. The trip to the Bronze does not take long, and soon you sense it in the distance as you emerge from the sewer with your captive in tow.
When you get closer however you sense a potential problem. A melange of scents and the two disturbances. A pack of vampires is moving towards the Bronze. The weaker disturbance is presumably Darla. The stronger vampire is strange however, their presence is stretched and distorted as it connects to another far stronger vampire whose location you cannot determine.
The Master, presumably.
Tilting your head to the right you slow your walk, and consider this development. The Harvest is already happening… you think to yourself as your captive weakly thrashes and begins to mumble as you slow, though you ignore it as usual. Your mind goes back to a particular detail of the Beastly Sinner Ritual.
It does not specify a particular number beyond the minimum of one. You do not need an actual prepared sacrifice to perform it, it merely is a way of simplifying the ritual's preparations. Staring up through the ground at the vampires who are now filtering into the Bronze, you can sense the stir they are causing in the humans.
You could gain more power by killing several vampires in the Bronze. Many offerings to the Moon and the Fog. More of your magic returned to you. Glancing down you stare at your captive. It stares back and seems to understand your gaze because it begins to shiver and whimper behind its gag. Frantically shaking its head.
You have two options. You can kill this thing here and sneak into the Bronze through the back way and hunt vampires in the crowd of offerings. You will be able to sacrifice at least one, you judge with confidence. Two or three is a distinct possibility as you can tell they are distracted with their ritual and you will gain strength immediately with each sacrifice.
You could also take your captive with you and come in through the back way with less stealth. Things would move very quickly from there but you would have time for one guaranteed sacrifice. Possibly another for two in total. The immediate increase in strength from even one sacrifice will protect you and even as you are now you think you could retreat.
What do you do?
[] Kill your captive here and now then sneak into the Bronze and hunt the vampires. You are confident you can get at least one vampire and two or three in total is entirely possible.
[] Do not kill your captive and drag him to the Bronze with you as a guaranteed sacrifice. It is possible you will be able to get a second before you must retreat.
Its amazing to watch the one track mind of the Idol! Also Thomas is growing on me, like a fuzzy fungus. To bad he's gonna get dusted here in a bit.
Here's the spell if you want to know.
"Walls. Columns. Roof and floor."
"I am threatened. Bring me safety."
"I am threatened. Stop my enemies."
"In the name of peace. Protect me."
"Walls. Columns. Roof and floor."
"I am hated. Bring me safety."
"I am hungry. Stop my enemies."
"In the name of peace. Keep me safe."
"Walls. Columns. Roof and floor."
"I am threatened. Keep me safe."
"I am hungry. Keep me fed."
"By the hunger. Feed me."
"Walls. Columns. Roof and floor."
"I am threatened. Keep me safe."
"I am hungry. Keep me fed."
"I am hated. Turn back the enemy."
"Seal, Fog Gate."
"I am threatened. Bring me safety."
"I am threatened. Stop my enemies."
"In the name of peace. Protect me."
"Walls. Columns. Roof and floor."
"I am hated. Bring me safety."
"I am hungry. Stop my enemies."
"In the name of peace. Keep me safe."
"Walls. Columns. Roof and floor."
"I am threatened. Keep me safe."
"I am hungry. Keep me fed."
"By the hunger. Feed me."
"Walls. Columns. Roof and floor."
"I am threatened. Keep me safe."
"I am hungry. Keep me fed."
"I am hated. Turn back the enemy."
"Seal, Fog Gate."
E: Oops forgot to put this in. As before Vote Lock will be at 6:00 PM UTC May 22nd.
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Episode 2, Part 2 “Everybody do the Flop!”
BungieONI
Seven gremlins in a trench coat
- Location
- Lickwidget
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Episode 2, Part 2
"Everybody do the Flop!"
"Everybody do the Flop!"
