BlackCat-055
[Error 404: Profound Line.txt not found]
- Location
- Outer Space
Just plopping down the IC thread. Then alerting the players then I go take a nap nap
@Naron
@Redking0380
@B1T5W4K3
@LucidProp
@Zedalb
@rush99999
@Noob5674
@Witherbrine26
@catDreaming
==== [PLAYER PART]
You stirred from the depths of sleep, closed eyes gave way to blurry vision and muffled sounds. The most immediate sense that came to your mind was the feeling of your entire body being soaking wet as if you were deeply drowned, as well as the feeling of hard and splintered wooden boards that you currently laid upon.
Eventually your waking energy came to you as you sluggishly moved to push yourself off the floor and into a sitting position.
[FYSICAL (MEDIUM): SUCCESS] Your body was assaulted while you were not at the helm. Forced through aquatic trials that tested the limits of your body, yet you persisted enough. Weaker men would not have the strength to get up, and while you are not at the peak of physicality. Your body has endured against the harsh world.
[FYSICAL (FORMIDABLE): FAILURE] Not to say you went through unscathed. Even as you lift yourself up, you can feel the aches of pain that wrecked across your fleshy form. Batterings of bruises, purple and yellow, spotted across the body. With at most a sharp pain when you press against a part of your back (thankfully nowhere near your spine). However they were still painful in the end, and while it won't certainly strip you of the ability to move, it certainly occupied a part of your mind.
Eventually despite the pain, you pushed against it as your senses finally became clear as if the water inside your head fully leaked out, and you slowly gathered your bearings.
"H-hey! Are you finally awake yet? I've been calling out to you for the past thirty-agh-seconds" A squeaky yet quiet voice called out to you from above.
Looking towards the source, you saw that there was an iron cage with a wooden base hanging from the ceiling.
Bracing yourself against a nearby table ("Wa-it, don't push yourself too hard a-alright?!"), you quickly stood back on your two legs and had the cage at eye-level within your sight. There you can see that inside the cage was an incredibly tiny girl, so small she could likely fit in your hand.
From a glance, you can tell she was a very green girl. Her hair was a pale shade of green, her eyes were instead a verdant shade. Her dress looked as if it was fashioned from oak leaves, and even her skin seemed to have a very faint tint of green as well. The only part of her that wasn't green was her clipped wings, which while being clear and shimmering. Her wings also had burnt marks surrounding cuts and holes within it.
Looking across the broader picture, the fairy was definitely not in a good state. Aside from the general state of dirt and fatigue, she also had spots of what seemed to be black burns from poison on her arms and legs. Judging from her reluctance to let them touch any surfaces, they were sensitive and painful to touch.
She looked at you with a mix of an annoyed and amused look before she winced as she adjusted herself so she would not lie down on any burn wounds.
"G-greetings, the title I may let you refer me to is Leafy, that is-" she was about to speak another word before she was locked in place with her mouth still wide open. She quickly glanced at you briefly with narrowed eyes before carrying off without a beat "-the name that my kin in blossom refer to me usually."
[Judge, Jury, and Executioner (Legendary): Success] This is an incredibly quick micro-expression of the suspect your Honor, but the details have been noted by the Jury. In our analysis of the physical evidence before us, we can note that they seemed to stop as soon as they attempted to explain the nature or rationale for them to have the alias attached towards the currently mentioned party. Before continuing on with what we believe to be an alternate reason.
We find it likely that the reason for that is due to the natural principle wherein all parties within the court are automatically under oath to state all testimonies with the utmost veracity to the best of their abilities your Honor. If nothing else the Cross-Examination is concluded.
She took a deep breath, her body briefly glowing as some of the wounds seemed to heal over, but she eventually gasped for air as if she held her breath for too long. The healing aura disappeared but the wounds could still be seen albeit smaller.
"The pain is lessened yet it still remains. At least it's easier to talk now" she says as she adjusted herself to a more comfortable position.
"Alright. I don't know who you are and neither do you to me, however I know that you have this gift that makes others say nothing but the truth to you. In my opinion that is strange as that is due to my belief the truth is quite malleable, but I digress. I don't believe I have much time, so I will make this quick. The information I am giving you is that you are in Hell, yes the realm of the Damned and under the domain of the 'Fallen'-" She says with with one hand raised up and made air quotes with it
"Yes it is the afterlife of punishment and suffering humanity always believed exists, and yes it is quite real in the sense we are in it and yes there are demons and other sorts that like to catch up unlucky souls, dead for humans, and unfortunately living for us. What do they intend to do to us? My guess is that we are likely to be tortured, maimed, tortured, enslaved, and did I mention torture? It's quite grisly from what I heard.
In short, we are not safe here. If it weren't for my efforts, I believe you would be eaten because you were captured by two demons when you were unconscious and they talked about how delicious you are. Yes it's disgusting, foxes don't taste good from my experience, all that ammonia and urea, bleh" she said as let out her tongue, presumably thinking of the taste, before shaking her head.
"I'm getting distracted, the point is that we are in danger and we need to escape from this ship before it takes us deeper into the Fallen, and I don't think even King Oberon is able to pierce the heart of the Fallen's realm. I would have escaped a long time ago but-"
She turned her back to show off her damaged wing and then gestured to her burns "Clipped my wings and tarnished me with iron, so even though I can heal them back, the wounds make it hard. Even if I'm healed-" she waves her hands as she gestured to the iron bars of her cage "Can't get through that, I'm just burning myself again"
She then dropped down and despite hissing and wincing, she moved as close as possible to you without touching the bars "I need you to make a deal with me. You get me out of the cage, and I come with you as a companion as long as I'm willing, which for the time being, my assumption is as long as we're stuck in Hell. I'll have to note that I'm sensing great potential as well as magical essence from you, so if I'm your companion, I will take some of that but that's only because I'm currently hurt and running on fumes. Nothing permanent since it'll grow back. Then once I'm out and up, we'll get off from this ship and-"
She stayed silent as she contemplated on what to say
"Yeah I have no idea what's out there, all I know is that it's not a good idea to go wherever this ship is taking us. Do we have a deal?"
====================================
It went like a flash, the deal, the wheel, realm of possibilities, and the figures barely perceptible even to your senses.
It was all gone as you were sent away, you know one thing though. Whatever comes next, there'll be hope that she'll have a better life next time. That fact gives you motivation to face what's to come
What's to come is immediately so as you immediately came face to face to what seemed to be a never-ending ocean within an eternal storm. Rain heavily fell between you as the horizon was dark blue thunderous waves and tides for all to see. Thunder splitting the waters ever so often, illuminating that there was only more water and water to the eyes gaze. Only in the furthest distance could you faintly see what seemed to be a giant whirlpool as water hurled upwards into a giant waterspout that seemed to connect to the ever so distant sky up so high.
But that detail wasn't very important for you, for the main matter of the fact was that you were falling, falling in incredibly rapidly increasing speeds as you realised you were about to crash face to face with the sea themselves.
Instincts pulled yourself as you felt the powers gifted to you immediately accessing
Immediately time resumed its normal rate of change for you as you immediately initiated the second plan of action. Laying flat to reduce your speed from velocity before turning as you dived down deep first.
As your gift predicted, your body was heavily hit by the waves as it dived deep underneath, your body was hit and you can feel bruises and cracks forming. Most of it was in the legs and lower body, and thankfully bracing beforehand made sure your head didn't snap nor your back.
You don't think you can move your fingers well but you still feel your legs and they weren't twisted in half. If you could still feel pain you'd pass out from the shock, but fortunately you don't, so you can still see if you can snap things back into place after you find land.
By the time you finished re-assessing yourself, you realised that you dived far deeper than you expected.
After moving your limbs to find they still work, you started swimming to reach the surface and find dry land later on.
That's when you felt something grabbing your ankle, pulling you down in bursts, that's when you looked down and saw it.
A ghastly figure was what met you, one whose flesh was pallid and bloated from drowning. Its eyes glowed with white haze as it looked at you with a sullen look. It made a hoarse moan that one could hear across the depths as it continued to pull you deeper underwater
There were many more as well slowly rising from the murky depths, all of them resembling drowning dead bodies lost to the seas. Many came to assist the first one, grabbing to your bottom half and whatever part they could hold as they continued to pull you deeper.
Others however noticed your appearance as their eyes widened before descending back to the depths. Some of them even howled as they instead started prying the ones dragging you off of you, struggling against them as others pushed up forward with their free limbs.
It was a struggle, you and the few spirits vs the many who wanted you to suffer just like them. It took all your aquatic blessings, energy, and even stabs from your dagger to dislodge the persistent few before you were eventually free.
Immediately so, you quickly swim to the top as you breached the surface, before immediately grabbing hold of the water as you wrested yourself out and into the surface where you laid down like ground.
Taking a moment to get your bearings, you immediately stood up and started running, avoiding any grasping hands that attempted to drag you back down once more, as you attempted to find any dry land for you to cling on.
Eventually you spotted distant land past the horizon, emboldened by a goal, quickly you poured more energy as you endlessly sprinted a marathon to reach it, jumping over waves and constantly dodging lingering hands before finally reaching it. Eventually as hours of sprinting passed away, you reached it as your feet finally planted themselves upon the cold yet damp rocks that grated against your soles and your hands tightened as it wringed the folds of your yukata as it squeezed its soaked fabric. You finally reached land, and judging from how the precipitation relented its endless assault (even if there was no sun to part the stormy now dry clouds) it finally stopped raining. For the time being you are safe now.
You quickly had to revise that statement as you jumped backwards further into rocky island as you avoided the sudden grasps of the sullen spirits that constantly clamoured for land (and you) but were constantly pulled back by those deeper in the seas like crabs in a bucket. Only when you were comfortably far away from their desperate grapples, you were finally certain you were safe.
Gathering your bearings for a bit, you turned around as you wondered what the rocky beaches held for you aside, in hopes it was not an empty mound of rock for you to simply sit upon.
Thankfully you turned around to face what appeared to be a cave a bit to the north, one that seemed to be inhabited judging from the strange lanterns that emitted a faint blue light that lined its walls as it went deeper inside presumably. It helped that further in the distance there was a strange hollow tower that rises high above the cave far into the distance. Unfortunately the entrance was barred not only by what seemed to be two damaged hollow walls made of strange metal threads. Such a wall had chains wrapped around the middle of it, which held the two broken walls together.
You went near the strange walls as you looked at the chains, eyeing the details you can tell that while it held tight, there was orange colourations within the chains (and also in the broken metal walls but they were broken already).
A gut feeling suggested that might be a warning.
Looking around, it would take some time to walk up to the hollow metal tower and even more so to climb it, but it seemed there was a room on top so it was notable enough to be an option. It helped that as you glanced around, there was a moving object far away, squinting your eyes you could tell it was a strange looking ship, mostly from its strange white colour. However you were not sure if you could reach them in time, especially since in the coast you can see that the sullen spirits were piling up a bit, clamouring and waiting for you.
It was possible that in the room you can maybe find a bonfire or at least something to create a huge light to attract the attention of the ship, but you weren't sure if they were friendly in the first place.
Or if it's a ship at all
Judging your two options, you noted that going into your Yukata, you found your items with you, from the dagger, big book, and box full of the tools you asked for.
The Tome! You quickly fished for the Tome and flipped its pages, checking to see what it could tell you about this place.
==========
You wake up.
Well waking up isn't the most accurate definitions, but it's a rather more efficient transitional tool than accurately depicting the process from how the Arbiters of the Cycle gave you the spiel of the honoured duty and the promise of power and gifts achieving it could given in turn to you, then the complicated process of how the Arcana and various gifts were engraved and grafted into your soul so seamlessly that to your own subconscious it's as if you always had them, and then travelling across countless dimensions to reach the one your patrons desire you to explore and survey, with constant calculations and repeated measurements of your trans-dimensional geometric location in order to ensure you don't randomly get flung across to the cosmos before being unravelled to your very nano-quark of your core.
Honestly a lot of complicated stuff happened that it would be quite better for it to be said that you simply "woke up".
From a blink of an eye, at one moment you were before the Council of teeming numbers of Arbiters, what with their silky black robes mixed with gold highlights and patterns sewn into them, and then the next moment you're now here.
Currently you find yourselves in a forest, one filled entirely out of trees, dead ones whose branches turn into thickets that intersect with the branches of nearby fellow trees, those branches growing against each other and tangling within themselves to the point that they become akin to thorny dead brackets of bushes. Looking down you realise the ground was grey, a far more darker grey than the trees themselves, one could be mistaken that you were walking on gravel or other small pebbles turned ground beneath your feet, but it wasn't it was dirt that lost its colour, a pallour that denoted that even the very microbes within it was dead. Although the ground you currently in was a lighter grey than the darker one far beyond where the trees rooted themselves in, that was most likely because you were in footpath made from the constant wear and tear of travellers stamping upon the very ground, it was like a line that showed the safest way to go, after all if they all died they wouldn't be able to walk all the way to make the footpath you were now on no?
Looking up you notice that the thicket of the branches on top of the dying trees were far ingrown enough that they acted like a roof that blocked most of the skies gaze away, with only barely a light shining between the cracks.
Fortunately you were on the footpath, so that was less of a problem.
The sky was another shade of dreary grey (really all the land was some shade of grey, all the colour sucked out and left in a monochrome landscape, how dreary), the lightest of them all, almost bordering on the shade of white. No clouds littered the place, just a blank sky-scape of grey, grey, and more grey.
The only thing that inhabited the sky and allowed you to know that there was a good chance you weren't inside a giant dome, was the sun high on top. Burning bright white amidst the grey sky of grey. Yet the sun was surely not feeling the weather for its glare was so dimmed you could look at it without narrowed eyes, and the heat coming from it felt like the kind of winter's gaze
Indeed, this is a place to sap the wills of those within, not only the strength of their hearts but also the blood within, each sap causing fatigue to slowly crawl over a person's body like an ever lingering presence of an ominous pestilence.
Indeed. Your body does not experience the same passive malice others would experience from this place. Just as limber and healthy as your body would otherwise be! Which to be frank is just the average. Not very muscularly toned nor fit are you? At least you're not fat.
How inspiring. In any case, the scene has been fully set for you, in the end it's now all for you to take action upon.
The trodden path you now stand upon extends in two directions. Behind you, which leads up a hill which seemed to just contain more paths and woods. And In Front of you, which goes down to more roads and woods, quite frankly you don't have the perception to extend far. Of course if there's any insight-
An interesting insight on what's to come, now which path shall you take?
======[PLAYER PART]
You slowly woke up. It seemed taking the deal from the gods took a lot from you as you quickly passed out from the power coming unto you. A small part of you quibbled that a true dwarf would have the hardy constitution to not pass out but you waved it as no normal dwarf could attest to meeting the ancestral gods themselves in this day and age. Turning your head towards more present matters, your vision slowly came back as you mentally crawled back from the layer of the dream weaver.
As you slowly grappled with the fatigue associated with waking up, you wearily looked to your side and saw an unconscious person in simple tunic and rope-tied leggings.
Their appearance had the enigmatic balance between femininity yet not enough to declare them a woman at first sight (a thought came out that the balance of essence reminded you of the elven, especially those of the eerie ones who only appeared as travellers from beyond Irdunmach). Outside of their androgynous appearance, you only noted they had linen cloth wrapped around their head like bandages. Dirtied by the dried bleeding you could see on the back of their head
After finalising your observation of them, you looked away and saw a small bonfire catching your vision.
Focusing on it, you realised there was a person heavily cloaked in a dirty blue cloak crouching over the fire. By the sounds of it, they were likely pouring something into containers.
They turned around and you saw that underneath the shade of their hood, they wore a golden mask that had a triangular imprint that caved outwards like a short giant bird's beak.
They also wore a simple outfit that reminded you of the adventurers that wandered in and out of the city. From a simple grey light leather chestplate (although the texture of the leather wasn't like anything you've ever seen, it had a rough and rocky texture) and strange plate armour that looked strangely organic yet incredibly smooth were wrapped on her legs.
They carried two ceramic bowls that seemed to have brown soup on each hand. As they turned around they realised that you were awake, causing them to still in response.
After waiting for a moment and seeing no hostile or aggressive action from you. They decided to continue on with her actions as they placed one bowl on the side of your unconscious bedmate before turning towards you as they raised the bowl towards you.
"أنت مستيقظ الآن، تعال واشرب من هذا واستمد القوة منه."
It was a woman. Her voice was soft, almost quiet like, yet it had the cadence and depth of a well-seasoned veteran.
However, the most peculiar thing was her language. It flowed smoothly from word to word and wasn't like any language you knew.
The closest ones you can recall it sounding similar to were the dialects of the traveller that claimed he came from a great city-state in the deserts west of the Dragon Empire called Sumer. Although you did not take the time to learn it, you were not even sure if it was the same one or not.
Whatever the case, the sheer confusion that must've been seen in your face was caught on by the masked woman. She stopped and tilted her head as she eyed you keenly, before sighing as she rubbed her neck underneath the mask with her free hand.
She rubbed her throat before clearing her throat by coughing as she suddenly spoke once more.
"So my belief from thought that claims you are a newcomer to these lands has more authenticity to it as I look at you more and more. This makes it harder to speak person to person yet ways are always found. Now, do not speak for while you may understand the tongue born from the progeny of the First. You do not have permission to use that tongue so you cannot give thought to me. I only ask if you understand what I say. If you do, raise your left fist and nod twice"
It was so sudden, from speaking another language to suddenly speaking the tongue of the Dwarves. Not many humans could speak it for the Dwarves rather they speak on the Common of the Empire than to let others accidentally dirty the language gifted by your Ancestors. Yet she speaks with such fluency that you would be remiss to say she would speak like a dwarf, the only problem is how rigid and simple her speaking was. However, as she explained it, she seems to know a spell or way to make her words understandable to you. However, the spell could not make her understand you.
As you understood her quite perfectly, you mimicked the actions she asked of you. Once done, she immediately nodded, satisfied before foisting off the bowl to you.
"Drink it. So your strength of body can return to you. The children of envy had attempted to capture you and your acquaintance. I do not see breakage on your body but I do not have time to assay the inside. I shall return to the main thought. The first tongue does not allow me to tell you what to call me, for it shall dissolve it into pure words. Only when you can speak that tongue may I give you my desired calling. So in your mind, I shall allow you to call me Eagle. I shall now tell you a brief tale of the lands you are in, so you may not wander in ignorance"
You listened to their words as you drank the soup, its texture utterly clinged to every part of your mouth and felt like drinking swamp water. However the taste was surprisingly savoury and delicious, and you could already feel your body gaining more energy as you drank it sip by sip.
Watching her, you realised that as she spoke to you, she seemed to be etching sigils onto a piece of parchment, almost as if she was crafting runes. However a quick glance made it clear it wasn't any runes of the dwarves.
"You are a newcomer. One who has died the final death and your soul has passed onto the Prison of Damned. It is a giant realm that has Thirteen worlds within it. It was once ruled by those called Fallen. Cruel masters of indomitable power, however they were overthrown many many years ago. Now it is divided between the Fallen and us. Four kept by the former Masters. Five rightfully conquered by us. And three that must be shared in spite.
Many who come here because they were declared tainted, for they have done evil and deemed unable to be changed so they are casted away to the winds before being hunted down. Of course the present has many come here eventually, like a vortex that drags all lost dead into it. My thoughts are sure that you are like us. Declared tainted and tossed away like exiles"
She turned her head as she stared at you from behind her shoulders
"But I do not trust my thoughts. For you see, your shell around your soul does not show taint like most of us. It is different from the form of Human, but I do not see taint within it.
It is almost like you are of the Other. However you are still too same of Human and thus that makes me wonder. But I cannot derive insight by simply gazing at you as the sun rises and sets.
For now I will only let you know that the current realm you now rest in is the Labyrinth. A realm part of the Prison of Damned, it is a very close and dangerous realm for its walls curl and expand without end. It is easy to get lost within these walls so I ask you to wait until your acquaintance is awake or if they are also a newcomer. I shall escort you two to the closest community."
Finally after talking to you, she stood up as she went back to you while holding a large parchment full of sigils and strange runes arranged in a circle that you do not understand, she turned it around to the blank side before forwarding it to you while handing a charcoal stick on the other.
"I have made this for you so you may write within it. The words of your tongue shall be made into the First Tongue. So I may understand it and our thoughts shall exchange proper. However this is only possible if you are able to write. I hope you do because the only other way is to share my tongue with yours. Many can learn the First Tongue eventually on their own, but this way allows you to learn it like it has been your first tongue your whole life. However in doing so, you will burn out all your other tongues and I cannot let myself be like t
hose who do it without permission of the other. As I understand if you wish to keep your tongues"
====[PLAYER PART]
The first thing that came to your senses was the sound of the roaring wind that galed past your face. As your body quickly got into its active functions, you realised that you found yourselves trapped within a giant net made of metallic woven wires that grabbed you within its entirety.
It took a struggle to even move around, as moving yourself revealed that you were also bound and gagged by some durable grey rope.
[MOTORICS (Formidable): SUCCESS] You quickly moved your body around, using not only your dermal tactile senses but also the movement of your body to feel around for how much of your body was wrapped and the quality of how binded you, as well as its general tensile strength so you can understand the limits of its bindings before it gives way to your now inhuman strength.
After a full minute of fiddling, you've come to realise that you've been bound pretty well. Whoever took the time to tie you up was a clear practised and well-seasoned professional.
Your limbs were entirely immobilised as your arms and legs were tied not only backwards but also together. Each joint of your limbs were also well interlocked to the point that you couldn't move an inch but the lack of pain meant it was done carefully with your safety in mind.
Your chest was also properly bound so you could not even gain full breath's pace, stopping you from having the proper energy to even make a proper attempt at escaping your binds.
If it wasn't you within those bindings but rather a more humble mortal. They would be understandably fully locked up and left with not even a single millimetre of space to move. Even now, your body's natural strength grinds and clashes against the tension of the ropes, forcing it to give way bit by bit
The only question now was when to get out?
Just as you contemplated on when to get out, you heard the sounds of boots stomping and grinding against creaky wooden steps.
It took a bit of a struggle to move your entirely bound body, but you were able to wriggle around so you can look at what's above you to see two heavily-garbed persons coming down from the upper decks.
As they reached the deck right above you and crouched down to get a closer look at you, you eyed their appearance.
Both of them were wearing heavy tanned cloaks complete with hoods that draped over their attire, most likely to help against the desert heat. Underneath their hoods they both wear russian-style black gas masks made of a shiny rubbery material and had giant cylindrical filters fitted over their mouths. However, unlike normal gas masks, these masks had simple circular lenses that glowed an intense blue like the one you'd see within activated nuclear reactors. Outside of that, the two had different attires entirely.
Underneath their tanned cloaks, one had what seemed to be a turquoise hazmat jumpsuit zipped over him (although you could easily tell that it wasn't in good condition as the colour was clearly weathered away from long use).
On his left chest you can see a patch that showed a triangular warning sign with a radiation symbol on it, and underneath was what you recognized as what most would know as russian text. Outside of that, he had a gun sling on him, black dusty combat boots, and a tool belt on his waist that contained an odd assortment of rustic tools from pipe wrenches to what seemed to be a miniature blowtorch.
The other person was not dressed like he's prepped for radiation but rather a generic survival outfit, with a leather duster on top of a heavy plate carrier which also had a few belts carrying shotgun shells below and above it. He also wore the same combat boots and what seemed to be leather coverings to protect his shins and leggings. Outside of that, he wore what seemed to be heavily weathered denim jeans as well as a pale blue buttoned shirt.
"▋▎ ▎ ▊ ▀▔ ▚▇▀▔ ▚▄ ▇▀▙▄ ▇▄░▄. ▒▄▄▌'▒ ▚▄ ▅█▍▀▋▋▜ ▆▎ ▔ ▀ ▍▄▚▁▋▎ ▎ ▃ ▎ ▕▔ ▇▄░▄ █▍ ▔▇▄ ▃▕▍▄▒."
("Look at what we have here. Seems we finally got a new blood out here in the dunes.")
Your eyes narrowed as you slightly flinched within instinct, while it caused no damage or true pain to your ears. It was highly grating to hear what was the equivalent of electronic scratching and shrieks that were overlaid by heavy static.
It was like pure electronic white noise papered all over. It annoyed you to even attempt to parse it, much less even understand what it was talking about.
The two continued to chat over with their utterly cursed bionic screechings but eventually your grunts and grimaces of pain alerted the notice of the two. One of them tilted their head at you as they unscrewed their gas filter by hand as they proceeded to speak to you in a raspy voice.
"You there. You new blood. New to Hell, yes? You now work for us. No other way. Endless dessert out there. Sit tight you go to mines when arrive"
His voice was raspy as if his lungs were entirely burnt out. Taking short gasps between shorter phrases, allowing him to only speak a few words at most in bursts. He quickly screwed his filter back in as he did big gasps of breaths to clear his throat. He chuckled after his lungs were clear as he and his buddy walked away.
It was clear that you were definitely going to break out. However, what they said was true. You weren't sure if you'd find anything out in the far desert wastelands, so in the end you decided to wait for the right time as you consistently loosened yourself.
It took hours, long enough that you took a short nap and woke up to see that you still were up in the net. But eventually by the time the bright sun turns the hazy sky into a warm tone, you see on the horizon a base built upon the base of a mountain. Deciding you weren't going to fight off everyone in the base, you decided now as it was on the horizon that now was the time to enact your plan.
[FYSICAL(IMPOSSIBLE): SUCCESS] With one flex, you immediately break off the ropes that bind your entire body all at once. Like a demigod of a bronze physique, your hard-earned effort allowed you to rip it all as casually as if you flexed your shirt off your rippling muscular body. With one fell swoop you were entirely free of your bindings.
Now all that was left was the metallic net.
[FYSICAL(IMPOSSIBLE): SUCCESS] Emboldened by your display of potence, you were ready to rip open your metallic cage and embark out to claim your freedom among these desert masked slavers.
You grasped upon these metallic woven cords. It was no doubt incredibly durable as even while crushing it, it constantly gave resistance. However, you were no mere man and so even metal made to bind greater beasts were utterly forced to give way and be ripped into shreds by your furious strength.
