Tower City Lunatic (SI) (Fear and Hunger then Danmachi Crossover)

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - a weird amount of Metal Gear solid talk considering I've only played the one with Venom snake, but I like the comment and I think MGS2 is a better thrown out reference than a Space Odyssey, The Matrix, or Terminator.

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June 10th 1924
18 years before Termina
Valland

'You are the bearer of the submissive soul.'

I am trapped in utter blackness, in an utterly unfamiliar situation and a mysterious voice is calling me out?

'The Soul of Submission can be derided but every soul has its own strength. The branch that bends easily, does not break. While some contend with the tides of Fate bearers of this soul find surrender bearing them to their destination. By working with the flow, those blessed with favorable tides are blessed, but those in unfavorable situations can become trapped lacking resistance.'

I want to quirk up a lip, as I feel rather incredulous?

Is that the right word? I feel as though a monk is talking down to me, and simultaneously roasting me while offering advice.

But my face feels. Off. My body feels strained like I can't react as I'm... Pinched by darkness.

'This world is uncompromising, and you very well may die with the advantages you already possess. So, young one. As long as you wish to persist, your soul will remain in this world, 3 chances, 3 lives. This life is yours to prepare for the next life.'

Blurry vision, I gasp for air, I feel limp, weak, covered in something-

"Ha- August. Look. Our baby. A boy. Our little man ha..."

Fallout out 3 fucking shit.

A squeaky child-like groan leaves my lips. It sounds like a babble or a particularly weak baby cry.

"Erik. I am your Father. Ah my son."

The masculine voice speaks, my brain catches on the name.

Erik is kind of an OC I made, more so a tabletop character-semantics aside I think I glean what the voice meant now.

This is a world for adventurers, some form of fantasy world…?

Perhaps Orden, I've only brought him to one module so far but I planned to recycle him since I love Necromancer style characters and the Draw Steel system having a dedicated class for doing it is peak.

If you're not in the know, well it feels like most games farm out necromancy to a few spells or a half hearted subclass-but that is not quite important yet probably.

I wrote it so he grew up in a church or nunnery, then got access to some kind of hidden forbidden archive. So I expect that question to clear up.

But for now. I think I'll sleep this off... Newborn stuff well, I suspect I am going to get very familiar and very tired of it.

---

November 22nd 1924
18 years before Termina
Valland Family Homestead

"My dear, I've been meaning to ask. Erik has been checked by the pediatrician, and… well is perhaps the world's most well behaved baby in the world. I've begun to set my mind to my pursuits."

My new universe Dad begins talking to the new Mom before he hushes his voice such that I have to strain to hear.

"--- man --- I --- obligation --- its unlike before. Something has forced his hand. It's a bad omen."

He 'has' to do something. Something he had promised to do even if it meant leaving a wife and child in our village cottage.

A hero's quest?...

"August. I know you are serious. You do not easily show such worry. I understand it's a burden you willingly take, as it's how you were raised. Do you not think the aristocracy will suppress him?"

Huh. Some kind of political upheaval...

It's something of a self report but my mind kind of blanks at politics, the only thing I can think of is Northern Duke sexy man type things.

I didn't even read too many of those... I had a short kick of that kind of thing after I tried the Remarried Empress one.

"Justine... This man... He is beyond conventional men's grasp. My family." August places a hand over his chest before looking at me and taking a deep breath. "Our family... Has hunted this man through the generations. He has killed and used up people, innocent bystanders, those loyal to him. It's firm in my mind his new scheme is but the newest and greatest danger of a poisoned mind."

Scratch that. Belmont type shit? Sipha or Forgemaster type shit is kind of cool. Shame I never checked on the second Netflix season.

Dad does faintly seem like Julius? The one from the Soma game? This is from infant eyes so perhaps he is his ancestor?

Then my Mother asks an almost innocent question which makes me a statue stunned in silence. "Will you go to Bremen then?"

Bremen? August- a man in Bremen, not a man, a God. A cross between Hitler and Griffith.

The enigmatic "Kaiser" aka Le'garde. Before he becomes super Hitler, in the timeline.

I cast my mind back to videos-no it was a post of some kind by Miro or reposted to reddit or something. We have art or well in the universe; it's a picture of Kaiser looking like a 'metal gear character.'

God that metal gear comment of him in a trench coat like thing. That comment probably is almost certainly why I remember it...

My dad is August. The voice-ROB. Termina...

They sent me to Termina? And my curse or my blessing is that I can 'persist.' 3 locked rings, like the Olympic symbol on my wrist. A brand, a symbol. One no one has ever commented on, no one has ever mentioned or inspected.

I only played Termina for maybe half an hour after looking up the O'saa intro choices and fumbling through his intro.

But I watched enough challenge runs of the first game to have an idea of useful things.

Pinecone Pig being goated among other things is up in the air. I can't be certain that it works like in the game where you can brute force infinite value. I mean an actual time limit instead of a 'soft' save limit would certainly turn the infinite to occasional value.

Information is a definite advantage. I think the way Fear and Hunger was designed to be played was to die and die until you could scrape together enough working knowledge to have a chance to die to unfair bullshit.

In the games I subscribed and advised a friend who briefly streamed the first game that slow and sure, defend into extra turn attack gameplay was surefire.

In Termina I think the meta was the hardened heart, life steal, counter strategy...

I think a flesh and blood person might struggle to replicate that. Flinching, getting the shit beat out of you only to lash out after seems like stuff you'd need perfect calm like a 'gamer system' to have mental fortitude to soak the damage.

