Alida isn't really good at handling these situations, so she just takes a few dives to try and find the rifle. They're all magical.. if it's gone, there should be a solution between them, somehow.
You shove Aleksandra off of you and towards the shore, not wanting to deal with the panicked girl. She shrieks and desperately throws her arms towards you, apparently scared of floating on her own, but you easily swim away, and she quickly notices that she's not sinking; at that point she turns around and starts swimming back to shore on her own, and you sigh in relief. Time to look for her gun.
You dive directly downward, easily pulling yourself to the bottom within a few strokes, and start groping around the stony bottom of the river. You quickly realize that finding her rifle will be difficult; beyond the fact that you can't see
anything under the water, it's unusually hard to keep yourself close to the bottom, and you have no reference points to keep track of where you are, or where you've already searched. After you've groped around blindly for a couple minutes, you return to the surface, and find yourself a good ten feet farther down the river than you thought you were. Still, you don't feel like giving up just yet, and dive back down just after you've caught your breath.
You continue to have a complete lack of luck, blindly groping around underwater--until you hear Mina's voice telepathically contact you. She sheepishly suggests you swim a bit to your right, and down further. Figuring she's found the gun, you comply, and a moment later are surprised when you're sucked into a super-strong current that you somehow hadn't felt before. You tumble for a few seconds, telepathically cursing at Mina even as she repeatedly apologizes, and then your back hits a long metallic object stuck on the rocky bottom. Reacting quickly, you twist around and grab it, tugging it along with you--it's the rifle!
You surface immediately, and as soon as your head is above water you triumphantly thrust the firearm above your head, proud of yourself, and then swim back to shore. Aleksandra, who's currently laying amid the shorter flowers with her eyes tightly shut, doesn't even notice your approach until you drop the gun on her. Her eyes go wide as she stares down at the weapon.
If Asha can be reached, ask her to try to come down. If not, ask Sasha if she can reach her.
Regardless, try to bring the others to meet up with Tooru. Tell them that it feels like something's off deep in the water, maybe try to figure out what it is. If that doesn't work, look around some more, see if there's any evidence of the witch's location.
You try and mentally contact Asha while Alida struggles with Aleksandra, but can't sense anything. You need to know generally where she is in relation to you to contact her, but this place is... well, you're not really sure where it is in relation to
reality. Everything seems a bit off, to your senses. Even beyond the strange nature of the water, and flowers, and everything else, there's just an intangible sensation of unreality permeating this world.
You're broken out of your thoughts by Aleksandra, who's
slooowly dog-paddling past you, despite the water being shallow enough to wade. You ask her to try and contact Asha herself, wondering if maybe the ribbon in her hair--which was clearly made by Asha--grants the Russian girl some connection, but you don't expect much. That done, you turn to talk to Alida, and then realize she's diving underwater for some reason. You sigh, and don't even bother asking her to come back up and go meet Tooru, you don't think she'd listen. Instead, you wade deeper, bringing the odd section of water entirely into the range of your magical senses.
It is indeed a current, as you guessed earlier. The smooth bottom of the river aggressively slopes down from both sides towards a channel cut into the middle, a perfect half-cylinder just
missing from the riverbed. Within and just around that cylinder is a torrent of extremely fast water, flowing far faster than the rest of the river without any turbulence, as if it were contained in a tube or something. You close your eyes and focus, but you can't sense any container; That's apparently just... what the water
does, in this world.
You get a bit closer, now up to your neck in the river, and watch small pebbles rolling across the bottom of the channel. You wonder what it's there for; it looks too artificial and different to just be a random feature of the landscape. Maybe it somehow propels the boat...? You think about it for a little while, until Alida, still underwater, swims into range of your senses. She's groping along the bottom in a chaotic, random fashion, and you already know the area she's in now doesn't have the rifle; curious what will happen, you telepathically suggest she swim into the strong current. She immediately complies--and is quite violently yanked into it, pulled out of your detailed area of vision almost instantly. You immediately start to apologize, even as Alida fills your mind with a stream of harsh cursing--though it stop only seconds after it begins.