With one quick jump, you reached across the short gap that led to the steep fall underneath and immediately landed on the deck. As you stood up and dusted yourself off, you were finally free, and off you went to fully claim that.
You walked up the wooden stairs, idly noting that the entire hovercraft skipper had aesthetics that made it seem like it was a pirate's ship that was half-way upgraded into a metallic hull with some of the wooden boards still left over.
As you reached the surface deck, you noticed that there were four similarly masked men that sat around metal crates as they played what seemed like a game of poker. However your arrival was noted as one of them jumped up in surprise and screamed as they pointed at you, getting the attention of the rest of his crewmates. Immediately they all stood up as they readied their weapons before charging at you.
These weapons were all melee ones but despite that it was clear they were all far from ordinary weapons, all of them looked as if they were heavily motorised and guzzled oil. Two of them had giant hammers that looked as if they were pneumatic and could drive foot-long nails into thick steel. The other two had jury-rigged machetes that quickly started glowing into a heavy red glow, with heat emanating from it distorting the around them.
You held your hand out, instinct calling to you as you realise you've somehow gripped into a handle. Looking to your side, you realised that you somehow grabbed a metal bat out of nowhere, even the crew who were about to attack you backpedalled out of surprise at your seeming magic trick. Yet you know that said metal bat was truly owned towards you, however grabbing it was simply opening the gift box, you knew inside that you couldn't just make it return (as of now) and you could lose it. Knowing that made you only grip it harder.
Otherwise, now was the time to let loose and show you how you truly felt about being stuck in that damn net.
[FYSICAL(FORMIDABLE): SUCCESS] Action scene set, one, two, three, ACTION!
Rules of brawling, you weren't some master at swordfighting or any of that fancy stuff. Only thing you had was your guts, endurance, brawn, and a trusty bat. So this was a brawl, and the one rule of brawling that was important to this was that getting ganged up on was a problem.
The solution? Divide and conquer.
Taking advantage of their momentary distraction, you grabbed onto a heavy metallic crate and flung it at them. Three of them immediately dived down or to the side, leaving the unlucky last guy to be hit with the full brunt of the crate as they were knocked down on the ground with the crate landing on them with a resounding crack of their chest.
Not one to let yourself waste the opportunity, you took a running start as you jumped on a crate before jumping off again as you gave yourself some airtime and leaped towards the third masked man who had the only other sword. Leaping at them with frightening speed, you quickly landed on them as you used the momentum to kick them into the ground. Once they got knocked down you quickly finished them with a stomp on their chest, cracking their ribs as they made a gurgling shriek against their gas masks.
This only left Cub uno and Club dos. The two shook off their battle shock as they proceeded to ganged up on you all at once. Showing you why ganging up on one person was one of the most natural tactics in fighting.
Even with your natural instincts in you that screamed at you whenever you were about to get hit, and the hairs on your back allowing you to duck and weave past their strikes. You were still far too new to such intensive combat, especially with this much ferocity. It seemed these masked men fought with enough fury and zeal to make even battle junkies ponder in shock.
It was a good decision to cut off their numbers to stop you from getting hurt so easily. Just letting them hammering at your evasive body didn't seem to tire them out at all. Thankfully your body could easily dodge their massive hammers so you weren't out of the ring just yet.
It meant that you had to decisively knock them out. As you ducked other club uno's strike, you immediately elbowed their stomach to give them pause as you grabbed their body and hurled it backwards at club dos as he was about to go for a lunge, this toppled the two to the ground, while club uno was able to quickly start scrambling, he couldn't get up fast enough before you hit him in the head with the bat, giving him a concussion to knock him out. Club Dos seemed to have been knocked down as well.
You sat on a crate as you took the breaths that a winner would take. However, as you recovered your stamina and reviewed what you just experienced. You felt the hairs of your neck standing up and screaming upon your nerves as well as the sudden feeling of heat behind you.
Instinctively you ducked down as you saw that right above you, you would've been decapitated by a sword swinging right at your neck-level. The intense heat above showed you how close you were to having a cauterised decapitation.
Lunging forward and rolling before turning around, you realised that the other swordsman had somehow woken up and was now standing. However this was despite the fact you can hear him giving heavy wet coughs as blood pooled from the seams of his mask. It seemed that you shattering his ribs ruptured his lungs, but despite that, he was still standing.
Immediately you dashed forward, determined to take him down. However while clashing him, you quickly went for his limbs and even took a free swing at his head. Sadly the swordsman was far more competent and was far better at handling your strikes, your only fortune was your bat was capable of taking on a super-heated blade.
Glancing behind you, It seemed that the other masked man was much more durable as well, as you can tell from club Dos struggling to remove his friend's unconscious body and the other one struggling to get the crate off him. You definitely needed to end this fight before you had three masked anomalies that could shrug off ruptured lungs going after you.
As you parried his swings at your bat, you realised you had to do a risky manoeuvre. As you grabbed your bat with both hands, you made a feint as you aimed towards a leg shot but as the swordsman went to parry it, you immediately dropped your weapon and made a blitzing two-fold jabs on the combatant's face, immediately cracking their skull twice as they were flung backwards sprawled on the ground.
Taking advantage of this, you immediately stabbed his machete deep into his spine. Ensuring he couldn't move at all.
As you recovered from your impromptu duel, you immediately dashed over to the rest of the group just as you saw club Dos fully take off the body of his friend, wasting no moment, you threw the bat as hard as you can at him, hitting him straight in the head as he got knocked down.
Immediately as you reached him, you sweeped for the bat as you stomped on his face extra hard, hearing a crack and letting you know he was properly down. Looking elsewhere, you realised the one stuck under a crate was still stuck, deciding to not let him catch you by surprise, you stomped on his face multiple times until he stopped moving.
As the fatigue slowly sets in on your body just as the adrenaline dies down. You finally took your next breath as you started to exhale in and out with deep gasps. The sweat toiling down your face as you feel the blood on your clothes seep down as they dry.
Watching the blood drip down your metal bat and pool onto the floor. You realised it now. You won, against four men you won. To best others has proven your strength one and true. To feel jubilation at the success of your struggles. You could feel it in your heart, that despite it all you were just getting started.
But as you were about to celebrate, you heard the sounds of boots marching and ratcheting of shells as you looked up and see a large man, easily at 7 feet tall, who also wore a captain's hat alongside the two other men you saw from before, who now had shotguns that were aimed at you. The captain, who in turn also had a revolver ready but not
aimed at you, took off his filter as he made large gasping wheezes.
"You took down my men. Who? are you?"
===[PLAYER PART]
The first thing that came to your vision was the sun.
It was bright, shining not as a warm yellow or setting orange, but a flareful pure white that dares all to bask in its overwhelming heat. Thankfully as much as your eyes stared into it, no pain came to you, nor did your vision diminish at all.
However the heat was getting to you, already you could feel the sweltering gaze focusing upon you from its all-encompassing sight.
[FYSICAL: AUTO SUCCESS] However despite it all, you didn't experience the pain or uncomfortablities that one would expect from such heat. The desert's aura shall not impede you for the pain that would drag any lesser men down does not affect you. Your body is yours to control as is right as its Lord. To let suffering and impudence stop you from surviving and living is a folly for the foolish who do not understand the sheer determination that courses through your entire system like blood.
However the Lord must not be foolish, to be so arrogant as to ignore reality like Nero or Caligula. Even if the Heat cannot urge the body to rebel in the fear of harmful stimuli. It is a consistent malignancy that desires to erode you bit by bit. The constant evaporation of the rivers within your kingdom while the heat attempts to slowly burn away the lands like a dragon of calamities. Take heed my Liege, you must get to shelter quickly, lest the Solar Primus conquer you in its all omnicidal gaze of fury.
You quickly accepted your internal thought's advice and decided to quickly get to shelter from the (non-painful) blistering heat. As you quickly flipped yourself and stood up in one swooping manner, you looked around to find that you were in the most peculiar of landscapes.
Immediately you can tell that you were in what seemed to be a desert landscape, complete with gigantic rolling dunes and sweeping sands. However, the strangest thing to note is that the "so-called sands" were all incredibly bleached white. On further inspection as you crouched down to look at it, (you attempted to grab some but the sheer heat from just hovering your hand above it made you decide that it was NOT a good idea to touch it). It made you realise that it looked less grainy and more fine. Throwing a metal rod at it made you realise how the sand bursted in the air after impact and how it moved made it seem more like bone-powder than actual silicon sand.
You also noted that the rod basically started to slowly corrode from the sheer heat. If it could do that to metal, you figured that it wouldn't be a good idea to walk in that "sand" as well for your wellbeing. It seemed like the only thing stopping you from evaporating against the white ashy sand was the structure you woke up on. Indeed, you woke up on what seemed to be a half-buried vehicle, judging from its metallic surface and the hollow sounds as you knocked against it.
After checking your footing, you looked up and gazed upon the horizon to see if there's anything notable to observe, whether to better discern your situation or even a landmark to mark a possible next direction on where to go. After a few sweeps of active perception, you only spotted two notable things.
One, was that the sky was entirely pitch black, as if the entire sky was covered in pitch tar. The most strangest part was that it was entirely black despite the fact there was a blazing white sun right above you, although as you eyed it closer. You realised the sky was just that naturally dark, as gazing near the sun only saw that the sky close to it simply lightened up to a darkest grey tone at most. This only cemented that wherever you are, was a truly alien landscape.
The second was the gigantic quadruped creature on the horizon. It was so incredibly enormous that even in the hazy distant horizon it was tall enough that you could compare it to the distant sightings of mountains, even then, judging by how far you saw it away (you couldn't even make a rough gauge, but the only thing you can tell is that it was immeasurably far), it was likely even taller than the steepest of mountains.
====[PLAYER PART]
War. Violence. Bloodshed
You were found in those pits, stuck in an endless loop fighting one after another. Your fists smashed face after face like grindstone, until even the flesh of your knuckles were slowly scraped away to reveal the blooded white of bone itself.
When you were offered a deal by those strange beings, claiming power and glory so long as you served them in this one final mission, you took it. Many of your fellow soldiers would've baulked at such an offer. Whether young and naive, claiming you a traitor, or old and weary, pitying you for becoming a weapon, both asking 'why?'
But you know it in your heart. It's why you kept fighting in those pits. Violence sings to you, like a grand symphony
Was it any wonder you took that deal?
Yet as you wake up, a memory surfaced of one of the many stories the nuns would tell you in the orphanage, to instil fear of Gods wrath.
She told you and the children about Hell, unlike other caretakers who would tell you about its fiery pits, about how demons and monsters would torture you under boiling blood.
That old nun, one with folded withering skin and cataracts-filled eyes,she told you of a Hell that was not of pits or of devilish punishments, It would be one of suffering suited towards the person tailored to their soul. One so drenched with sin and evil, It would be torment not out of any excessive pain or torture, punishment would echo into their character, a prison made out of their own flaws and misery. To an evil man it could be everything they want, but twisted to reveal the cracks and hollow shell that their desires were in heart.
As a child, you had been frightened but also confused, and growing up one would look back on those memories as those of fear mongering attempts to strike deeper.
Now, as you wake up, laid upon a tarp covering a stack of crates listening to air sirens scream across the landscape as shells whistle, all punctuated by a staccato of thunderous gunfire and roaring men..
Looking up to blackened skies, only barely lit by molten lead and fiery corpses of crashing planes. A sky that overlooked a landscape utterly mutilated by trenches, trenches that you could not see for you were stuck within them, but in your heart knew that carved deep and wide, an endless labyrinth etched unto the ground.
A thought could be made as you looked to yourself, having been dressed once more in the overalls of conscripts, then looked around, and saw dead men walking in uncannily copied uniforms.
Literal dead men, for many of them were pale as corpses or bore marks of war upon them.
One man lugged a crate of ammunition as guts dripped out from the cavity of his chest, leaving a trail of sinew and viscera unto the dirtied planks on the ground. Another continued to fire shots with his rifle against unseen enemies, aiming his rifle despite a lack of head as if decapitation could not stop a puppet's strings.
As you look around you, you realise that if this was Hell.
You feel right where you belong, hear the blood sing once more..
However, you could not linger within your thoughts for long, as someone grabbed your shoulder with an iron grip, turning you around as they shoved a rifle in your hands (It was a Mannlicher-Carcano model, how did they have one here?). The person who grabbed you was a burned man, one whose fires charred his flesh right to bone. You could see it on his face, as only bare bits of charred muscle stuck to charred cheek bones. What was left was a red-stained skull that looked to you with hollow eye-holes and clattering teeth that emitted the most foul of miasma.
[FYSICAL(PASSIVE LEGENDARY): SUCCESS]Your body's instincts screamed as you felt the stench of a rotted, burned corpse wafted upon you as it screamed with torn out chords so close to your face.
"CORPSE! CORPSE!"
"ROT DISEASE! DEAD!"
"VOMIT! PUKE! HURL! EXPUNGE THE ROTTING POISON"
Your body demands to hurl with every screech of your nerves, primal instincts that demand you escape from the dead for it fears the plague that may come upon you.
However you are a soldier, you have seen friend and foe die upon the literal pilefold. You forced yourself to walk across rotting corpses floating upon bog trenches under the orders of uncaring commanders. You have experienced war at its worst.
You have experienced Hell on Earth, you can survive against Hell itself. So shut up half-light, let us face these mockeries head-on.
Bracing yourself and shoving down your urge to vomit after facing such rotting stench, you listened to the clattering and prattling of this burned man. Glancing down at their chest pocket where you saw their rank pins, you weren't familiar but you could tell somewhat they must've been at least a Caprole or even a Sergente that led the men in the muddy trenches themselves.
His chattering however could not be understood, under its raspy and croaking shouts, words he spoke were utter gibberish. Yet somehow as you blanked out, you realised that you understood the concepts and meanings once you stopped trying to parse it and let it simply flow over you.
Death to Traitors. Orders to Move. March March March Soldato.
After that he grabbed your collar and shoved you outside the small tent, yelling to move faster. You could have resisted, fought back, but it wouldn't have been a good idea. After all, you know what happens to those who argued against their superiors and attempted to rebel..
Bang.
Moving on, you entered the trenches of charging soldiers, so packed full of men running for distant battlefields that you felt like you could drown within their discordant marching. As you were carried away by the crowd of soldiers, your ankle was snagged by something that pulled you away from the flow and into a diverging trench.
Looking down you saw someone crawling on the ground, his face utterly deformed by chemical burns and whose eyes yellowed with pus and blood swelling together. You knew a victim of mustard gas when you saw one.
You did not understand his words as he tugged onto you with bloody tears weeping from eyes that were far more cognizant than others you've glanced at (at least those who STILL had eyes at least).
You knew the meaning behind them though. He begged, just like those who were barely even adults. Juvenile drafters or worse, naive volunteers who screamed for their mothers or loved ones, delirious minds who were so engulfed with pain they distort as they sob and beg for relief.
You know what you had to do, don't you? You had to give him mercy, and you did so with a quick shot.
After lowering your rifle, you looked around and spotted a crate full of gas masks. You knew what terrors would lie awake above you, you wouldn't get lucky this time (or can you?). As you strapped the mask on, you wandered the trenches that spun away from the main path, now untethered by the frantic crowd, an opportunity arose to properly equip yourself.
As you packed yourself to the brim with whatever equipment you felt necessary, you wondered where else to go. At first you wandered the trenches until you found what seemed to be a communications outpost, it had the antennas used for those fancy radios.
It was abandoned, but that was a positive for you as you ransacked the drawers and desks for any possible information on where you were. You realised that everything was utter gibberish. The documents and folders of reports were sheer nonsense, you couldn't even understand the meaning behind their random scribbles. At least there were maps and radios, however the radio when turned on only had droning sounds that told of coordinates and reports of scouts, understandable but not helpful.
The maps were not an exception though, despite looking over them, the only map that made sense was one of the current battlefield. It was a strange one, as it had various blue markers dotted all over, and they seemed to move in real time. Otherwise, while seemingly accurate, the rest of the maps were pure nonsense. They were just more maps of seemingly other battlefields. There weren't any strategic ones drawn for the region or wherever anything took place. Any map that you think was close enough were utterly blurry messes or random scribbles that you couldn't make any proper heads or tails of.
[WHEEL OF FORTUNE(GODLY): SUCCESS] You needed a lucky save just to get you out, fortunately for you here's a freebie
As you sat in a chair, utterly exhausted after exhausting every possible bit of info that you could find within this outpost. You reclined on the chair as you wondered how you could ever get out of this hellhole. Thoughts and worry about becoming just like those undead soldiers, forced to constant war and decaying over time. That's when it hit you.
Literally.
From the sky rained flyers and pieces of papers. One of them managed to slap you in the face as it landed. You'd curse your luck but opted to look at the paper to see what exactly it is..
The paper was strange, it folds and flaps like paper, but it was shiny and shimmered as you turned it around. It didn't help that it was incredibly smooth, like some sort of plastic paper? Whatever the case it definitely was hard to tear at least.
Reading it, you realised the text was also utterly confusing to understand, you almost threw it out of anger when you realised that as you swiped it, the text changed entirely in its language, vaguely recognizing the current text as those cursive ones of the Ottomans, you continued to flick the plastic paper until the text transmogrified into one you recognised.
It was hard to read, like reading a very strange dialect of Italian, but you eventually understood the context. It seemed like a primer or introduction to new inhabitants of Hell.
Well you were in the right place at least.
Skimming over the text, it essentially mournfully welcomes any new inhabitants to Hell, claiming that the trenches or battlefield they were in was part of a "ring of circle" or essentially a sub-region within Hell that was called Violence against Man (How descriptive), claiming they were sent here for sins of killing, most likely due to being a soldier in war.
After more parsing and prose about redemption and working to a better future, it claimed that they only needed to follow the beacon in the distance to arrive in one of the closest "Cities" that would help welcome them and allow them to at least turn a new leaf in life. It also claimed that it only appears after you've read it, since apparently they used to be seen by all, but it often resulted in being sieged by the same mindless soldiers that you currently were in the same trenches with.
Looking up, you did indeed see a suddenly new distant bright beacon within the horizon, shimmering into view like a mirage turned reality.
Now that it was done with, you had a goal now at least to get to. You just needed to figure out what to do to actually get there.
You could try simply hoofing it out, but you weren't sure how you'd get that far, you could try getting a vehicle, but that may take some time (do we even know how to drive man?), and finally try gathering anyone else who is not as mindless as these folks, at worst more hands makes escaping easier, and at best you might even find a pilot, after all someone had to be flying those planes.
=======[PLAYER PART]
"HALT! STOP THERE SCUM!"
"GET BACK HERE!"
'SCREECHING'
You moved as hard as your feet could push you off the ground. Each step clambering for more ground to put between you and your pursuers.
You didn't know the details as everything was so blurry, but all you could remember was waking up in a strange city that was constantly permeated with a bright violet glow while having giant thunderous dry winds swirling high above the city. With most of all what seemed to be various forms of purple Tieflings intermingling with various strange human-like people.
Confused and in delirium, you stumbled around as you figured out where you were. Then that's when it all started.
After you woke up on the streets of the strange velvet city and took an hour of walking around, you eventually found an intersection or an outpost, it was like a checkpoint that was the entrance that opened the giant metallic walls surrounding the district that you seemed to be in. Walls that towered high into the clouds.
The checkpoint had guards-who were garbed in metal chest plates and strange helmets that had glowing visors covering their face-guarding it without any weapon on sight. However the strangest part of the gate was that it seemed to have force fields on both sides, ones that could disintegrate beings into ash and then nothingness as you saw from the fate of a rat that attempted to cross the gate.
Worried, you quickly turned around as you tried to get back but immediately was pushed back by the growing crowd of people behind you. With no luck of pushing back without drawing attention to yourself. You quickly fell into line with the rest of the crossing citizens.
The force field of the gate dissipated to let a person come in before they would be let on the other side, repeating one by one until it was finally your turn. You hesitated for a moment, which gave a guard-one that seemed to be an orange dragonborn-take out a strange mace out of nowhere and pushed it against your back. Immediately you felt a shock of pain as literal electricity shocked you, quickly forcing you to stumble forward into the post
You looked around as two guards-both in face concealing helmets-surrounded you as they inspected you like the rest that came before you. One had a clipboard as he seemed to be tallying the various people that came in and out, while the other had a strange stick that he waved around you.
"Just a standard inspection citizen, just follow along. We already got a lot on our hands with the various incidents sparking around due to that damn witch"
"Mhm, this'll just take a mo-" The one with the stick was interrupted as his stick immediately blared out intensively with that shrieking blaring noise. The two went still in shock as the one with the stick immediately swept along it with his other hand as a strange glowing box with text inside-one you couldn't recognize-appeared floating in the air.
"Wait, you're a-how did a human get here"
The two slowly turned to you with a menacing aura as the one with the stick grabbed you by the hand roughly as he stopped you from getting away despite your resistance, while the other raised a set of spiked manacles as he slowly approached you.
"You're coming with us scum, we don't know how you got here but the Count of Mirrors will get every last scrap for your mind"
You didn't know what's going on exactly, but all you knew was that your fate was going to be a grim fate if you didn't do anything to escape.
With that in mind you relied on rote and hoped you can summon up a proper cantrip this time. Fortunately with your newly gifted status, what once blurred memories of texts and incantations were renewed in fresh ink on your mind
[PSYCHE(IMPOSSIBLE):SUCCESS(?)] Recalling upon your magical tutelage with renewed clarity. You would have drawn upon the ambient energy of the lands before transmuting it into a mutable force for you to pour into formulas so you may create spells to cast against your enemies, the complex process those of the arcane arts like wizards would do.
However the fact was that in that moment you realised you were most likely in this Hell reality as the Gods your parlayed claimed, while you were not sure if this was the realms of Tyrannical Devils that call their home Hell or of entirely different sorts. All that you know was that you weren't sure if it was a good idea to draw upon the mana that was present within a realm that called itself Hell. You knew there was some way to do so without gaining corruption as you heard about the Crusade to fight back against the incursions located far north in the Worldwound but you didn't know exactly the way to do so.
Fortunately it seemed that the deal you made with your would-be patrons has resulted in you gaining a large amount of energy buried deep inside you, which reminded you of the Sorcerers you heard about. Having an alternative source of magic to draw upon, you grasped upon it and poured it into your usual formulas to create your go-to attack cantrip.
If drawing upon magic from the ambient air was like grabbing water with a pail, to draw from your newly discovered inner reserves was like opening the waterlock of a river that suddenly spat out rapid currents of water that fell out at top speeds. Rapidly filling your formulas.
[INTELLECT(10):FAILURE] You struggled to restrain the tidal stream of mana that was flowing through you. It was so potent that for a brief moment you could feel your body heating up as it glowed brightly, illuminating the room like the sun as it blinded everyone near you.
Despite your attempts, no matter how much you tried, you just didn't have the experience of directing this amount of magic. You were only a person attempting to stop a river. In the end, in order to not blow yourself up, you let go as the brief deluge of energy that you let out was fully immersed into the formula without any contract, purposely overloading it.
Immediately the entire room was lit with a gigantic screeching sound, barely sounding like a bell and rather felt more the screech of a banshee. It echoed across not just the gate, but also the entire streets. People screamed and convulsed on the floor as they tried to cover their ears but the bell was not physical but vibrated across their souls. Entire windows and glass shattered in a giant spray of shattered shards, and the gate itself buzzed heavily as it blew up and broke down.
It was for a brief moment but everyone within the street you were on was now on the ground kneeling in pain, many of them bleeding from the glass shards embedded on their body. The guards were about to arrest you were just still bodies on the floor, you weren't even sure if they were alive or not. Only you were there, standing in shock as the sounds of air horns and strange screams echoed across the air. Knowing nothing, you immediately started running.
That led you up to the present, running across the streets as you ducked and weaved past alleyways while demonic guards chased after you. You were honestly glad that you could not feel tired as it was possible you would've stopped dead and been piled upon long ago.
However you felt like a rat chased by cats in a maze, a maze of their own making. Sooner or later you were likely to be caught dead eventually.
That's when you felt yourself grabbed, you whelped as you found yourself being dragged into a hole in an alleyway wall before the wall immediately repaired itself in front of you brick by brick. You were about to resist and fight your capture when they immediately grabbed your mouth and she (now hearing her voice) shushed you.
"Do not make a sound or they'll find you. I am not entirely sure if I can fight them all off here "
It was a person and from the sounds of it, it was your new saviour. Not picky for who your newly made allies would be, you acquiesced and stayed silent as you heard the sounds of the demonic guards searching the area for you before marching away to find you elsewhere.
Once the both of you couldn't hear anyone else, she took her hand off your mouth as she grabbed a string above you as it caused a small lantern in the ceiling to light up immediately, must be magic.
"Alright the coast is clear, I'm surprised to see another human around here to be honest, much less one that not only caused a good mess in their city but did it so recently judging by how utterly normal you look"
You turned around and found that you were met face to face with a strange woman who had what seemed to be a bird-like mask that was literally stitched to her face by red string. The mask had a long beak, about a hand-long and its eye-holed had dark red glass placed on top so you couldn't see past them. Otherwise she had short neck-long black hair mixed with crimson red trails on her bangs with most of it slickly swept back except for a few trails that stuck out determinedly.
Her outfit was a strange outfit better fit for a Ball dance as it was a long-sleeved red gown that was clearly made of fine quality, although it didn't seem to be very restrictive and only went down to her knees. Completing her dress was her silk white gloves and flat shoes-at least she didn't seem to be running around in high heels.
All in all despite the strange mask, she seemed to look more like a noblewoman than any would be saviour you would expect. Only other strange thing was that her outfit seemed to hide her entire body with no patch of skin in sight.
"There something wrong? Ah, it's about the dress isn't it. Don't worry I get it all the time, but I prefer to be dead in style than alive and grunge as the new ones would say it. Although I am already dead so there's no problem there" she explained before making small laughter from her own joke "In any case I suppose introductions would be i
n order. You may call me Nikolina, may I know the name of the newcomer?"
