Interlude: Legend Of Remnant: A Jaun(e)t Between Worlds. N-nah, that one's just... terrible...
Prok
Go play Star Fetchers
- Location
- Scotland
Right, yes, thank you!
I'll be going through the thread and tallying up all your bonuses and traits and whatnot at the end of the test- think of it like the end of a scene in Exalted.
HAHAHAHAHA-
Sorry, sorry, I should give you a bit of a peek behind the curtain so that doesn't just come off as me giving him plot armour or something. The reason I roll off screen is, at least partly, because I'm rolling for about four dozen different things at once, up to and including your actions, enemy actions, party reactions to your and enemy actions, party actions, encounter rolls, damage rolls, the weather, the phase of the moon and at the rate I'm going, the spin of individual particles. My point is, I roll a lot, enough so to justify doing it offscreen lest I spam the thread with meaningless numbers.
In all rolls to do with him, Salem has rolled below 17 exactly once. The dice love this dumb sumbitch.
Whether or not that luck will carry through to when he's fighting you, I've no idea, but if it does... let's say somebody's gonna get beat like a redheaded step-child, and it's not gonna be him. Most likely.
Anyway, votes are closed, and @Redshirt Army's write-in wins! Due to, ah, scheduling issues, it won't be getting posted until Tuesday.
Instead, however, you get an interlude, and in the spirit of baby steps, it includes two whole canon characters! Three, if you squint!
... Twenty-two if you squint a little harder.
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Flying through the air, the wind against your face, running through your hair like icy daggers against your scalp, is one you remember almost fondly.
There is a key difference between your memories and the sensations you feel right now.
Here, you lack a Loftwing and are completely at the gravity of mercy.
Wait. You think you messed that up- more important things to worry about.
Focusing on the task at hand, you reach down to Crocea Mors, pulling it scabbard and all from your back, extending the shield just in time to save yourself from fusing with a tree branch. The impacts travel up your arm, shocking it into numbness until you hit the ground, planting your feet on your shield and turning it into an impromptu sledge. Once you come to a stop, you start to get up, forgetting that your shield is attached to your arm, and managing to lose your balance.
Hoping nobody saw that, you quickly get up and look for your sword. You quickly find it...
Embedded halfway to the hilt in a tree.
... After a few moments spent silently cursing and fuming, you grab hold, pull, and find it not budging.
Jammed in there, huh?
Your ears twitch as you hear a voice in the wind. You would normally indulge... them, but you're kind of in a hurry, and if they're just going to state the obvious, then you can afford to ignore them. Instead, you plant your feet against the tree, and pull, to no avail but almost giving yourself a hernia. It really is jammed in there.
So brute force is out of the question. At least, any kind of brute-force you can muster. Instead, you must think with your mind, not your muscles. Instead, you must consider your other options.
It was around the point you were considering just bombing the shit out of the tree until it gave up your sword that other people arrived. First, a ginger girl wielding a frankly ludicrously sized hammer, and behind her, a black-haired boy with a pink streak through his hair, dressed in the style of Animan villages- those on the outer edges of the kingdom, anyway.
"Hi there!" The girl chirps, somehow swinging her warhammer behind her back with one hand for the sole purpose of giving you a friendly wave, while the boy stares at the ground, his eyebrows slowly rising in shock.
... You look around yourself and decide you may have gone just a tad overboard with the whole... taking stock thing. Your entire inventory of arrows, bombs, both mobile and static, glass bottles filled with various powders and fluids, grappling hook, boomerang, pretty much anything but your kitchen sink.
"Whoa... where'd you get all this stuff?" The girl asks, oblivious to her friend's concern. "Whoa, are those bombs?" Almost between words, she's suddenly close enough to pick up one of the round metal containers. You're not worried, as long as she doesn't light the fuse, it's not going to just blow up in her hands.
"Ah, Nora, is it really a good idea to pick that up?" The boy asks, stepping forward before stopping again, taking you in. "Wait, I saw you in the lineup. You... were not carrying all of this. Did you call in your locker?"