Ultimately, or well the first thing I should focus on preparation wise, is making notes and running.

Being physically active and able to run from the horrors... Well when other plans fail. The Call of Cthulhu special keeps you alive I guess.

Damn. Mind reading is a thing in setting. I've got to find an Atton mental defense trick to run interference in my own head... Pazack, Pazak?... Won't work. Ugh, how do you even discover your own version of this?

---

October 1930
12 years before Termina
Valland Village

"You can say that I have deeeeeep pockets, allow me to show you my poppet~" it's many shades of weird and uncomfortable role-playing Pocket Cat even during a childish game of tag.

But imitating the monster is useful in getting these kids to run their hearts out, in turn making me try harder.

It's also a shade of weird and uncomfortable growing up again. I'm honestly pretty grateful to have things to plan ahead for...

I'd be lazy and bored to a different sort of madness.

Instead I'm weirdly fastidious about doing things with both hands to try and build up some ambidexterity. I play physical games with the local kids for cardio. Lastly I've set myself to trying to sketch.

Ritual circles eventually being important to get right freaks me out a little bit.

Rather than work from rulers, I'm just trying to get good with my hands I guess.

"I've got you now my dear! There you are 'it!'" My voice is a monstrous rasp as my hand lands on their back, I turn on a dime and peel away.

Honestly. Despite how it's all. Pressure in the back of my mind. I can't help but feel like surviving Termina is absurd.

I mean. I guess a party of heroes is plausible.

It's just with all this worry I'm assigning the future, despite my attempts of becoming a kind of 'Renaissance Man' in my second life there are all kinds of road bumps.

Getting a limb lopped off is logistically a problem. One handed dealing with a backpack, reloading a pistol, problems all the way down.

With foresight I can maybe rig up some kind of harness or holster set up with peel off or pop off metal buttons that click like Legos, assuming that innovation exists. But as much as I can hang off my belt, or chest pockets, ultimately 'winning Termina' will probably eventually force you to fight from such a stark position of mounting disadvantage.

"Helena is it!" The kids call out, which I suspect I may have trained or inspired that habit by using the skill 'lying to children' and saying I'm not it.

From my memories of my brief Yellow Mage playthrough. I pushed to the Mayor's manor, and a certain degree into the early game to get a magic build's foundation set, then I kind of just lost interest.

So I'm rather aware that ultimately, I am lacking. The trails of Termina, I'm only vaguely aware of, not that it's too much of a problem mind. There was a looming update for the game I will not be able to experience in modern luxury through a screen, but I wouldn't be surprised to find the world is the world so things I can't account for are certain.

"Erik! I'm gonna get you!" Helena chases me up a tree, she takes up the gauntlet and begins to chase me up forcing me to jump off and tumble into a roll kicking up and scattering autumn leaves as some stick to me.

Although it's more experience in handling short falls, I end up in no position to run as I'm re-tagged.

"Huff. Huff. It should be a rule you can't tag back. I just got done chasing you." There's no heat in my argument, but rather a soft sort of adult incredulity of getting it passed back.

"Nuh uh, you got tagged." Iron clad childish logic rebounds my criticism with churlish effortlessness.

"Then it's hide and seek. 'Cuz I don't want to run after you. 100. 99." Although, obviously, I don't quite get along with the kids since the monster roleplay and my general adult standoffishness, even if I'm still the chaser I can at least negotiate to keep a game going.

"You've got to say Shillings after a number! No cheating. Hide! Everyone hide!" As Helena runs off I scoff softly and count from the top.

"100 Shillings." Which I suppose is a decent enough replacement for 'Mississippi.'

"90 Shillings." Now that it's been thrown in my face. I wonder what words non Americans use that are roughly a second to say?

"70 shilli-" my counting interrupted as I heard a twig snap.

Not right…

If someone hadn't heard the swap to hide and seek me counting was a give away?

I open my eyes expecting to see an animal but instead.

Tall.

Basketball player height, in cavalry boots? Light almost faded purplish pink.

It's face? A rotund bulging cartoonish cat mask.

"Charming little games children play. Don't you agree?" With an utterly sweat-inducing poise Pocket Cat's hand moves with a faint flourish "conjuring up monsters with nary a care, so so innocent."

Alone. Had it waited for this moment, in the nearby woods and for me to be alone in a moment like this?

"Oh dear~ you are making me so very sad. I didn't come all this way to frighten you sweetling. Well~ just to frighten you." With a husky purr their voice trails towards a more intimate turn as before it dips into actual kittenish purring.

Not just reading my face. My mind

"What sort of answer did you want? Feigned intimacy? For me to call you 'pookie?'" I exhale a shaky breath as I focus on Pocket Cat.

'Think stupid thoughts. Useful thoughts are the enemy. We aren't playing a fair game.'

"Feigned!? Ugh such a sour reaction. If there is any lie between us I would say it's you acting as though you are utterly immune to my charms. I saw your poor performance, all just to get their hearts racing no love of the role itself." Pocket Cat huffs and crosses their arms as they turn their mask appearing oddly petulant.

"Well I can't claim to have lied about being a child of darkness or loving you." Lines we are both aware of.

Pocket Cat as some 'higher dimensional' being was so much more aware... He also has the upper hand of experience in talks disjointed over reality.

"Ah I see. That brings some things into focus. Now I can't help but wonder what you want with all that knowledge brimming inside you~" his hips playful sway as he steps closer now plainly past the tree he was hovering near.

Is that his game? Information exchange?

Will he accept the handshake?