===[PLAYER PART]
[Essel Unit starts in Heresy, but eventually wanders himself into the "Bridge" between Heresy and Dis]
[Meanwhile he passes by various settlements and cities. But he doesn't enter them because of his sensors and conflicting directives due to Call of the Wind]
[REBOOTING CHOM.OS SYSTEM]
[DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING]
[NOTICE: NEW UPDATE DETECTED :NOTICE]
[INSTALL UPDATE? Y/N]
[INSTALLATION CONFIRMED BY ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS]
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: █▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒10% }>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: ████▒▒▒▒▒▒30%}>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: █████▒▒▒▒▒50%}>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: ████████▒▒80%}>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS:██████████100% }>>
⋘ 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎... ⋙
[UPDATE SUCCESSFUL :: >> INITIATING ACTIVE FUNCTIONS]
Your body fully activates.
All sensors activate one by one.
Images of red desert dunes surround you as your visual optics went online.
Starting Auditory receptors received nothing except airy winds that blew through the dunes.
Olfactory Stimulatory Neurons detected a strong and constant sulfuric scent within the air.
Finally your Tactile Sensory Systems felt the intense heat that you quickly located was emanating from the blindingly white sun.
[PASSIVE] [STRENGTH CHECK: 24] The Graphics and Visual overlay quickly went online after the rest of your basic sensors were fully activated and at optimal functions.
Data streamed directly into your active neural system as it quickly translated them into processed information.
Temperature sensors from your Tactile systems quickly denoted that the ambient temperature was reaching a severity of 70 celsius. Far above standard temperatures for humans without protection. However, your insulated systems mean that you will function well under those temperatures without any major loss towards your operating efficiency.
It was clear that you were in the deserts, and while you could not tell with certainty. The current evidence suggests that you were likely successfully sent towards your designated Location.
This meant that you were now brought to Hell. Assigned with new directives and thus purpose. You quickly check for them and bring it out from your memory repositories. Unfortunately your new directives were very bare bones.
>Cycle.TAROT(STRENGTH) Primary Directives
>Uphold Tarot Pact
>Primary Mission Objectives
>Locate and Enter Location:[HELL] <COMPLETED>
>Observe, Explore, and Gather Intel within Location.
>Thrive
>Survive
The Tarot Pact was very vague when the information was sent to you by your new superiors. Attempts to fully scan the orders and directives necessary to uphold it are all barred from you by Kernel-level access, meaning it was blackboxed from you entirely. At the very least you'll know if any of your actions will act against the primary directive or not.
The mission objectives are very free-form, and are incredibly open-ended. As far as you can tell. Aside from entering the mission location, you are simply tasked with gathering intel on Hell and self-improving oneself.
Strangest part is scanning and going through the itinerary. It doesn't seem to necessitate any of the standard directives given to you, especially by your last masters. While you cannot gather concrete proof without first-hand diagnosis with the associated individuals on hand. You seem to be able to disobey your new masters and are given full reign of your functions, judging from the fact that the normal thought corrective algorithms have not triggered when you test it by generating malicious thoughts towards your masters.
It was very surprising how free form it all was. You could easily betray them assuming your hypothesis was correct. Of course there was no need for it and in some way you pride yourself in being the best Essel-Unit there was. Any lesser cyber-units would've Degraded and gone rogue but you are better. You are the prime example of the Old World's knowledge made manifest.
In the end it wasn't the concrete purpose you expected, but you will make do.
You looked outwards to the horizon. There was nothing for you here, and thus you'll follow your next objective. You raised one foot and took your first step as you planted your feet against the hot sand that barely fazed you. With that you started to wander and explore the desert around you.
[FYSICAL(Impossible +|23|): SUCCESS] Your body was built to withstand extreme environmental conditions and your energy intake is optimised to allow you to continue operating without refuelling or intake of any nourishment for weeks. With your new modifications, your current calculations estimate it would take at least months before you would need to resupply.
You continued to walk across the desert you found yourself in. Step by step, you traversed across dozens of miles on end with each passing of the day (at least by 24 hours, you've noted that the sun was up far longer than the standard rotation cycle, with based on your internal clock would be stay in the sun for 36 hours before setting for 12). Only stopping for brief rests under the shade of ravines and various natural caves you've found, and to escape the heat when it reaches high above your tolerance levels when the sun reaches its highest peak in the sky.
The journey is hard and dangerous, not only with the eroding sand storms and the biting winds, but also the constant heat that forces you to monitor your internal systems to prevent overheating. In the end you prevailed across your entire journey, because you were simply built differently.
Your journey takes across multiple cycles of 24 hours. Each step was catalogued and recorded under your newly installed data bank hard drives with seemingly infinite data space. Using the program that came pre-installed with it, you were able to create a highly detailed map around every step of your journey. Complete with each landmark, not only natural but also the various ruins that you've found
Signs of civilization. It was a strange thing to find just as much as you were surprised by the lack of people in your journeys, but it seemed that your database's entry on Hell was inaccurate (Which was fair since this was likely from an entire alternative reality from your own). In any case those signs of civilizations were often ruins, from sanded down scaffoldings of shelter to bleached remains of battlefield equipment.
Majority of these were far too ruined to be of any merit or use. The ruined shelter could at most provide shelter from the heat and seemed to be stripped of any of its internal furnishings, and the remains of dead corpses and what seemed to be macro-sized mechanical walkers all seemed to have been looted away. With the mechanical walkers having most of their insides too destroyed by the constant eroding of the sand coming within them.
[MOTORICS(IMPOSSIBLE[18]): SUCCESS] Although you were not always so unfortunate with your findings. Sometimes you'd find a series of settlements that seems to have been recently assaulted with the blood still staining the floors and the corpses fresh. You analysed the surroundings and bodies only to conclude it was simply a series of mundane raids.
[MOTORICS(LEGENDARY): FAILURE] You check the corpses further, however their corpses were not only dismembered or torn apart but they seem to have been dead for a long amount of time. So sadly they are still corpses. With no reason to be hasty or any time-sensitive objectives. You used your strength to build sand-buried graves for each of the bodies, as well as using pieces of torn wood to mark their graves for others to find. Laying them to rest was the least you could do and would comply under your behavioural protocols
After laying the corpses to rest, you scavenged around the raided homes. While it was usually picked clean as expected, you were surprised that with a more finer touch, you were able to find various supplies from canned rations and bottled water to even pressurised suits similar to the "Haz-mah suits" that were used to explore the Blue Wastelands. The rations were quickly consumed to restore your nutritional levels to peak levels and while it took fiddling around. You were able to wear these suits and found they helped incredibly in traversing the extremely hot desert, even allowing you to continue travelling even when the temperature levels reach far above your standard condition rates. The suits however took power but most of the places where you were able to find supplies had cells that you used to recharge them. The suit took some time to fit in, but it was spacious enough that you were able to fit your two lower arms within it.
Aside from those supplies you also found a few primitive melee weapons, with you taking a [INSERT PREFERRED WEAPON] with you. It was not one of the more Archaeotech weapons that the nobles and elite had in your world, but it would suffice.
While you still didn't find any supplies or loot within the battlefields you crossed. You were able to find a few mechanical walkers with intact enough energy cells and were able to jumpstart their systems. Sadly the walkers' systems were heavily eroded and thus couldn't walk again (you didn't even know how to walk them even if you could), and checking their hard drives and Black boxes, majority of the data was incredibly corrupted and what's left was in an entirely different language that couldn't understand. In any case you copied them over in a read-only mode as to prevent yourself from catching any malware. The most important find were the cells, as you were able to use them to not only recharge your own reserves, but also the cells used for your environmental soft-suit.
With all this help your journey has easily surpassed the estimate of months and your journey extended far longer. You recall checking a day before and your internal clock has denoted that your journey lasted around a year and a half (based on years being a collection of days with 24 hours in each). Yet your supplies and systems meant you could continue moving for at least a month more. It seemed like a long time to many, but for you? It was just a drop in the many years that you were used to in wandering.
Fortunately for you, when the new day came. You realised that you didn't have to wander any longer.
As you continued wandering the wastes, you immediately saw something within the distance. Unfortunately your optics could not zoom in close enough to see anything, at most you could only see a giant bird-like shape.
Fortunately for you, it was getting bigger. The reason it was getting bigger was that it descended down on you, quickly.
Immediately you started to get away as the sand blew all over, creating a brief yet heavy sand storm as what seemed to be a flying heavy metal machine descended onto the ground. Thankfully you got away before it could squish you.
You watched from behind a rock to watch as the storm descended to reveal a strange metallic aircraft. Unlike most aircrafts which had a bird-like shape with static wings. It seemed more like those helicopters that your database had few info on. However, unlike most which place the blades on the top, it seemed to place the blades on the sides. That and its sleeker appearance, overall giving it an insectoid look to it.
You attempted to hide, unknown of the desires of the people inside, but as they quickly exited from a descending ramp behind it, some of them quickly pointed at your direction and shouted. It was now your choice, would you run to the deserts presuming these would be enemies against you, do you go to them with trust and parlay with strangers, or do you attack them head on in hopes of commandeering their vehicle.
@Naron
@Redking0380
@B1T5W4K3
@LucidProp
@Zedalb
@rush99999
@Noob5674
@Witherbrine26
@catDreaming
Naftali, Enigmatic Struggle
"There was once a young fairy, born under the mildew of spring, alongside her kin as the spring flowers blossomed. Coming to the world, she was of fairest stance and appearance, skin soft like honey dew, graceful mane that was green like the verdant grass that flowed down like a lovely gown upon her crown, and finally, wings as well as eyes that glittered like emeralds found in the mountain hikes.
Upon her blossom, she was noted to be of a more demure stature compared to her kin that was made alongside her, compared to those who sing of the graceful winds that heralded spring or the blossoming fields of sunflowers, she was of the demure whistles of leaves singing from the tree tops. Thus when Nimue came to greet the new Fae of Spring, she gifted her the humble name of Leaf.
Even with such a name, Leaf knew in her heart she was destined for greater thi-"
A small rock slammed against a cold iron-cage, causing a huge clanging sound as the cage swung wildly within place. The green fairy inside screamed as she clung to the base of the cage as hard as she could while the one who threw the spoon, a gangly gargoyle that wore a theatre mask of comedy, cackled at her misfortune.
Eventually as the cage eventually subsided with its swinging, with heavy breathes as the fairy steadied herself both mentally and physically. She turned to the masked gargoyle with a hateful gaze as she drew an accusing finger at the monster.
"You absolute fiend, what was that?! I was giving a story. Do people here not have manners to not only disturb me but risk harm for a storyteller midway into their own tales? You even asked for one!"
The gargoyle's mask shifted into a wrathful expression as its head twisted 90 degrees to the right and back as it leaned back on its wooden chair, silence filled the space between the two briefly. The only sounds were the muted sounds from the pelting rainfall from outside.
"Sure asked for a tale, but that ain't no tale. You just giving me a yap about yourself, you a bloody narc that's what"
"Well obviously a story teller has to give their own introductions no? It is proper decorum to introduce our titles and what we should be referred to by others, what better way than for a story?"
The Gargoyle only chortled in response. The fairy gave a flat pensive look before she sighed as she dusted off her leaf-stitched dress.
"Alright very well, I can do with another story, perhaps one from the arabian sa-"
"Nah"
The fairy blanched at the Gargoyle with frustration "Excuse me?"
The gargoyle slowly inched towards the cage in an intimidating swagger, as if it was a predator attempting to corner its prey. Although not much effect was made as the green diminutive fairy only raised an eyebrow in response, stoic towards any attempts at intimidation.
"Nah stories are boring, figure I'd try hearing one since master blabbers and obsesses over them. But figured now they just dumb. More fun to make a pansy Fae fear for their life"
The green fairy only scrunched her face in confusion for a briefest of moments before her face widened in shock, she immediately started cowering in fear as the Gargoyle slowly raised the cage higher and higher in a steeper angle.
The fairy quickly stammered in wordless flurry of squeaks and gasps of fear as she clung to the non-iron base of the Cage with all her will, her fingernails digging hard into the old wood as she attempting to climb the base turned-wall for her, her feet digging up in futile panic. As she slowly slid to the bottom, down to the iron bars, she quickly attempted to flutter her wings to fly as soon as possible.
Only the wings were slashed and tattered with rotting sepsis preventing its healing.
Eventually she could not delay fate any longer, and she slowly slid downwards to the iron bars, screaming and pleading all the way down.
"No no no! PLEASE STOP! I BEG FORGIVENESS PLEASE! NO MORE IRON PLEASE! SPARE ME-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
She screamed, howled, and bawled till her throat became hoarse as her feet were forced to stand against the iron bars. As soon as the iron touched her soles, the flesh touching the iron immediately started to burn and boil.
It wasn't the clean burn of fire, one that charred flesh until it became carbon. It was the chemical burn that tortured and burned with malice, eliciting foul smells as it burned as well as churned the flesh. Sepsis boiling and rot toiling as it butchered every layer of flesh with utter hateful sadism. It was as if her feet were not only being brought under the whitest of bonfires, it was as if it was being subsumed into a melting sludge while it rotted not only the physical body but even wracking pain throughout the pains of her soul as well.
It was pain beyond measure, one that only Fae could feel, a pain no other creature could truly begin to understand.
Eventually after a few seconds of heart-wrenching and soul-crushing suffering, the cage was turned back to its normal standing angle as the fairy immediately crawled away from the bars, the soles of her feet now pustules of sepsis mixed with charred carbon with visible black smoke emitting from it. She crawled tiredly to the centre of the cage, furthest from all the iron bars.
The gargoyle made a crackling chortle as it watched the fairy curl up into a fetal-like position as it softly tended to its burnt soles before hissing in pain and crying as softly and quietly as she could.
"Faes" it shook its head "always so pompous, but give it some slags of half-assed forged iron and they cry like babies. Funny things aren't they?" It shook its head in amusement before leaving the small storage room, leaving the fairy alone on the hanging cage
Curled up as it powered through the pain wrecked through every sensation within her body, it struggled to impose herself against the wounds. The rest of her body fought against the iron-stained wounds as it struggled to regenerate them back to her most pristine preferred form, but it took effort and was like the battle of wills for her.
"Hurts so much. Wish I could fix it all" she mumbled softly to herself before her eyes furrowed in more rage as it laid half-flat against the cage's floor "they will figure it out. Make it hurt again so I can't escape. Hate them, hate those damned things" she said with utter malice in her heart. Her heart making a silent vow to ensure a proper Fae's retribution at hand would be made against those who wronged her personally and so deeply.
But retribution would come later, she thought to herself. Only when she was finally free from this prison and given a proper chance to recover, she would turn towards enacting it under an oath taken in the name of the Grudgekeeper.
"Wish I learned how to sing for locks and keys before this. It would have made this a lot easier", but in her mind, she knew that she just needed to wait for the right opportunity. Even without being able to change the nature of callous iron, there was always a way to escape.
That was a promise she made to herself amidst the steady pain as she held herself in a fetal position, attempting to preserve as much strength needed for what's to come.
Eventually an opportunity would come indeed. From the bare peripheral senses, she felt something immensely powerful. Something which potency was only ever felt when she gazed at the most noblest of the Spring fae, perhaps even matching the strength of Nimue's aura herself.
It was power that was raw in its potential, one that would surely grow stronger if it were to be moulded. Her innate sense knew what it was. It was the essence of a great hero. It did not matter whether it was a contemporary or classical one, all she knew was that whatever it was, it was powerful enough to be a hero of the greatest of tales, it was also one that lacked that signature scent of demons and their primordial masters.
"Finally" she weakly said "I hope you are a prisoner as well" she mumbled to herself.
As the aura grew stronger and stronger. She allowed herself to use wisps of her magic to create soft winds, soft enough to not be noticed by the stony demons she encountered so far. So she may hear beyond her normal range.
"Wonder what this damn brat came from"
"I dunno, somehow clinged to the ship's hull like a barnacle, heh heh, barnacle"
"Figures, probably need to bring it to the Cap, hopefully we get to the eat this thing, would taste pretty good, smells like it at least"
"Heh heh yeah, be good as a roast true"
As she gathered info from the eavesdropped conversation, she realised it was a castaway, one soon to be eaten, and judging from the lack of sounds from it, probably unconscious as well.
This was the opportunity she was waiting for.
Quickly as her mind dashed like the zephyr's gale, she proceeded to gather all her memories of one of the superiors she recalled within her stay in the ship, a hulking beast made between a mix of cobbled up coral and sea stones. Shaped like a mockery of a serpentine dragon. Imprinting her memories upon a constructed form, she imbued it with enough of her magic as well as emotions to give it enough form.
And all that was left to let it out and allow it to bring the hero right towards her.
"You two!"
"Ah! Boss Seadrake! R-reporting for duty!"
"Yeah yeah boss!"
Illusions are illusive and flighty creations, not truly of this world, phantoms that could only fool some of the senses for many of those who practise such a craft.
"Hmm. I see, what do you gotss there?"
"Oh this? Some random kid thing, looks to be a Sinner maybe. Hoping we could get someone to let us eat it"
"Yeah yeah! Looks it could be real tasty!"
"Hrmm, food you ssssay? Leave it in the pantry over there?"
"Eh? You sure boss?..."
To most, Illusions are things that are easily dispelled with a keen will and focused mind, one that if you could properly touch it, would dissipate like a mirage.
Fortunately for her.
"Oh Back-talking me I sssseee huh?"
SPLAT! A wet gurgling sound was heard outside as another one screamed behind the door
"O-Oh Lucifer. You squeezed his head off Boss!"
"Indeed. Now follow my orderssss if you don't want to be next"
"Y-yes boss!'
Her special nature as a storyteller meant her illusions were far more rooted in the waking world.
The stony imp hurriedly opened the door to her room, ignorant of her from atop, and threw its catch onto the pantry floor before shutting the door as it ran away in fear. Unknowing of her illusion eventually dissipating back to motes of mildew.
She looked closely at the actually not child below her. "Dumb imps, think anything smooth and fair looking is a kid" she thought to herself. It was a strange person, one of vulpine traits and albino all over, the most notable traits were the strange head-tails flowing down from its head with golden rings over them, and the fashionable suit adorning him (now heavily soaked and dirtied from the ocean's wrathful water)
"Vulpine? No no…not a Fae" she mumbled to herself, as she slowly increased her fortitude against the iron-stained pain as she gathered the will to be more presentable towards her new roommate. "Not a sinner as well, whatever he is, I hope he knows how to open cages" she says as she weakly hoists herself into a sitting position upon the floor. Careful to lay her legs down as to allow her still-rotting soles to not touch anything.
Eventually she saw the young man was waking up, and as she adjusted herself once more, hiding as much of her wounded status as possible. She eventually presented herself to the waking vulpine albino man.
Upon her blossom, she was noted to be of a more demure stature compared to her kin that was made alongside her, compared to those who sing of the graceful winds that heralded spring or the blossoming fields of sunflowers, she was of the demure whistles of leaves singing from the tree tops. Thus when Nimue came to greet the new Fae of Spring, she gifted her the humble name of Leaf.
Even with such a name, Leaf knew in her heart she was destined for greater thi-"
A small rock slammed against a cold iron-cage, causing a huge clanging sound as the cage swung wildly within place. The green fairy inside screamed as she clung to the base of the cage as hard as she could while the one who threw the spoon, a gangly gargoyle that wore a theatre mask of comedy, cackled at her misfortune.
Eventually as the cage eventually subsided with its swinging, with heavy breathes as the fairy steadied herself both mentally and physically. She turned to the masked gargoyle with a hateful gaze as she drew an accusing finger at the monster.
"You absolute fiend, what was that?! I was giving a story. Do people here not have manners to not only disturb me but risk harm for a storyteller midway into their own tales? You even asked for one!"
The gargoyle's mask shifted into a wrathful expression as its head twisted 90 degrees to the right and back as it leaned back on its wooden chair, silence filled the space between the two briefly. The only sounds were the muted sounds from the pelting rainfall from outside.
"Sure asked for a tale, but that ain't no tale. You just giving me a yap about yourself, you a bloody narc that's what"
"Well obviously a story teller has to give their own introductions no? It is proper decorum to introduce our titles and what we should be referred to by others, what better way than for a story?"
The Gargoyle only chortled in response. The fairy gave a flat pensive look before she sighed as she dusted off her leaf-stitched dress.
"Alright very well, I can do with another story, perhaps one from the arabian sa-"
"Nah"
The fairy blanched at the Gargoyle with frustration "Excuse me?"
The gargoyle slowly inched towards the cage in an intimidating swagger, as if it was a predator attempting to corner its prey. Although not much effect was made as the green diminutive fairy only raised an eyebrow in response, stoic towards any attempts at intimidation.
"Nah stories are boring, figure I'd try hearing one since master blabbers and obsesses over them. But figured now they just dumb. More fun to make a pansy Fae fear for their life"
The green fairy only scrunched her face in confusion for a briefest of moments before her face widened in shock, she immediately started cowering in fear as the Gargoyle slowly raised the cage higher and higher in a steeper angle.
The fairy quickly stammered in wordless flurry of squeaks and gasps of fear as she clung to the non-iron base of the Cage with all her will, her fingernails digging hard into the old wood as she attempting to climb the base turned-wall for her, her feet digging up in futile panic. As she slowly slid to the bottom, down to the iron bars, she quickly attempted to flutter her wings to fly as soon as possible.
Only the wings were slashed and tattered with rotting sepsis preventing its healing.
Eventually she could not delay fate any longer, and she slowly slid downwards to the iron bars, screaming and pleading all the way down.
"No no no! PLEASE STOP! I BEG FORGIVENESS PLEASE! NO MORE IRON PLEASE! SPARE ME-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"
She screamed, howled, and bawled till her throat became hoarse as her feet were forced to stand against the iron bars. As soon as the iron touched her soles, the flesh touching the iron immediately started to burn and boil.
It wasn't the clean burn of fire, one that charred flesh until it became carbon. It was the chemical burn that tortured and burned with malice, eliciting foul smells as it burned as well as churned the flesh. Sepsis boiling and rot toiling as it butchered every layer of flesh with utter hateful sadism. It was as if her feet were not only being brought under the whitest of bonfires, it was as if it was being subsumed into a melting sludge while it rotted not only the physical body but even wracking pain throughout the pains of her soul as well.
It was pain beyond measure, one that only Fae could feel, a pain no other creature could truly begin to understand.
Eventually after a few seconds of heart-wrenching and soul-crushing suffering, the cage was turned back to its normal standing angle as the fairy immediately crawled away from the bars, the soles of her feet now pustules of sepsis mixed with charred carbon with visible black smoke emitting from it. She crawled tiredly to the centre of the cage, furthest from all the iron bars.
The gargoyle made a crackling chortle as it watched the fairy curl up into a fetal-like position as it softly tended to its burnt soles before hissing in pain and crying as softly and quietly as she could.
"Faes" it shook its head "always so pompous, but give it some slags of half-assed forged iron and they cry like babies. Funny things aren't they?" It shook its head in amusement before leaving the small storage room, leaving the fairy alone on the hanging cage
Curled up as it powered through the pain wrecked through every sensation within her body, it struggled to impose herself against the wounds. The rest of her body fought against the iron-stained wounds as it struggled to regenerate them back to her most pristine preferred form, but it took effort and was like the battle of wills for her.
"Hurts so much. Wish I could fix it all" she mumbled softly to herself before her eyes furrowed in more rage as it laid half-flat against the cage's floor "they will figure it out. Make it hurt again so I can't escape. Hate them, hate those damned things" she said with utter malice in her heart. Her heart making a silent vow to ensure a proper Fae's retribution at hand would be made against those who wronged her personally and so deeply.
But retribution would come later, she thought to herself. Only when she was finally free from this prison and given a proper chance to recover, she would turn towards enacting it under an oath taken in the name of the Grudgekeeper.
"Wish I learned how to sing for locks and keys before this. It would have made this a lot easier", but in her mind, she knew that she just needed to wait for the right opportunity. Even without being able to change the nature of callous iron, there was always a way to escape.
That was a promise she made to herself amidst the steady pain as she held herself in a fetal position, attempting to preserve as much strength needed for what's to come.
Eventually an opportunity would come indeed. From the bare peripheral senses, she felt something immensely powerful. Something which potency was only ever felt when she gazed at the most noblest of the Spring fae, perhaps even matching the strength of Nimue's aura herself.
It was power that was raw in its potential, one that would surely grow stronger if it were to be moulded. Her innate sense knew what it was. It was the essence of a great hero. It did not matter whether it was a contemporary or classical one, all she knew was that whatever it was, it was powerful enough to be a hero of the greatest of tales, it was also one that lacked that signature scent of demons and their primordial masters.
"Finally" she weakly said "I hope you are a prisoner as well" she mumbled to herself.
As the aura grew stronger and stronger. She allowed herself to use wisps of her magic to create soft winds, soft enough to not be noticed by the stony demons she encountered so far. So she may hear beyond her normal range.
"Wonder what this damn brat came from"
"I dunno, somehow clinged to the ship's hull like a barnacle, heh heh, barnacle"
"Figures, probably need to bring it to the Cap, hopefully we get to the eat this thing, would taste pretty good, smells like it at least"
"Heh heh yeah, be good as a roast true"
As she gathered info from the eavesdropped conversation, she realised it was a castaway, one soon to be eaten, and judging from the lack of sounds from it, probably unconscious as well.
This was the opportunity she was waiting for.
Quickly as her mind dashed like the zephyr's gale, she proceeded to gather all her memories of one of the superiors she recalled within her stay in the ship, a hulking beast made between a mix of cobbled up coral and sea stones. Shaped like a mockery of a serpentine dragon. Imprinting her memories upon a constructed form, she imbued it with enough of her magic as well as emotions to give it enough form.
And all that was left to let it out and allow it to bring the hero right towards her.
"You two!"
"Ah! Boss Seadrake! R-reporting for duty!"
"Yeah yeah boss!"
Illusions are illusive and flighty creations, not truly of this world, phantoms that could only fool some of the senses for many of those who practise such a craft.