You simply shake your head, picking up your bow and showing him how you store it on your person. He blinks once, before nodding in understanding.
"Uh, ok, that's, fair enough, but... why do you have all of this stuff?"
You... try not to look embarrassed as you gesture to your sword still stuck in the tree. If anything, you think your ministrations have somehow driven it deeper into the wood.
"... Ohh." The girl, Nora, the others remind you, mutters as she walks up to the tree, grabs your sword by the hilt, and pulls. There's a moment of resistance before it comes out in a spray of splinters. She walks over to you, and you just about remember to close your mouth as she hands it to you. "Here you go!"
You numbly take it, and even with the knowledge that Aura was probably involved, you can't help but feel your pride... deflate a little.
"Do you have a partner yet?" The boy asks you, grabbing your attention before the pity party gets truly underway. Shame, you were thinking of breaking out the table shuffleboard.
You inform him as you gather up your stuff that, no, you don't have one yet. You've been kind of preoccupied with separating the unholy union of sword and tree. Speaking of... you covertly light one of your bombs, and gently kick it behind you in the tree's direction as the three of you leave the clearing.
"Would you like to join us until you find one?"
"Yeah, c'mon, it'll be fun!" Nora chips in.
... It couldn't hurt, you suppose. You nod your agreement to the notion.
"I'm Lie Ren. It's nice to meet you."
"I'm Nora!"
"... Jaune Arc."
The explosion was not timed, but the sound of the tree collapsing behind you is a cathartic one indeed.
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Your new friends learned very quickly that, while you are a man of very few words in social situations, on the battlefield, you have a pair of lungs designed for bloodshed.
"HYEARGH!" You yell as you separate a Beowolf's head from its... do canines have shoulders? You suppose so, but- neck, neck, you separate its head from its neck.
Attaboy, work those lungs! And those anatomy lessons!
You swear to god if you space out in the middle of a battle because of those fucking undead pricks there is going to be hell to pay- you quickly switch for your bow and grab a few arrows, taking care of a couple of the Grimm ready to backstab Ren, before going back to melee.
"Hey Ren!" Nora calls out. "Watch this!"
... That's an Ursa. What is she doing with the Ursa?
She is riding the Ursa.
... Why is she riding the Ursa?!
For fun, you guess?
"Wooooooo!"
"Nora!" Ren yells at her, rushing after the amateur bear wrestler as she disappears into the woods.
Welp, that's something for you to deal with later.
Jaune!
Alright, fine, you'll go help the crazy girl! Breaking a Beowolf's neck with a well-placed shield bash for good measure, you dash off after them.
Nora, as it turns out, isn't great at the whole 'riding an angry giant bear' aspect of riding an angry giant bear. She's barely hanging on, and before she can be thrown off completely, she manages to compact her hammer into a grenade launcher, which she aims at the back of its head.
You don't think you'll ever look at salsa the same way again.
"Nora... please... don't, don't do that again." You hear Ren say, panting slightly.
"I make no promises. That was so fun!"
You make to join them, wanting to ask exactly where you're supposed to be going, when something on a nearby rock catches your eye. A symbol of three triangles arranged into a larger triangle above a bird-
That almost sentient instinct takes over, much like it did after the dreams you had as a child, and you find yourself sprinting towards the rock, everything else forgotten. If you had any control, you would find its ability to complete hijack your priorities downright terrifying.
"Huh? Hey, Jaune, where ya goin', buddy?" Nora calls after you, following when you don't answer.
It's not a rock, you realise, it's rubble. These are... ruins. It looks ancient, as you would expect, but the symbol is clean, almost wholly untouched by the ages.
"What... is it?" Ren asks, looking at the symbol.
"... Royal Crest. I..." You put a hand to your head as the voices of dead heroes past clamour for you to do something, suddenly overwhelming you with their commands. "Please be quiet."