"Suppose it was for you to 'give the moon to me.' What then? What would I gain? What does 'your side' even want out of all this?" I feel a certain coldness, a tense anxiety probing like this.

Although he has 'rules' from up top. I can't help but be conscious of the danger of this gamble.

Bringing a hand to the bottom of his mask where a chin would be it muses "so much context, and for what. To beg for the teacher to hand feed an answer? Tsk tsk. To think of your existence here, transgression that it is would be so... Lacking."

I frown softly. An act possibly. The kind of questions he wants me to ask can incidentally tip my hand.

"You censored your own book, yes? Surely you won't begrudge me a lack of information. Or is it your newest perverse pleasure to throw some line at me like 'curiosity killed the cat.' As if the proverb doesn't end with 'satisfaction brought him back.' What game of checkers could be had with a board barely 3 tiles wide! Politely offer some rope to hang yourself with or stop complaining." I let my mouth speak as the thoughts come, if you expect your opponent to know your cards, holding them close to your chest is just useless cope.

I mean I guess there's a double bluff of just making me feel pressured without pressuring me to achieve some scheme. Make me pliable to a deal like I already alluded too?

"Ahaha you have the social grace of a battering ram~ you have everything you need to grasp the nature of my Master. But you are so locked up you won't even think of it in my presence. How delightful, to think should I stand before you I could put such firm blinders over your eyes. Tell me~ how much do I scare you~?"

Badly. Bad things could happen. Don't give him ideas.

"A lot. The wiggle room in your rules to escort a lady in the wheel chair comes to mind. Nothing is scarier to me than the idea you are less restricted than you appear."

With a delighted titter, Pocket Cat tilts his head back and gazes down at me, his mask's eyes suddenly glimmering with a cat's night vision like a flash of yellow subdued and... Predatory?

"Under the moon, when humans are ever so emboldened to bare their true selves, you take solace that I can't? You think me undeserving of the liberty that petty, awful little humans revel in?" His intense gaze makes me sweat as his tone remains carefully contained almost like a coiled spring as he builds up the tension. "How delightfully cruel. I think I could call you one of my well beloved companions."

What the fuck even is this guy. "So, does that mean you're going to try and spin me a yarn like some of the paranoid people who say Logic is secretly bad?" If I was to pull some shit that's what I'd do. Probably pulling some Shin Megami Tensei anti-law shit out of my ass. In the case of that game, bashing God's not so perfect order for it's stifling homogenous rigidity is the norm.

That is to say, 'Order' can be a force of such purity it scours chaos to such a degree the world is suffocated into stillness akin to death or apocalypse.

Loyalty is easier if they are, if not a believer, inclined to see your enemy as a problem.

The question is, does Logic become an overly restrictive controlling system that white washes the world to oblivion?

That seems counter to what's her name's vibe. Terrorist freedom fighter, and a scientist. Probably smarter than me actually.

I continue "I don't think Logic is necessarily a danger. Even if I'm wrong. The way Gods go around here, they are kind of flash in the pan. Her influence will wane."

"Do you not have examples from your own world as to how all that rot will turn out?" The smug cat replies easily.

How vague. Fishing? Perhaps it is not as well read on my world or what I know?

"Does this world not have fiction of the concept until it exists in the green?" That is something of a reach, but this isn't my universe.

The global nature of the concepts 'Fear and Hunger' changed for humans due to the green and divine influence. The green perhaps might be the source of magic like 'the Fade' in dragon age.

There is in fact a 'realm of concepts' or 'thought' and it trickles down into other things.

Although. It's kind of arrogant to assume it's easy to mess with. God's are the heavy hitters, best I can do is drops in a ocean.

"Now you deign to show me your true face I see. All caught up in the haze of contemplation. Struck dumb by the crushing weight of thought." As Pocket Cat drawls I get distracted by their coy response.

"Motherfucker you are wearing a mask right now. 'True face-' like you have any room to judge." I flush slightly unable to keep a tight lock on my composure as I snap.

Somehow in response to my outburst he rolls the eyes of his mask.

"'Why does a soda fountain need an internet connection.' You come from a world with a 'Unabomber' if you aren't convinced by that, well what could I do to change that. You were utterly immersed in a world that could give you all the context you need. Perhaps you would feel differently if you played Metal Gear Solid 2."

"Literal Psycho Mantis cosplay." I blankly critique him, my voice steady as he is strangely good at finding arguments I can see if not agree with.

Social intelligence? Ugh. I thought about SMT as an allegory, he read that, and wove it into his arguments. Tailored to me. Targeted.

At my thoughts or just the silence he shakes his head and lifts his arms palms facing up as he shrugs. "Although you might find this surprising. I was simply curious about you~ meet the neighbors, all my intentions are quite tame I assure you, by both our definitions of tame withhold your accusations please~. But let's pretend you and I aren't so different~ and we don't have to be at cross purposes..." With a delicate rumble his mask seems to smile wider as he pushes his hand deep into his pockets and digs around.

"Where did I put... Ah there." With an impish giggle they withdraw a golden yellow almost resident evil or cartoonish key strung on a chain. "I have many doubts. But lets say you grow into a person, with wants, desires, and the will to have your own voice rather than one authored for you. You can come find me, and share the winding path of your personal greed, kindness, whatever you deem worthy of my personal attention as you craft your very own S Ending. An open offer, with no time limit. I have the funniest feeling you will have seen all the good that can come from a mutually beneficial arrangement~."

Part of me wonders if I could lose the key if I wanted to. Drop it and pray it never comes find me.