"Hmm. I see, what do you gotss there?"
"Oh this? Some random kid thing, looks to be a Sinner maybe. Hoping we could get someone to let us eat it"
"Yeah yeah! Looks it could be real tasty!"
"Hrmm, food you ssssay? Leave it in the pantry over there?"
"Eh? You sure boss?..."
To most, Illusions are things that are easily dispelled with a keen will and focused mind, one that if you could properly touch it, would dissipate like a mirage.
Fortunately for her.
"Oh Back-talking me I sssseee huh?"
SPLAT! A wet gurgling sound was heard outside as another one screamed behind the door
"O-Oh Lucifer. You squeezed his head off Boss!"
"Indeed. Now follow my orderssss if you don't want to be next"
"Y-yes boss!'
Her special nature as a storyteller meant her illusions were far more rooted in the waking world.
The stony imp hurriedly opened the door to her room, ignorant of her from atop, and threw its catch onto the pantry floor before shutting the door as it ran away in fear. Unknowing of her illusion eventually dissipating back to motes of mildew.
She looked closely at the actually not child below her. "Dumb imps, think anything smooth and fair looking is a kid" she thought to herself. It was a strange person, one of vulpine traits and albino all over, the most notable traits were the strange head-tails flowing down from its head with golden rings over them, and the fashionable suit adorning him (now heavily soaked and dirtied from the ocean's wrathful water)
"Vulpine? No no…not a Fae" she mumbled to herself, as she slowly increased her fortitude against the iron-stained pain as she gathered the will to be more presentable towards her new roommate. "Not a sinner as well, whatever he is, I hope he knows how to open cages" she says as she weakly hoists herself into a sitting position upon the floor. Careful to lay her legs down as to allow her still-rotting soles to not touch anything.
Eventually she saw the young man was waking up, and as she adjusted herself once more, hiding as much of her wounded status as possible. She eventually presented herself to the waking vulpine albino man.
==== [PLAYER PART]
You stirred from the depths of sleep, closed eyes gave way to blurry vision and muffled sounds. The most immediate sense that came to your mind was the feeling of your entire body being soaking wet as if you were deeply drowned, as well as the feeling of hard and splintered wooden boards that you currently laid upon.
Eventually your waking energy came to you as you sluggishly moved to push yourself off the floor and into a sitting position.
[FYSICAL (MEDIUM): SUCCESS] Your body was assaulted while you were not at the helm. Forced through aquatic trials that tested the limits of your body, yet you persisted enough. Weaker men would not have the strength to get up, and while you are not at the peak of physicality. Your body has endured against the harsh world.
[FYSICAL (FORMIDABLE): FAILURE] Not to say you went through unscathed. Even as you lift yourself up, you can feel the aches of pain that wrecked across your fleshy form. Batterings of bruises, purple and yellow, spotted across the body. With at most a sharp pain when you press against a part of your back (thankfully nowhere near your spine). However they were still painful in the end, and while it won't certainly strip you of the ability to move, it certainly occupied a part of your mind.
Eventually despite the pain, you pushed against it as your senses finally became clear as if the water inside your head fully leaked out, and you slowly gathered your bearings.
"H-hey! Are you finally awake yet? I've been calling out to you for the past thirty-agh-seconds" A squeaky yet quiet voice called out to you from above.
Looking towards the source, you saw that there was an iron cage with a wooden base hanging from the ceiling.
Bracing yourself against a nearby table ("Wa-it, don't push yourself too hard a-alright?!"), you quickly stood back on your two legs and had the cage at eye-level within your sight. There you can see that inside the cage was an incredibly tiny girl, so small she could likely fit in your hand.
From a glance, you can tell she was a very green girl. Her hair was a pale shade of green, her eyes were instead a verdant shade. Her dress looked as if it was fashioned from oak leaves, and even her skin seemed to have a very faint tint of green as well. The only part of her that wasn't green was her clipped wings, which while being clear and shimmering. Her wings also had burnt marks surrounding cuts and holes within it.
Looking across the broader picture, the fairy was definitely not in a good state. Aside from the general state of dirt and fatigue, she also had spots of what seemed to be black burns from poison on her arms and legs. Judging from her reluctance to let them touch any surfaces, they were sensitive and painful to touch.
She looked at you with a mix of an annoyed and amused look before she winced as she adjusted herself so she would not lie down on any burn wounds.
"G-greetings, the title I may let you refer me to is Leafy, that is-" she was about to speak another word before she was locked in place with her mouth still wide open. She quickly glanced at you briefly with narrowed eyes before carrying off without a beat "-the name that my kin in blossom refer to me usually."
[Judge, Jury, and Executioner (Legendary): Success] This is an incredibly quick micro-expression of the suspect your Honor, but the details have been noted by the Jury. In our analysis of the physical evidence before us, we can note that they seemed to stop as soon as they attempted to explain the nature or rationale for them to have the alias attached towards the currently mentioned party. Before continuing on with what we believe to be an alternate reason.
We find it likely that the reason for that is due to the natural principle wherein all parties within the court are automatically under oath to state all testimonies with the utmost veracity to the best of their abilities your Honor. If nothing else the Cross-Examination is concluded.
She took a deep breath, her body briefly glowing as some of the wounds seemed to heal over, but she eventually gasped for air as if she held her breath for too long. The healing aura disappeared but the wounds could still be seen albeit smaller.
"The pain is lessened yet it still remains. At least it's easier to talk now" she says as she adjusted herself to a more comfortable position.
"Alright. I don't know who you are and neither do you to me, however I know that you have this gift that makes others say nothing but the truth to you. In my opinion that is strange as that is due to my belief the truth is quite malleable, but I digress. I don't believe I have much time, so I will make this quick. The information I am giving you is that you are in Hell, yes the realm of the Damned and under the domain of the 'Fallen'-" She says with with one hand raised up and made air quotes with it
"Yes it is the afterlife of punishment and suffering humanity always believed exists, and yes it is quite real in the sense we are in it and yes there are demons and other sorts that like to catch up unlucky souls, dead for humans, and unfortunately living for us. What do they intend to do to us? My guess is that we are likely to be tortured, maimed, tortured, enslaved, and did I mention torture? It's quite grisly from what I heard.
In short, we are not safe here. If it weren't for my efforts, I believe you would be eaten because you were captured by two demons when you were unconscious and they talked about how delicious you are. Yes it's disgusting, foxes don't taste good from my experience, all that ammonia and urea, bleh" she said as let out her tongue, presumably thinking of the taste, before shaking her head.
"I'm getting distracted, the point is that we are in danger and we need to escape from this ship before it takes us deeper into the Fallen, and I don't think even King Oberon is able to pierce the heart of the Fallen's realm. I would have escaped a long time ago but-"
She turned her back to show off her damaged wing and then gestured to her burns "Clipped my wings and tarnished me with iron, so even though I can heal them back, the wounds make it hard. Even if I'm healed-" she waves her hands as she gestured to the iron bars of her cage "Can't get through that, I'm just burning myself again"
She then dropped down and despite hissing and wincing, she moved as close as possible to you without touching the bars "I need you to make a deal with me. You get me out of the cage, and I come with you as a companion as long as I'm willing, which for the time being, my assumption is as long as we're stuck in Hell. I'll have to note that I'm sensing great potential as well as magical essence from you, so if I'm your companion, I will take some of that but that's only because I'm currently hurt and running on fumes. Nothing permanent since it'll grow back. Then once I'm out and up, we'll get off from this ship and-"
She stayed silent as she contemplated on what to say
"Yeah I have no idea what's out there, all I know is that it's not a good idea to go wherever this ship is taking us. Do we have a deal?"
Nanashi, The Faceless Mask
Thunderous Rain Screaming like Hail
The Sounds of Flesh Mulching and Bones Breaking
Screams of Pain and Terror
In the middle of it all
"TALLY HO! FACE JUSTICE THINE VILE SCALLYWAGS!"
An electronically distorted yet feminine voice yollered behind armoured filters as an armoured figure casted in bass swung a giant black Lance twice the size of her, swatting a few gilled pirates out into the air.
The figure's armour was powered, tells from the servers and motors between joints that whirred with each of her swing and dash between driftwood amidst the tumultuous waves, and the yellow glow emanating from a whirring engine deep underneath their chest's golden bronze plates.
Jumping through driftwood as she went for the nearest ship within purview, demolishing any pirates that dared go against her as she swatted them with the side of her lance, breaking flesh and bone as they became mangled messes or piercing them wide and left as gaping corpses. Each jump bolstered by the jet turbines behind her back and joints, roaring flames manoeuvring her across the stormy winds.
Going through ship to ship like a skilled custodian, clearing its hulls of their inhabitants as she closely got to her prize.
"Come heel ye dastardly dog! Let us go straight for the Pallid Whale!" she mustered in command as she pinned the cephalopod-like pirate straight into the wheel as it steered it between gasps of pain.
Steering it straight for the ironside dreadnought, one painted white as bleached bones.
The ghastly dreadnought slowly steered to its side, as it languishedly aimed its broadside cannons straight for the pursuing ship.
Yet the Cross-shaped visor only looked straight on as the armoured figure only responded back with one thing.
"Bring it"
The hijacked ship continued on its suicidal voyage as the dreadnoughts cannons boomed and buzzes as shells and hot lead whistled in it's path before splattering against the general area of the ship. Many missing as they made huge splashes against the whirling waves but many more hit the ship as metal hulls was dented and torn, the ship slowly started to fill as whatever crew was left immediately started fixing whatever they could or simply jumping out in panic.
The ship slowly started to sink as more of its hull was peeled away, yet it struggled to complete its last voyage, inching ever closer to the fleeing dreadnought.
The armoured knight could only growl as it waited for the ship to continue "get closer, it's almost there!"
She chanted as it struggled to get ever so closer, bit by bit
"Gallop, gallop on!"
Until eventually the Dreadnought was finally within clear sight.
"Hurrah! Thy time is at end fiend!" The powered knight cheered as she dislodged the heavy lance (eliciting even more screams from the Cepehalod pirate as it struggled to contain all it's blood within itself) before running towards the helm's window shields before throwing the Lance with one heaving ho as it pierced through the glass, shattering the windows before she followed behind as she jumped through the cracks. Turbines whirred as it boosted her through the air, getting her close enough to grasp the Lance.
Grasping it she immediately clinged to it with her chest as rocket engines unfurled from the bottom of the Lance. It roared with blue hot fury as it flew across the air, weaving between the clouds of shrapnel and shells, steering closer to the Dreadnought's hull. As it closed down upon it, the Knight adjusted herself as she held its handle before flying high above the Helm. Immediately she turned it downwards straight towards the Bridge's roof and like a drill, she boosted with all the engines of her suit and Lance as she dived quickly into the Helm.
Her lance tore through the roof like paper as she immediately adjusted and crash landed into the bridge with a heroic pose, the servos of her arms and legs creaked as it withstood the impact but she held her pose well.
All around her the members of the bridge Drew their side arms upon her, from modern automatic chemical shooters to more Antique weapons such as breech loaders and matchlocks.
Despite all the weapons aimed right at her, she stood her ground as she slowly stood up and pointed her lance straight at a pale bloated man with large beard filled with barnacles and whose hair constantly waved in the air as if he was in the sea.
"GREETINGS VILE PIRATE OF THE SEAS! YOU, Sir Bully Hayes HAST BEEN CHARGED WITH CRIMES AGAINST THE GOOD SINNERS OF THINE SEAS! TIS I! LADY QUIXOTE OF THE BRASS KNIGHTS WHO SHALL DELIVER THY CHARGES AND ESCORT YE TO COURT!
ONLY THEN SHALL YE MET WITH HONEST JUSTICE! SHALL THY COMPLY? Or lest I let the seas of Styx be your punisher tonight?"
The drowned captain could only look between his eyes at the shining point of the Lance and back at the towering powered armoured figure in brass that stood before him as it looked down at him with that hazy yellow glow from its visors.
Bully Hayes could only close his eyes and grit his yellowed teeth before sighing as he raised his hands in defeat.
"I ain't a damn fool, a piece of calico goes around ripping mah ships like a damn train? I'm having a better fate with that damn Blackbeard than you"
He glanced at his crew before glaring at them "whatcha standin' around for? Drop them fire shooters, lest ya wanna mess with that damn cow's horns"
The crew only looked between themselves before glancing at Lady Quixote (who immediately raised her Lance as she aimed it at each crew member with blitzing bursts) before tossing their guns and raising their hands in surrender as well.
The Knight held her Lancer at her side with ease as the front plate of her helmet lifted. Revealing the face of a smirking pale woman with blonde hair and golden eyes.
"Chosen well ye salty dogs of the sea! Let us now gather ye fallen men from broken ships before shall we sally forth to port!"
"Wait what, all my men?" Bully started to protest "Those bloody bastards are likely drowning in the depths by now, it'll take days to fish all of em lubbers out in calmest waters, much less these damn stor-"
The bloated captain was immediately interrupted by a pricking sensation that he felt behind his back, right near where his heart would be. He glanced to see the Knight was not where she originally was.
"A captain that cares not for his men? Where is thy honour among thieves? If thou cannot muster even a single dog back on deck. Perhaps their master shall be sent to them"
Bully could only grit his teeth before sighing as he returned to the rest of his crew to coordinate the rescue of the overthrown crew of the rest of his meagre fleet.
Meanwhile with Quixote, seeing as everyone around her was subdued and focused on rescuing whatever overboard pirates they can. She simply turned to the corner as she opened a latch underneath her shoulder's pauldron as she took out decrepit duct-taped device that looked like a large walkie talkie with a longer antenna as she extended it and went outside through the open hole in the roof (which was still currently having a lot of rain as it was still stormy outside, few of the crew were forced to grab buckets to keep the Bridge from flooding) to get a better reception.
"This is Lady Quixote to Castle HQ! Forsooth the bandito has been subdued and we shall sail towards Port as soon as we finish rescuing those overboard!"
"Understood Quixote, I'll let Blackbeard's coast guards know about this. I'll need the ship's current transceiver and AIS to confirm with them so they won't shoot you but you do know you don't have to get all of the crew right? You were only tasked with headhunting the assigned target, you don't need to grab all 5 ships' crew"
Quixote only raised her eyebrows in shock as her yellow eyes (literally) brightened for a brief moment.
"Forsooth! Sancho! How could thy heart be so cruel?! Hast not known the fates of the Sullen in crushing depths? Nay not even a dog nor cretin deserve such a fate!"
"W-what no I'm not Sanch-ah whatever I'm tired of that bit sure I'm Sancho. Anyways fine the commander told me you'd probably be like this, whatever just don't take too long. Least we can negotiate some extra supplies if we bring in extra prisoners. Anyways need that Transceiver still"
"Of course! It's…" and so Lady Quixote continued to rattle off the needed details before escorting the ship and assisting it's crew in rescuing whatever what's left.
Yet as she looked on the distant horizon, as the tumultuous weather of the Styx slowly descended into a natural gloomy yet dry haze. From far in the distance she could see a brief streak of light flash across the distance, her neurons firing as info told her that was most similar to a comet or a shooting star.
Her eyes glimmered as she tracked the movement of the faux Comet with her eyes, closing them as she placed her flat palm in front of her chest as if it was a half praying motion as she wished for a maiden she could truly save, so only then could she truly be a Chivalrous knight, a true hero.
Little did she know, she'd eventually get it, even if it's not quite the maiden she expected.
The Sounds of Flesh Mulching and Bones Breaking
Screams of Pain and Terror
In the middle of it all
"TALLY HO! FACE JUSTICE THINE VILE SCALLYWAGS!"
An electronically distorted yet feminine voice yollered behind armoured filters as an armoured figure casted in bass swung a giant black Lance twice the size of her, swatting a few gilled pirates out into the air.
The figure's armour was powered, tells from the servers and motors between joints that whirred with each of her swing and dash between driftwood amidst the tumultuous waves, and the yellow glow emanating from a whirring engine deep underneath their chest's golden bronze plates.
Jumping through driftwood as she went for the nearest ship within purview, demolishing any pirates that dared go against her as she swatted them with the side of her lance, breaking flesh and bone as they became mangled messes or piercing them wide and left as gaping corpses. Each jump bolstered by the jet turbines behind her back and joints, roaring flames manoeuvring her across the stormy winds.
Going through ship to ship like a skilled custodian, clearing its hulls of their inhabitants as she closely got to her prize.
"Come heel ye dastardly dog! Let us go straight for the Pallid Whale!" she mustered in command as she pinned the cephalopod-like pirate straight into the wheel as it steered it between gasps of pain.
Steering it straight for the ironside dreadnought, one painted white as bleached bones.
The ghastly dreadnought slowly steered to its side, as it languishedly aimed its broadside cannons straight for the pursuing ship.
Yet the Cross-shaped visor only looked straight on as the armoured figure only responded back with one thing.
"Bring it"
The hijacked ship continued on its suicidal voyage as the dreadnoughts cannons boomed and buzzes as shells and hot lead whistled in it's path before splattering against the general area of the ship. Many missing as they made huge splashes against the whirling waves but many more hit the ship as metal hulls was dented and torn, the ship slowly started to fill as whatever crew was left immediately started fixing whatever they could or simply jumping out in panic.
The ship slowly started to sink as more of its hull was peeled away, yet it struggled to complete its last voyage, inching ever closer to the fleeing dreadnought.
The armoured knight could only growl as it waited for the ship to continue "get closer, it's almost there!"
She chanted as it struggled to get ever so closer, bit by bit
"Gallop, gallop on!"
Until eventually the Dreadnought was finally within clear sight.
"Hurrah! Thy time is at end fiend!" The powered knight cheered as she dislodged the heavy lance (eliciting even more screams from the Cepehalod pirate as it struggled to contain all it's blood within itself) before running towards the helm's window shields before throwing the Lance with one heaving ho as it pierced through the glass, shattering the windows before she followed behind as she jumped through the cracks. Turbines whirred as it boosted her through the air, getting her close enough to grasp the Lance.
Grasping it she immediately clinged to it with her chest as rocket engines unfurled from the bottom of the Lance. It roared with blue hot fury as it flew across the air, weaving between the clouds of shrapnel and shells, steering closer to the Dreadnought's hull. As it closed down upon it, the Knight adjusted herself as she held its handle before flying high above the Helm. Immediately she turned it downwards straight towards the Bridge's roof and like a drill, she boosted with all the engines of her suit and Lance as she dived quickly into the Helm.
Her lance tore through the roof like paper as she immediately adjusted and crash landed into the bridge with a heroic pose, the servos of her arms and legs creaked as it withstood the impact but she held her pose well.
All around her the members of the bridge Drew their side arms upon her, from modern automatic chemical shooters to more Antique weapons such as breech loaders and matchlocks.
Despite all the weapons aimed right at her, she stood her ground as she slowly stood up and pointed her lance straight at a pale bloated man with large beard filled with barnacles and whose hair constantly waved in the air as if he was in the sea.
"GREETINGS VILE PIRATE OF THE SEAS! YOU, Sir Bully Hayes HAST BEEN CHARGED WITH CRIMES AGAINST THE GOOD SINNERS OF THINE SEAS! TIS I! LADY QUIXOTE OF THE BRASS KNIGHTS WHO SHALL DELIVER THY CHARGES AND ESCORT YE TO COURT!
ONLY THEN SHALL YE MET WITH HONEST JUSTICE! SHALL THY COMPLY? Or lest I let the seas of Styx be your punisher tonight?"
The drowned captain could only look between his eyes at the shining point of the Lance and back at the towering powered armoured figure in brass that stood before him as it looked down at him with that hazy yellow glow from its visors.
Bully Hayes could only close his eyes and grit his yellowed teeth before sighing as he raised his hands in defeat.
"I ain't a damn fool, a piece of calico goes around ripping mah ships like a damn train? I'm having a better fate with that damn Blackbeard than you"
He glanced at his crew before glaring at them "whatcha standin' around for? Drop them fire shooters, lest ya wanna mess with that damn cow's horns"
The crew only looked between themselves before glancing at Lady Quixote (who immediately raised her Lance as she aimed it at each crew member with blitzing bursts) before tossing their guns and raising their hands in surrender as well.
The Knight held her Lancer at her side with ease as the front plate of her helmet lifted. Revealing the face of a smirking pale woman with blonde hair and golden eyes.
"Chosen well ye salty dogs of the sea! Let us now gather ye fallen men from broken ships before shall we sally forth to port!"
"Wait what, all my men?" Bully started to protest "Those bloody bastards are likely drowning in the depths by now, it'll take days to fish all of em lubbers out in calmest waters, much less these damn stor-"
The bloated captain was immediately interrupted by a pricking sensation that he felt behind his back, right near where his heart would be. He glanced to see the Knight was not where she originally was.
"A captain that cares not for his men? Where is thy honour among thieves? If thou cannot muster even a single dog back on deck. Perhaps their master shall be sent to them"
Bully could only grit his teeth before sighing as he returned to the rest of his crew to coordinate the rescue of the overthrown crew of the rest of his meagre fleet.
Meanwhile with Quixote, seeing as everyone around her was subdued and focused on rescuing whatever overboard pirates they can. She simply turned to the corner as she opened a latch underneath her shoulder's pauldron as she took out decrepit duct-taped device that looked like a large walkie talkie with a longer antenna as she extended it and went outside through the open hole in the roof (which was still currently having a lot of rain as it was still stormy outside, few of the crew were forced to grab buckets to keep the Bridge from flooding) to get a better reception.
"This is Lady Quixote to Castle HQ! Forsooth the bandito has been subdued and we shall sail towards Port as soon as we finish rescuing those overboard!"
"Understood Quixote, I'll let Blackbeard's coast guards know about this. I'll need the ship's current transceiver and AIS to confirm with them so they won't shoot you but you do know you don't have to get all of the crew right? You were only tasked with headhunting the assigned target, you don't need to grab all 5 ships' crew"
Quixote only raised her eyebrows in shock as her yellow eyes (literally) brightened for a brief moment.
"Forsooth! Sancho! How could thy heart be so cruel?! Hast not known the fates of the Sullen in crushing depths? Nay not even a dog nor cretin deserve such a fate!"
"W-what no I'm not Sanch-ah whatever I'm tired of that bit sure I'm Sancho. Anyways fine the commander told me you'd probably be like this, whatever just don't take too long. Least we can negotiate some extra supplies if we bring in extra prisoners. Anyways need that Transceiver still"
"Of course! It's…" and so Lady Quixote continued to rattle off the needed details before escorting the ship and assisting it's crew in rescuing whatever what's left.
Yet as she looked on the distant horizon, as the tumultuous weather of the Styx slowly descended into a natural gloomy yet dry haze. From far in the distance she could see a brief streak of light flash across the distance, her neurons firing as info told her that was most similar to a comet or a shooting star.
Her eyes glimmered as she tracked the movement of the faux Comet with her eyes, closing them as she placed her flat palm in front of her chest as if it was a half praying motion as she wished for a maiden she could truly save, so only then could she truly be a Chivalrous knight, a true hero.
Little did she know, she'd eventually get it, even if it's not quite the maiden she expected.
====================================
It went like a flash, the deal, the wheel, realm of possibilities, and the figures barely perceptible even to your senses.
It was all gone as you were sent away, you know one thing though. Whatever comes next, there'll be hope that she'll have a better life next time. That fact gives you motivation to face what's to come
What's to come is immediately so as you immediately came face to face to what seemed to be a never-ending ocean within an eternal storm. Rain heavily fell between you as the horizon was dark blue thunderous waves and tides for all to see. Thunder splitting the waters ever so often, illuminating that there was only more water and water to the eyes gaze. Only in the furthest distance could you faintly see what seemed to be a giant whirlpool as water hurled upwards into a giant waterspout that seemed to connect to the ever so distant sky up so high.
But that detail wasn't very important for you, for the main matter of the fact was that you were falling, falling in incredibly rapidly increasing speeds as you realised you were about to crash face to face with the sea themselves.
Instincts pulled yourself as you felt the powers gifted to you immediately accessing
Immediately time resumed its normal rate of change for you as you immediately initiated the second plan of action. Laying flat to reduce your speed from velocity before turning as you dived down deep first.
As your gift predicted, your body was heavily hit by the waves as it dived deep underneath, your body was hit and you can feel bruises and cracks forming. Most of it was in the legs and lower body, and thankfully bracing beforehand made sure your head didn't snap nor your back.
You don't think you can move your fingers well but you still feel your legs and they weren't twisted in half. If you could still feel pain you'd pass out from the shock, but fortunately you don't, so you can still see if you can snap things back into place after you find land.
By the time you finished re-assessing yourself, you realised that you dived far deeper than you expected.
After moving your limbs to find they still work, you started swimming to reach the surface and find dry land later on.
That's when you felt something grabbing your ankle, pulling you down in bursts, that's when you looked down and saw it.
A ghastly figure was what met you, one whose flesh was pallid and bloated from drowning. Its eyes glowed with white haze as it looked at you with a sullen look. It made a hoarse moan that one could hear across the depths as it continued to pull you deeper underwater
There were many more as well slowly rising from the murky depths, all of them resembling drowning dead bodies lost to the seas. Many came to assist the first one, grabbing to your bottom half and whatever part they could hold as they continued to pull you deeper.
Others however noticed your appearance as their eyes widened before descending back to the depths. Some of them even howled as they instead started prying the ones dragging you off of you, struggling against them as others pushed up forward with their free limbs.
It was a struggle, you and the few spirits vs the many who wanted you to suffer just like them. It took all your aquatic blessings, energy, and even stabs from your dagger to dislodge the persistent few before you were eventually free.
Immediately so, you quickly swim to the top as you breached the surface, before immediately grabbing hold of the water as you wrested yourself out and into the surface where you laid down like ground.
Taking a moment to get your bearings, you immediately stood up and started running, avoiding any grasping hands that attempted to drag you back down once more, as you attempted to find any dry land for you to cling on.
