"So... Now what? Did boat just suddenly disappear?"
Leave the wounded guy to Asha. Investigate the darkness that ate the boat, then also enter the labyrinth.
Accept Memento and wear it immediately.
You start to walk away from Asha and the man she's examining, but she calls for you to come back for a moment. You return to her, and she hands you a pretty blue ribbon, and you're immediately struck by how soft it is. You can't help but smile as you accept the gift and tie it into your hair, and Asha returns the smile for a moment--before wincing and turning back to the man sitting beside her. You don't pay much mind to her odd reaction, instead turning and walking back up to the neon light lined tunnel that seemed to eat the boat.
Up close, the darkness inside it is clearly unnatural. The first couple inches of the tunnel are clearly visible, but there's a opaque
wall of shadows just inside, completely unlike anything you've seen before. Cautiously, you stick the barrel of your rifle into the shadows and wave it around a bit, before pulling it back out and examining it. No damage. You hesitate for a moment, a little worried, but also excited, and then step through the darkness.
.....For a brief instant there's a sense of vertigo as you enter the pitch-black labyrinth, and then you step down into a flowing stream of water. Strangely, it's flowing
forward, away from the entrance, even though water had been flowing out while you were outside. You take a careful step forward, trying to be careful since you can't see anything yet, and promptly lose your footing, falling forward. You shriek in surprise, throwing your hands forward to catch yourself, only to find empty air.
[Mercy]
You fall for a moment, too confused to be scared, before hitting the water again, still falling downward, but now being thrown around by the current. You blindly flail for a handhold, but only manage to lose your rifle. Something hard hits you on the back a moment later, pain arcing through your torso as you tumble and scream. You hit a couple more bumps as you fall, and then suddenly it stops as you finally land, bellyflopping into the river at the bottom of the waterfall. You struggle writhe around underwater, completely blind, too dizzy to figure out which way is up, and already out of breath from screaming on your trip downward.
Then you hear Asha speak to you, whispering as if she's right next to you.
<What happened?! Are you okay?!>Asha gasped. The boat had disappeared with the three magical girls, leaving her alone with the newcomer... And would the others be okay by themselves in the labyrinth? They were altogether, but still, she felt uneasy and a bit guilty for first suggesting to board the boat.
She noticed Sasha heading toward the entrance of the labyrinth. Panic was starting to brew inside her mind, and she took a deep breath to keep it together. Her heart was beating rapidly from the excitation. And with a slightly wavering voice, she said to Sasha:
"Don't stray too far! We must stay together."
Then she proceeded to tend to the rescued people, checking them for any physical, mental or soul injuries.
"But we don't know where the others even are, we can't risk becoming further separated... Not only that, but the telepathy seems to have been cut."
Asha could understand Sasha though. The desire to prove oneself, to be useful and answer to a calling...
"It's... not like I don't understand you know. I want to go help too, but I don't want to get in the way either. Ah!"
Her new powers came to mind.
"Sasha! Come here before going further! Take this and keep it close to you. It will let me know about your situation... I think."
Using Memento, Asha created a clear blue ribbon for Sasha to wear.
"Once I am done checking the victims, I will come with you."
((Please edit any later boldtext into your firstpost, or strikethrough prior posts' boldtext when you make a second. If everything's in one post it's just easier to remember and understand.))Just before Aleksandra leaves, you call her back, and
quickly summon a new ribbon, this one a much closer likeness to the one your sister used to wear. You hand it to her carefully, feeling weirdly anxious about the gift, but she promptly washes away your trepidation when she takes it, joyfully thanking you and smiling wide. You return her smile as she ties the ribbon into her hair and does a little pose--and then feel a pang of depression when you realize how similar she looks to your dead sister, having tied the ribbon in the
exact way she used to tie it. You turn back towards the dazed man, taking a deep breath to steady yourself, as you hear Aleksandra walk back up towards the labyrinth. You can sense her, now, and if you focus you can just barely make out her heartbeat. It's... comforting. That she's alive.