"Well I am certain you will come to see my way of things one day, for now tata~ delicacies to taste, connections to maintain, vessels to groom~ Ah I am ever so busy." with that utterly obscene farewell his steps seem to almost elongate as he doesn't run so much as force the world around him to make haste as he slips through the brush with only ripples of green.

I look at my left wrist where the 3 interlocked rings are and I can't help but measure the margins in my head.

I could run out of chances... I could die and NEED him, even if it costs this world something.

If I'm sent off to 40k or Worm can I confidently assert I won't ever need it, well.

A deal with a devil.

I slip it around my neck and walk off into the woods.

At least it won't be unusual for me to be quiet or downcast. I'm not in the mood for hide and seek, funnily enough.

----

AN - I was worried that I rushed some character content here, but as a writing exercise I wanted Pocket Cat to jump scare.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - I figured I can quickly whip up a mostly preparatory, homework type chapter. A little note on how August acts. We are kind of rushing to Terimina with like 2 side stories on the way, so I am not sure if I can work in some of the subtler stuff. Basically my thoughts is to get reactions and visible emotions he plays things up, since a little adult is a tad eerie. Also I thought about how August should talk about Ragnvaldr history, and while we may know about from his perspective August doesn't so I think between that and telling it to a kid, its a tad muddled? Uhhh since I thought it was funny for August and Justine to have matching names I did the same to the unnamed sibling, they won't ever show up again or only 1 one chapter so I am running with it.

Also I threw out some European ethnic stuff since well, its the idea of growing up in a quirky old foreign world. I don't think there is any Valland lore to conflict with since Abella's flashback isn't a thing so I kept it light since I am a dumb America.

---
December 1930
12 years before Termina
Valland Family Homestead.

The home is rich with the smells of baked goods. Banketstaaf, this almond paste bread thing I haven't tried yet but I'm hopeful and Kerststol, ethnic Christmas fruitcake, both prepared by Justine.

I've heard the other children excitedly look forward to Pepernoten but I think- actually I am something of a freak as I occasionally notice markers of tension for the upcoming war.

A little less spice or cookies for us, hay instead of carrots in the shoes we leave out for Sinterklaas.

Those are things I notice since the 'Gold Bloc' is apparently falling through.

The argument about what the standard of currency is, perhaps beyond my education... World War History is pretty focused on the Archduke assassination(is that the first war?) And the failures of the Weimar Republic.

The Republic's money problems lead to anecdotes like paying with wheelbarrows of cash, or eating quickly before the price of a sandwich inflates.

I guess I am not in the center of it so it's a tad. 'Hazy' as I try to mark the passage of political tension through my new life.

Side note, it feels somewhat strange to keep up with the news by reading the odd newspaper.

It really hammers home some of the Logic stuff. Human interconnectedness, instant access to news, message apps, shopping is like a super power. Google is such a terrifying convenience for a World War era pinhead, well like I am now.

Just for example, the Populists movement in Bremen. I only see what a reporter takes photos of or talks about, I can't just check the internet and find recordings or pictures of people posted.

Perhaps that's still a tad abstract. Something like Karin's kidnapping. There's basically nothing to look into. Either it hasn't happened yet or I haven't seen a report or advisor since it's countries away. Not that I can do anything about it, at most I could send a dubious letter, but I only know the broad strokes of her life, not the details of where she ended up.

"Erik my boy you seem lost in your own world!" With a boisterous jostle August stirs me from my woolgathering.

Pausing for a moment I decide to be a wordy little shit. "I was thinking about socioeconomic conditions-hey Dad are we rich?" As I speak I can't help but ask the question that was scratching at the back of my skull.

Isn't it weird we're so well to do? I mean, monster hunters like Witchers make fuck all most the time.

Unless we have ancient treasure just around... That doesn't really mesh well with my idea of the setting. It would be so weird to find literal piles of gold in the Funger world.

Would you trust that shit? It would be less suspicious if it wasn't gold but Innsmouth type fish gold, if you ask me.

"My word!" He ruffles my hair leaving bundles of it peaking out at odd angles. "Are you preparing to call my gifts beneath your station?" He teases leaving me huffing softly.

"I don't know. I just noticed things I guess. Are we eating better than the other families?" I mean, I'd say so but maybe I see things but read them wrong.

Not only am I 'a kid' but I'm also in a foreign culture and country. Oh and an alien world. Funny how you can get used to that.

"Well Son, this is a time for family, perhaps now is a good time for you to have some answers. A long time ago, before the Cruel Age. Our family lived in Oldegard. We weren't just any people, or simple 'Vikings' we have the blood of explorers in our veins." Pride. He absolutely radiates pride as he begins but he begins to temper it.

"Your name comes from those roots, with 'Erikson' was similarly notable and was from the same village. The reason I move around and I don't live here and raise you, is due to that history. Not that our family knew the family who led the expedition that discovered Vinland. But... That expedition... Had consequences. That expedition came back with something, someone wanted it so badly they would do anything to have it. Kill the innocent, murder our ancestors' family, the whole village... The problems. Caused by that man are felt today. So my Father and his Father before him raised us on the road. The whole family travelled and fought those problems... And died. Our family would be larger if not... If not for many things but some things we can control and choose. So I choose for you to grow up here. Safe, happy, healthy. My life beyond your home isn't because it's better without you. If I could have both. I'd be with you and help people. But I can't."

"You could take me with you." I had wanted to breach the subject, wanted to build up to it. But it just came out, a small quiet thing sneaking past my guard.

"Son, the life of the road takes from you, it takes from me today. That I can't take my rest with you and your Mother. You don't know what you ask. This isn't some adventure." His words are firm, but I need to break them.