Eventually you spotted distant land past the horizon, emboldened by a goal, quickly you poured more energy as you endlessly sprinted a marathon to reach it, jumping over waves and constantly dodging lingering hands before finally reaching it. Eventually as hours of sprinting passed away, you reached it as your feet finally planted themselves upon the cold yet damp rocks that grated against your soles and your hands tightened as it wringed the folds of your yukata as it squeezed its soaked fabric. You finally reached land, and judging from how the precipitation relented its endless assault (even if there was no sun to part the stormy now dry clouds) it finally stopped raining. For the time being you are safe now.
You quickly had to revise that statement as you jumped backwards further into rocky island as you avoided the sudden grasps of the sullen spirits that constantly clamoured for land (and you) but were constantly pulled back by those deeper in the seas like crabs in a bucket. Only when you were comfortably far away from their desperate grapples, you were finally certain you were safe.
Gathering your bearings for a bit, you turned around as you wondered what the rocky beaches held for you aside, in hopes it was not an empty mound of rock for you to simply sit upon.
Thankfully you turned around to face what appeared to be a cave a bit to the north, one that seemed to be inhabited judging from the strange lanterns that emitted a faint blue light that lined its walls as it went deeper inside presumably. It helped that further in the distance there was a strange hollow tower that rises high above the cave far into the distance. Unfortunately the entrance was barred not only by what seemed to be two damaged hollow walls made of strange metal threads. Such a wall had chains wrapped around the middle of it, which held the two broken walls together.
You went near the strange walls as you looked at the chains, eyeing the details you can tell that while it held tight, there was orange colourations within the chains (and also in the broken metal walls but they were broken already).
A gut feeling suggested that might be a warning.
Looking around, it would take some time to walk up to the hollow metal tower and even more so to climb it, but it seemed there was a room on top so it was notable enough to be an option. It helped that as you glanced around, there was a moving object far away, squinting your eyes you could tell it was a strange looking ship, mostly from its strange white colour. However you were not sure if you could reach them in time, especially since in the coast you can see that the sullen spirits were piling up a bit, clamouring and waiting for you.
It was possible that in the room you can maybe find a bonfire or at least something to create a huge light to attract the attention of the ship, but you weren't sure if they were friendly in the first place.
Or if it's a ship at all
Judging your two options, you noted that going into your Yukata, you found your items with you, from the dagger, big book, and box full of the tools you asked for.
The Tome! You quickly fished for the Tome and flipped its pages, checking to see what it could tell you about this place.
Forgotten Outpost: said:
Tristan in Wonderland
The forest creaked and echoed in its sorrows.
Many of the trees, twisted into shapes of the damned whose pain had turned them into bark, were removed from their roots. The once sprawling forest was so thick that the thicket of branches would interconnect with each other to the point it was akin to a thorny bush, was now still a forest but one with every winding path across it, made by the steps of a thousand travellers across the realm.
Many were gone but the trees made from the seeds sprouted from the despondent continued to splatter, for there was always more to come, more whose sorrows and pains overtook them, and with their deaths always the trees sprout from. A tribute to the lost and weary. Their pains and cries flowing from the heart's dams broke, for they could not mend what was torn apart in the heat of self-destruction.
Their sorrows continued to echo across the forests, a symphony that drove those whose hearts cannot harden in turn, to turn their hosts to madness and despair like the trees themselves.
Yet their sorrows for a moment, dwindled. The cries and gasps of pain slowly quieted, for soon another tune would whisper in the air.
A solemn one.
A young man, one with youth in his step and heart, of dark skin like the bark of oak covered within the fluff of white wool, whose head was donned ears and curved horns of cattle, and eyes yet closed, often open to tearing eyes of square pupils.
Donned in a simple cloth tunic of shepherds, he walked softly across the downtrodden paths as his human fingers pricked themselves against the strings of his harp of oak. Tears of blood stained the strings yet it only resonated with the melody it played. Melodies of calm soothing and peaceful lamentation echoed across the forest. Letting those who hear it, have their troubles and turmoiled minds soothed once more.
Even the trees were silent in his wake. They tilted and moved their branches, their engraved faces turning so they may continue to listen to the man's play. Desperate to receive reprieve from their eternal madness.
Eventually the melody of the harp slowly was silenced by distance, many clung to it, trying to move as close as possible so they may hear more of it before eventually returning in place, resigned to their fates once more but cherishing the memory of the harp for as long as they could remember it.
However some were desperate, desperate to continue hearing the playing of the harp, whose owner played with such melancholic passion that his fingers even wept red. The thought of never hearing such melody despaired them to the point they couldn't contemplate it anymore. And so, they continued to move, to twist not only their branches but the trunks themselves. To move closer and closer as if they clawed out of the trees themselves, people climbed out of the trees, some simply phasing out as the trees were mere reflections while others clawed their way out. The trees gave way to the manic swipes as they were torn from within.
Eventually thousands would tear themselves out of their wooden prisons, adults and young, of races across, and even some who were not human. All of them climbed out so they may follow behind the shepherd's playing as if they were his flock.
They continued to follow him forward, down the winding footpaths and past stone block roads. Eventually they would find themselves stopping as the young man did as well, although they still continued to listen for the entire rest of the melody's coda before the young man finally finished.
As it stopped, their eyes would regain light as they found themselves outside their own prisons, and looked among themselves before turning forward as they realised they were in front of a large city whose giant gates opened to reveal hundreds thousands more people within, all of various forms from the dead walking to those malformed and twisted. Yet all the same those people came forward with eyes of surprise and wonder while carrying clothes and nourishment within their arms.
The two crowds looked at each other in shock, not one daring to make a move, as if they were worried about what would come next.
When the tension grew to its thickest, a pin dropped as one of the people from the city came forward from the crowd, their eyes grew with recognition.
"My son!" A mother, who bore the form of burning charcoal, cried out as she reached her arms forward.
"Mom?!" A soul from the flock that followed the shepherd called out, he went forward showing he was of human make yet not pristine for he held the wounds inflicted deep from his despair.
The two reunited together, for even if no matter how changed the mother was, the son could always recognize her voice past the crackling of embers and the heart of her soul. And a true mother wouldn't forget her children.
As the two embraced each other, it was the spark that allowed the two to mingle, few lost ones reunited, but many more simply glad to see more recovered from their loss and the lost to have regained a chance to live and see others care for them in turn.
The sheep-horned young man looked at the sight with a graceful small smile, content to simply observe the fruits of his efforts when a dryad approached him.
"This is not your first nor last performance Absalom, yet even still I am met with surprise at the miracles you produce with your song. Rare are those who could even cajole the Lost from their own prisons, even rare are those who could gather them in so many numbers. The Morgue Honouring Saint Dymphna always thanks you in gratitude" the Dryad thanked Absalom, the name of the shepherd sheep young man.
Absalom simply looked at the crowd in silence in response, the smile in his face slowly fell as his eyes counted the numbers of those he brought back, before a small frown adorned his face and accompanied his sigh.
"Two thousand and five hundred eighty seven. That's not nearly enough as before. And easily I can count hundred thousands more from the forests" he said with a solemn look
The dryad (whose face was simply smooth bark) could simply tilt their head down in response.
"I understand your wishes, but it is a miracle enough that you have gathered so many in the first place. The forest once teemed with countless numbers as the trees blurred together within sight, yet the fact the trees can be counted mean there is hope. Perhaps in time the forest will be plain bare, but the people we save now is a fact that can be celebrated no matter what"
Absalom simply hummed before eliciting a small smile once more "Your words speak truth Aphylla, but perhaps I simply have pride in my skills, surely I could gain a bigger crowd than this" he joked
Aphylla chuckled, eliciting sounds of rustling leaves "I do not think there is pride in wanting more saved, but what do I know? I am in Hell after all"
Absalom laughed softly in turn
The two then returned to the city, where a feast in honour of the people returned was commenced.
Eventually after the feast has ended, Absalom returned to the forest, not to play his song once more (although he still whistled a soft tune that at least calmed the trees that listened), as he contemplated an gathered his thoughts before he eventually came across a blonde young man (barely in the cusp of adulthood of contemporary times) in a blonde suit, who he saw wandering the forest. The most important facet was he was of human pristine make, and no wounds depicted him as one of the Lost.
His eyebrow raised as he approached the strange man (to his eyes).
"Greetings young man who travel
s the forest's path. May I know the name of the one before me?"
Many of the trees, twisted into shapes of the damned whose pain had turned them into bark, were removed from their roots. The once sprawling forest was so thick that the thicket of branches would interconnect with each other to the point it was akin to a thorny bush, was now still a forest but one with every winding path across it, made by the steps of a thousand travellers across the realm.
Many were gone but the trees made from the seeds sprouted from the despondent continued to splatter, for there was always more to come, more whose sorrows and pains overtook them, and with their deaths always the trees sprout from. A tribute to the lost and weary. Their pains and cries flowing from the heart's dams broke, for they could not mend what was torn apart in the heat of self-destruction.
Their sorrows continued to echo across the forests, a symphony that drove those whose hearts cannot harden in turn, to turn their hosts to madness and despair like the trees themselves.
Yet their sorrows for a moment, dwindled. The cries and gasps of pain slowly quieted, for soon another tune would whisper in the air.
A solemn one.
A young man, one with youth in his step and heart, of dark skin like the bark of oak covered within the fluff of white wool, whose head was donned ears and curved horns of cattle, and eyes yet closed, often open to tearing eyes of square pupils.
Donned in a simple cloth tunic of shepherds, he walked softly across the downtrodden paths as his human fingers pricked themselves against the strings of his harp of oak. Tears of blood stained the strings yet it only resonated with the melody it played. Melodies of calm soothing and peaceful lamentation echoed across the forest. Letting those who hear it, have their troubles and turmoiled minds soothed once more.
Even the trees were silent in his wake. They tilted and moved their branches, their engraved faces turning so they may continue to listen to the man's play. Desperate to receive reprieve from their eternal madness.
Eventually the melody of the harp slowly was silenced by distance, many clung to it, trying to move as close as possible so they may hear more of it before eventually returning in place, resigned to their fates once more but cherishing the memory of the harp for as long as they could remember it.
However some were desperate, desperate to continue hearing the playing of the harp, whose owner played with such melancholic passion that his fingers even wept red. The thought of never hearing such melody despaired them to the point they couldn't contemplate it anymore. And so, they continued to move, to twist not only their branches but the trunks themselves. To move closer and closer as if they clawed out of the trees themselves, people climbed out of the trees, some simply phasing out as the trees were mere reflections while others clawed their way out. The trees gave way to the manic swipes as they were torn from within.
Eventually thousands would tear themselves out of their wooden prisons, adults and young, of races across, and even some who were not human. All of them climbed out so they may follow behind the shepherd's playing as if they were his flock.
They continued to follow him forward, down the winding footpaths and past stone block roads. Eventually they would find themselves stopping as the young man did as well, although they still continued to listen for the entire rest of the melody's coda before the young man finally finished.
As it stopped, their eyes would regain light as they found themselves outside their own prisons, and looked among themselves before turning forward as they realised they were in front of a large city whose giant gates opened to reveal hundreds thousands more people within, all of various forms from the dead walking to those malformed and twisted. Yet all the same those people came forward with eyes of surprise and wonder while carrying clothes and nourishment within their arms.
The two crowds looked at each other in shock, not one daring to make a move, as if they were worried about what would come next.
When the tension grew to its thickest, a pin dropped as one of the people from the city came forward from the crowd, their eyes grew with recognition.
"My son!" A mother, who bore the form of burning charcoal, cried out as she reached her arms forward.
"Mom?!" A soul from the flock that followed the shepherd called out, he went forward showing he was of human make yet not pristine for he held the wounds inflicted deep from his despair.
The two reunited together, for even if no matter how changed the mother was, the son could always recognize her voice past the crackling of embers and the heart of her soul. And a true mother wouldn't forget her children.
As the two embraced each other, it was the spark that allowed the two to mingle, few lost ones reunited, but many more simply glad to see more recovered from their loss and the lost to have regained a chance to live and see others care for them in turn.
The sheep-horned young man looked at the sight with a graceful small smile, content to simply observe the fruits of his efforts when a dryad approached him.
"This is not your first nor last performance Absalom, yet even still I am met with surprise at the miracles you produce with your song. Rare are those who could even cajole the Lost from their own prisons, even rare are those who could gather them in so many numbers. The Morgue Honouring Saint Dymphna always thanks you in gratitude" the Dryad thanked Absalom, the name of the shepherd sheep young man.
Absalom simply looked at the crowd in silence in response, the smile in his face slowly fell as his eyes counted the numbers of those he brought back, before a small frown adorned his face and accompanied his sigh.
"Two thousand and five hundred eighty seven. That's not nearly enough as before. And easily I can count hundred thousands more from the forests" he said with a solemn look
The dryad (whose face was simply smooth bark) could simply tilt their head down in response.
"I understand your wishes, but it is a miracle enough that you have gathered so many in the first place. The forest once teemed with countless numbers as the trees blurred together within sight, yet the fact the trees can be counted mean there is hope. Perhaps in time the forest will be plain bare, but the people we save now is a fact that can be celebrated no matter what"
Absalom simply hummed before eliciting a small smile once more "Your words speak truth Aphylla, but perhaps I simply have pride in my skills, surely I could gain a bigger crowd than this" he joked
Aphylla chuckled, eliciting sounds of rustling leaves "I do not think there is pride in wanting more saved, but what do I know? I am in Hell after all"
Absalom laughed softly in turn
The two then returned to the city, where a feast in honour of the people returned was commenced.
Eventually after the feast has ended, Absalom returned to the forest, not to play his song once more (although he still whistled a soft tune that at least calmed the trees that listened), as he contemplated an gathered his thoughts before he eventually came across a blonde young man (barely in the cusp of adulthood of contemporary times) in a blonde suit, who he saw wandering the forest. The most important facet was he was of human pristine make, and no wounds depicted him as one of the Lost.
His eyebrow raised as he approached the strange man (to his eyes).
"Greetings young man who travel
s the forest's path. May I know the name of the one before me?"
==========
You wake up.
Well waking up isn't the most accurate definitions, but it's a rather more efficient transitional tool than accurately depicting the process from how the Arbiters of the Cycle gave you the spiel of the honoured duty and the promise of power and gifts achieving it could given in turn to you, then the complicated process of how the Arcana and various gifts were engraved and grafted into your soul so seamlessly that to your own subconscious it's as if you always had them, and then travelling across countless dimensions to reach the one your patrons desire you to explore and survey, with constant calculations and repeated measurements of your trans-dimensional geometric location in order to ensure you don't randomly get flung across to the cosmos before being unravelled to your very nano-quark of your core.
Honestly a lot of complicated stuff happened that it would be quite better for it to be said that you simply "woke up".
From a blink of an eye, at one moment you were before the Council of teeming numbers of Arbiters, what with their silky black robes mixed with gold highlights and patterns sewn into them, and then the next moment you're now here.
Currently you find yourselves in a forest, one filled entirely out of trees, dead ones whose branches turn into thickets that intersect with the branches of nearby fellow trees, those branches growing against each other and tangling within themselves to the point that they become akin to thorny dead brackets of bushes. Looking down you realise the ground was grey, a far more darker grey than the trees themselves, one could be mistaken that you were walking on gravel or other small pebbles turned ground beneath your feet, but it wasn't it was dirt that lost its colour, a pallour that denoted that even the very microbes within it was dead. Although the ground you currently in was a lighter grey than the darker one far beyond where the trees rooted themselves in, that was most likely because you were in footpath made from the constant wear and tear of travellers stamping upon the very ground, it was like a line that showed the safest way to go, after all if they all died they wouldn't be able to walk all the way to make the footpath you were now on no?
Looking up you notice that the thicket of the branches on top of the dying trees were far ingrown enough that they acted like a roof that blocked most of the skies gaze away, with only barely a light shining between the cracks.
Fortunately you were on the footpath, so that was less of a problem.
The sky was another shade of dreary grey (really all the land was some shade of grey, all the colour sucked out and left in a monochrome landscape, how dreary), the lightest of them all, almost bordering on the shade of white. No clouds littered the place, just a blank sky-scape of grey, grey, and more grey.
The only thing that inhabited the sky and allowed you to know that there was a good chance you weren't inside a giant dome, was the sun high on top. Burning bright white amidst the grey sky of grey. Yet the sun was surely not feeling the weather for its glare was so dimmed you could look at it without narrowed eyes, and the heat coming from it felt like the kind of winter's gaze
Indeed, this is a place to sap the wills of those within, not only the strength of their hearts but also the blood within, each sap causing fatigue to slowly crawl over a person's body like an ever lingering presence of an ominous pestilence.
Indeed. Your body does not experience the same passive malice others would experience from this place. Just as limber and healthy as your body would otherwise be! Which to be frank is just the average. Not very muscularly toned nor fit are you? At least you're not fat.
How inspiring. In any case, the scene has been fully set for you, in the end it's now all for you to take action upon.
The trodden path you now stand upon extends in two directions. Behind you, which leads up a hill which seemed to just contain more paths and woods. And In Front of you, which goes down to more roads and woods, quite frankly you don't have the perception to extend far. Of course if there's any insight-
An interesting insight on what's to come, now which path shall you take?
Welren, Last Dwarf of Flamepeak
"The Labyrinth is a dangerous place.
Originally a layer that deterred Sinners from escaping back into the higher layers, even despite being reclaimed by the very people it once hindered, it was still a dangerous place.
Much of the layout constantly shifted with every blinking eye, hallways turning into dead ends, and entrances disappearing before your very sight. Only those who have lived in it could truly navigate the fluid walls of the claustrophobic labyrinth, with the rest staying within the City and various settlements that cemented their place within the underground maze.
Yet, even the pathfinders and scouts who know the heart of the Labyrinth are not safe from its cruel tricks. Traps scattered across its halls, whether those spawned naturally from the Labyrinth's cruelty or those left over from the great Insurrection. Even worse, were the monsters, some say they're demons who came from the many invasions of the Fallen who yet dispersed and got lost in the very halls they once owned. Others say they are the natural offsprings birthed from the walls of the Labyrinth, born eyes awoken yet already with violence and twisted malice within their hearts.
It was a dangerous place indeed, yet even so I pass these winding tunnels every day, for only the Labyrinth can save me from the gaze of the Assassins hidden within the Eagle's Nest."
Those were the words of a woman with a golden mask. She walked with a light step, and like a cat, she sauntered across the tunnels of the Labyrinth. Slinking within the shadows, she often delved into the deeper cracks within its walls as they connected to various shortcuts far and wide across the maze. Always stepping across each tile with grace in mind, she hid herself from wandering patrols of both Sinner and monsters, hidden under the shadows or even in the ceiling above the unwary patrollers.
Eventually she reached a certain room within the Labyrinth, a large one shaped like a rectangular hall, the most notable feature that it was large enough to house an entire ball dance within it, and indeed as her eyes gaze across its features. She has realised that the room seemed to resemble a banquet hole, one incredibly worn down and ruined after years of disuse. The floor was carpeted red over the old bricks, chairs and wide tables where delights and decor could be placed were strewn and overturned all over, and in the middle, a fallen chandelier laid there, crashed and splattering glass shards all over.
The masked woman simply stared at the strange sight before shaking her head. From underneath her cloak, she took out a neatly folded parchment and unwrapped it to read the diagrams etched onto it. A rough facsimile of a map within, she traced her finger across the maze diagram from a red circle until she eventually landed her finger on a red rectangular room, looking around she nodded to herself as she folded it and placed it back inside her cloak.
She looked around the room before finalising on a far left corner of the room's ceiling, scaling it as she gracefully climbed leaped across the stoney walls. She eventually reached the top, balancing herself between the two angled walls with by placing a leg on both of them, she felt the two walls all over, as if she was trying to find a loose brick. Satisfied after deciding all the bricks were solid enough. She took out a red chalk as she quickly wrote a line between the two walls and their corner before flipping herself to turn the other side as the stone bricks shifted as if they were pushed into existence, creating a quick ledge for her to sit on. Once done, she quickly held the cloak tightly around her as it slowly shimmered until its texture camouflaged to the same appearance as the Labyrinth's walls. There she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before she rested for a moment there.
Alas, her rest only lasted a full apple's carving before her ears twitched as in the distant area she only heard scatterings of light feet and the signature garbled mutterings and snarls of creatures.
Her closed eyes furrowed as she wrapped the cloak over her face to reduce the amount of sounds she could hear, but stopped once she immediately heard a distant scream and shriek.
Immediately she unravelled herself from her crouched sleeping position as she dropped down onto the floor without an audible thud as she faced the direction where she heard the scream coming from, with a graceful sway, she went through a kata of movements and chantings on each step before she kicked the wall with her feet (most notable one that had a diagram of sigils written on it already), immediately not only that wall but three more walls behind it caved one after another, as if a tectonic shock corroded them at their foundations. Immediately she leaped at the air before rolling when landing before turning around in one graceful swing of movement as she readied a set of throwing knives on both of her knuckles.
What she saw before her was a pack of goblins (totalling whole five members in total) a smattering of child-like creatures that had an assortment of skin pallours from a sickly green to an ill stoney like grey. They grunted like pigs as they stood over two bodies. The masked woman, underneath the stilts on her mask too thin for those outside to peer inside, narrowed her eyes in anger as she tightened her knuckles against her own set of daggers.
She and the goblins could only stare at each other for a brief moment before immediately two of the goblins grabbed the bodies and started to drag them away while the three rest of them dashed towards the woman, raising their small blades and clubs to attack.
As soon as they moved to charge at her, the masked woman crouched downwards as she held her body with her hands as she raised both of her legs and kicked the walls at each of her side, immediately the walls trembled before pillars erupted sideways from the walls in an ascending order. The goblins quickly dodge, jumped, and ducked to avoid being splattered by the pillars, but one of them was too slow as a pillar erupted and collided with their head, sending them to the other wall before their entire head was smashed to wet paste by the pillar.
As the two surviving goblins closed in on the masked woman, she ducked and weaved under the strikes of the goblins. Moving not her entire body but only adjusting parts of them so they wouldn't get hit. Dodging and dancing as if her body was entirely made of water. She took each attack and weaved between them with utter fluid grace.
Eventually as sweat pooled from the goblins from their rabid overzealous swings, she quickly jumped from the ground with a boost from a pillar underneath the pillar as she clung between the walls high above as she threw a scattering of blades against the goblins. Some were swatted away but others more made grazing wounds as they lightly dug into the goblins. The two quickly attempted to take out the blades but found they were barbed and struggled to get them out, before they could make any more effort. The Masked woman snapped her fingers as the blades melted and dissolved into acidic mercury that sizzled and burned as they seeped deep into the goblins' wounds.
The goblins screamed and hurled from feeling aciding mercury burning them from the inside before one of them quickly had their neck snapped as the masked woman dropped in and landed directly on them before quickly stomping on their neck to snap it. Before the last goblin could react, the masked woman side-kicked him to the wall back of her before stomping her heel on their neck once more, causing the last goblin to have their neck snapped as well.
As she took a breather from the brief yet intensive combat, she quickly dashed forward to chase after the goblins. Parkouring past the pillars she once made. She quickly reached the two goblins carrying the bodies, admittedly not having reached very far.
Seeing them hurrying their retreat, she stamped on the ground with each foot as if she was bracing herself, before crouching as she swiped the ground before sliding her hands towards her, repeating the movement as if she was sliding the ground towards her.
Immediately the ground continued to rumble as the floor in front of the retreating goblins moved upward as if a wave was made, and caught the group as the earthly wave moved back towards the masked woman. Who proceeded to stab a stiletto deep into the brains of one goblin through their eye before stomping the other goblin back into the floor and snapping another neck for the third time.
Finally, the brief combat was finished, breathing deeply in controlled measures to recover her stamina, she eyed the two bodies before her. One was a simple androgynous person in commoner's clothing, with the only thing notable about them (aside from the basic horns that most denizens of Hell had to differentiate them from the humans above) was the large bleeding on the back of their head as if they were clubbed into death. The other was most peculiar, for one they were a short stocky human male. Human to be noted because from her surface observation, there was no damning or twisted features on the man, as if he was freshly arrived, the only other thing notable from him aside from his bald hair and incredibly bushy ginger hair, was that he was a dwarf as his height made him incredibly short (around four feet at her rough measure), however unlike most dwarfs which were incredibly stunted and diminutive in stature. This dwarf was utterly beefy and stocky, wide and incredibly well built, with a heavy muscular body with a torso that was wider than even the average Sinner much less any dwarf one.
It was the most peculiar sight to her as she raised her eyes in curiosity before she shook her head. All she knew was that there were two unconscious people to care for, and so, she placed the sinner over the stocky dwarf and started the dragging two back into the ruined facsimile of a ballroom (taking care to ensure the glass shards or similar wouldn't nick them as they entered). Once there she proceeded to seal up the entrances she made into the large room, create a small fireplace that funnelled the smoke into outside the room with shifting of the Labyrinth's architecture, and broke down the laid about furniture to make firewood as she created a fire before she proceeded to place down a small metal pot from a small satchel and started to brew a concoction inside after pouring water to boil and a few green small pellets within that quickly turned the texture of the water into a thick soup-like consistency.
Originally a layer that deterred Sinners from escaping back into the higher layers, even despite being reclaimed by the very people it once hindered, it was still a dangerous place.
Much of the layout constantly shifted with every blinking eye, hallways turning into dead ends, and entrances disappearing before your very sight. Only those who have lived in it could truly navigate the fluid walls of the claustrophobic labyrinth, with the rest staying within the City and various settlements that cemented their place within the underground maze.
Yet, even the pathfinders and scouts who know the heart of the Labyrinth are not safe from its cruel tricks. Traps scattered across its halls, whether those spawned naturally from the Labyrinth's cruelty or those left over from the great Insurrection. Even worse, were the monsters, some say they're demons who came from the many invasions of the Fallen who yet dispersed and got lost in the very halls they once owned. Others say they are the natural offsprings birthed from the walls of the Labyrinth, born eyes awoken yet already with violence and twisted malice within their hearts.
It was a dangerous place indeed, yet even so I pass these winding tunnels every day, for only the Labyrinth can save me from the gaze of the Assassins hidden within the Eagle's Nest."
