You want actions?
Try to remember where did I get that horrible sensation of unease a while ago. Try scouting around for the witch, without staying too far away from Pumsy and Alida. It probably is close to where I got that sense of dread, right? The witch probably spooked everyone with horrible feelings like that, which would explain why there is no one else around here.
After the others arrive, point out where I think the labrynth is, and enter it together.
((I talked with Devastator about Alida's actions in IRC, so this runs a little longer than it otherwise would.))Alida decides to just sit down at the lip of the canal and wait for the others, setting Pumsy down in her lap and idly petting him. At first, Aleksandra awkwardly stands by her side, too stressed and uneasy to relax, but eventually she decides to go scout out the surroundings.
[Creativity] &
[Creativity]She doesn't find much of anything interesting nearby, aside from the sitting man at the bottom of the canal, who Alida's watching. The unpleasant sensation she noticed a little while ago never stopped, but they haven't gotten any stronger, either. Even focusing on it, the sensation doesn't change at all even when she leaves Alida and Pumsy, or at least not over the short distance she feels it's safe to travel. Disappointed, Aleksandra returns to wait with Alida, though she still nervously paces back and forth, nervously looking up and down the creepy empty flood canal all the while.
Due to her watchfulness, she's the first to notice something abnormal. There's a garishly colored boat floating up the water in the canal from the direction of the docks, far too large for it to possibly fit in the tiny strip of shallow water that it's nonetheless traveling up at a fair speed. Aleksandra immediately shouts a warning to Alida and readies her rifle as the boat drifts closer.
Alida has a more calm reaction, Pumsy hopping off her lap as she stands up and loudly relays the scene to the other girls over Aleksandra's phone. As the boat gets closer, she can see that there's twelve people aboard; eleven sitting down in four rows, and one standing man at the rear, wearing a tuxedo and top hat. He seems to be pushing the boat along with a long pole which goes far deeper into the water than should be possible, and which doesn't look strong enough to push the boat as effectively as it does.
Edge closer. When [Alida]'s about 20 feet away, ask the Russian girl with the gun to fire a round in the air. And STAY BACK, but fire a round in the air.
[Love]
Alida starts to climb down into the canal, getting closer to the boat, but stops after a few paces to tell Aleksandra to fire a warning shot in the air, and to
stay back. The young girl starts to argue for a moment, but thinks better of it--Alida knows what she's doing, after all--and complies, firing a single round into the empty sky. She nearly drops the gun, surprised by the heavy recoil and painfully loud report, but keeps ahold of it, merely stumbling backward and falling into a sitting position.
By the time she gets back to her feet and can see Alida again, she's already near the bottom, and the boat has stopped in front of the shaggy man who had been sitting next to the water. Nobody else seems to have reacted to her shot; even the shaggy man calmly stands up and carefully climbs into the boat while carrying something in both hands, and sits down in an unoccupied seat as the boat starts to pick up speed again.
Follow [the boat]. Do my senses tell me there's a witch on board? Swim up towards the guy with the pole, and remove the pole via CC.
[Creativity]
Alida follows after the boat, easily keeping pace as she splashes into the water behind the boat. It turns out to barely go up to her knees at the deepest, and she focuses more on inspecting the boat with her magical sight than on getting close to it. What she sees isn't helpful; if anything, it looks
less like a witch than the surroundings, because the humans on board glow brightly with excited, joyful emotions.
Annoyed that she hasn't lucked into finding the witch, Alida speeds up, and
rips the long pole out of the tuxedo-wearing man's grasp. It comes away easily, as if he had barely been gripping it, and the boat doesn't slow down in the slightest. Alida stumbles in the water, overbalancing to compensate for resistance that doesn't come, and the man turns to look at her.
Up close, he's visibly nonhuman: his face has no details in it, looking like clay molded into the shape of a head, and he has a strange, shimmering glass tie.
