I.. don't think I'm too late. I got here fast!
<Is anyone else coming, Pumsy? Sasha? Asha?>
..I don't want to go in alone, but I don't want to let Tooru be alone. But I don't want the others to not be able to find me when I go in.
I think there are at least two ways in. There should be a big entrance somewhere underground that'll take me into the bowels of the stadium. That might put me closer to where the witch is.
..but most of the people probably came in at the normal, people entrance. If I go in there, I should be closer to Tooru and the other people who must be here too.
I should split up to cover more ground. I can protect the people at the entrance, make sure they get away, and watch for the others. I can also go explore too, not waste much time.
Activate Effigy to make two more copies of me. Take just a moment to look at the giant wolf I am. Then have one body change back. With this one, try to find a phone to call the police.
The second body will stay as a wolf, and go in the main stadium entrance. Once in, howl so that Tooru will know where I am.
The main body, the one with the soul gem, should stay near the entrance, to keep the soul gem as near both bodies as possible. She'll turn back to human once Pumsy is in the labrynth, and try to guide the people out and talk to the police if necessary. Do try to keep a tight hold on that cat, though.. I don't want to be alone in this labrynth, no matter how many extra bodies there are running around.
<I don't know! I found Sasha, but nobody is coming yet, I don't know why!>You growl in annoyance--Pumsy wriggling in your mouth at the noise--and sprint over to the entrance. Just like the other labyrinths you've seen, the entrance is blocked by a featureless, depthless blackness. Even without trying to, you can sense the choking misery flowing out of it. It's repulsive to you, and makes you pause despite yourself. This labyrinth is
much worse than the others you've been inside, you can just
tell.
Backing off a bit,
you split into three bodies. You turn and inspect yourselves, your worry being washed away. Each of your bodies is at least six feet tall at the shoulder now, and looks like it ought to be hunting
cars. Your jaws are still far larger and toothier than normal wolves. You wonder if you actually
could rip vehicles apart with just your teeth. You certainly could with magic.
...You shake your secondary bodies' heads, clearing your mind. One of them transforms back into a human, and then falls over as soon as it takes a step. It is
extremely disorientating to control both a human body and wolf bodies at the same time. Still, you manage to get back up with some difficulty, and send your human body out into the parking lot. There's... still no people out here, so you start checking windows to see if somebody left their phone in their car. You don't find any before you remember your
own phone, sitting in your pocket. Pulling it out, it... seems to be entirely functional? Despite the fact that you turned into a wolf, then cloned yourself, and
then this clone turned back into a human?
You decide not to think about it and call the police, while your other two bodies are still standing and staring at the labyrinth's entrance nearby. While the phone rings, you send your other clone through the shadowy entrance of the labyrinth, where it... immediately disappears. Or--that's not quite correct, it feels like your body just
stopped existing the moment it passed through the barrier. Or at least it stopped being where you felt it should be; it's a difficult sensation to describe, like the feeling of not having wings. In any case, you can't see anything inside the labyrinth.
The police finally pick up. The operator calmly asks you what your emergency is.
Tooru glanced frantically between the foes on the field and her family. Logically, she had to keep moving forward; her family should be fine if she dealt with the witch quickly enough, and any time she spent going back would be time she wasn't searching for a way around the swarm of familiars.
Tooru, however, was not a logical person. Fear overwhelmed reason, and she turned around and made a mad dash upward, trying to get to her family and free them, get them off the benches before they were trapped, or failing that destroy the cuffs on them when she got there. "No, no, no, please. . ." she said under her breath as she moved, as if the witch would listen to her pleading.[i/][/i][/i]
You start panting as you sprint back up the stairs. The air is getting hotter, and drier, under the searing light from above. Hot enough that you're already starting to feel tired, running up the stairs. This realization only redoubles your worry for your family--you don't think you've felt physically tired ever since you became a magical girl. Certainly not with your soul gem as bright as it is.
[Bravery][Love]
Your fears are confirmed when you reach them. Taro and your father are sweating profusely, doubled over in their seats. Luckily, neither has been handcuffed, and with some difficulty you drag them off of the stone bench. You leave them both laying on the stone stairs. Neither is moving, they're just laying there, Taro quietly groaning. They aren't responding when you shake them and yell at them, trying to make them get up and move. You don't know what to do; you can't carry your father, and even carrying Taro would weigh you down a lot.
Water starts flowing down the stairs, startling you. It's a shallow stream, clear and cool, and your family relaxes as it washes around them. You look up from them, confused, and see a man seated nearby, handcuffed to his bench. His clothes are damp from sweat, and he's staring at the stream only a few feet away. His expression is slack, like the rest of the audience, but you can see the clear desperation in his eyes. Some unseen force is keeping the water from overflowing the stairs, keeping it away from his feet. This place is
designed to torture.