Those were the words of a woman with a golden mask. She walked with a light step, and like a cat, she sauntered across the tunnels of the Labyrinth. Slinking within the shadows, she often delved into the deeper cracks within its walls as they connected to various shortcuts far and wide across the maze. Always stepping across each tile with grace in mind, she hid herself from wandering patrols of both Sinner and monsters, hidden under the shadows or even in the ceiling above the unwary patrollers.
Eventually she reached a certain room within the Labyrinth, a large one shaped like a rectangular hall, the most notable feature that it was large enough to house an entire ball dance within it, and indeed as her eyes gaze across its features. She has realised that the room seemed to resemble a banquet hole, one incredibly worn down and ruined after years of disuse. The floor was carpeted red over the old bricks, chairs and wide tables where delights and decor could be placed were strewn and overturned all over, and in the middle, a fallen chandelier laid there, crashed and splattering glass shards all over.
The masked woman simply stared at the strange sight before shaking her head. From underneath her cloak, she took out a neatly folded parchment and unwrapped it to read the diagrams etched onto it. A rough facsimile of a map within, she traced her finger across the maze diagram from a red circle until she eventually landed her finger on a red rectangular room, looking around she nodded to herself as she folded it and placed it back inside her cloak.
She looked around the room before finalising on a far left corner of the room's ceiling, scaling it as she gracefully climbed leaped across the stoney walls. She eventually reached the top, balancing herself between the two angled walls with by placing a leg on both of them, she felt the two walls all over, as if she was trying to find a loose brick. Satisfied after deciding all the bricks were solid enough. She took out a red chalk as she quickly wrote a line between the two walls and their corner before flipping herself to turn the other side as the stone bricks shifted as if they were pushed into existence, creating a quick ledge for her to sit on. Once done, she quickly held the cloak tightly around her as it slowly shimmered until its texture camouflaged to the same appearance as the Labyrinth's walls. There she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before she rested for a moment there.
Alas, her rest only lasted a full apple's carving before her ears twitched as in the distant area she only heard scatterings of light feet and the signature garbled mutterings and snarls of creatures.
Her closed eyes furrowed as she wrapped the cloak over her face to reduce the amount of sounds she could hear, but stopped once she immediately heard a distant scream and shriek.
Immediately she unravelled herself from her crouched sleeping position as she dropped down onto the floor without an audible thud as she faced the direction where she heard the scream coming from, with a graceful sway, she went through a kata of movements and chantings on each step before she kicked the wall with her feet (most notable one that had a diagram of sigils written on it already), immediately not only that wall but three more walls behind it caved one after another, as if a tectonic shock corroded them at their foundations. Immediately she leaped at the air before rolling when landing before turning around in one graceful swing of movement as she readied a set of throwing knives on both of her knuckles.
What she saw before her was a pack of goblins (totalling whole five members in total) a smattering of child-like creatures that had an assortment of skin pallours from a sickly green to an ill stoney like grey. They grunted like pigs as they stood over two bodies. The masked woman, underneath the stilts on her mask too thin for those outside to peer inside, narrowed her eyes in anger as she tightened her knuckles against her own set of daggers.
She and the goblins could only stare at each other for a brief moment before immediately two of the goblins grabbed the bodies and started to drag them away while the three rest of them dashed towards the woman, raising their small blades and clubs to attack.
As soon as they moved to charge at her, the masked woman crouched downwards as she held her body with her hands as she raised both of her legs and kicked the walls at each of her side, immediately the walls trembled before pillars erupted sideways from the walls in an ascending order. The goblins quickly dodge, jumped, and ducked to avoid being splattered by the pillars, but one of them was too slow as a pillar erupted and collided with their head, sending them to the other wall before their entire head was smashed to wet paste by the pillar.
As the two surviving goblins closed in on the masked woman, she ducked and weaved under the strikes of the goblins. Moving not her entire body but only adjusting parts of them so they wouldn't get hit. Dodging and dancing as if her body was entirely made of water. She took each attack and weaved between them with utter fluid grace.
Eventually as sweat pooled from the goblins from their rabid overzealous swings, she quickly jumped from the ground with a boost from a pillar underneath the pillar as she clung between the walls high above as she threw a scattering of blades against the goblins. Some were swatted away but others more made grazing wounds as they lightly dug into the goblins. The two quickly attempted to take out the blades but found they were barbed and struggled to get them out, before they could make any more effort. The Masked woman snapped her fingers as the blades melted and dissolved into acidic mercury that sizzled and burned as they seeped deep into the goblins' wounds.
The goblins screamed and hurled from feeling aciding mercury burning them from the inside before one of them quickly had their neck snapped as the masked woman dropped in and landed directly on them before quickly stomping on their neck to snap it. Before the last goblin could react, the masked woman side-kicked him to the wall back of her before stomping her heel on their neck once more, causing the last goblin to have their neck snapped as well.
As she took a breather from the brief yet intensive combat, she quickly dashed forward to chase after the goblins. Parkouring past the pillars she once made. She quickly reached the two goblins carrying the bodies, admittedly not having reached very far.
Seeing them hurrying their retreat, she stamped on the ground with each foot as if she was bracing herself, before crouching as she swiped the ground before sliding her hands towards her, repeating the movement as if she was sliding the ground towards her.
Immediately the ground continued to rumble as the floor in front of the retreating goblins moved upward as if a wave was made, and caught the group as the earthly wave moved back towards the masked woman. Who proceeded to stab a stiletto deep into the brains of one goblin through their eye before stomping the other goblin back into the floor and snapping another neck for the third time.
Finally, the brief combat was finished, breathing deeply in controlled measures to recover her stamina, she eyed the two bodies before her. One was a simple androgynous person in commoner's clothing, with the only thing notable about them (aside from the basic horns that most denizens of Hell had to differentiate them from the humans above) was the large bleeding on the back of their head as if they were clubbed into death. The other was most peculiar, for one they were a short stocky human male. Human to be noted because from her surface observation, there was no damning or twisted features on the man, as if he was freshly arrived, the only other thing notable from him aside from his bald hair and incredibly bushy ginger hair, was that he was a dwarf as his height made him incredibly short (around four feet at her rough measure), however unlike most dwarfs which were incredibly stunted and diminutive in stature. This dwarf was utterly beefy and stocky, wide and incredibly well built, with a heavy muscular body with a torso that was wider than even the average Sinner much less any dwarf one.
It was the most peculiar sight to her as she raised her eyes in curiosity before she shook her head. All she knew was that there were two unconscious people to care for, and so, she placed the sinner over the stocky dwarf and started the dragging two back into the ruined facsimile of a ballroom (taking care to ensure the glass shards or similar wouldn't nick them as they entered). Once there she proceeded to seal up the entrances she made into the large room, create a small fireplace that funnelled the smoke into outside the room with shifting of the Labyrinth's architecture, and broke down the laid about furniture to make firewood as she created a fire before she proceeded to place down a small metal pot from a small satchel and started to brew a concoction inside after pouring water to boil and a few green small pellets within that quickly turned the texture of the water into a thick soup-like consistency.
You slowly woke up. It seemed taking the deal from the gods took a lot from you as you quickly passed out from the power coming unto you. A small part of you quibbled that a true dwarf would have the hardy constitution to not pass out but you waved it as no normal dwarf could attest to meeting the ancestral gods themselves in this day and age. Turning your head towards more present matters, your vision slowly came back as you mentally crawled back from the layer of the dream weaver.
As you slowly grappled with the fatigue associated with waking up, you wearily looked to your side and saw an unconscious person in simple tunic and rope-tied leggings.
Their appearance had the enigmatic balance between femininity yet not enough to declare them a woman at first sight (a thought came out that the balance of essence reminded you of the elven, especially those of the eerie ones who only appeared as travellers from beyond Irdunmach). Outside of their androgynous appearance, you only noted they had linen cloth wrapped around their head like bandages. Dirtied by the dried bleeding you could see on the back of their head
After finalising your observation of them, you looked away and saw a small bonfire catching your vision.
Focusing on it, you realised there was a person heavily cloaked in a dirty blue cloak crouching over the fire. By the sounds of it, they were likely pouring something into containers.
They turned around and you saw that underneath the shade of their hood, they wore a golden mask that had a triangular imprint that caved outwards like a short giant bird's beak.
They also wore a simple outfit that reminded you of the adventurers that wandered in and out of the city. From a simple grey light leather chestplate (although the texture of the leather wasn't like anything you've ever seen, it had a rough and rocky texture) and strange plate armour that looked strangely organic yet incredibly smooth were wrapped on her legs.
They carried two ceramic bowls that seemed to have brown soup on each hand. As they turned around they realised that you were awake, causing them to still in response.
After waiting for a moment and seeing no hostile or aggressive action from you. They decided to continue on with her actions as they placed one bowl on the side of your unconscious bedmate before turning towards you as they raised the bowl towards you.
"أنت مستيقظ الآن، تعال واشرب من هذا واستمد القوة منه."
It was a woman. Her voice was soft, almost quiet like, yet it had the cadence and depth of a well-seasoned veteran.
However, the most peculiar thing was her language. It flowed smoothly from word to word and wasn't like any language you knew.
The closest ones you can recall it sounding similar to were the dialects of the traveller that claimed he came from a great city-state in the deserts west of the Dragon Empire called Sumer. Although you did not take the time to learn it, you were not even sure if it was the same one or not.
Whatever the case, the sheer confusion that must've been seen in your face was caught on by the masked woman. She stopped and tilted her head as she eyed you keenly, before sighing as she rubbed her neck underneath the mask with her free hand.
She rubbed her throat before clearing her throat by coughing as she suddenly spoke once more.
"So my belief from thought that claims you are a newcomer to these lands has more authenticity to it as I look at you more and more. This makes it harder to speak person to person yet ways are always found. Now, do not speak for while you may understand the tongue born from the progeny of the First. You do not have permission to use that tongue so you cannot give thought to me. I only ask if you understand what I say. If you do, raise your left fist and nod twice"
It was so sudden, from speaking another language to suddenly speaking the tongue of the Dwarves. Not many humans could speak it for the Dwarves rather they speak on the Common of the Empire than to let others accidentally dirty the language gifted by your Ancestors. Yet she speaks with such fluency that you would be remiss to say she would speak like a dwarf, the only problem is how rigid and simple her speaking was. However, as she explained it, she seems to know a spell or way to make her words understandable to you. However, the spell could not make her understand you.
As you understood her quite perfectly, you mimicked the actions she asked of you. Once done, she immediately nodded, satisfied before foisting off the bowl to you.
"Drink it. So your strength of body can return to you. The children of envy had attempted to capture you and your acquaintance. I do not see breakage on your body but I do not have time to assay the inside. I shall return to the main thought. The first tongue does not allow me to tell you what to call me, for it shall dissolve it into pure words. Only when you can speak that tongue may I give you my desired calling. So in your mind, I shall allow you to call me Eagle. I shall now tell you a brief tale of the lands you are in, so you may not wander in ignorance"
You listened to their words as you drank the soup, its texture utterly clinged to every part of your mouth and felt like drinking swamp water. However the taste was surprisingly savoury and delicious, and you could already feel your body gaining more energy as you drank it sip by sip.
Watching her, you realised that as she spoke to you, she seemed to be etching sigils onto a piece of parchment, almost as if she was crafting runes. However a quick glance made it clear it wasn't any runes of the dwarves.
"You are a newcomer. One who has died the final death and your soul has passed onto the Prison of Damned. It is a giant realm that has Thirteen worlds within it. It was once ruled by those called Fallen. Cruel masters of indomitable power, however they were overthrown many many years ago. Now it is divided between the Fallen and us. Four kept by the former Masters. Five rightfully conquered by us. And three that must be shared in spite.
Many who come here because they were declared tainted, for they have done evil and deemed unable to be changed so they are casted away to the winds before being hunted down. Of course the present has many come here eventually, like a vortex that drags all lost dead into it. My thoughts are sure that you are like us. Declared tainted and tossed away like exiles"
She turned her head as she stared at you from behind her shoulders
"But I do not trust my thoughts. For you see, your shell around your soul does not show taint like most of us. It is different from the form of Human, but I do not see taint within it.
It is almost like you are of the Other. However you are still too same of Human and thus that makes me wonder. But I cannot derive insight by simply gazing at you as the sun rises and sets.
For now I will only let you know that the current realm you now rest in is the Labyrinth. A realm part of the Prison of Damned, it is a very close and dangerous realm for its walls curl and expand without end. It is easy to get lost within these walls so I ask you to wait until your acquaintance is awake or if they are also a newcomer. I shall escort you two to the closest community."
Finally after talking to you, she stood up as she went back to you while holding a large parchment full of sigils and strange runes arranged in a circle that you do not understand, she turned it around to the blank side before forwarding it to you while handing a charcoal stick on the other.
"I have made this for you so you may write within it. The words of your tongue shall be made into the First Tongue. So I may understand it and our thoughts shall exchange proper. However this is only possible if you are able to write. I hope you do because the only other way is to share my tongue with yours. Many can learn the First Tongue eventually on their own, but this way allows you to learn it like it has been your first tongue your whole life. However in doing so, you will burn out all your other tongues and I cannot let myself be like t
hose who do it without permission of the other. As I understand if you wish to keep your tongues"
Ken, Wrathful Star
====[PLAYER PART]
The first thing that came to your senses was the sound of the roaring wind that galed past your face. As your body quickly got into its active functions, you realised that you found yourselves trapped within a giant net made of metallic woven wires that grabbed you within its entirety.
It took a struggle to even move around, as moving yourself revealed that you were also bound and gagged by some durable grey rope.
[MOTORICS (Formidable): SUCCESS] You quickly moved your body around, using not only your dermal tactile senses but also the movement of your body to feel around for how much of your body was wrapped and the quality of how binded you, as well as its general tensile strength so you can understand the limits of its bindings before it gives way to your now inhuman strength.
After a full minute of fiddling, you've come to realise that you've been bound pretty well. Whoever took the time to tie you up was a clear practised and well-seasoned professional.
Your limbs were entirely immobilised as your arms and legs were tied not only backwards but also together. Each joint of your limbs were also well interlocked to the point that you couldn't move an inch but the lack of pain meant it was done carefully with your safety in mind.
Your chest was also properly bound so you could not even gain full breath's pace, stopping you from having the proper energy to even make a proper attempt at escaping your binds.
If it wasn't you within those bindings but rather a more humble mortal. They would be understandably fully locked up and left with not even a single millimetre of space to move. Even now, your body's natural strength grinds and clashes against the tension of the ropes, forcing it to give way bit by bit
The only question now was when to get out?
Just as you contemplated on when to get out, you heard the sounds of boots stomping and grinding against creaky wooden steps.
It took a bit of a struggle to move your entirely bound body, but you were able to wriggle around so you can look at what's above you to see two heavily-garbed persons coming down from the upper decks.
As they reached the deck right above you and crouched down to get a closer look at you, you eyed their appearance.
Both of them were wearing heavy tanned cloaks complete with hoods that draped over their attire, most likely to help against the desert heat. Underneath their hoods they both wear russian-style black gas masks made of a shiny rubbery material and had giant cylindrical filters fitted over their mouths. However, unlike normal gas masks, these masks had simple circular lenses that glowed an intense blue like the one you'd see within activated nuclear reactors. Outside of that, the two had different attires entirely.
Underneath their tanned cloaks, one had what seemed to be a turquoise hazmat jumpsuit zipped over him (although you could easily tell that it wasn't in good condition as the colour was clearly weathered away from long use).
On his left chest you can see a patch that showed a triangular warning sign with a radiation symbol on it, and underneath was what you recognized as what most would know as russian text. Outside of that, he had a gun sling on him, black dusty combat boots, and a tool belt on his waist that contained an odd assortment of rustic tools from pipe wrenches to what seemed to be a miniature blowtorch.
The other person was not dressed like he's prepped for radiation but rather a generic survival outfit, with a leather duster on top of a heavy plate carrier which also had a few belts carrying shotgun shells below and above it. He also wore the same combat boots and what seemed to be leather coverings to protect his shins and leggings. Outside of that, he wore what seemed to be heavily weathered denim jeans as well as a pale blue buttoned shirt.
"▋▎ ▎ ▊ ▀▔ ▚▇▀▔ ▚▄ ▇▀▙▄ ▇▄░▄. ▒▄▄▌'▒ ▚▄ ▅█▍▀▋▋▜ ▆▎ ▔ ▀ ▍▄▚▁▋▎ ▎ ▃ ▎ ▕▔ ▇▄░▄ █▍ ▔▇▄ ▃▕▍▄▒."
("Look at what we have here. Seems we finally got a new blood out here in the dunes.")
Your eyes narrowed as you slightly flinched within instinct, while it caused no damage or true pain to your ears. It was highly grating to hear what was the equivalent of electronic scratching and shrieks that were overlaid by heavy static.
It was like pure electronic white noise papered all over. It annoyed you to even attempt to parse it, much less even understand what it was talking about.
The two continued to chat over with their utterly cursed bionic screechings but eventually your grunts and grimaces of pain alerted the notice of the two. One of them tilted their head at you as they unscrewed their gas filter by hand as they proceeded to speak to you in a raspy voice.
"You there. You new blood. New to Hell, yes? You now work for us. No other way. Endless dessert out there. Sit tight you go to mines when arrive"
His voice was raspy as if his lungs were entirely burnt out. Taking short gasps between shorter phrases, allowing him to only speak a few words at most in bursts. He quickly screwed his filter back in as he did big gasps of breaths to clear his throat. He chuckled after his lungs were clear as he and his buddy walked away.
It was clear that you were definitely going to break out. However, what they said was true. You weren't sure if you'd find anything out in the far desert wastelands, so in the end you decided to wait for the right time as you consistently loosened yourself.
It took hours, long enough that you took a short nap and woke up to see that you still were up in the net. But eventually by the time the bright sun turns the hazy sky into a warm tone, you see on the horizon a base built upon the base of a mountain. Deciding you weren't going to fight off everyone in the base, you decided now as it was on the horizon that now was the time to enact your plan.
[FYSICAL(IMPOSSIBLE): SUCCESS] With one flex, you immediately break off the ropes that bind your entire body all at once. Like a demigod of a bronze physique, your hard-earned effort allowed you to rip it all as casually as if you flexed your shirt off your rippling muscular body. With one fell swoop you were entirely free of your bindings.
Now all that was left was the metallic net.
[FYSICAL(IMPOSSIBLE): SUCCESS] Emboldened by your display of potence, you were ready to rip open your metallic cage and embark out to claim your freedom among these desert masked slavers.
You grasped upon these metallic woven cords. It was no doubt incredibly durable as even while crushing it, it constantly gave resistance. However, you were no mere man and so even metal made to bind greater beasts were utterly forced to give way and be ripped into shreds by your furious strength.
With one quick jump, you reached across the short gap that led to the steep fall underneath and immediately landed on the deck. As you stood up and dusted yourself off, you were finally free, and off you went to fully claim that.
You walked up the wooden stairs, idly noting that the entire hovercraft skipper had aesthetics that made it seem like it was a pirate's ship that was half-way upgraded into a metallic hull with some of the wooden boards still left over.
As you reached the surface deck, you noticed that there were four similarly masked men that sat around metal crates as they played what seemed like a game of poker. However your arrival was noted as one of them jumped up in surprise and screamed as they pointed at you, getting the attention of the rest of his crewmates. Immediately they all stood up as they readied their weapons before charging at you.
These weapons were all melee ones but despite that it was clear they were all far from ordinary weapons, all of them looked as if they were heavily motorised and guzzled oil. Two of them had giant hammers that looked as if they were pneumatic and could drive foot-long nails into thick steel. The other two had jury-rigged machetes that quickly started glowing into a heavy red glow, with heat emanating from it distorting the around them.
You held your hand out, instinct calling to you as you realise you've somehow gripped into a handle. Looking to your side, you realised that you somehow grabbed a metal bat out of nowhere, even the crew who were about to attack you backpedalled out of surprise at your seeming magic trick. Yet you know that said metal bat was truly owned towards you, however grabbing it was simply opening the gift box, you knew inside that you couldn't just make it return (as of now) and you could lose it. Knowing that made you only grip it harder.
Otherwise, now was the time to let loose and show you how you truly felt about being stuck in that damn net.
[FYSICAL(FORMIDABLE): SUCCESS] Action scene set, one, two, three, ACTION!
Rules of brawling, you weren't some master at swordfighting or any of that fancy stuff. Only thing you had was your guts, endurance, brawn, and a trusty bat. So this was a brawl, and the one rule of brawling that was important to this was that getting ganged up on was a problem.
The solution? Divide and conquer.
Taking advantage of their momentary distraction, you grabbed onto a heavy metallic crate and flung it at them. Three of them immediately dived down or to the side, leaving the unlucky last guy to be hit with the full brunt of the crate as they were knocked down on the ground with the crate landing on them with a resounding crack of their chest.
Not one to let yourself waste the opportunity, you took a running start as you jumped on a crate before jumping off again as you gave yourself some airtime and leaped towards the third masked man who had the only other sword. Leaping at them with frightening speed, you quickly landed on them as you used the momentum to kick them into the ground. Once they got knocked down you quickly finished them with a stomp on their chest, cracking their ribs as they made a gurgling shriek against their gas masks.
This only left Cub uno and Club dos. The two shook off their battle shock as they proceeded to ganged up on you all at once. Showing you why ganging up on one person was one of the most natural tactics in fighting.
Even with your natural instincts in you that screamed at you whenever you were about to get hit, and the hairs on your back allowing you to duck and weave past their strikes. You were still far too new to such intensive combat, especially with this much ferocity. It seemed these masked men fought with enough fury and zeal to make even battle junkies ponder in shock.
It was a good decision to cut off their numbers to stop you from getting hurt so easily. Just letting them hammering at your evasive body didn't seem to tire them out at all. Thankfully your body could easily dodge their massive hammers so you weren't out of the ring just yet.
It meant that you had to decisively knock them out. As you ducked other club uno's strike, you immediately elbowed their stomach to give them pause as you grabbed their body and hurled it backwards at club dos as he was about to go for a lunge, this toppled the two to the ground, while club uno was able to quickly start scrambling, he couldn't get up fast enough before you hit him in the head with the bat, giving him a concussion to knock him out. Club Dos seemed to have been knocked down as well.
You sat on a crate as you took the breaths that a winner would take. However, as you recovered your stamina and reviewed what you just experienced. You felt the hairs of your neck standing up and screaming upon your nerves as well as the sudden feeling of heat behind you.
Instinctively you ducked down as you saw that right above you, you would've been decapitated by a sword swinging right at your neck-level. The intense heat above showed you how close you were to having a cauterised decapitation.
Lunging forward and rolling before turning around, you realised that the other swordsman had somehow woken up and was now standing. However this was despite the fact you can hear him giving heavy wet coughs as blood pooled from the seams of his mask. It seemed that you shattering his ribs ruptured his lungs, but despite that, he was still standing.
Immediately you dashed forward, determined to take him down. However while clashing him, you quickly went for his limbs and even took a free swing at his head. Sadly the swordsman was far more competent and was far better at handling your strikes, your only fortune was your bat was capable of taking on a super-heated blade.
Glancing behind you, It seemed that the other masked man was much more durable as well, as you can tell from club Dos struggling to remove his friend's unconscious body and the other one struggling to get the crate off him. You definitely needed to end this fight before you had three masked anomalies that could shrug off ruptured lungs going after you.
As you parried his swings at your bat, you realised you had to do a risky manoeuvre. As you grabbed your bat with both hands, you made a feint as you aimed towards a leg shot but as the swordsman went to parry it, you immediately dropped your weapon and made a blitzing two-fold jabs on the combatant's face, immediately cracking their skull twice as they were flung backwards sprawled on the ground.
Taking advantage of this, you immediately stabbed his machete deep into his spine. Ensuring he couldn't move at all.
As you recovered from your impromptu duel, you immediately dashed over to the rest of the group just as you saw club Dos fully take off the body of his friend, wasting no moment, you threw the bat as hard as you can at him, hitting him straight in the head as he got knocked down.
Immediately as you reached him, you sweeped for the bat as you stomped on his face extra hard, hearing a crack and letting you know he was properly down. Looking elsewhere, you realised the one stuck under a crate was still stuck, deciding to not let him catch you by surprise, you stomped on his face multiple times until he stopped moving.
As the fatigue slowly sets in on your body just as the adrenaline dies down. You finally took your next breath as you started to exhale in and out with deep gasps. The sweat toiling down your face as you feel the blood on your clothes seep down as they dry.
Watching the blood drip down your metal bat and pool onto the floor. You realised it now. You won, against four men you won. To best others has proven your strength one and true. To feel jubilation at the success of your struggles. You could feel it in your heart, that despite it all you were just getting started.
But as you were about to celebrate, you heard the sounds of boots marching and ratcheting of shells as you looked up and see a large man, easily at 7 feet tall, who also wore a captain's hat alongside the two other men you saw from before, who now had shotguns that were aimed at you. The captain, who in turn also had a revolver ready but not
aimed at you, took off his filter as he made large gasping wheezes.
"You took down my men. Who? are you?"
David O'Hara, Ex-Dark Lord
Sounds of metal clashing and sparks flying echoed across the empty Training hall. It was early in the morning as the new sun had not risen yet, most were either preparing for the duties or still peacefully sleeping the last of the night oil away.
The only ones inside the large training hall within one of the five colossal Citadels within the city were two figures currently clashing against each other. One was a black-haired woman of african descent who had deathly pale skin to the point that veins could be seen at the edges of her eyes, she wore a simple attire of a red buttoned shirt with a black dyed brigandine on top and brown leggings, and she used an arming sword as she hurriedly backed away while deflecting away the point of the other woman's spear.
The other woman in question was a fair-skinned woman with auburn hair tied in a tight bun, the most notable feature about her was the clear draconic features adorning her. From the jagged horns jutting from her forehead, the stilted dark orange eyes with no white within it, the scales so darkish red it bordered on black that scattered across her face and engulfed her arms, and finally the large dark crimson tail that ended in a sharp blade-like tip. Strangely enough, she wore only a simple skirt which were knees-high length-wise, for her top was covered in large spiked scales that jagged and formed together as if they were a naturally formed breastplate. Her weapon of choice was a relatively short spear that was only a foot longer than herself (with her being around five foot in that regard), said spear however wasn't a simple wooden stick with a steel tip but rather as if it was carved from dark ivory bone itself.