Looking at your captive you decide the insurance it provides is worth the loss of stealth. Grabbing it more tightly you walk down the alleyway you are in toward the backdoor of the Bronze. Examining the door quickly you raise a hand and release a tiny arrow to blast a smoking hole in the door lock. Pulling it open you drag your captive in with you. "...it's almost like blood." thud. "Next." Words in a deep and growling masculine voice overlay yours as you invoke the ritual.
"Ululate sub luce lunae.
Da mihi fortitudinem Mater Lunae.
Hanc igitur oblationem.
Benedicat mihi."
The Moon pulses, touching your Demon Soul like the mother you called it. The knife on your hip twists and you can feel a ripple in the magic around you as the ritual begins. The nearby humans are already turning toward you as they register your entrance. You ignore them as you throw your captive before you and pull the suddenly visible and glowing knife. You don't want to drop your seeming with this many enemies around.
Leaping atop your captive as it struggles to move, the knife plunges into its chest. Giving the blade a vicious twist the vampire dies with a muffled scream and moonlight fire burning out its sockets before it turns into dust. The inrush of power nearly topples you. As you listen to the humans scream all around you however, you sense the strong Soul nearby. At the back entrance behind you, you also feel Willow and two others. The steady Soul from before and a Soul that smells of books and knowledge and old magic. You must have been distracted by the conflicting energies in the air from the rituals and all of the Souls around you to not sense them.
Growling in the back of your throat like metal smashing metal you flee into the crowd which is increasingly filled with panicking humans who at turns flinch away from you or stumble into you. You can hear the roars of vampires in the crowd all around you and the voice from before roaring out in anger, "Find the intruder and bring them to me!"
This is bad… you think to yourself as you feel the strong Soul drop onto the walkway above you. You hear a voice urging people to get out and see the Willow girl guiding people outside beside an older scholarly man. A young boy, the steady Soul, is further in and directing people out.
You can also sense it more clearly now, there are seven vampires in this building. The stronger disturbance is on the stage and you see a giant of a male standing in a spotlight, dropping the corpse of a woman. There is one vampire near him.
And then there are two more coming right for you! They are both bulky males and quite a bit more powerful than your captive was. Knife in one hand you use your newly gained power and blast the left creature in the gut with the other, detonating a massive chunk of his torso and slamming him into the ground with a grunt. The other is still rushing for you and you have to backpedal rapidly, but gracefully, away from it.
You ignore the preaching of the big male vampire as the weaker disturbance, a blonde female, passes a brunette girl up to him. You are focused totally on the environment around you and your opponent. It comes rushing for you and you strike out with your knife, cutting it on the arm, causing it immense pain if the scream it gives and the sizzle is anything to go by.
In that brief pause you locate every threat around you. The female, Darla most likely, you can sense moving around toward the back and the strong Soul's companions. The big leader is on the stage laughing as he holds the brunette. The one you downed is trying to rise, and your opponent is recovering and preparing to charge. One is above you on the walkway fighting the strong Soul, the Warrior. The other two are spread out in the crowd.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaghhhh!" Thump. The upper vampire is thrown off the walkway and sprawls near the stage. Your opponent takes that moment to charge you. You react by ducking and blasting his leading leg out from under him. Unfortunately he has enough momentum to topple you by falling onto you. Your seeming holds, barely, reinforced by the strength you have gained.
"I'm coming Witchy Girl!" The girlish voice of the Warrior is urgent, though still light as you hear her run on the walkway. You hold off the vampire on top of you as it gets a grip around your knife hand and begins to slam it into the floor. Getting your other hand pointed at its arm you turn the limb into ash with two rapid Soul Arrows, stunning the vampire, and then with a heave of your legs flip it over and stab down with the knife.
The Warrior leaps down acrobatically from the walkway onto a nearby table, grabbing a long wooden stick as your opponent becomes dust and moonlight fire. "Oh. Nevermind then... watch out!" Already moving before she speaks, you dodge mostly out of the way as another vampire comes out of the shadows behind you, but it still slams you down, causing your grip to fail and the knife to go skittering into the darkness past the table.