You screw your eyes shut, and
force yourself to focus on the man in front of you. This isn't a time to worry about the past. You place both your hands on his shoulders, and
focus on opening his soul. The weave blossoms in front of you, as always, but this time you're immediately disappointed with it. His soul is... extremely simple, more akin to the
cat than to Alida, or Mina; it's far less intricate, far less artistic in its construction. Still, it is very pure, and you scan over it for flaws and corruption. You quickly realize that there's only one significant oddity to his soul; a orange strange of alien moss sitting in the core, between strands. It's small, and weak, much different from the spiked wires you saw within Alida, but it's clearly not supposed to be there. You think you could remove it without much difficulty, though you're unsure whether it would harm his soul... and maybe it would be fine to leave it? If the witch put it there, maybe it'll just disappear on its own once she's dead?
You're suddenly pulled out of the spell when you feel an intense burst of terror. You reel away from the man in confusion, not understanding what's happening or why--and then you realize. Aleksandra just went into the labyrinth, and something happened to her, she's in danger! You start to scramble towards the labyrinth's entrance on all fours, but something happens to her before you get there, something changes. She can't breath, she's in pain, and she's underwater. You futilely call out to her, wishing you could know what just happened while you were focused on the man's soul.
...Then she actually
responds, you can hear her voice, somehow!
"The ride in was kinda fun, but this place is weeeeird." Tooru looked about at the environment she found herself in. It was probably supposed to be relaxing, luring in people or something, but there was a quality to it that made her feel deeply uncomfortable. Not to mention she was a little nervous about running out of magic. Her necklace was barely glowing any more. . . Still, she signed up for this, right? She was hunting the evildoers and saving people, that was good. Tooru hesitantly prods at the water with anything convenient; should nothing of note happen, she tests it with a finger before withdrawing quickly. Should nothing happen with that, she proceeds forward.
You walk to the front of the boat, and briefly contemplate taking something from one of the other passengers. You're pretty sure none of them would notice if you stole something, and it would be for a good cause... but you end up just taking off your own shoe, and dipping it into the water. Nothing happens, beyond the shoe getting wet, so you poke a finger into the water. You quickly conclude that whatever it is, the liquid is
not water; it's too... heavy? Thick? It doesn't stick to your finger any more than you'd expect, but it requires too much force to submerge your finger, and it's so opaque that you can't see past your first knuckly. Weird.
You look up to see that the boat is already passing a bend, and is just about to leave line of sight of the waterfall that it came down. Is it speeding up? You decide to ask Alida, but she's already gone, along with Mina--somehow you didn't hear either of them get off the boat. That's a little worrying, maybe you should get off before you're carried too far away? On the other hand, riding the boat seems like the fastest way forward, and if you hang back you'll probably lose track of all the human passengers...
You deliberate long enough to lose sight of the waterfall, but you can hear when Aleksandra comes down the waterfall, her screams loudly ringing out and getting closer, then suddenly going entirely silent without a sound. That is
very worrying.
Get off the boat and move onto the land. Keep a clear sight of where we came in, and stay out in the open so that I can be easily seen by newcomers.
"Hold on, we shouldn't go too far from the entrance until we're all back together. This place seems safe enough, but we got seperated last time and I had to fight on my own and almost got killed. Lets stick together this time.. I'm sure Asha and the russian girl will come in soon, and I don't want them to have to look for us.. someone will get lost and we'll get killed alone."
You shake your head drowsily, and slowly climb back onto your feet. Then you stumble to the edge of the boat, trying to concentrate on the fact that you need to get off of it, and promptly fall over the edge, faceplanting into the water. You struggle for a moment, and right yourself quickly, finding that you float far better than normal. Weird. You blink a couple times, then backstroke over to the shore, turning over again and standing up when you reach the lilypads. You awkwardly trudge up into the flowers, then trip on something and fall forward, your hands sinking deep into the shore, which is made of soft powder.
