"I do," I remember the very moment of my death. I collapsed after receiving multiple gunshot wounds from a distant machinegunner and died after feeling my heart fail. She also remembers falling face first onto her Thompson machine gun when she got hit, those rear sights hurt.
Mitsuru looks down at her hands. They're a bit pale, she leans against a wall and tries some deep breaths. She remembers the shock-induced blindness, it was that darkness that would haunt him into the afterlife, the same silent darkness that he experienced buried under his families corpses. Terrifying yet intriguing. That beast of darkness, he must be the key to my power.
Come hither and bring me the weapons of my ancient world war, the veritable tools of political change.
Seeking the beast that haunted you for decades... it's a rather ironic twist to this new reality of being a high school girl.
A blue sun sets over the hills just up ahead, though the hills themselves can scarcely be seen. A grey mist envelops you, a mist of soot and ashes, screening these happenings from the rest of the world.
Your nose doesn't bother you this time, but the smell is all the same. A smell to which no man nor woman nor child should ever bear witness.
But this isn't panning out like you remembered it.
They're missing. Everyone is missing.
You lift up your head and look around. Hway is standing next to a bunch of bodies holding an MP-40 in one hand, smoking a cigarette with the other.
"Yuck." She spits it out.
"It's a lonely place," she starts,
"almost as if whatever being was driving things here... is now gone."She fires a few more rounds into the nearest German body, dumping the magazine. An echo bounces off the hill. Your knees shudder, half expecting the sound of ricochets at your feet.
"This happens a lot, you know? The phantasms, I mean. They tend to get a lot emptier when people leave.""This isn't going to go well, is it? Ah well, no time like the present."
Gai chases after Hway to the schoolyard and notices the ominous surroundings.
"Yup, definitely not going to end well. Typical."
Hway disappeared. And Mitsuru suddenly went unresponsive, her eyes appearing stone dead. And yet she stands up, unaware of the plants and vines suddenly sprouting up all around her. Crimson bulbs emerge from the soil, covered in warts made of dead white material. Cursed blades of grass rise up out of the ground, morphed into wicket scythes of bone-like growth, and they rear themselves in a position ready to strike and disembowel the defenseless human caught in a surprise coma.
"GET DOWN!" a familiar voice compels you to hit the dirt, diving to knock Mitsuru over as well.
A surprise fusilade of gunfire trims down the mass of putrid bulbs and stalks. Behind you, a grown student clad in light-green military uniform, wielding a long matchlock rifle, peeks out of his trench along with his squad of fifty skeletons currently reloading their six-foot muzzle-loading weapons.
"Well well..." a frail voice booms from the rooftop.
"Fancy meeting you again," it declares. The figure, standing against the backdrop of crows, pulls his hands out of his pockets.
He then unsheathes a Scottish claymore and assumes an overhead guard stance from the edge of the rooftop.
(On the other side of the school, though still close to the track)
Giving Miya a reassuring smile, Nagisa followed Youka and Makiko outside just in time to see the strange signs. Feeling tensed, Nagisa thought about what Youka just said. Perhaps it was wise to be ready for anything.
Attempt to summon the Celestial Repeater again.
Suddenly, a thought entered her head. "Hey Youka-san, what about the people who are not like us?" she begin to ask. "What exactly do they see when we're fighting these monsters or accessing our powers? Is it possible for them to get hurt as a result?"
"They don't see monsters, or any of the things we summon. They're not really meant for this world,"Youka dons her own glowing outfit, complete with a basket slung across her back filled with fireworks.
"In situations like this, when people are jumping all over the place, it must look weird to them... but in the end, we still see the stuff on videos and recordings, so there's no way for us to tell. It looks as if the rest of the students are taking shelter from the birds up above," she points at the students waiting under the covered bleachers next to the track.
You retreat to the armory of your memories, finding yourself inside a hall filled with lockers at a building's entrance. The doorway is gated and the outside city looks pale, misty, and almost... distorted.
A familiar thundering rhythm echoes through the passageways behind you, so you make haste and begin unlocking the lockers with the key in your hands.
You wonder where the key came from.
Inside there are chains, unfamiliar parts from strange, imposing, yet portable weapons you've never seen before, knives with no handles, and long guns with unfamiliar form factors. You don't have much time before the footsteps get here, so you pick a gun with a curved box attached in front of the trigger, as well as a short barrel and a mix of metal and wood construction. It's heavy, but much shorter than a musket.
(It seems that you've a hard time pinpointing your weapons across the vastness of your memories at the start of battle. Perhaps if you keep your thoughts focused during battle, it may come to you more easily.)
