Mostly Dead Means Slightly Alive [YGO/SAO FI ft Nihilo]

[Nihilo]

Season 0 huh, does that mean Penalty Games?

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Ayup. These are weird wizard battles with horrific consequences rather than any sort of by-the-book card games.

 

[Spectral Waltz]

Season 0 huh, does that mean Penalty Games?

Click to shrink...

The entirety of SAO is being treated as one giant Shadow Game for the main focus, but given its breadth and reach, there will be -quite literally- games within games to be had. Not to mention the knock on effects of having so many players and pieces to test the edges of rules both mystical and coded.

The indomitable human spirit can -at times- be an ugly, stubborn, and violent thing.

 

[Spectral Waltz]

Disentangling herself from the mess of players became easier once they were distracted fooling around with their Duel Monsters. A few stopped Helewise to ask in general terms where she'd found the NPC, but they still seemed either reluctant to move away from the main gate or disinterested in specifically acquiring undead, so none of them tried to follow her, at least at first.

The streets beyond the gate were sparsely crowded, filled with a nervous energy. Some players seemed to have barricaded themselves in inn rooms to get away from the chaos but several were just milling around, wandering from shopkeep to shopkeep, interactable to interactable, as though by searching enough some hidden escape might reveal itself. Shouts or screams occasionally drifted from the distance, peaking over the white noise of a crowd and making the assembled players twitch a few steps further away from them.

People gave Helewise and the Regenerating Mummy a wide berth. Some outright turned to flee, but most realized after a few moments that she wasn't chasing or attacking anyone and did the tried and true human tactic of 'pretend I saw nothing and move right on'. Yet after a few minutes walking a cloaked form became apparent, weaving its way through the crowds at first, then slipping out of them, into the bubble of open space around Helewise, trotting towards her. Beneath the slightly frayed edge of the hood dark eyes gleamed with a faint hint of green, the toothy smile adding mischief. "Kii-bou said you stood out, don't think I really appreciated just how much. You're 'Helewise' then?"

"Ayup. I'm guessing you're the Argo that Kirito mentioned?" Helewise asked with a smile of her own, minding her teeth but still giving a hint of them. She had a gut feeling this lady would appreciate 'em.

"That I am, guidebook maker and gal in the know~" Her words lilted playfully, but her eyes shifted a little too quickly to the mummy still shambling along next to Helewise. "An' I can see why they wanted us to talk. That's a monster from a card?"

"That he is, a Regenerating Mummy who does exactly what it says on the tin. Hell of a help out in the field." The draconic woman said with a bob of her horned head, blackened fingers idly scratching at a splotchy patch of scales on her neck. Really, she looked like a grilled vegetable, with all the 'charred' spots on her. "Walk and talk?"

"Sure." Argo gave Helewise a moment to start moving again and settled in alongside her, "so what can ya tell me? I've already heard of cards being handed out by some tucked-away NPCs here and there, maybe a questline or two? Let's start from the start."
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To say Argo was thorough would be a gross understatement. Any requirements she noticed for the quest, possible keywords in dialogue, specific capabilities of Helewise' undead companion all taken note of, the girl having pulled her menu open to type rapidly while they spoke, eyes flicking to the little pane of text and holographic keyboard beneath it every few seconds.

The quest didn't have a direct map marker, but it did have a little 'search this area' circle on the map, and so it wasn't too hard to find a familiar alleyway and stack of boxes again.

"Yanno, for an undead lair, I expected this to be a little spookier." Argo commented as they emerged from the narrow passage into the waterway, even without the sun leaking down as it had been during the day, the area still bore a certain serenity, illuminated by a blue-green glow from the patches of moss scattered about the area. The scratching shuffling of bones on stone answered her and she jumped a little, whirling around and taking an involuntary step back at the sight of the Skull Servant, his hood down this time leaving his titular bones on display as he approached.

"Hello. I wasn't expecting to walk the path of the decayed and forgotten like this, but if nothing else, it has done wonders for my understanding." Helewise said with a wan smile, feeling the purple flames ensconced in her chest thrum through her body as she thought back to her 'death' of sorts and subsequent 'undeath', the places where pallid skin met blackened scale smoldering in violet hues like paper pressed to cinders. Yes, she understood what would drive someone to claw out of their grave and get back to their feet, damage and natural laws be damned.

"Swordmaster, Aspirant, your understanding has indeed expanded." Argo managed not to take another step back at the scratching voice but she still shivered visibly, The words shaped without tongue or vocal cords accompanied by the eerie half-whistle of air scraping against bones. "And you bring another with you, much as you once were."

Argo outright froze and the skeletal attendant leaned towards her, hollow eyes sockets still managing the impression of deliberate regard. "Will you too seek to walk our path?"

"How did it do that?" She hissed to Helewise after a moment while the Skull Servant waited patiently. "NPCs don't usually acknowledge other players when you get them into a quest dialogue like that. Not unless they've been deliberately coded for it anyways."