You realize why seconds later, when Alida surfaces a good thirty feet down the river, triumphantly holding Aleksandra's rifle high above her head. You smile, happy that your little experiment helped her find the rifle. She starts to swim back to shore to return the weapon to its owner, and you start wading back up too, letting your mind drift back to the purpose of the channel, and the function of the rest of the labyrinth.
[Innocence]
...Even with a fair bit of thought, you just can't be sure where the witch is. The river and the boat full of people are both heading deeper into the labyrinth, towards the source of that calming song which is flowing across the landscape, so the obvious answer is that the witch is playing the music, like some kind of siren... but then, that's just too obvious, isn't it? You've seen a lot of monster movies, and the monster is
never right at the obvious place, calling out to tell everyone where it is. It's always hiding under the ground, or clinging to the ceiling, about to drop down on you... You look at up at the sky as you climb onto the flower-covered shore next to the other girls. There's just thick clouds and alien stars visible far above you. You guess that means it's underground? Maybe that underwater current leads to it?
Lie down, despair and cry about lost heirloom in silence. I ruined everything, lile always... Grandpa is going to be so disappointed...
Alida pushes you off of her, and swims away, leaving you floating alone in the water. You're not a strong swimmer, but after a couple seconds you start to calm down, and swim back to shore. Once out of the water, you just drop into the flowers, your wet back sinking into the ashes below. Only then do you finally start to cry, hating yourself for bringing the rifle along. You don't even have magical powers, and you
knew labyrinths were these terrible dangerous places, but you still brought granddad's gun here... and worse, you lost it not even ten seconds after stepping into this place. You're an embarrassment to the family!
You wallow in guilt for awhile, crying to yourself while staring up at the syrupy orange clouds looming above. You hadn't noticed it before, but there's music in the air, a slow tune, calming and somewhat uplifting. It doesn't cheer you up entirely, but... you find yourself a lot less torn up than you feel you should be. Asha's voice returns, warily asking how you are, and eventually you tell her that you'll be fine. The others said that they might be able to find your heirloom later, you think, and they're
magical girls, they can do anything, right? Asha agrees, saying you shouldn't be too worried, and between her and the music you stop crying. The flowers and ash you're laying on are so comfortable, too, you feel kinda sleepy, your eyelids are heavy...
Something heavy lands on you, and you open your eyes to look down at it. It's your grandfather's rifle? Your vision is swimming, you recognize it, but at the same time it looks so unfamiliar, and just, odd... are you dreaming? You look around. Alida's standing over you, and there's Mina too, and Tooru over there, they're all looking at you. Something is wrong, you just got your grandfather's rifle back, you should be really happy and excited, but you just feel tired...
Tooru decides to jump off the boat to the shore, and assuming nothing untoward happens she heads back to investigate the screaming.
You hesitate for a minute as the boat continues to drift past the flowers, not wanting to leave the human passengers alone, but not wanting to lose track of your teammates either. Eventually, you decide that your teammates are more important to stay close to; you're not even sure if you can protect these people. Plus, what would you do if that music started to affect you too? All alone, you're vulnerable.
You get up carefully while watching the clay man at the rear of the boat. He turns to face you as you move, but doesn't seem to be preparing to grab you or anything. You leap to the shore without issue, your feet sinking into the soft ground a little, then turn to watch the boat leave. The clay man turns around to watch you as the boat drifts away, his face expressionless and creepy. Uncomfortable, you watch him until he disappears around a bend after a minute, then let out a breath you hadn't known you were holding. That
thing is wrong, you can sense it.
Everything here feels wrong, but the clay man in particular is something worse, something dangerous, you can sense it. You need to be careful.
You carefully pick your way back along the river, taking it slow so you can watch for danger, but nothing bursts out of the ground or anything. There's just that distracting music, colorful flowers, and a sky that looks minutes away from a severe storm. It's not long at all before you spot three of the other girls, on the shore near the waterfall that you came in on. Alida and Mina, standing over Aleksandra, who's laying on the ground with her gun. They all seem a bit out of it, especially the Russian; the music is definitely affecting them.