After her spear was parried off by her opponent's sword, the opponent quickly committed to a full fleche as she poised for a full stab at her chest. However the woman simply pulled herself back by her back-foot as she twirled her spear to hit her opponent with the back end of her spear like a staff.
The young woman raised her eyes as she quickly shifted power on her front foot as she attempted to reel back in turn to dodge the attack, but she committed far too much on her attack and as such she could not dodge fast enough in time, resulting in her getting hit on the side of her head with the wooden end of the spear, this ultimately caused her to get launched to the left side of the room, as her body skidded and tumbled against the floor. The woman simply twirled her spear in a show of displayful showmanship before tapping it against the floor as she let it rest by her side. (In a literal sense as her spear floated lazily beside her in the air, with it following her movement).
"I am glad that you figured out how to perform a proper counter-attack, I do note that one shouldn't fully commit to their attacks unless they can be certain that their opponent lacks any ability to counter it. Otherwise committing too much allows one to be unable to be flexible enough to adapt against any reprisals. If one fails to adhere to that lesson, well, you learned that lesson the hard way as they say it" The woman says in a witty tone as she admonishes her student.
The student in response only groaned as she curled up as she cradled her bleeding head in her arms.
"Tsk, that is only a small attack, the bleeding and the pain is only there to make sure you understand the importance of what I teach, get up young Antoinette, this lesson of the morning is not over yet" The teacher said with a wistful smile as she waited for her student, Antoinette to get up.
The blood kept pooling up on her arms and eventually she realised that Antoinette's body was slacked still. Her smile slowly shrank before a worried face just as slowly replaced it.
"On second thought, I think I may have forgotten what is a small attack for the common people"
With that, The teacher grabbed her student and carried her in her arms as she quickly dashed for the nearest practitioner within the castle.
-------
The noble Lady stood with grace yet with worry on her face as she watched her ward sleeping peacefully on the medical steel bed, so peacefully in fact that one could mistake her for a dead corpse (the deathly pallor did not help things much in that regard).
"Forgive me for speaking out of my station, your ladyship, but I believe that you have underestimated the physical feats for those newly arrived. It is fortunate that her body is healing well, especially with the help of those more modern medicines. However it is clear that her body, the shell of her mind, has not fully acclimated with the strength of this plane. Nor has it been properly refined by her will."
She waved her hand offhandedly as she continued to watch her ward "You are forgiven doctor, I am a very old woman, so I do admit I have not personally tested the mettle of those newly arrived. It did not help that she is not a warrior when she came under my tutelage. My blade has been fed by the ichor of many that I forgotten the frailties of the young"
The doctor, who fashioned himself in the garb of a plague doctor except for the mask being made of bone and stitched into his face directly. He checked the various diagnostic machines monitoring the status of the ward while a snake curled up on his neck slithered down to write down notes on a clipboard stuck to her shoulder.
"Well I think she will be making a swift recovery, able to move on her two legs by noon and she should be fully recovered within the week. However my diagnosis is that she should not engage in rigorous combat till then, her body is still similar to that of a living and thus is fragile like one. Depending on her coherence, I may allow her to go through her daily practices through the fighting techniques, otherwise at most she'll be observing others or going through the manuals. It is a good thing the fragments did not lodge themselves into the brain. It would have taken an operation to take them out before glueing them together"
The lady simply nodded in response "Very well, I see clemency in your words doctor. I will adhere to them so my ward may heal properly. Perhaps I will simply delegate her to her magical duties only instead"
"Only the less intensive ones I recommend, any rigorous ritual would be not recommended"
"The rote ones then, very well. I will take my leave, I trust her in your care"
"Of course my liege " he said with a curt bow "My oath would ask me to care for her all the same, and I did not damn myself by breaking it"
The lady simply nodded and hummed before she exited the room, heading towards the throne room.
----
The young Antoinette hissed in pain as she grabbed a few herbs from a nearby assortment of cups containing various pieces of plants and grounded powers, before throwing them into a bowl for her to continue to grind and mash upon with a pestle while the the plague doctor watches both to attend her and in idle curiosity.
"My apologies young noble lady for the pain, I could not allow you to attempt this with an addled mind, even then I'm only letting you create your own concoction due to the ingredients being non-toxic in nature. Assuming you speak the truth my young grace"
"Yes yes, do not fret I am no stranger to caution when one harnesses the essence of the world much less in times of peril, yet my god, please do not refer me to those fancy titles. I still cannot believe that I am now apparently a noble in Hell." She said as she smashed the leaves and threw in grounded bone powder into the now forming paste. "I still do not believe that this is Hell, I smell the brimstone and the air is more hot than the air of the deserts of Mexico. Yet I do not see the pitchforks and the devils"
The plague doctor chuckled behind his mask, his small laughter like the squawks of a raven. "Ah yes the newcomers are always in disbelief. Their preconceptions of the afterlife are always fascinating to listen to. Although it very much once was like that, tarnished and damned. But Humanity has proven their worth and the heavens seem to let us govern ourselves to each of our own responsibility. Damned still that is true, but at least we are our own wardens as those more philosophical would claim"
Antoinette hums in absentminded agreement before she dips her fingers unto the mortar as she watches as the paste stuck to her fingers and got out as she took her fingers away. "Very thick, this should suffice, I only hope the substitutes would be worthy enough"
She nodded towards the doctor, who proceeded to unwrap the bandages on her head slowly. When fully unravelled, he slowly took off the now heavily sticky bandage as it clung to the now clotting wound where she got in the head, she proceeded to then grit her teeth as she spreaded the paste as thinly as possible across the wounded area. Once the entire wound was covered, she whispered under her breath as the green paste bubbled as if it was boiled from the inside, after half a minute of chanting, she quickly ripped off the spreaded paste in one swipe (eliciting a quick squeal from her as well). Once it was fully taken out, the doctor peered in to see that the surface area of the wound was entirely healed. So perfectly it was as if the wound was never injured in the first place.
Antoinettte took deep breaths as she handled the sudden waves of pain and raised the flat paste on her hands, on its surface she could see that her wound was seemingly transferred onto the paste itself, as if it was a sketch that she took out and moved towards a new canvas.
"Fascinating" the Doctor noted "It's always fascinating to see the natural and arcane remedies of the exotic foreigners outside of Europa." (Antoinette raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on it) "I have never seen a process wherein the wound simply moves to another area."
"Well, I am glad you consider this fascinating instead of horrific."
"Hrm? Why would I-oh…my condolences" The doctor apologised as the room grew tense with awkwardness before the Doctor faked a cough as he drew a futuristic device with a screen attached as it displayed a blue matrix field onto the side of Antoinette's head where the wound was.
"Well the dermal layer from the epidermis to hypo are all healed and pristine. However the internal skeletal structure hasn't been fully healed, thankfully the bone adhesive still exists and is keeping the general shape together, so while your recovery period has been hastened by a few days, I still suggest taking it easy. Too much movement may disrupt the adhesive and allow the smaller fragments to lodge deeper into the brain. While dying is a very hard thing to achieve here, Neurological injuries are never pleasant to deal with."
"I see, if you'll excuse me I'll be sleeping the rest of the day off"
"Of course, I would recommend that in any case-ah but before I go" The doctor fished for something in his breast pocket as he took out a metal-film packet containing something spherical, he tossed it towards Antoinette who took it before she tore it out of the packet.
"Candy?" she noted as she eyed the candy-like ball between her fingers, it was bright red in colour and it even smelled faintly like cherries when she took a sniff.
"The gifts from the future, the medicines get to taste like sweets now. I'd imagine the children up there are less fussy with taking their doses, yes?"
Antoinette smiled "hah, perhaps they do. I know my younger sister would have enjoyed something like this in her youth" She said as she popped it into her mouth before she laid herself to rest in the medical bed. "Good night to you doctor, and please do not refer to me as grace or highness"
The doctor was about to speak when she spoke her request, causing to chuckle "Very well then, have a good day's rest young miss"
Antoinette simply grunted in response as the Doctor went back to his desk as he proceeded to do whatever doctors do when they're treating patients, I dunno papers or something what're you looking me at for?
----
They call me Antoinette, Voodoo Necromancer of the Countess
Antoinette walked down the hallway of glass-panels that showcased entire walls of meat surrounding all around her. Her eyes, while still foggy and opaque just as when she died, also now had dark bags underneath. She groaned as she held a stitched up doll tightly with her right hand while she raised her other hand as she used a large flashlight to illuminate the front.
I do not like the title to be honest, I preferred to be a Medicineman or doctor as they say it.
She eventually exited from a double airlock and entered a large room that was only illuminated by her flashlight, shining the light on the ceiling she realised that the industrial lights of the room were all burned out. She grumbled under her breath as she looked across the dark room, feet walking on silver-coated catwalks as she looked around the pulsating meat around her. Sweating inside the biohazard suit they gave her, eventually she found a giant dark tumour gestating outwards, nodding to herself, she proceeded to go to the nearest Catwalk that headed towards it. Once she reached it, she deployed the flashlight as it illuminated the entire room, she took out various blades and surgical tools before she did the careful task of excising the tumour out from the flesh.
"When they said the nobility worked as hard as the common people, I did not expect it to be a literal stance" she said to herself as she continued working.
However there is merit. For as much as I learned the practices of 'light' from my elders.
As she hummed to herself as she did the careful task of macro-surgery, amidst the rhythmic movement of the flesh, she heard a sudden skittering across metal. Immediately she turned around and realised out in the far corner was something in the dark. Immediately taking out a strange object shaped like the sun, she immediately threw it on the ground as the entire room illuminated as if the very sun was there. Screeches echoes across the room as she saw that there was an entire pack of what seemed like lice-like bugs that had slithering tendrils emitting from their abdomen. They hissed as few of them leaped at her.
Immediately she grabbed the amulet on her wrist and cupped it with both of her hands before shoving it at the bugs' direction, causing a field to emit that fried the parasites that leaped at her.
I too have learned the arts of the dark, far more than any medicine man should know
The field dissipated as she grabbed the doll she left at the floor and stabbed onto it with her fingers as it laid on her palm. Retracting her fingers showed that she placed purple strings that attached into the doll whose eyes glowed with essence.
Immediately then, she threw the doll at the parasites, the doll itself animating as if it poised to lunge at the creatures.
"Gray-Gray Cutter, come to my aid and show them the might of a shade!"
In the end, If they have the need for my practices.
Immediately the doll morphed, the fabric unravelling in a fit of display to reveal a gangly shade-like humanoid creature of a nightmare, with wisps of miasma emanating from it. It clicked and clacked like a wooden doll as it sharpened its finger blades the size of swords against each other.
Immediately it landed on a nearby support as it threw a harpoon from its wrist and reeled back a parasite before slicing it into bits with its hands.
Antoinette leaned to her shoulder as she activated her shoulder-worn radio "I found not only tumours but also monsters deep in here!"
"What?! Down in the back second femur sector? This isn't good, I'll alert the higher ups, you need any backup?"
"No need my friend"
Then let the Voodoo WItch come out to play.
"This will be a quick spar"
Immediately she roared alongside her overgrown creature as it dove into the hive of parasites and started slashing.
The only ones inside the large training hall within one of the five colossal Citadels within the city were two figures currently clashing against each other. One was a black-haired woman of african descent who had deathly pale skin to the point that veins could be seen at the edges of her eyes, she wore a simple attire of a red buttoned shirt with a black dyed brigandine on top and brown leggings, and she used an arming sword as she hurriedly backed away while deflecting away the point of the other woman's spear.
The other woman in question was a fair-skinned woman with auburn hair tied in a tight bun, the most notable feature about her was the clear draconic features adorning her. From the jagged horns jutting from her forehead, the stilted dark orange eyes with no white within it, the scales so darkish red it bordered on black that scattered across her face and engulfed her arms, and finally the large dark crimson tail that ended in a sharp blade-like tip. Strangely enough, she wore only a simple skirt which were knees-high length-wise, for her top was covered in large spiked scales that jagged and formed together as if they were a naturally formed breastplate. Her weapon of choice was a relatively short spear that was only a foot longer than herself (with her being around five foot in that regard), said spear however wasn't a simple wooden stick with a steel tip but rather as if it was carved from dark ivory bone itself.
After her spear was parried off by her opponent's sword, the opponent quickly committed to a full fleche as she poised for a full stab at her chest. However the woman simply pulled herself back by her back-foot as she twirled her spear to hit her opponent with the back end of her spear like a staff.
The young woman raised her eyes as she quickly shifted power on her front foot as she attempted to reel back in turn to dodge the attack, but she committed far too much on her attack and as such she could not dodge fast enough in time, resulting in her getting hit on the side of her head with the wooden end of the spear, this ultimately caused her to get launched to the left side of the room, as her body skidded and tumbled against the floor. The woman simply twirled her spear in a show of displayful showmanship before tapping it against the floor as she let it rest by her side. (In a literal sense as her spear floated lazily beside her in the air, with it following her movement).
"I am glad that you figured out how to perform a proper counter-attack, I do note that one shouldn't fully commit to their attacks unless they can be certain that their opponent lacks any ability to counter it. Otherwise committing too much allows one to be unable to be flexible enough to adapt against any reprisals. If one fails to adhere to that lesson, well, you learned that lesson the hard way as they say it" The woman says in a witty tone as she admonishes her student.
The student in response only groaned as she curled up as she cradled her bleeding head in her arms.
"Tsk, that is only a small attack, the bleeding and the pain is only there to make sure you understand the importance of what I teach, get up young Antoinette, this lesson of the morning is not over yet" The teacher said with a wistful smile as she waited for her student, Antoinette to get up.
The blood kept pooling up on her arms and eventually she realised that Antoinette's body was slacked still. Her smile slowly shrank before a worried face just as slowly replaced it.
"On second thought, I think I may have forgotten what is a small attack for the common people"
With that, The teacher grabbed her student and carried her in her arms as she quickly dashed for the nearest practitioner within the castle.
-------
The noble Lady stood with grace yet with worry on her face as she watched her ward sleeping peacefully on the medical steel bed, so peacefully in fact that one could mistake her for a dead corpse (the deathly pallor did not help things much in that regard).
"Forgive me for speaking out of my station, your ladyship, but I believe that you have underestimated the physical feats for those newly arrived. It is fortunate that her body is healing well, especially with the help of those more modern medicines. However it is clear that her body, the shell of her mind, has not fully acclimated with the strength of this plane. Nor has it been properly refined by her will."
She waved her hand offhandedly as she continued to watch her ward "You are forgiven doctor, I am a very old woman, so I do admit I have not personally tested the mettle of those newly arrived. It did not help that she is not a warrior when she came under my tutelage. My blade has been fed by the ichor of many that I forgotten the frailties of the young"
The doctor, who fashioned himself in the garb of a plague doctor except for the mask being made of bone and stitched into his face directly. He checked the various diagnostic machines monitoring the status of the ward while a snake curled up on his neck slithered down to write down notes on a clipboard stuck to her shoulder.
"Well I think she will be making a swift recovery, able to move on her two legs by noon and she should be fully recovered within the week. However my diagnosis is that she should not engage in rigorous combat till then, her body is still similar to that of a living and thus is fragile like one. Depending on her coherence, I may allow her to go through her daily practices through the fighting techniques, otherwise at most she'll be observing others or going through the manuals. It is a good thing the fragments did not lodge themselves into the brain. It would have taken an operation to take them out before glueing them together"
The lady simply nodded in response "Very well, I see clemency in your words doctor. I will adhere to them so my ward may heal properly. Perhaps I will simply delegate her to her magical duties only instead"
"Only the less intensive ones I recommend, any rigorous ritual would be not recommended"
"The rote ones then, very well. I will take my leave, I trust her in your care"
"Of course my liege " he said with a curt bow "My oath would ask me to care for her all the same, and I did not damn myself by breaking it"
The lady simply nodded and hummed before she exited the room, heading towards the throne room.
----
The young Antoinette hissed in pain as she grabbed a few herbs from a nearby assortment of cups containing various pieces of plants and grounded powers, before throwing them into a bowl for her to continue to grind and mash upon with a pestle while the the plague doctor watches both to attend her and in idle curiosity.
"My apologies young noble lady for the pain, I could not allow you to attempt this with an addled mind, even then I'm only letting you create your own concoction due to the ingredients being non-toxic in nature. Assuming you speak the truth my young grace"
"Yes yes, do not fret I am no stranger to caution when one harnesses the essence of the world much less in times of peril, yet my god, please do not refer me to those fancy titles. I still cannot believe that I am now apparently a noble in Hell." She said as she smashed the leaves and threw in grounded bone powder into the now forming paste. "I still do not believe that this is Hell, I smell the brimstone and the air is more hot than the air of the deserts of Mexico. Yet I do not see the pitchforks and the devils"
The plague doctor chuckled behind his mask, his small laughter like the squawks of a raven. "Ah yes the newcomers are always in disbelief. Their preconceptions of the afterlife are always fascinating to listen to. Although it very much once was like that, tarnished and damned. But Humanity has proven their worth and the heavens seem to let us govern ourselves to each of our own responsibility. Damned still that is true, but at least we are our own wardens as those more philosophical would claim"
Antoinette hums in absentminded agreement before she dips her fingers unto the mortar as she watches as the paste stuck to her fingers and got out as she took her fingers away. "Very thick, this should suffice, I only hope the substitutes would be worthy enough"
She nodded towards the doctor, who proceeded to unwrap the bandages on her head slowly. When fully unravelled, he slowly took off the now heavily sticky bandage as it clung to the now clotting wound where she got in the head, she proceeded to then grit her teeth as she spreaded the paste as thinly as possible across the wounded area. Once the entire wound was covered, she whispered under her breath as the green paste bubbled as if it was boiled from the inside, after half a minute of chanting, she quickly ripped off the spreaded paste in one swipe (eliciting a quick squeal from her as well). Once it was fully taken out, the doctor peered in to see that the surface area of the wound was entirely healed. So perfectly it was as if the wound was never injured in the first place.
Antoinettte took deep breaths as she handled the sudden waves of pain and raised the flat paste on her hands, on its surface she could see that her wound was seemingly transferred onto the paste itself, as if it was a sketch that she took out and moved towards a new canvas.
"Fascinating" the Doctor noted "It's always fascinating to see the natural and arcane remedies of the exotic foreigners outside of Europa." (Antoinette raised an eyebrow but didn't comment on it) "I have never seen a process wherein the wound simply moves to another area."
"Well, I am glad you consider this fascinating instead of horrific."
"Hrm? Why would I-oh…my condolences" The doctor apologised as the room grew tense with awkwardness before the Doctor faked a cough as he drew a futuristic device with a screen attached as it displayed a blue matrix field onto the side of Antoinette's head where the wound was.
"Well the dermal layer from the epidermis to hypo are all healed and pristine. However the internal skeletal structure hasn't been fully healed, thankfully the bone adhesive still exists and is keeping the general shape together, so while your recovery period has been hastened by a few days, I still suggest taking it easy. Too much movement may disrupt the adhesive and allow the smaller fragments to lodge deeper into the brain. While dying is a very hard thing to achieve here, Neurological injuries are never pleasant to deal with."
"I see, if you'll excuse me I'll be sleeping the rest of the day off"
"Of course, I would recommend that in any case-ah but before I go" The doctor fished for something in his breast pocket as he took out a metal-film packet containing something spherical, he tossed it towards Antoinette who took it before she tore it out of the packet.
"Candy?" she noted as she eyed the candy-like ball between her fingers, it was bright red in colour and it even smelled faintly like cherries when she took a sniff.
"The gifts from the future, the medicines get to taste like sweets now. I'd imagine the children up there are less fussy with taking their doses, yes?"
Antoinette smiled "hah, perhaps they do. I know my younger sister would have enjoyed something like this in her youth" She said as she popped it into her mouth before she laid herself to rest in the medical bed. "Good night to you doctor, and please do not refer to me as grace or highness"
The doctor was about to speak when she spoke her request, causing to chuckle "Very well then, have a good day's rest young miss"
Antoinette simply grunted in response as the Doctor went back to his desk as he proceeded to do whatever doctors do when they're treating patients, I dunno papers or something what're you looking me at for?
----
They call me Antoinette, Voodoo Necromancer of the Countess
Antoinette walked down the hallway of glass-panels that showcased entire walls of meat surrounding all around her. Her eyes, while still foggy and opaque just as when she died, also now had dark bags underneath. She groaned as she held a stitched up doll tightly with her right hand while she raised her other hand as she used a large flashlight to illuminate the front.
I do not like the title to be honest, I preferred to be a Medicineman or doctor as they say it.
She eventually exited from a double airlock and entered a large room that was only illuminated by her flashlight, shining the light on the ceiling she realised that the industrial lights of the room were all burned out. She grumbled under her breath as she looked across the dark room, feet walking on silver-coated catwalks as she looked around the pulsating meat around her. Sweating inside the biohazard suit they gave her, eventually she found a giant dark tumour gestating outwards, nodding to herself, she proceeded to go to the nearest Catwalk that headed towards it. Once she reached it, she deployed the flashlight as it illuminated the entire room, she took out various blades and surgical tools before she did the careful task of excising the tumour out from the flesh.
"When they said the nobility worked as hard as the common people, I did not expect it to be a literal stance" she said to herself as she continued working.
However there is merit. For as much as I learned the practices of 'light' from my elders.
As she hummed to herself as she did the careful task of macro-surgery, amidst the rhythmic movement of the flesh, she heard a sudden skittering across metal. Immediately she turned around and realised out in the far corner was something in the dark. Immediately taking out a strange object shaped like the sun, she immediately threw it on the ground as the entire room illuminated as if the very sun was there. Screeches echoes across the room as she saw that there was an entire pack of what seemed like lice-like bugs that had slithering tendrils emitting from their abdomen. They hissed as few of them leaped at her.
Immediately she grabbed the amulet on her wrist and cupped it with both of her hands before shoving it at the bugs' direction, causing a field to emit that fried the parasites that leaped at her.
I too have learned the arts of the dark, far more than any medicine man should know
The field dissipated as she grabbed the doll she left at the floor and stabbed onto it with her fingers as it laid on her palm. Retracting her fingers showed that she placed purple strings that attached into the doll whose eyes glowed with essence.
Immediately then, she threw the doll at the parasites, the doll itself animating as if it poised to lunge at the creatures.
"Gray-Gray Cutter, come to my aid and show them the might of a shade!"
In the end, If they have the need for my practices.
Immediately the doll morphed, the fabric unravelling in a fit of display to reveal a gangly shade-like humanoid creature of a nightmare, with wisps of miasma emanating from it. It clicked and clacked like a wooden doll as it sharpened its finger blades the size of swords against each other.
Immediately it landed on a nearby support as it threw a harpoon from its wrist and reeled back a parasite before slicing it into bits with its hands.
Antoinette leaned to her shoulder as she activated her shoulder-worn radio "I found not only tumours but also monsters deep in here!"
"What?! Down in the back second femur sector? This isn't good, I'll alert the higher ups, you need any backup?"
"No need my friend"
Then let the Voodoo WItch come out to play.
"This will be a quick spar"
Immediately she roared alongside her overgrown creature as it dove into the hive of parasites and started slashing.
===[PLAYER PART]
The first thing that came to your vision was the sun.
It was bright, shining not as a warm yellow or setting orange, but a flareful pure white that dares all to bask in its overwhelming heat. Thankfully as much as your eyes stared into it, no pain came to you, nor did your vision diminish at all.
However the heat was getting to you, already you could feel the sweltering gaze focusing upon you from its all-encompassing sight.
[FYSICAL: AUTO SUCCESS] However despite it all, you didn't experience the pain or uncomfortablities that one would expect from such heat. The desert's aura shall not impede you for the pain that would drag any lesser men down does not affect you. Your body is yours to control as is right as its Lord. To let suffering and impudence stop you from surviving and living is a folly for the foolish who do not understand the sheer determination that courses through your entire system like blood.
However the Lord must not be foolish, to be so arrogant as to ignore reality like Nero or Caligula. Even if the Heat cannot urge the body to rebel in the fear of harmful stimuli. It is a consistent malignancy that desires to erode you bit by bit. The constant evaporation of the rivers within your kingdom while the heat attempts to slowly burn away the lands like a dragon of calamities. Take heed my Liege, you must get to shelter quickly, lest the Solar Primus conquer you in its all omnicidal gaze of fury.
You quickly accepted your internal thought's advice and decided to quickly get to shelter from the (non-painful) blistering heat. As you quickly flipped yourself and stood up in one swooping manner, you looked around to find that you were in the most peculiar of landscapes.
Immediately you can tell that you were in what seemed to be a desert landscape, complete with gigantic rolling dunes and sweeping sands. However, the strangest thing to note is that the "so-called sands" were all incredibly bleached white. On further inspection as you crouched down to look at it, (you attempted to grab some but the sheer heat from just hovering your hand above it made you decide that it was NOT a good idea to touch it). It made you realise that it looked less grainy and more fine. Throwing a metal rod at it made you realise how the sand bursted in the air after impact and how it moved made it seem more like bone-powder than actual silicon sand.
You also noted that the rod basically started to slowly corrode from the sheer heat. If it could do that to metal, you figured that it wouldn't be a good idea to walk in that "sand" as well for your wellbeing. It seemed like the only thing stopping you from evaporating against the white ashy sand was the structure you woke up on. Indeed, you woke up on what seemed to be a half-buried vehicle, judging from its metallic surface and the hollow sounds as you knocked against it.
After checking your footing, you looked up and gazed upon the horizon to see if there's anything notable to observe, whether to better discern your situation or even a landmark to mark a possible next direction on where to go. After a few sweeps of active perception, you only spotted two notable things.
One, was that the sky was entirely pitch black, as if the entire sky was covered in pitch tar. The most strangest part was that it was entirely black despite the fact there was a blazing white sun right above you, although as you eyed it closer. You realised the sky was just that naturally dark, as gazing near the sun only saw that the sky close to it simply lightened up to a darkest grey tone at most. This only cemented that wherever you are, was a truly alien landscape.