"You!" You can see the leader male glaring at the Warrior from beneath the scar on his forehead which you carefully take note of as you try to keep your opponent's snapping mouth away from you. "Kinda busy right now Scarface!" The Warrior yells in response. The leader vampire growls, "Damnable women! Get them both!" The vampires nearby start to head towards you both, the walkway vampire trying and failing to rise.
You feel a tearing in your right arm as you struggle to flip over and shoot the thing on top of you. It appears to have bitten you and torn a chunk out of you as it repeatedly slams your head into the ground. "No munchies for you!" Rather suddenly the weight on top of you is removed with extreme violence as the Warrior girl grabs it by both feet and tosses it into a table which then collapses on top of it.
Rising quickly you end up facing her. She is blonde and rather comely among humans you'd think, body strong with sleek muscle, a silver cross glinting at her chest. "Oh god you're hurt!" She exclaims as concern flashes across her face at the bloody chunk missing from your shoulder.
Seeing the vampire she tossed into the table managing to rise and rushing up behind her you grab the girl lightning quick by her jacket and pull her out of the way. You blast the vampire in the head and reduce the creature to dust essentially instantly. A plan is forming in your head, to turn potential threats against each other.
"Pay attention!" You say conversationally to the girl as you let her go, channeling the commanding tone of the Queen. "Thanks Witchy Girl!" She blithely ignores you as she turns to face the large male on the stage. He tosses the screaming brunette to the side and leaps down with a thud. "I will enjoy ripping your soul from you!"
"Oh no not today Scarface!" The Warrior girl charges the leader. You let out another Soul Arrow, blasting the big guy in the leg, breaking his balance as she charges. With a yell of, "Thanks, I got this now!" the girl then goes into a cartwheel flip and a kick which sends the thing flying into the stage. Plan set into motion you turn to find the vampire you downed, and scan for your knife.
Striding over you dodge the clumsy grab of the creature and finish the job you started on its torso with another Soul Arrow. Turning into a puff of dust it is utterly removed from existence. You can't find your knife however, your magical senses somewhat muddled by the thinned crowd of Souls and magic in the air and the relatively low intensity of the spell on the knife.
"Get off her Jesse!" Looking around through the thinned crowd at that cry you see the boy who was guiding the people out standing over another vampire pinning that brunette, wielding a stake. "Ah! Xander buddy, glad you could make it!" The vampire Jesse, responds happily as your focus shifts away from them.
Ignoring their verbal byplay you recede into the shadows, drawing them around you with raw magic, expanding your seeming. Most of your power is currently focused on your injuries however, even though they do not exactly pain you. Scanning around for threats you spot Darla sneaking up on the Warrior's companions. "Xander" is currently struggling with Jesse as people run past them. The walkway vampire is inching for the door out the back along the floor.
And the Warrior is fighting the leader vampire. You watch them as you move toward the back door along the edges of the room. Her form is too spinny, you judge silently, comparing her to past Slayers of Demons you encountered. Powerful. But needs training.
However, the fight goes rather poorly for the leader vampire as you watch. The Warrior is on equal footing with him in strength if she has leverage and uses that to manhandle him whenever she gets the chance.
Carefully moving you aim to sneak up on the walkway vampire as it crawls along, watching as Darla leaps at the scholarly man and takes him to the ground. The Willow girl however is quite quick with her hands and tosses the contents of some bottle onto the creature. The reaction is rather violent as Darla's face smokes and sizzles while she lets out an unearthly scream.
She is fleeing almost immediately, and you note as she screams into the night that you can sense another strange Soul lingering out in the alley. It feels dark and hungry. Strange. A vampire's death scream briefly diverts your attention and you see Jesse turning into dust as "Xander" pants heavily against a pillar.
Coming up behind the walkway vampire, which appears to have broken legs, you stomp on its back. Turning its head you see its already white face pale further when it meets your gaze.
"Aw shit." You thrust your hand forward and obliterate its head with another Soul Arrow, dusting it neatly. Coming up to the Warrior's companions, whose attention was grabbed by the dying scream of the vampire you just killed Willow calls to you as you rush past, agitated. "What about Buffy and the big guy!?"