You lift your eyes further, looking at the top rim of the stadium, where the stairs end. The stream's source isn't visible, but... there's more of the white armored knights. Two stand at the top of the stairs, holding enormous bows that are almost as tall as them. Neither is moving, but they stand ready. You turn in place, looking around the rest of the stadium, and with a sinking feeling you confirm that the scene is repeated at every set of stairs. A small stream washing to the bottom, guarded by a pair of archers at the top.
The patriotic music swells, and you look to the bottom of the stadium. The procession of knights has ended, and they stand in two parallel rows, forming a corridor from the tunnel they left, to the center of the field. About twenty of them, in all, a number that might be doubled by the archers. A small
army. As you watch, another knight steps out of the archway, but this one is different. Its armor is a dark metallic gray, but shines brightly in the blazing light. It steps gracefully onto the dirt of the field without leaving any marks, unlike the other knights who have sunk down to their knees. Even so, this one is clearly much larger; it has to bend down as it exits the tunnel, and once it rises up to its full height, the knights flanking it on either side barely come up to its chest.
The large knight stops once it is outside the tunnel, slowly looking all around. While most of its armor's design matches the rest of the knights, its helmet is different. It still conceals everything, but there is an ornate crown built into the top, thin spires of jagged metal twisting around and through each other, all ending in hornlike points aimed at the sky. The witch.
She nods once, then begins walking down the pathway her familiars have formed. Even from this distance, it's apparent how smoothly she moves; there's a liquid grace to her walk, she moves in a continual flow that has an almost unreal quality to it. It's slow, deliberate, yet your eyes can't entirely follow it.
((RGU requested to rejoin the game, and seeing as basically nothing has happened since he left, I don't have any issue with that. This part describes what's happened to Aleksandra since her last appearance.))Aleksandra tried to refuse Asha's request, wanting to keep the girl's ribbon herself, as a memory if nothing else. Asha would not relent. She said that she
hated the connection it made between them--she didn't want Aleksandra to be able to sense her thoughts and feelings. She didn't want Aleksandra to see what she was. She
wanted to be alone. Even after relinquishing the ribbon, Aleksandra still couldn't cheer her friend up. On the contrary, her attempts to reach out seemed to only make the girl angrier; Asha ranted about how they were only together because of Pumsy
choosing to force them together. That Aleksandra didn't know her,
couldn't know her, and that it was best for everyone if she never did.
And then she left, leaving Aleksandra alone in her little hideaway on the top floor of the dilapidated mansion, where nobody could find her. It took an entire day before Aleksandra left the room, her nature as a magical girl leaving her without hunger or thirst to drag her out of her misery. When she did finally leave, it was only a short venture to check on her grandfather--to ensure that Asha really
did heal him. He was as healthy as she could remember seeing him, but she fled back to her sanctuary rather than talk to him.
The next night, Aleksandra left her home to search for Asha. Or Tooru. Or Alida. Any of the others who she had fought with, any of the others who had been there when Mina died. She found nobody, even with her magical senses. She felt abandoned; even Pumsy hadn't appeared to her ever since that horrible night, and she knew her grandfather would never believe her if she were to tell him. So she returned home, and sat curled up in the corner of her hideaway, thinking about her father. If only he were still there, he would listen to her. He would know that she wouldn't make these stories up. And he would know what to do. He
always knew what to do; he never broke down, or hid away from his problems, he could always came up with solutions to everything. Aleksandra wished desperately that he could have taught her
how, before he disappeared. Or died.
Then her thoughts turned to Mina, who she knew must have had parents. Mina was clearly well taken care of, she had parents, with money. Maybe siblings. To them, she just disappeared, without a trace, just like Aleksandra's father had. Nobody would ever find Mina's body, nobody would ever reports her death. Unless one of the other magical girls did, and even then... there had been so many people lured into the labyrinth, and
none of the girls had known their names. They disappeared too, without a trace, and none of their families would ever know why. Some of the people had been saved before even entering the labyrinth, Asha had healed some, but most of those people just died. For no reason at all, just because a witch cursed them. Maybe that was what happened to Aleksandra's father.