"The Pocket Cat had come to see me." In an instant August's eyes flicker assessing, he looks around to me, his bow and the house before easing just an inch.

"I think you may be imaginin-" his voice is tightly controlled. Calm and reaffirming but I try to break it again.

"If you catch Le'garde in Bohemia at the end of the war he has a Phylactery. When he dies he becomes a puddle and goes somewhere else. The job takes 2. One there, and another to pull the trap closed around his neck."

"How did you, did he tell you that- what game is that upjumped carpet playing at..." August's face changes rapidly, impressively so. It's easy to imagine all this supernatural shit is old hat even if it's too close to home for him to not react.

"I knew. I kind of always knew Dad. Since I was a baby I knew you'd be in Bohemia at war's end, hunting for the Yellow King but it would be others who did the job. You didn't know what to look for. But if I go there. If you can chase him back at his evil castle or his secret base. Then both of us can catch him."

"We can, Son. I will. But it doesn't need to be you." He calmly places a hand on my shoulder but his grip is strong. Heavy. Full of the unspoken. Promises and worries.

"Dad, like Ragnvaldr, came for me. We can't help when it comes to our homes. But we can be strong in the face of danger. I want you to train me."

"I... Son." A silence reigns for a brief period as. "So. Your... Already involved." The words sound leaden, heavy with purpose.

"Son, your Mother. Have a choice too, you haven't asked her yet have you?" I nod, I guess he is intuiting that from no warning from her about this.

"She was going to tell you food is ready. But as much as I would be tempted to come along. Well, having another bun in the oven would prevent me. Surprise" Justine leans in from the door as we both turn.

Canon August had children plural didn't he...

Also! Come along? Dad scored his own Sipha? Damn what a chad.

"Well Son. I seem to have a good reason to be home for a while. We will revisit this topic, and while we wait to meet your brother or sister, we will see if you have the stuff."

"Yeah. Sorry I uh brought down the festive mood. I prepared bribes ahead of time so uh let me get that." Fake not quite Christmas has gifts way earlier in the month on the 6th. The shoe thing I mentioned.

But my own cultural baggage and worries had me prepare a 'family picture' sketch of all of us since August was home this month.

Not that it makes things less complicated. But it's at least an attempt to show that I care.

---

January 1931
11 years before Termina
Valland Forrest

Sighting the rabbit, I load the stone into the pouch and with a flick of my wrist I feel it settle before I whip my hand in a circle, the sling whistles before I lose it at the rabbit and miss.

I sigh softly. Kind of embarrassed actually. I got really into the idea of using a sling instead of a bow, and talked my Dad into it.

All kinds of benefits, you can use it one handed, no need to make ammo if rocks will do, it's just string or leather so it's lightweight.

Not that well, I can make use of it immediately. Despite the feeling in my heart that demands I glaze the mighty yet humble sling.

Actually speaking one handed, I swap to my left hand. This will probably make learning longer, but I am paranoid about manifesting ambidexterity.

Not that I can even expect to see anything else on my 'hunt.'

Dad is probably subtly punishing me by making me hunt in winter. Or well, perhaps he thinks of it as 'be careful what you wish for' life lesson he needs to impart?

Since we might be forced to hike days in these conditions if trains, buses, or hell even roads won't take us to our quarry.

By asking to learn, I basically signed up to trek there and back to the god forsaken fuck murder mountains. If well, 'there be monsters.'

I keep an eye on the sky, as well as the environment just in case, but sadly the sky proves more fruitful for signaling when to return. Perhaps dad should mark some kind of colored stone for me to at least get some more sling practice. Maybe he is very particular about it since it would create bad habits?

As I approach the house I am surprised by just how keen August is as he not only looks at the sling in my opposite hand, but my left hand itself. "Trying some special training without informing your teacher?"

To my bewildered exasperation he picks me up making me stiffen as I gasp "yeah?!? Sorry?"

Seriously old man, are you the kid here? Did you score Mom by pulling her hair? Do you show that you pay attention and care by messing with me?

"Ahaha! Well your methods must pass my scrutiny! So what is it, what have you been doing?" As he lets me down he ruffles my hair and I groan softly.

"Whenever the thought strikes me, I try to use my left hand for things. Picking stuff up, using the sling just now, drawing and writing too." I anxiously scratch the back of my head as I had well have only kept up the habit. I never put too much thought into it.

Makes me amateurish I guess. A casual person might put in effort over a long period of time and be dedicated. But a professional? A professional follows a method. Keep a schedule.

Probably does Marcoh shit like count calories, or find optimizations then apply them consistently.

Up until just now I had actually felt like I was doing a good job of strengthening myself, discounting how age limits me.

But... I never really applied a strict work ethic to myself. I just pressure myself to work most of the time and have rest days when it seems right.

August after seeming to nod "then in addition making sure you lift some weights with that hand, I shall teach you juggling." He smiles enigmatically, I guess he is trusting my curiosity.

"Why did you learn to juggle?" I trust the method of madness honestly. It seems a generally hand skill type thing.

"Well my Father taught me! Not for all the same reasons mind you. We were wanderers, we had many encounters living alongside, working with, and having great friendships with others who live on the road. Carnival clowns, palm readers, the like! This allowed us to have... A relationship of sorts. We could impose on them and join them if it suited us. Or let us go about in disguise."

After entering the house he hands me 3 hacky-sac like little cloth balls. "But for you Erik, it teaches ambidexterity, hand eye coordination, timing, and it's a neat small skill unto itself. Good luck, there's little to it but to do it, other than starting with one at a time."