Meanwhile, Aleksandra is chasing Alida from the top of the canal, barely able to keep up while carrying her rifle, and narrating what's happening over the phone.
"Yeah, I'll be right over!"
Meet up with the others!
You put in the address that Alida gave you into your phone's map app immediately upon hearing it, and after a second it calculates a route, helpfully chirping that there's no traffic. You set off immediately, running down the sidewalk parallel to the road. A couple minutes before you arrive, you hear Aleksandra shout something something about a colorful boat, and then Alida starts talking loudly, and more clearly describes that there's a magic looking boat flowing up some canal.
Then you hear a gunshot from somewhere nearby, a sound which is echoed a moment later over the phone, and is followed by silence, even when you worriedly ask what's happening. You speed up, ignoring the map's directions and just rushing towards the gunshot. After a couple seconds Aleksandra's voice returns, now notably louder, saying Alida's chasing "it", and that she's following. You ask her to clarify, but she doesn't seem to be able to hear you, or she's too distracted to pay attention, you don't know.
A couple seconds later you slide to a stop right before you fall into a wide concrete canal, with a thin strip of water at the bottom. You look down the canal in either direction, and quickly spot the boat and two girls to your left; Alida's at the bottom of the canal, chasing after a garishly colored little boat that's as wide as the strip of water, with a tall man in a tuxedo looming over her. Some other girl with a rifle is chasing after them from the edge, maybe thirty feet ahead of you.
"I'll be a bit, gimme a few minutes!" Mina ended the call, and turned to Pumsy. "I don't suppose you have some sort of magic to make my parents not notice I'm gone...? At least, until I get back." she said, not really believing he would but if he did, then that would be great...
[Innocence]
Pumsy leaves to go get Asha, and you start thinking about a way to justify going out. You think about it for several minutes, but can't come up with any particularly good excuses for why you could go out. At best, you guess you could say something which will make them leave you alone and not check your room. After a little more consideration, you go downstairs and tell your parents that you're feeling unusually tired, so you're going to sleep earlier. That's always worked in the past, and you're sure it'll keep them out of your room, lest they wake you up.
That done, you pile up some pillows under your blankets just in case. You're tempted to make an illusion, but when you made an illusion in the labyrinth before, it required constant attention, and felt like it siphoned off a little bit of your magic continually. Even if you could maintain it while off on an adventure, it would probably use up a lot of magic... and you don't think your parents will check anyway, so it'd be a waste to cast an illusion.
Confident that your plan will work, you climb out your window and nimbly hop to the ground, and then realize you forgot where Alida said she was. You suddenly feel embarrassed, not wanting to ask her to repeat it minutes later, and it occurs to you that if they're near the witch you shouldn't really
have to, right? You can just track down the witch yourself!
[Creativity]
You close your eyes and focus, and immediately notice the despair flowing across the ground. Just as Aleksandra said, it's coming from the city, somewhat in the direction of the docks, though not quite. Smiling at your own cleverness, you immediately set off, taking the fastest path you can towards the witch.
The trip is quick and uneventful, even the other girls are quiet. You're expecting them to spot you and say something as you get close to the labyrinth, but even as you're just about to walk up on it none of them comment, and you can't sense any sign of their presence either. You shrug, and round the last corner.
You find yourself on the lip of a wide concrete flood control canal, a thin strip of water flowing along the bottom, towards the docks. The entrance to the labyrinth is obvious; it's a circular hole in the sloped concrete wall, as wide as a man is tall, with several multicolored neon flashing in a pattern around the edge of the hole. There's a steady flow of water coming out of it and streaming down to the water coming from further up the canal, and to your eyes there's also a steady stream of despair--though you're certain that this can't possibly be the only source, judging by how much is coming out.
You spin around to your side as you sense someone running towards you, but relax when you recognize Asha, being led by Pumsy. They both come to a stop just in front of you, and Pumsy excitedly starts congratulating you.