Hurrying past them, you glance back at a crash from that direction as you near the door. You see the big vampire turning to roar and flinch while blocking the light from one of those strange lights coming in through a broken window. You turn to look at Willow and say calmly, "She's got it handled."
Spinning, you rush out through the door, ignoring the cries to wait which are punctuated by another death scream and the disappearance of the strong disturbance. As you run past its hiding spot in the shade of the building near a stack of barrels you meet the eyes of the owner of the dark and hungry Soul.
He must be a darkly gorgeous man amongst humans, you think. Seeing deeper you can sense the taint of vampires around him. Is he one of them? You wonder to yourself as you run past and duck down into a side alley. There was a complete lack of hostility from him. You think to yourself as you duck down into a convenient sewer hole and pull the cover in after you.
Dropping to the ground you finally relax your grip on your magic and let the seeming drop. Keeping your mantle close you begin the long walk home, keeping a mystical eye on Darla and the Warrior as they move about above you in different directions. You do not see where they each end up going before you are out of range but you can tell the battle is completely over for this night.
Taking note of your body you determine that your right upper arm is essentially useless right now and your skull is likely fractured in two places, though your skin was tough enough not to break or tear. Your ribs are also damaged along with some of your internals.
It will take you most of this night and the coming day in order to recover from your injuries, though meditation will help with that. These vampires are quite strong creatures, more so than you, you would judge. If you had your revival ritual these injuries would not be an issue, but that is for the distant future.
Finally reaching home, you take up an uninjured looking seeming and enter, securing the gate and front door behind you. Traveling up to your work room you activate the sanctum wards and settle into the central circle. Sitting cross legged you look at the place where your knife used to sit.
Losing that is a minor issue, though it is not an actual threat to you since the enchantment will break before it can be used again. It was already beginning to fade when you lost it. Turning away from the empty shelf you consider your next move after you recover.
You could go out to seek more knowledge of your most prevalent enemies, the vampires, from the school. The Warrior and her companions were a threat, though your tactical deception in the Bronze likely has them warily friendly toward you so it will be easier to sneak in and less risky if you are caught. You might also be able to locate the source of that repelling magic you sensed in the school.
You could also go out and examine the Magic Box for any mystical or more mundane defenses, preparation for taking the most powerful items from the building. As you currently are you should be able to overpower anything you find there, but the multitude of unknown items could complicate matters.
Finally, you could go out and hunt down a Soul to test your theory for consuming the magic of this town. With your greater strength and thus sensitivity to the magic, flows and finer details of the ambient magic are being revealed to you. What you are sensing indicates to you that this experiment is becoming more important. You need more information about the ambient magic.
What do you do after you have recovered?
[] Go to the "school" and seek a repository of knowledge on vampires within its walls. The Warrior and her companions are now less of a threat after the events of The Harvest.
[] Go to the Magic Box and examine it for defenses as well as try to note any especially powerful items.
[] Go out and hunt a Soul once night falls and it is easier, to test your theories about consuming the magic which taints this entire town.
End of Episode 2
Wasted! Wasted! Headshot! Execution! Brutality!
And that pretty much wraps up Episode 2, which ended up being a lot shorter than I expected. *shrug* Ah well it turned out pretty good in my opinion!
The final death toll is:
-Bouncer dude
-That girl who looked like Buffy Luke ate
-Thomas
-Vamp Attacker #1
-Vamp Attacker #2
-Stage Vamp
-Jesse
-Walkway vamp
-Luke
You guys did some damage working with Buffy. It happened to work out that you got 5 out of 8 vampires which appeared in this update, even though you are still noodly magic wise. Circumstances and luck yo. You did pay for it though with your injuries which would have laid out a normal human.
For those who wish to know the spell incantation is:
"Howl under moonlight.
Give me strength Mother Moon.
Accept this offering.
Bless me."
Next update will lead us into Episode 3 "Strange Magic Girl".
Oh! Also you guys got a new thing on your character sheet. Enjoy.
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