---

June 10th 1934
8 years before Termina
Valland Family Homestead.

"Happy-"
"Habby!"
"Happy, Birthday."

I smile sadly as I look at Mom, Dad, and Leif.

10. I'm 10 now.

And this isn't just a celebration.

It's goodbye.

Not a forever goodbye. August will come back with me to see Leif.

But that doesn't seem to stop the tears from coming.

'When did I...'

Stupid. This isn't something to interrogate.

"I'll write. S-so you better learn to read Leif. I-i. We will have so much to talk about when I come home."

---
AN - threw out and then wrote a reaction to a bit of throw away lore about August's wife. If I was taking things slower she would have a stronger presence and have something to pass on as well.

I checked out Marcoh's backstory and running and stamina gets Max Body up. So Erik would have that alongside a skill associated with slings since any contestant that looted it off me would suck since it's a time sink to get good at.

We might skip, life on the road type stuff minus an Father to Son talk before Termina? I don't know, I think it might be too 'convenient' to have too many adventures or opportunities before Termina.

I mean without the internet maybe it's possible to pick up a whole host of skills anyway but I don't want to go too 'Samurai Jack' with the training. I think I could get good a couple of things but not a Batman amount.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - Some 'the road' set dressing before we get into 'the road: hijinks' then 'hijinks reaction and cope' then we will move along to Prehevil.

Also I kind of crammed in a little thought I had because of @Xodarap about a Hunter Org. If I was like 100% committed to doing everything in my power to prepare for Terimina I mean a bunch of bad ass monster hunters, some who might use guns and bomb would probably be like the best?

I think that is a bit less dramatic than 'the lone champion' and also not very 'me' as far as what I can do to prepare.

Also my thought process is very referential, I am almost worried I need to like start spoiling some of my dialogue and thoughts. I mean Araki in Stone Ocean ended up spoiling a movie before it came to Japan, there's no way I can be that bad but maybe I'm worried over nothing.

---
August 14th 1934
8 years before Termina
Oldegard

"Disappointed we aren't on the hunt?"

How strange, is he projecting some kind of idealism onto me?

I was pretty upfront and honest once I mentioned what I knew of the greater scheme of things...

I push my simple bead necklace out of my mouth with my tongue to speak.

I wanted practical stuff for my Birthday, ugh including socks it's like I'm living in a joke. The idea was the hiking trick to suck on a stone to preserve water, it's why covid had flavorless suckable candy become a thing with masks.

I can't speak to how hygienic it is actually? I just have to be on top of cleaning it.

"No either this is important to prepare for one. Or this is more time to prepare." If I never had to kill a monster, discounting Termina I mean, I can't seem to find a reason to complain?

"Not quite, not quite Son." August eyes cast out over the rolling landscape, but it feels as though his eyes are locked in somewhere further.

"It's about, being a complete person. It's about needing a foundation before you build a tower. You are dedicated, you have continuously proved to me you don't balk at the hard parts, the work."

"There was a village here. Right here. But it's gone now. I suppose I wanted to make certain you had a greater sense of the purpose of 'the work.' Because we *need* that Son. When you are hurting, tired, or feel you are at your limit. Purpose, family, drive, sheer stubborn resolve! All this things can carry you, and oft times we need to be carried, in the hardest times limping along might not be enough."

I nod understanding in abstract "not just integrity, or some kind of... Doing right by other people values. But knuckling down. Face to the grindstone."

"Son. You are so smart. But worry just doesn't go away because, well because I am your Father and I can't help but worry. But I am getting better at worrying all the time. Getting my practice in." With a hand on my shoulder he guides me to sit down with him and look over the hill.

I'm a little distracted by the sudden thought that this is our first real conversation. A real, man to man conversation.

"It's... Hard to talk about me. Who I am. What my values are. With my knowing about Le'garde and stuff. I know about less useful things too... It's also hard to be self aware enough to talk about it."

"Could you try even if it doesn't have to make sense? I'm your Father I better damn well try."

"When I think about values, there's a neat game about that and nomads too funnily enough. 'City of Winter' follows a family or a community over this rolling folding out cloth map, and you start with some cards that are like small pearls of culture. Kids have a limit of one, grandparents have like 7 but are not gonna stick around. So it's a game all about the shuffle of values, adults and grandparents passing their cards around to kids that can't hold onto it."

I sigh as I feel as though my thoughts are side tracking the conversation. "I guess I'm not even talking about how I feel. I feel... I think I don't even hold cards like other people."

I've always been a distant closed off person, I've never felt disconnected per se like freaks in literature like the guy from 'No Longer Human.'

I've just been a massive introvert.

"Stuff that is important to me is, only important because of all the stuff around it. Strength matters, because threat exists."

"Son if that was the case, is this the safest solution, or something else. Some principle held by need? A need to be strong rather than safe?"

I nod slowly. Sort of agreeing as I process it.

Some kind of force, a god for practical purposes, had set up a board. Perhaps a riddle or a monkeys paw joke.

Grow here, or cede agency in your next life.

"Refusal to make a choice is still a choice. Or a wise woman once said 'apathy is death.'" As I spoke I couldn't help but quibble with myself over the fact it was a delusion. A Star Wars force vision but that's useless pedantic, that for August clarifies fuck all.

August settles closer to me to put an arm around my shoulder and draw me into him "so you need to be strong, to be free? That matter to you?"

I tilt my head up as I sigh softly. "The choice is up in the air. The future is between us and the monsters. It's not that I want to win per se, winning is really hard, I just want to have a choice on where the coin lands.