That thought was what finally brought a spark back to Aleksandra. The thought that a witch might have killed her father. It started a fire inside the young girl, a deep, powerful feeling. Far more powerful than the depression that had seemed overwhelming over the last few days. She left her sanctuary once again after that, to see her grandfather. She knew she still couldn't talk to him about what had happened to her, so instead she asked him to tell her stories of war. She insisted that he tell her the worst stories, about soldiers fighting and dying, and eventually, he did. He told her about boys too young to know what their lives were worth, rushing into battle against monsters who cut them down like animals. He told her about heroes fighting against impossible odds even as they breathed their last. And most importantly, he told her of how bad things could have been, if those soldiers hadn't fought. He told her that all the death, and pain, had been worth it. Every death on the battlefield was a death that had saved countless others who could sleep easy at night only because of those sacrifices.
The stories, in a way, let Aleksandra deal with Mina's death, and Asha's disappearance. Mina died trying to save them, and the victims of the witch. Asha, wherever she was, wouldn't stop trying to save people, either.
All magical girls were like those soldiers, in Aleksandra's mind. Trying desperately to save the lives of those they love, and of the people who would otherwise just disappear, lost and forgotten. Heroes, doing their best to correct the injustices of an unjust world. She would be like them, and she would train to survive, and succeed, where others had failed.
Over the next week, she still had many low spots. She still spent much of her time hidden away, wishing that she didn't have to deal with everything that had happened. That her father was still there with her, that nobody had to fight. But when she could, she would muster her courage to think, practice, and train for the next labyrinth. So that
next time, everyone would be able to go back home to their families.
Though it had taken much insistence and pleading, her grandfather had eventually taught her how to disassemble and care for his rifle--and hers, though she couldn't tell him that she felt that way. Since then, it has become something of a meditative ritual for her. She's taken to tearing down and rebuilding the gun repeatedly when she's feeling hopeless, as a kind of symbol of what she can do. Rebuild the world? Break down and come back together? She's not entirely sure, really, but it helps her calm down. Today, this meditation is interrupted by Pumsy--the first time he's appeared to Aleksandra since that night. He comes in a panic, saying that Tooru has been trapped in a witch's labyrinth, and that Aleksandra
needs to come, because Alida is the only other magical girl who is coming, and the witch is far more dangerous than the last one had been. Its labyrinth is a deathtrap, especially for only two separated magical girls.
Soul Gem: Glowing with a Radiant light!
Form and location: Medallion, pinned to her left breast.
Age: 14
Hair Color: Salt-stained blonde.
Health: Fine wolf! Also fine girl.
Inventory: One club in hammerspace, one Pumsy in mouthspace, one phone in handspace.
Totem: A fishing club.
Stats:
Bravery: Talented~
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Amateur...
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Skilled!
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Cursed ;-;
Abilities:
Mobility Lvl3
Close Combat Lvl3+1
Totem Manipulation Lvl2
Regeneration Lvl2
Berzerker Lvl3
Painless Lvl2
Effigy Lvl2 (Active; one cheap cost per turn.)
Duet with Reality Lvl1
Soul Gem: Glowing with a Radiant light!
Form and location: Necklace, worn around her... neck...
Age: 13
Hair Color: Bright scarlet.
Health: Tired, but otherwise fine.
Inventory: Nothing useful! Arguably her family, in the sense that they're right next to her.
Totem: Ofuda talismans, primarily thrown as manabolts.
Stats:
Bravery: Cursed ;-;
Joy: Talented~
Innocence: Skilled!
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Amateur...
Love: Skilled!
Abilities:
Mobility III
Mana Bolt III (+I)
Regeneration II
Totem Manipulation III
Invigorating Passion II
Outburst III
Duet with Reality II
Soul Gem: Glowing with a Gloriously Blazing light!
Form and location: A simple bracelet made from crude steel, worn on her right wrist.
Age: 12
Hair Color: Black.
Health: Fine!
Inventory: Still has Alida's coat. Also has her grandfather's AK, despite him being healthy now, because. Uh. He's irresponsible, I guess? Oh, and it has a full mag again. Ol' Lavro's somehow got a stash of 7.62x39mm, despite that probably being kinda hard to find in PS land.
Totem: An AK-47, virtually identical to her grandfather's.
Stats:
Bravery: Skilled!
Joy: Skilled!
Innocence: Talented~
Purity: Amateur...
Mercy: Cursed ;-;
Creativity: Cursed ;-;
Love: Amateur...
Abilities:
Mobility: Level 3
Telekinesis: Level 1
Manabolts: Level 2 (+1)
Close Combat: Level 1
Totem Manipulation: Level 2
Regeneration: Level 1
Determination: Level 3
Stasis: Level 1
Teleportation: Level 1
Author
Topic: Pumsy's Seeds - A ~MAGICAL GIRL~ game inspired by PMMM (Read 149651 times)