Enter the labyrinth, reunite with Sasha and the others!
[Purity]
Asha comes tumbling down the waterfall just after tooru gets back. She falls without making a noise, and nobody notices her until just before she splashes into the water, which makes no sound at all. She quickly surfaces and sees the other girls, and hastily swims over to join them, leaning over Aleksandra as soon as she reaches the shore. She can tell something's wrong with the young girl, the music filling this place is having some effect on her mind. Asha can feel it niggling at the edge of her own consciousness, too, but deliberately shuts it out--she can hear how it's resounding around inside Aleksandra's head, and she won't let that happen to her too.
((Next update on Tuesday the 28th. Current musical track: Santana - Black Magic Woman (Instrumental).))
Soul Gem: Glowing with a fading light.
Form and location: Medallion, pinned to her left breast.
Age: 14
Hair Color: Salt-stained blonde.
Health: Completely drenched, and still a bit dazed.
Inventory: A club, and a boxed pair of new (if wet) shoes in her backpack, which is sitting somewhere under the flowers on the shore.
Totem: A fishing club.
Stats:
Bravery: Talented~
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Amateur...
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Skilled!
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Cursed ;-;
Abilities:
Mobility Lvl2
Close Combat Lvl3+1
Totem Manipulation Lvl2
Berzerker Lvl3
Painless Lvl2
Effigy Lvl1
Soul Gem: Glowing with a Vibrant light.
Form and location: Ring, worn on her left ring finger.
Age: 13
Hair color: Ashen
Health: Fine, and probably somewhat distressed by Aleksandra's lack of resistance to the music.
Inventory: Four ribbons, woven into a net.
Totem: A Ribbon. The one her late sister wore.
Stats:
Bravery: Skilled!
Joy: Cursed ;-;
Innocence: Cursed ;-;
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Talented~
Creativity: Amateur...
Love: Skilled!
Abilities:
Mobility: Level 3
Close Combat: Level 2
Totem Manipulation: Level 1 (+1)
Heal and Steel: Level 2 (Active: Next attack rolls on Mercy)
Soothe: Level 3
Flagellation: Level 3
Memento: Level 1 (Given to Aleksandra)
Soul Gem: Glowing with a bright light.
Form and location: Ring, worn on her right index finger.
Age: 14.
Hair Color: Bright green.
Health: A little dazed, distracted. Everything aside from her head is drenched in water.
Inventory: Nothing of real value, not even a halberd, though she actually *could* summon another despite not having Totem Manipulation.
Totem: A halberd.
Stats:
Bravery: Amateur...
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Amateur...
Purity: Skilled!
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Talented~
Love: Cursed ;-;
Abilities:
Mobility: Level 2
Close-Combat: Level 2 (+1)
Regeneration: Level 2
Sixth Sense: Level 3
Semblance: Level 2
Projection: Level 2
Soul Gem: Glowing with a fading light.
Form and location: Necklace, worn around her... neck...
Age: 13
Hair Color: Bright scarlet.
Health: Fine!
Inventory: One of her shoes is wet...? And they're both kinda ashy now?
Totem: Ofuda talismans, primarily thrown as manabolts.
Stats:
Bravery: Cursed ;-;
Joy: Talented~
Innocence: Skilled!
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Amateur...
Love: Skilled!
Abilities:
Mobility II
Mana Bolt III (+I)
Regeneration I
Totem Manipulation II
Invigorating Passion I
Outburst II
Duet with Reality II
Ward: Glowing with a foolish light!
Age: 12
Hair Color: Black.
Health: Fine, really, she just feels tired, sleepy, and it's hard to think, and... huh...
Inventory: A cute blue ribbon tied into her hair, and an ancient AK-47 lying on her chest!
Stats:
Bravery: Skilled!
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Talented~
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Amateur...
Author
Topic: Pumsy's Seeds - A ~MAGICAL GIRL~ game inspired by PMMM (Read 149192 times)