You stand up again while still knee-deep in the too-thick water, pulling your hands free and inspecting them. Your hands and forearms are now covered in... ash? Gray ash, which reminds you of the appropriately-named Asha. You shift your weight around, feeling the weird mud beneath your feet. That's made of ash too. You feel like you're missing something, this is notable somehow, but all you can think of is the fact that your shoes are now both waterlogged
and filled with ash. At least you
just bought a second pair earlier tonight...
You hear someone fall down from above, somewhere behind you, before suddenly going quiet. You turn to look behind you, but see nothing but the still river, and quiet waterfall. No boat, no girl, no signs of a struggling person. Huh.
Mina staggered to her feet, mostly on her own ability since the clay man hardly provided a solid handhold. "This place doesn't seem to bad... at least not compared to the last one." she notes. She dusts herself off. "Everyone's ok right? Hold on, I'll look around a bit..." she asks.
As the others disembark, Mina does too. She uses her magical senses, trying to see if anything nearby is dangerous.
You lazily watch as Alida clumsily tumbles into the water, absently examining the river with your senses as the blonde flails. It's very deep, you can't sense the bottom, and notably, it's flowing backwards. Or, no... no, it's flowing forward, but way slower than the boat, which is picking up speed? You can't sense anything
on the boat which is propelling it, it's just kinda skimming across the surface by... magnetism or something, you guess. Magnets are pretty neat. You make a mental note to look at a magnet in detail sometime.
You turn back, and see that Alida's already at the shore, somehow. You don't really want to get wet, so you carefully prepare yourself, then leap across, trying to land near her--but you overshoot, and end up flying into the artificial flowers, tumbling soundlessly past the wall of foliage and into the deep ash below the flowers, throwing up a big cloud around you. You sit up and try to wipe your face clean as you inspect your new surroundings; you're surrounded by super tall flower stalks which pretty much blot out the sky, and you're sitting on top of about a foot of loose ash. Below the ash, the flowers' bases--roots?--spread out across the rocky ground like strands of lichen.
You finally get most of the ash off of your face, and look around with your actual eyes. It's... actually pretty dark here, only a very dim orange-green glow penetrating through the ceiling of transparent flowers above you. Between the terrible light, and the many,
many flower stalks surrounding you, you can't actually see much further than your magical senses reach. At least you
can still see, and you can sense Alida standing in the river nearby, just on the other side of the wall of flowers you leapt through. She's acting a bit off, you think, just sort of staring at her hands for some reason. Also, her shoes are getting really disgusting, she's just letting wet ash soak into them.
You're brought out of your thoughts when you hear that Russian girl screaming, and falling, then she suddenly goes silent. You can sense the small waves from her impact wash around Alida's feet; the girl fell into the water. You don't think she'd be too hurt by the fall, the water feels... safe? You're finding it hard to focus, you should feel more stressed out, but you really don't mind...
((I forgot to edit Alida and Mina's statuses to show the effects of the Labyrinth's music last time, be assured that they ARE affected. Also, the current track is here
Next update Friday, the 17th.))
Soul Gem: Glowing with a fading light.
Form and location: Medallion, pinned to her left breast.
Age: 14
Hair Color: Salt-stained blonde.
Health: Dazed and sluggish, but happy. Also, her hands are covered with ash.
Inventory: One club. She also has a boxed pair of new (if wet) shoes in her backpack, which is good since she's not doing her current pair any favors.
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, if a bit panicky!
Inventory: Four ribbons, woven into a net. There was a man in there a couple seconds ago, too~
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: Dazed, sluggish, and covered with ash.
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...?
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: Confused, banged up, and drowning!
Inventory: A cute blue ribbon tied into her hair, and nothing else. Turn out it's hard to hold onto a gun while blind and tumbling down a waterfall.
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 149218 times)