"... We didn't say anything. Are... are you ok?" Nora asks, showing more concern for you in three seconds than she's shown for herself in half an hour.
Eventually, the voices die down except for two. They have no names, simply titles. The Conductor, and The Ageless. Between the two of them, they're humming and vocalising a melody.
You see flashes of a dozen different people playing this same melody on a thousand different instruments, and you find your hands mimicking the movements, twitching as memories force their way into the muscles. Deciding that humouring them is the only way you'll get a moment's peace, you grab the instrument they insisted you make and learn to play, and bring the small, wooden ocarina to your lips.
The sound that comes from it is sweet, ringing clear through the forest. Birds stop singing, the leaves stop rustling, your companions somehow sink into a deeper silence...
This is a song that demands to be listened to. Not by people, nor animals, by the world, this lullaby to a princess you've met nineteen times in nineteen lives orders it be heard above all else.
As you finish, the heraldry of a kingdom long gone begins to glow, and you find yourself falling, the world crumbling beneath you. Despite yourself, you scream, joining Nora and Ren in a chorus of terror, until you finally hit the ground.
You feel your ankle roll, and know instantly that you're not walking on it for at least a week.
... Son of a bitch ow-
"Ugh... are you two alright?" Ren asks, getting up and brushing off his... shirt?
"Oww... I think Magnhild's trying to fuse with my spine, but other than that I'm ok." Nora supplies, quickly getting up and extricating herself from her weapon.
"I've twisted my ankle. I don't think I can walk." You say, something suddenly making the pain seem very... far away...
... This is... a very large cavern, you realise. Well, large, it's about the size of your house, but that's still larger than any cavern you expected to find down here. What's more is the centre of the cavern, filled with a circle of marble pillars above a pool of water that seems to glow an almost sky blue. In the pool, rather, above the pool, are small, glowing... balls of light.
The voices are silent. For once, they are purely silent, and it's... surprisingly unsettling.
Ren walks over, and with Nora's help, they quickly get you back on your feet, ready to hobble wherever you can. So, towards the weird pool. They seem reluctant at first, but you urge them on, somehow knowing that this place is a good place to be.
As you get closer to the water, one of the balls of light seems to start, you swear you hear it gasp, before flitting over to your ankle and suddenly growing brighter. Immediately, the pain leaves, and you can put your weight on it again.
… Did… did it just heal you?
It just healed you. Ok. Sure. Not the weirdest thing that's happened today in your opinion.
"What… is this place?" Nora asks before you can.
"It looks like a fairy fountain," Ren answers her, and by extension you. "They're an old myth- hidden in nature, people would seek them out because the fairies inside could cure any ailment, even imminent death. Usually, there's a… Great… Fairy…" He trails off, staring into the middle distance for a moment.
You follow his eyes and see a... well, a woman rising from the ankle-deep water like a majestic dolphin.
Um. That, woman, is not wearing any clothes.
Well, she's wearing-
Ivy does not count as clothes fuck off.
Before that mental argument can develop any further, the woman bursts free of her aquatic prison completely, twisting and twirling in ways that have you averting your eyes for very good reasons, before landing and letting out a slow, deliberate, almost regal laugh.
"OHH-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO~!"
When she finally finishes laughing, settling down into an invisible seat as far as you can tell, you find yourself faced with the question of what.
You could add to that, but honestly, what is pretty much all you need right now.
"... Hmm? My, but it's been a long time since I've seen you, hero~! I haven't heard that song in… well, let's not talk about a lady's age." Nothing she has said or done so far has changed your position on that.
Wait, hero?
Your spiritual peanut gallery begins to clamour louder than before, and you feel you're being taken apart almost systematically, almost...
Al...most...
"Hm? Boy? Are you well?"
You mumble something, really just gurgling on your own saliva for a moment before darkness takes you.
"Jaune? Jaune!" You hear one of your companions yell as you hit the cool, clear water.
The last thing you hear is the tinkling of fairies.
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