"Between you and me I believe that 'Kaiser' won't know what hit him."

I suck in my lip at that and sigh. "You don't think like him, when he looks at things he thinks something like 'the odds look bad because I haven't finished rigging them.'" I'm not sure he is the same rat that Fallout's Benny is but it's a good allegory.

"I don't think it's just strength. He schemes and works people and fighting him in just one way, with just a direct confrontation you alone? He cheats. He has a way out prepared. To 'win' we need to cheat just as much and rig the odds to make things fair. That's so much more investment, I don't know how to work people, or run an organization. Even if you made an organization of monster hunters or something, then we have corruption and policing to consider. To win I think we would need all those people because the Kaiser will use his allies, spend political capital, build factories and cheat."

I look far ahead too, I stare hard as I wonder if that is what Pocket Cat could help with.

If we wanted to move this early, steal a march on Kaiser and prepare spies, hunters, and saboteurs. Could I believe Pocket Cat would want Kaiser taken out?

How would Pocket Cat use the favor to influence the organization, influence me?

I click my tongue "I think, even if I had friends. If I could trust problems to others I would still be making problems and needing power and agency, because you can't serve two masters. You have to choose to compromise at some point when there's conflicts, when you have a bump in the road because it's inevitable."

I could imagine August needing a DnD style party to fight and steal his way into Kaiser's fortress assuming we can pincer him between us.

But for myself, I wouldn't trust myself to bring someone into Termina.

No. Perhaps I simply hate the idea of someone becoming compromised for me.

Spending someone the same way Le'garde might. Cultivating a person like D'arce is stomach turning to think about.

"I hate the idea of someone dying for my 'just cause.' If someone has to die, it should be their choice and their reasons." Despite my words I can't help but wonder if I will feel like that when Olivia dies searching for her Sister.

I will want the other contestants to fight with me. But even if I can convince them, I can't help but think that people dying in front of me should be something I fight to stop.

"I-the death. It's something... I need to prepare for." I wouldn't normally say I'm a control freak. Or that I have some messiah complex.

I just can't help but compare games, weighted choices in my head. Shephard's suicide mission for example.

There's no shame in not knowing, but knowing means you should try to prepare.

Perhaps, it should be said that you should try and prepare to have no regrets.

"I... Being accountable, and owning your choices as your own matter less than the capacity to choose at all. I hate the idea of failing others, because I feel like I'm in someway letting myself down. I might fail others but I atleast want to say... That. I. Tried?" I feel like I lost the thread I was following at the end.

"I think that's called being a honest man Erik." August coolly comments. Casual.

Honesty to others and myself? Perhaps I am like that.

"Yeah. But I feel like I'm at my limit for self interrogation."

"So dramatic! You will have a hard time keeping a woman if you pout and glower after every serious conversation!" August claps my shoulder and I sigh despite being happy we can let it rest.

---

August 21st 1934
8 years before Termina
Oldegard

"Now there's someone I have been meaning to introduce you to. The most ardent ally of our family." I perk up as we walk past the tree line and into a cave mouth.

'There is no way. Well before Prehevil I guess. Wait why was Moonless even in Prehevil?'

I take a breath as the torch light begins to reveal a posed and dangerous Eldritch wolf. Taller than a man but by no mean Clifford sized.

No Miasma, no katana. Perhaps... The war was rough on her? Something in the coming years?

"Come closer girl. Surely you can tell. We have an new member of the pack."

Plodding carefully towards me its nose hovers near my face as it's warm breath ghosts over my sweat dappled skin.

"Can I pet it?" I can't help but whisper despite myself.

"Erik?" August asks as the dog huffs in my face.

'Did he not hear me?...'

"Can I pet them?" I ask louder my face blushing.

"Erik. I am trying to think, but I can't recall you being excited about anything as much as this." August with an oddly even tone speaks.

'What? Does he think I'm out of character or something?'

"Why should I even need to explain it, big dog! Family battle pet! Please can I pet you?" I ask Moonless themselves as I reach up slowly.

"Erik where is this... Have you always been an animal lover? I suppose you've sketched the odd bird..."

As I reach up Moonless turns. "Nooo. Sit. Please girl?"

The dog almost looks at me flatly before seemingly to oblige. "Would you prefer I pet your side?" I try and openly puzzle it out, maybe they brushed me off because it was their face?

I gulp as I touch their hide, tousled and somewhat grimy but I can't stop just because of that. God, erm well Vitruvia in this case, gave humans hands to pet the universe.

"Yesssssss, that's a good girl? Are you a girl?" Is this how Zagreus felt petting Cerberus? Ahhh Moonless isn't even Cerberus sized yet!

"Yes Moonless is a female." August chuckles as he comments.

"Fuck yeah, she's the boss bitch!" My dedication is reward with her flopping to her side, and you better believe I am getting that tummy. "Yesssssss this is the best day ever."

"Well I am glad you have taken to her." I guess he doesn't comment about the reverse since she is smart? Has chosen to stick it out with our family?

"Do we have a brush for her? Do we need to buy a horse brush?" I ask as I can't help but notice my hands are stained brown.

"Well, that's a bit more than was done than I saw growing up. She isn't a pet son."

I nod to Moonless "she is a noble warrior, isn't that right?! She deserves to look like it!"

August seems to finally crack, and let out a belly laugh as I fawn over Moonless.

I mean I guess I see the humor, but she is... Well she is very awesome for a murder beast.

"It sparks joy!" I argue with August's laughter as I can't help but chuckle with him now.