"Wow, you found an entrance to the witch of mania's labyrinth really fast! Good job Mina, I knew you could do it!"You blush a little, not used to receiving such exuberant praise, and then voices start yelling from your phone. You quickly step closer to Asha and turn the volume up as you hear Alida start talking about a boat with people on it. A moment later you hear her to say to shoot, an order which is followed by a gunshot from somewhere down the canal in the direction of the docks, and a moment later the sound is repeated over the phone.
You hear Tooru start asking what's going on, and after a couple of seconds Aleksandra's panicked voice joins her, both of them yelling at each other and seemingly not really hearing anything. You have
no idea what's going on, and looking up at Asha, she seems even more confused.
"Y...yes. I think I can now."
Asha attempted to get up, and followed Pumsy's instructions if he had any. If not, she would try to focus and scry the surroundings for the light of other Magical Girls and eventual traces of miasma.
You sit up and slide out of bed, feeling downright
amazing compared to how you felt before. Much of your body did hurt before, but even beyond that, there was this sensation of complete and total
exhaustion, which is suddenly just gone; you feel absolutely full of energy, ready to go and kick a witch's face in. Pumsy happily leads you out of the room, his tail held high, but as you leave you look back at the forms of the three sleeping girls who you share the room with. You feel a flash of anger at them for doing nothing for you while you were sick, but you quell it and step out to follow Pumsy.
Once you're entirely outside the building, Pumsy speeds up, sprinting down the streets, and you easily keep pace with him, even starting to get ahead at one point, though you slow down at his urging. There's still some pedestrians out right now, but at the speeds you're running at they're more like high-velocity obstacles that you have to dodge without even being able to make out details. It's amazing how easy moving this fast has gotten, you barely have to think of it as you weave between people while running faster than any car on the streets, focused more on keeping track of Pumsy than manuevering.
Soon enough, however, the pedestrians are all gone, the streets empty of vehicles. You're getting close to the witch, and both anxiety and excitement build within you, and you telepathically ask Pumsy how much farther away the witch is. He responds that he can't find witches, so he's taking you to Mina, who's really close, but Alida and Tooru are farther away, because they're not as good as Mina. And then he suddenly turns down an alley, leaps over a chain link fence, and then makes another sharp turn at the other end. You follow just behind, easily vaulting over the fence, and nimbly land on the other side, on the edge of a wide concrete channel, with water at the bottom. Then you charge after him, and mere seconds later, nearly run into Mina, who perks up when she sees you.
"Wow, you found an entrance to the witch of mania's labyrinth really fast! Good job Mina, I knew you could do it!"...Or maybe she perked up because she saw
Pumsy. He seems to like her a lot more than he likes you. You glare at her, but she doesn't notice, instead just blushing and gaping like a fish at Pumsy, before she's interrupted by voices coming from her pocket. She quickly yanks her phone out of the pocket, and steps close to you while raising it up so that you both can hear. You can hear Alida say something about a boat, followed by the sound of a gunshot which comes from the north,
and from the phone, and then Tooru and some Russian girl with a terrible accent start arguing loudly, making it impossible to tell what
either of them are saying.
Did they add some new girl to the team without telling you?
Soul Gem: Glowing with a fading light.
Form and location: Medallion, pinned to her left breast.
Age: 14
Hair Color: Salt-stained blonde.
Health: Fine, but she's a bit wet.
Inventory: One club. She also has a boxed pair of new shoes in her backpack.
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 Shining light.
Form and location: Ring, worn on her left ring finger.
Age: 13
Hair color: Ashen
Health: Fine!
Inventory: A ribbon. Nobody cares though.
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
Soul Gem: Glowing with a bright light.
Form and location: Ring, worn on her right index finger.
Age: 14.
Hair Color: Bright green.
Health: Fine!
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: Nothing interesting! Boring inventory!
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: Vulnerable and pretty scared!
Inventory: A loaded AK-47, held ready.
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 149202 times)