"If she does, I don't think it will be tonight. Although I can see her coming back, she's a curious one and dead men do tell tales no one else remembers." Helewise replied even as she shot Argo a quick wink that hopefully conveyed 'trust me and roll with it' well enough, "For now, though, it is perhaps best to simply consider her a witness."

Again, she may look and sound a bit silly 'LARPing' with the 'NPCs', but if there was the slightest sliver of a chance these weren't just little software props? She'd gladly take the hit to her dignity over causing offense to beings who she was trusting her back to.

"I see…" The rattling voice was soft, "but that is not your decision to make, Aspirant."

Helewise dipped her horned head in silent acknowledgement, taking a step back to let poor Argo take the hot seat.

Argo looked thoroughly weirded out again but straightened to attention, "what she said, I don't think your path is the one I want to follow unless you can follow more than one? I'm not exactly uninterested if ya catch my drift, just don't think 'decayed and forgotten' is for me."

"Not every path conflicts with every other, but some will inevitably close off others, especially now." The Skull Servant explained.

"Especially now?" Argo's eyes narrowed sharply, but the Skull Servant made no move to answer her, watching her with the infinite patience of the dead before finally speaking one more time.

"You would appreciate the tombkeepers, and they would not permit you initiation if you followed our path. Seek them out, though their presence on this floor may be but a scant thing, they can surely be found in the floors above." Argo's eyes widened, and she pulled her little notes window open again, hands a blur as she typed while the Skull Servant's attention shifted back to Helewise. "As for you, Aspirant, you are ready to be initiated, all that remains is your choice of a path forward."

A bony hand extended, three cards popping into existence one after another.

"Ancestral Spirits", an image of a translucent figure dressed in stylized Samurai outfit, a sword hovering before them looking more solid than the rest, the whole of it lined in blue-tinged flames.

"Nightwalkers and their kin", a pale woman in a broad-brimmed hat, a staff clutched in clawed fingers, backed by a crimson moon.

"Or the restless ones, unearthed by our newfound flight", the last card looked quite similar to the skeleton himself, a 'Skull Servant' all bones wrapped in a dark purple robe.

"Which path speaks to you, Aspirant?"

"...The Nightwalkers are a hungry lot, yes? They wouldn't content themselves with the wildlife, would they? And allowing them to feed on myself would be a slippery slope." Helewise muttered more to herself than anyone else, the promise of magic and delicious, delicious lifesteal extremely tempting but the potential drawbacks keeping her taloned fingers from making contact with the card. The Skull regarding her tilted his cranium slightly, but said nothing to confirm or deny her musings, letting her make her choice as she pleased. "As for letting them feed on others… no."

That last thought not only firmed up her resolve, but it made something in the corpsefire creeping over her perk up, an instinct deeper than a simple gut feeling making her blackened hand gravitate towards the ghost card. A haunted sword, but the look on that spirit's eyes...

"You are a monster hunter, aren't you? Not were, but are, present tense. Didn't let death stop you." She whispered, completely entranced as she felt something flare in the burning recesses of her ribcage. It was not recognition, not quite, it was… kinship. That bone deep understanding when you just know the moment you really look at someone.

Helewise took a shuddering breath, forcefully grounding herself, turning to the Skull Servant and bending at the waist, "I am grateful for your help thus far and I would be delighted to take your fellow restless Skulls under my banner, but here and now, the path that truly speaks to me is this."

"Truth of thine own, you and they should venture far together." When Helewise straightened up it was with the spectral Samurai's card clutched in her warped fingers. And if the Skull Servant had any objection to their 'kin' going unchosen, they gave no sign of it. If anything, there might perhaps have been a faint note of approval in that dry voice. "You will not find much else of the Ancestral Spirits here, but should you wish to deepen your understanding… Their order often favored mountains. If anything of theirs survived the Great Separation, you will likely find it among the peaks."

It felt good to have a heading beyond 'get a bath, get a meal, get a bed, get armor, go stab problems'.

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[Winged One]

I bet Pegasus will have a fun surprise when someone pulls up with cards he hasn't actually released yet.

 

[lurkingkraken]

Argo would probably appreciate that the tomb keepers kept the knowledge of the past, though probably wouldn't like that they are keeping it for the Pharaoh.
But there is a card that would be even better for her, but it's FIEND not ZOMBIE: News Reporter/Muckraker from the Underworld.

 

[bambache]

As fast as the stats will eventually let players travel, I guess there is no need for "card games on motorcycles" to initiate Synchro Summoning?

 

[Winged One]

Argo would probably appreciate that the tomb keepers kept the knowledge of the past, though probably wouldn't like that they are keeping it for the Pharaoh.

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Funny idea: they hear Yugi endorse her public discloure policies and she never finds out why they're so supportive until way later.