The second was the gigantic quadruped creature on the horizon. It was so incredibly enormous that even in the hazy distant horizon it was tall enough that you could compare it to the distant sightings of mountains, even then, judging by how far you saw it away (you couldn't even make a rough gauge, but the only thing you can tell is that it was immeasurably far), it was likely even taller than the steepest of mountains.
Dario D'Amico, Fortunate Son
====[PLAYER PART]
War. Violence. Bloodshed
You were found in those pits, stuck in an endless loop fighting one after another. Your fists smashed face after face like grindstone, until even the flesh of your knuckles were slowly scraped away to reveal the blooded white of bone itself.
When you were offered a deal by those strange beings, claiming power and glory so long as you served them in this one final mission, you took it. Many of your fellow soldiers would've baulked at such an offer. Whether young and naive, claiming you a traitor, or old and weary, pitying you for becoming a weapon, both asking 'why?'
But you know it in your heart. It's why you kept fighting in those pits. Violence sings to you, like a grand symphony
Was it any wonder you took that deal?
Yet as you wake up, a memory surfaced of one of the many stories the nuns would tell you in the orphanage, to instil fear of Gods wrath.
She told you and the children about Hell, unlike other caretakers who would tell you about its fiery pits, about how demons and monsters would torture you under boiling blood.
That old nun, one with folded withering skin and cataracts-filled eyes,she told you of a Hell that was not of pits or of devilish punishments, It would be one of suffering suited towards the person tailored to their soul. One so drenched with sin and evil, It would be torment not out of any excessive pain or torture, punishment would echo into their character, a prison made out of their own flaws and misery. To an evil man it could be everything they want, but twisted to reveal the cracks and hollow shell that their desires were in heart.
As a child, you had been frightened but also confused, and growing up one would look back on those memories as those of fear mongering attempts to strike deeper.
Now, as you wake up, laid upon a tarp covering a stack of crates listening to air sirens scream across the landscape as shells whistle, all punctuated by a staccato of thunderous gunfire and roaring men..
Looking up to blackened skies, only barely lit by molten lead and fiery corpses of crashing planes. A sky that overlooked a landscape utterly mutilated by trenches, trenches that you could not see for you were stuck within them, but in your heart knew that carved deep and wide, an endless labyrinth etched unto the ground.
A thought could be made as you looked to yourself, having been dressed once more in the overalls of conscripts, then looked around, and saw dead men walking in uncannily copied uniforms.
Literal dead men, for many of them were pale as corpses or bore marks of war upon them.
One man lugged a crate of ammunition as guts dripped out from the cavity of his chest, leaving a trail of sinew and viscera unto the dirtied planks on the ground. Another continued to fire shots with his rifle against unseen enemies, aiming his rifle despite a lack of head as if decapitation could not stop a puppet's strings.
As you look around you, you realise that if this was Hell.
You feel right where you belong, hear the blood sing once more..
However, you could not linger within your thoughts for long, as someone grabbed your shoulder with an iron grip, turning you around as they shoved a rifle in your hands (It was a Mannlicher-Carcano model, how did they have one here?). The person who grabbed you was a burned man, one whose fires charred his flesh right to bone. You could see it on his face, as only bare bits of charred muscle stuck to charred cheek bones. What was left was a red-stained skull that looked to you with hollow eye-holes and clattering teeth that emitted the most foul of miasma.
[FYSICAL(PASSIVE LEGENDARY): SUCCESS]Your body's instincts screamed as you felt the stench of a rotted, burned corpse wafted upon you as it screamed with torn out chords so close to your face.
"CORPSE! CORPSE!"
"ROT DISEASE! DEAD!"
"VOMIT! PUKE! HURL! EXPUNGE THE ROTTING POISON"
Your body demands to hurl with every screech of your nerves, primal instincts that demand you escape from the dead for it fears the plague that may come upon you.
However you are a soldier, you have seen friend and foe die upon the literal pilefold. You forced yourself to walk across rotting corpses floating upon bog trenches under the orders of uncaring commanders. You have experienced war at its worst.
You have experienced Hell on Earth, you can survive against Hell itself. So shut up half-light, let us face these mockeries head-on.
Bracing yourself and shoving down your urge to vomit after facing such rotting stench, you listened to the clattering and prattling of this burned man. Glancing down at their chest pocket where you saw their rank pins, you weren't familiar but you could tell somewhat they must've been at least a Caprole or even a Sergente that led the men in the muddy trenches themselves.
His chattering however could not be understood, under its raspy and croaking shouts, words he spoke were utter gibberish. Yet somehow as you blanked out, you realised that you understood the concepts and meanings once you stopped trying to parse it and let it simply flow over you.
Death to Traitors. Orders to Move. March March March Soldato.
After that he grabbed your collar and shoved you outside the small tent, yelling to move faster. You could have resisted, fought back, but it wouldn't have been a good idea. After all, you know what happens to those who argued against their superiors and attempted to rebel..
Bang.
Moving on, you entered the trenches of charging soldiers, so packed full of men running for distant battlefields that you felt like you could drown within their discordant marching. As you were carried away by the crowd of soldiers, your ankle was snagged by something that pulled you away from the flow and into a diverging trench.
Looking down you saw someone crawling on the ground, his face utterly deformed by chemical burns and whose eyes yellowed with pus and blood swelling together. You knew a victim of mustard gas when you saw one.
You did not understand his words as he tugged onto you with bloody tears weeping from eyes that were far more cognizant than others you've glanced at (at least those who STILL had eyes at least).
You knew the meaning behind them though. He begged, just like those who were barely even adults. Juvenile drafters or worse, naive volunteers who screamed for their mothers or loved ones, delirious minds who were so engulfed with pain they distort as they sob and beg for relief.
You know what you had to do, don't you? You had to give him mercy, and you did so with a quick shot.
After lowering your rifle, you looked around and spotted a crate full of gas masks. You knew what terrors would lie awake above you, you wouldn't get lucky this time (or can you?). As you strapped the mask on, you wandered the trenches that spun away from the main path, now untethered by the frantic crowd, an opportunity arose to properly equip yourself.
As you packed yourself to the brim with whatever equipment you felt necessary, you wondered where else to go. At first you wandered the trenches until you found what seemed to be a communications outpost, it had the antennas used for those fancy radios.
It was abandoned, but that was a positive for you as you ransacked the drawers and desks for any possible information on where you were. You realised that everything was utter gibberish. The documents and folders of reports were sheer nonsense, you couldn't even understand the meaning behind their random scribbles. At least there were maps and radios, however the radio when turned on only had droning sounds that told of coordinates and reports of scouts, understandable but not helpful.
The maps were not an exception though, despite looking over them, the only map that made sense was one of the current battlefield. It was a strange one, as it had various blue markers dotted all over, and they seemed to move in real time. Otherwise, while seemingly accurate, the rest of the maps were pure nonsense. They were just more maps of seemingly other battlefields. There weren't any strategic ones drawn for the region or wherever anything took place. Any map that you think was close enough were utterly blurry messes or random scribbles that you couldn't make any proper heads or tails of.
[WHEEL OF FORTUNE(GODLY): SUCCESS] You needed a lucky save just to get you out, fortunately for you here's a freebie
As you sat in a chair, utterly exhausted after exhausting every possible bit of info that you could find within this outpost. You reclined on the chair as you wondered how you could ever get out of this hellhole. Thoughts and worry about becoming just like those undead soldiers, forced to constant war and decaying over time. That's when it hit you.
Literally.
From the sky rained flyers and pieces of papers. One of them managed to slap you in the face as it landed. You'd curse your luck but opted to look at the paper to see what exactly it is..
The paper was strange, it folds and flaps like paper, but it was shiny and shimmered as you turned it around. It didn't help that it was incredibly smooth, like some sort of plastic paper? Whatever the case it definitely was hard to tear at least.
Reading it, you realised the text was also utterly confusing to understand, you almost threw it out of anger when you realised that as you swiped it, the text changed entirely in its language, vaguely recognizing the current text as those cursive ones of the Ottomans, you continued to flick the plastic paper until the text transmogrified into one you recognised.
It was hard to read, like reading a very strange dialect of Italian, but you eventually understood the context. It seemed like a primer or introduction to new inhabitants of Hell.
Well you were in the right place at least.
Skimming over the text, it essentially mournfully welcomes any new inhabitants to Hell, claiming that the trenches or battlefield they were in was part of a "ring of circle" or essentially a sub-region within Hell that was called Violence against Man (How descriptive), claiming they were sent here for sins of killing, most likely due to being a soldier in war.
After more parsing and prose about redemption and working to a better future, it claimed that they only needed to follow the beacon in the distance to arrive in one of the closest "Cities" that would help welcome them and allow them to at least turn a new leaf in life. It also claimed that it only appears after you've read it, since apparently they used to be seen by all, but it often resulted in being sieged by the same mindless soldiers that you currently were in the same trenches with.
Looking up, you did indeed see a suddenly new distant bright beacon within the horizon, shimmering into view like a mirage turned reality.
Now that it was done with, you had a goal now at least to get to. You just needed to figure out what to do to actually get there.
You could try simply hoofing it out, but you weren't sure how you'd get that far, you could try getting a vehicle, but that may take some time (do we even know how to drive man?), and finally try gathering anyone else who is not as mindless as these folks, at worst more hands makes escaping easier, and at best you might even find a pilot, after all someone had to be flying those planes.
Donavin Patterson, Faithful Necromancer
=======[PLAYER PART]
"HALT! STOP THERE SCUM!"
"GET BACK HERE!"
'SCREECHING'
You moved as hard as your feet could push you off the ground. Each step clambering for more ground to put between you and your pursuers.
You didn't know the details as everything was so blurry, but all you could remember was waking up in a strange city that was constantly permeated with a bright violet glow while having giant thunderous dry winds swirling high above the city. With most of all what seemed to be various forms of purple Tieflings intermingling with various strange human-like people.
Confused and in delirium, you stumbled around as you figured out where you were. Then that's when it all started.
After you woke up on the streets of the strange velvet city and took an hour of walking around, you eventually found an intersection or an outpost, it was like a checkpoint that was the entrance that opened the giant metallic walls surrounding the district that you seemed to be in. Walls that towered high into the clouds.
The checkpoint had guards-who were garbed in metal chest plates and strange helmets that had glowing visors covering their face-guarding it without any weapon on sight. However the strangest part of the gate was that it seemed to have force fields on both sides, ones that could disintegrate beings into ash and then nothingness as you saw from the fate of a rat that attempted to cross the gate.
Worried, you quickly turned around as you tried to get back but immediately was pushed back by the growing crowd of people behind you. With no luck of pushing back without drawing attention to yourself. You quickly fell into line with the rest of the crossing citizens.
The force field of the gate dissipated to let a person come in before they would be let on the other side, repeating one by one until it was finally your turn. You hesitated for a moment, which gave a guard-one that seemed to be an orange dragonborn-take out a strange mace out of nowhere and pushed it against your back. Immediately you felt a shock of pain as literal electricity shocked you, quickly forcing you to stumble forward into the post
You looked around as two guards-both in face concealing helmets-surrounded you as they inspected you like the rest that came before you. One had a clipboard as he seemed to be tallying the various people that came in and out, while the other had a strange stick that he waved around you.
"Just a standard inspection citizen, just follow along. We already got a lot on our hands with the various incidents sparking around due to that damn witch"
"Mhm, this'll just take a mo-" The one with the stick was interrupted as his stick immediately blared out intensively with that shrieking blaring noise. The two went still in shock as the one with the stick immediately swept along it with his other hand as a strange glowing box with text inside-one you couldn't recognize-appeared floating in the air.
"Wait, you're a-how did a human get here"
The two slowly turned to you with a menacing aura as the one with the stick grabbed you by the hand roughly as he stopped you from getting away despite your resistance, while the other raised a set of spiked manacles as he slowly approached you.
"You're coming with us scum, we don't know how you got here but the Count of Mirrors will get every last scrap for your mind"
You didn't know what's going on exactly, but all you knew was that your fate was going to be a grim fate if you didn't do anything to escape.
With that in mind you relied on rote and hoped you can summon up a proper cantrip this time. Fortunately with your newly gifted status, what once blurred memories of texts and incantations were renewed in fresh ink on your mind
[PSYCHE(IMPOSSIBLE):SUCCESS(?)] Recalling upon your magical tutelage with renewed clarity. You would have drawn upon the ambient energy of the lands before transmuting it into a mutable force for you to pour into formulas so you may create spells to cast against your enemies, the complex process those of the arcane arts like wizards would do.
However the fact was that in that moment you realised you were most likely in this Hell reality as the Gods your parlayed claimed, while you were not sure if this was the realms of Tyrannical Devils that call their home Hell or of entirely different sorts. All that you know was that you weren't sure if it was a good idea to draw upon the mana that was present within a realm that called itself Hell. You knew there was some way to do so without gaining corruption as you heard about the Crusade to fight back against the incursions located far north in the Worldwound but you didn't know exactly the way to do so.
Fortunately it seemed that the deal you made with your would-be patrons has resulted in you gaining a large amount of energy buried deep inside you, which reminded you of the Sorcerers you heard about. Having an alternative source of magic to draw upon, you grasped upon it and poured it into your usual formulas to create your go-to attack cantrip.
If drawing upon magic from the ambient air was like grabbing water with a pail, to draw from your newly discovered inner reserves was like opening the waterlock of a river that suddenly spat out rapid currents of water that fell out at top speeds. Rapidly filling your formulas.
[INTELLECT(10):FAILURE] You struggled to restrain the tidal stream of mana that was flowing through you. It was so potent that for a brief moment you could feel your body heating up as it glowed brightly, illuminating the room like the sun as it blinded everyone near you.
Despite your attempts, no matter how much you tried, you just didn't have the experience of directing this amount of magic. You were only a person attempting to stop a river. In the end, in order to not blow yourself up, you let go as the brief deluge of energy that you let out was fully immersed into the formula without any contract, purposely overloading it.
Immediately the entire room was lit with a gigantic screeching sound, barely sounding like a bell and rather felt more the screech of a banshee. It echoed across not just the gate, but also the entire streets. People screamed and convulsed on the floor as they tried to cover their ears but the bell was not physical but vibrated across their souls. Entire windows and glass shattered in a giant spray of shattered shards, and the gate itself buzzed heavily as it blew up and broke down.
It was for a brief moment but everyone within the street you were on was now on the ground kneeling in pain, many of them bleeding from the glass shards embedded on their body. The guards were about to arrest you were just still bodies on the floor, you weren't even sure if they were alive or not. Only you were there, standing in shock as the sounds of air horns and strange screams echoed across the air. Knowing nothing, you immediately started running.
That led you up to the present, running across the streets as you ducked and weaved past alleyways while demonic guards chased after you. You were honestly glad that you could not feel tired as it was possible you would've stopped dead and been piled upon long ago.
However you felt like a rat chased by cats in a maze, a maze of their own making. Sooner or later you were likely to be caught dead eventually.
That's when you felt yourself grabbed, you whelped as you found yourself being dragged into a hole in an alleyway wall before the wall immediately repaired itself in front of you brick by brick. You were about to resist and fight your capture when they immediately grabbed your mouth and she (now hearing her voice) shushed you.
"Do not make a sound or they'll find you. I am not entirely sure if I can fight them all off here "
It was a person and from the sounds of it, it was your new saviour. Not picky for who your newly made allies would be, you acquiesced and stayed silent as you heard the sounds of the demonic guards searching the area for you before marching away to find you elsewhere.
Once the both of you couldn't hear anyone else, she took her hand off your mouth as she grabbed a string above you as it caused a small lantern in the ceiling to light up immediately, must be magic.
"Alright the coast is clear, I'm surprised to see another human around here to be honest, much less one that not only caused a good mess in their city but did it so recently judging by how utterly normal you look"
You turned around and found that you were met face to face with a strange woman who had what seemed to be a bird-like mask that was literally stitched to her face by red string. The mask had a long beak, about a hand-long and its eye-holed had dark red glass placed on top so you couldn't see past them. Otherwise she had short neck-long black hair mixed with crimson red trails on her bangs with most of it slickly swept back except for a few trails that stuck out determinedly.
Her outfit was a strange outfit better fit for a Ball dance as it was a long-sleeved red gown that was clearly made of fine quality, although it didn't seem to be very restrictive and only went down to her knees. Completing her dress was her silk white gloves and flat shoes-at least she didn't seem to be running around in high heels.
All in all despite the strange mask, she seemed to look more like a noblewoman than any would be saviour you would expect. Only other strange thing was that her outfit seemed to hide her entire body with no patch of skin in sight.
"There something wrong? Ah, it's about the dress isn't it. Don't worry I get it all the time, but I prefer to be dead in style than alive and grunge as the new ones would say it. Although I am already dead so there's no problem there" she explained before making small laughter from her own joke "In any case I suppose introductions would be i
n order. You may call me Nikolina, may I know the name of the newcomer?"
Essel-Unit-142
===[PLAYER PART]
[Essel Unit starts in Heresy, but eventually wanders himself into the "Bridge" between Heresy and Dis]
[Meanwhile he passes by various settlements and cities. But he doesn't enter them because of his sensors and conflicting directives due to Call of the Wind]
[REBOOTING CHOM.OS SYSTEM]
[DIAGNOSTICS RUNNING]
[NOTICE: NEW UPDATE DETECTED :NOTICE]
[INSTALL UPDATE? Y/N]
[INSTALLATION CONFIRMED BY ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS]
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: █▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒10% }>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: ████▒▒▒▒▒▒30%}>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: █████▒▒▒▒▒50%}>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS: ████████▒▒80%}>>
<<{UPDATE IN PROGRESS:██████████100% }>>
⋘ 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎... ⋙
[UPDATE SUCCESSFUL :: >> INITIATING ACTIVE FUNCTIONS]
Your body fully activates.
All sensors activate one by one.
Images of red desert dunes surround you as your visual optics went online.
Starting Auditory receptors received nothing except airy winds that blew through the dunes.
Olfactory Stimulatory Neurons detected a strong and constant sulfuric scent within the air.
Finally your Tactile Sensory Systems felt the intense heat that you quickly located was emanating from the blindingly white sun.
[PASSIVE] [STRENGTH CHECK: 24] The Graphics and Visual overlay quickly went online after the rest of your basic sensors were fully activated and at optimal functions.
Data streamed directly into your active neural system as it quickly translated them into processed information.
Temperature sensors from your Tactile systems quickly denoted that the ambient temperature was reaching a severity of 70 celsius. Far above standard temperatures for humans without protection. However, your insulated systems mean that you will function well under those temperatures without any major loss towards your operating efficiency.
It was clear that you were in the deserts, and while you could not tell with certainty. The current evidence suggests that you were likely successfully sent towards your designated Location.
This meant that you were now brought to Hell. Assigned with new directives and thus purpose. You quickly check for them and bring it out from your memory repositories. Unfortunately your new directives were very bare bones.
>Cycle.TAROT(STRENGTH) Primary Directives
>Uphold Tarot Pact
>Primary Mission Objectives
>Locate and Enter Location:[HELL] <COMPLETED>
>Observe, Explore, and Gather Intel within Location.
>Thrive
>Survive
The Tarot Pact was very vague when the information was sent to you by your new superiors. Attempts to fully scan the orders and directives necessary to uphold it are all barred from you by Kernel-level access, meaning it was blackboxed from you entirely. At the very least you'll know if any of your actions will act against the primary directive or not.
The mission objectives are very free-form, and are incredibly open-ended. As far as you can tell. Aside from entering the mission location, you are simply tasked with gathering intel on Hell and self-improving oneself.
Strangest part is scanning and going through the itinerary. It doesn't seem to necessitate any of the standard directives given to you, especially by your last masters. While you cannot gather concrete proof without first-hand diagnosis with the associated individuals on hand. You seem to be able to disobey your new masters and are given full reign of your functions, judging from the fact that the normal thought corrective algorithms have not triggered when you test it by generating malicious thoughts towards your masters.
It was very surprising how free form it all was. You could easily betray them assuming your hypothesis was correct. Of course there was no need for it and in some way you pride yourself in being the best Essel-Unit there was. Any lesser cyber-units would've Degraded and gone rogue but you are better. You are the prime example of the Old World's knowledge made manifest.
In the end it wasn't the concrete purpose you expected, but you will make do.
You looked outwards to the horizon. There was nothing for you here, and thus you'll follow your next objective. You raised one foot and took your first step as you planted your feet against the hot sand that barely fazed you. With that you started to wander and explore the desert around you.
[FYSICAL(Impossible +|23|): SUCCESS] Your body was built to withstand extreme environmental conditions and your energy intake is optimised to allow you to continue operating without refuelling or intake of any nourishment for weeks. With your new modifications, your current calculations estimate it would take at least months before you would need to resupply.
You continued to walk across the desert you found yourself in. Step by step, you traversed across dozens of miles on end with each passing of the day (at least by 24 hours, you've noted that the sun was up far longer than the standard rotation cycle, with based on your internal clock would be stay in the sun for 36 hours before setting for 12). Only stopping for brief rests under the shade of ravines and various natural caves you've found, and to escape the heat when it reaches high above your tolerance levels when the sun reaches its highest peak in the sky.
The journey is hard and dangerous, not only with the eroding sand storms and the biting winds, but also the constant heat that forces you to monitor your internal systems to prevent overheating. In the end you prevailed across your entire journey, because you were simply built differently.
Your journey takes across multiple cycles of 24 hours. Each step was catalogued and recorded under your newly installed data bank hard drives with seemingly infinite data space. Using the program that came pre-installed with it, you were able to create a highly detailed map around every step of your journey. Complete with each landmark, not only natural but also the various ruins that you've found
Signs of civilization. It was a strange thing to find just as much as you were surprised by the lack of people in your journeys, but it seemed that your database's entry on Hell was inaccurate (Which was fair since this was likely from an entire alternative reality from your own). In any case those signs of civilizations were often ruins, from sanded down scaffoldings of shelter to bleached remains of battlefield equipment.
Majority of these were far too ruined to be of any merit or use. The ruined shelter could at most provide shelter from the heat and seemed to be stripped of any of its internal furnishings, and the remains of dead corpses and what seemed to be macro-sized mechanical walkers all seemed to have been looted away. With the mechanical walkers having most of their insides too destroyed by the constant eroding of the sand coming within them.
[MOTORICS(IMPOSSIBLE[18]): SUCCESS] Although you were not always so unfortunate with your findings. Sometimes you'd find a series of settlements that seems to have been recently assaulted with the blood still staining the floors and the corpses fresh. You analysed the surroundings and bodies only to conclude it was simply a series of mundane raids.
[MOTORICS(LEGENDARY): FAILURE] You check the corpses further, however their corpses were not only dismembered or torn apart but they seem to have been dead for a long amount of time. So sadly they are still corpses. With no reason to be hasty or any time-sensitive objectives. You used your strength to build sand-buried graves for each of the bodies, as well as using pieces of torn wood to mark their graves for others to find. Laying them to rest was the least you could do and would comply under your behavioural protocols
After laying the corpses to rest, you scavenged around the raided homes. While it was usually picked clean as expected, you were surprised that with a more finer touch, you were able to find various supplies from canned rations and bottled water to even pressurised suits similar to the "Haz-mah suits" that were used to explore the Blue Wastelands. The rations were quickly consumed to restore your nutritional levels to peak levels and while it took fiddling around. You were able to wear these suits and found they helped incredibly in traversing the extremely hot desert, even allowing you to continue travelling even when the temperature levels reach far above your standard condition rates. The suits however took power but most of the places where you were able to find supplies had cells that you used to recharge them. The suit took some time to fit in, but it was spacious enough that you were able to fit your two lower arms within it.
Aside from those supplies you also found a few primitive melee weapons, with you taking a [INSERT PREFERRED WEAPON] with you. It was not one of the more Archaeotech weapons that the nobles and elite had in your world, but it would suffice.
While you still didn't find any supplies or loot within the battlefields you crossed. You were able to find a few mechanical walkers with intact enough energy cells and were able to jumpstart their systems. Sadly the walkers' systems were heavily eroded and thus couldn't walk again (you didn't even know how to walk them even if you could), and checking their hard drives and Black boxes, majority of the data was incredibly corrupted and what's left was in an entirely different language that couldn't understand. In any case you copied them over in a read-only mode as to prevent yourself from catching any malware. The most important find were the cells, as you were able to use them to not only recharge your own reserves, but also the cells used for your environmental soft-suit.
With all this help your journey has easily surpassed the estimate of months and your journey extended far longer. You recall checking a day before and your internal clock has denoted that your journey lasted around a year and a half (based on years being a collection of days with 24 hours in each). Yet your supplies and systems meant you could continue moving for at least a month more. It seemed like a long time to many, but for you? It was just a drop in the many years that you were used to in wandering.
Fortunately for you, when the new day came. You realised that you didn't have to wander any longer.
As you continued wandering the wastes, you immediately saw something within the distance. Unfortunately your optics could not zoom in close enough to see anything, at most you could only see a giant bird-like shape.
Fortunately for you, it was getting bigger. The reason it was getting bigger was that it descended down on you, quickly.
Immediately you started to get away as the sand blew all over, creating a brief yet heavy sand storm as what seemed to be a flying heavy metal machine descended onto the ground. Thankfully you got away before it could squish you.
You watched from behind a rock to watch as the storm descended to reveal a strange metallic aircraft. Unlike most aircrafts which had a bird-like shape with static wings. It seemed more like those helicopters that your database had few info on. However, unlike most which place the blades on the top, it seemed to place the blades on the sides. That and its sleeker appearance, overall giving it an insectoid look to it.
You attempted to hide, unknown of the desires of the people inside, but as they quickly exited from a descending ramp behind it, some of them quickly pointed at your direction and shouted. It was now your choice, would you run to the deserts presuming these would be enemies against you, do you go to them with trust and parlay with strangers, or do you attack them head on in hopes of commandeering their vehicle.