Makiko Glances nervously between Miya and Youka. The sounds up ahead add to her nervousness. Well, better get this out of the way before whatever is about to happen ...
"Youka-san, Youka-san ... I summoned a centipede. It was really big and at a bit of my fish. Is that what you mean by taming my monster?"
Youka gave you an explanation earlier. In the ensuing pause, Miya chimes in.
"I didn't need to tame Lilith! She came to me when I was lonely."As a large flying creature swoops overhead, with a wingspan as wide as two grown men in height, Miya pulls a wooden twig out of her backpack and makes a motion to stab its base into the ground. Immediately, it grows to the full length of a staff, topped with a skull not unlike that of 'Lilith.' Miya's glowing green dress quickly grows to cover her whole body.
Ryo glances around the field before getting startled by the crashing noise of a metallic heap tossed at his feet. It's some sort of machine with a cylindrical body and round, spinning feet. It has a multi-jointed arm wielding some kind of brush attached to a flexible tube. The whole thing gives off a high-pitched whine which dies down soon enough, and leeches begin to crawl out of the cracks in the outer casing.
...
Having taken the time to look at the situation, it appears that in addition to the flying creature, there are two monsters present. One is a spine-covered wyvern with no legs, instead crawling around on its great winged arms and slashing at poisonous bulbs sprouting from the ground around it close to the center of the track. It breaths a cloud of grey dust, which causes the bulbs to liquefy into an earthen-colored sludge.
The other monster is much more difficult to observe. At first glance, it seemed to dance among the bulbs, blending in among virulent strains of hyperactive plant growth. At times it could be easily mistaken for the vines and tubes running through the ground, spreading the plague further. But then it unfurled its dazzling wings on the opposite side of the circular track, the seven colors of light shining iridescently in patterns resembling alien eyeballs
It looked somewhat like a giant moth. But its bladed stinger swung back and forth, sinking into a giant mutated tree sprouting up out of the ground and felling it with one blow.
Two students in glowing garb are 'hiding' in the mass of students at the bleachers just a couple of meters away. One of them looks on nervously, feverishly biting his nails. The other is currently poring through a glowing book, though the effects of his invocation are yet to be seen.
It seems difficult to identify a culprit in all this. But around the corner of the school, just out of sight of the bleachers, a new threat reveals itself: A noxious worm, covered in bright red warty petals, unburrows itself and spits out a cluster of vines covered in globs of adhesive--like hooks on a fishing line. Four of you, Nagisa, Makiko, Ryo, and Youka, all manage to avoid it, but Miya had a slow reaction to the vines as they sailed through the air, and found herself caught. Youka kicks the vine, only to find it anchored firmly to the ground--and Miya's prone body. Youka's shoe stayed attached.
Another worm unearths itself, this one much further from the group, and with a swollen body. They don't seem to be effective combatants in and of themselves, leading the five of you to fully expect the second threat: a massive serpent with rocky scales lurking underground. This colossal behemoth emerges from beneath the dirt and raises its head to tower over the multi-story school, its rocky scales seeming nigh impenetrable by comparison to soft plant matter. At its head, holding on to its crown of horns, stands a humanoid figure covered in pale white skin and with tiny, indistinct facial features.
The towering serpent opens its mouth, about to unleash forth a breath of noxious gas--until four orbs of light crash into its skull from the sky, killing it instantly. Its body falls in a circle, forming a wall around yourselves and the noxious worms. In addition, the humanoid falls from above and splats into a puddle, but in moments it reforms into the shape of a human girl--a barefoot girl wearing a muddy purple gown, having a dejected expression.
Noxious Worm (8Df 2Pw 1Pc) -- 2 distance (everyone)
Noxious Worm (8Df 2Pw 1Pc) -- 5 distance (everyone)
(3Df 4Pw 6Pc 5Wt) -- 3 distance (everyone)
Spirit Shards:
Mask of Mystery -- It exudes a constant feeling of confusion. You have the feeling something will happen if you wear it.
Inventory:
Your school backpack
[Backpack] Knife (Skill Level: 3) (Damage: 2 physical) (Reach: +0)
-Slash: Against unarmored targets, you can throw 2 additional skill dice
Spirit Shards:
Mask of Despair -- It pulses with an overwhelming sense of dread. You have the feeling something will happen if you wear it.
Inventory:
Celestial Annihilator (Skill Level: 1) (Damage: ??) (Accuracy: 4)
Inventory:
Your school backpack
Inventory:
Your school backpack
Inventory:
Your school backpack
Assassin's Plaque -- A token of... victory? It writes of a shadowly ninja clan.
Author
Topic: River of Lost Souls: IC Thread (Read 51137 times)