Well, more pets for me I guess.

---
AN - I hadn't thought about the Birthday much during the Birthday scene, it just seemed a good as time as any to make the journey. But I as I wrote the necklace into this scene I realized the Birthday gift is a surprise tool for later (cuz I'm a genius.) I am not sure if I should go back and edit or just push full steam ahead.

On Moonless. I am not sure I'd actually 'fan girl' over them, but I mean young me is a diffrent person neurologically so I am playing up the reaction a bit? But I mean this is my own pedantic self interrogation, who wouldn't pet the family murder beast?

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - World War 2 Funger start date is not shown so I went to the default. Also I went and checked out Moonless' Termina sprite and they also loose an eye at some point, so I may have to decide it already happened or is about too? After this chapter we will hopefully get some action.

---
1 September 1939
3 years before Termina
Vatican City

From above the historic steepled buildings, above the winding staircases, I see the city how the clergy do. Looking down.

I imagine that not even Skid Row is this vast, this swollen with life.

Conditions of the war on the horizon?

A quirk of being a horror Eldritch Universe?

I think the DC universe has a touch of that. I recall being surprised Darkside has the God of child abuse on side and manipulating things.

Actually... Could it be Fear and Hunger? The changed nature, the way it now drives humans.

How many in this teeming city have refused to give up? Have marched on despite hunger pangs to fight for just another day?

The resilience of the poor ends up making them prolific I suppose.

"Afraid of heights?" August asks as he sits up from the creaking venerable relic of the waiting area and looks out with me.

"Thinking about it all. The people. The city. Just thinking about how they even survive. I sound like a real country bumpkin saying that actually."

Some strange quirk of awareness strikes me as I remember August probably doesn't see me as a city slicker.

Which also calls to mind the question of if I have adapted out of being one. I don't act much like the comfortable 21st century human I consider myself to be.

"Would that we could do more? Cities are too much alike for my taste. The problems all grow too large for even one good man to shoulder. Unlike home, they do not mend fences and live with both the happiness and struggles of their neighbors."

"But if you could... Would August become a 'Warrior of Social Justice.'" I chuckle but it fades quickly as the joke feels a tad isolating after the fact.

"I think I'd be an 'Avenger' of some sort. If I'm to be a noble hero righting wrongs, I must first have a wrong before me. And you?"

I shrug. I feel like a fence sitter, but I am also socialized to another time so my normal is different.

What is the Disco Elysium path for cowards... The Moral Intern? I never really played it, so I can't recall.

"It just doesn't bother me. Maybe I would kind of feel bad, if we passed through there on the way in and I saw a starving baby. It would suck. But. Would it stick with me?... It... It almost feels like it's not up to me. It's something I'd discover."

I feel I am speaking my own personal truth, but despite supporting August hunting the dark and evil creatures of this world I am in some ways, still treating myself as a passive observer.

That's probably core to being a submissive soul I guess.

Not exercising agency, as a matter of course. Letting direction come from elsewhere, just reacting to things as they come.

In general, just for how I approach life, I mean. I feel the need to qualify my own reflection, as a matter of being too genre savvy I can't help but treat myself as a character in my own story sometimes.

Not to say that I'm destined to arrive in Termina, it's just that I plan too. Since the way the first game worked at least, learning magic and becoming strong is easier in places where things are fucked because reality is thin there.

What once was O'saa or Enki's obsessive pouring over magic tomes to learn hurting becomes just one soul stone. A lifetime of effort condensed just like that!

"I suppose the road has hardened you, or just that it hasn't hit home since it isn't our family-" as August speaks a stately priest, with dark robes and short head of grey hair opens the door.

"Gentleman." He says it as if it covers all the preamble and social niceties like grease before continuing "if I may direct you inside? The matter of the contract has been discussed and we are ready to negotiate."

"Can we talk later?" I hesitantly ask/suggest August as I am walking up to the Dark Priest. "So, I take it the Vatican doesn't often offer magic primers?"

I can't recall being so excited since Moonless. Magic! Reality bending magic!

Even if I can't learn all that much of it, the Vatican is the place in the modern age to learn about the subject.

So I had to ask when we first arrived, for a copy, for access, for something!

Even if I learn no actionable skill like this is a backstory choice or something. Being able to see the lore of a game reflected in genuine article theology sounds cool in an embarrassingly nerdy way.

"The most relevant answers for your request are the variable quality primers, notes, and sketched invocations on simple pyromancy. Unless you intend to stay for some time in the City, the greater scheme of things will sadly rest beyond your reach." Pyromancy trick? I guess they don't do scrolls nowadays...

"Can't join up. Places to be. Things to fight to the death." As I glibly respond I appraise the others sitting in the priest's office.

3 other priests, and seemingly a more Viking outlander type guy with a big axe and blond hair, not that he is dressed all in furs and leather he is dressed in the new simple which is jeans and a white shirt.

The priests aren't seemingly using the same standard 'build.'

Like Enki, one of them has startlingly white hair. Almost supernaturally bleached.

Another is covered by the robe but peaking out and covering his face are deep ritual scarring. Fear and Hunger and Alll-Mer both decorate his face and neck possibly even more.

By contrast the final one is rather plain. Perhaps the most scholarly one?

"Allow me to begin a much fuller briefing now that who has been honored with this assignment is clear, and other considerations otherwise addressed."

The old priest lets the room settle as he casts one finally assessing look over us all, and with no interrupting questions continues.

"Due to the increased tension between Bremen and Rondon a expedition into the fabled Dungeons of Fear and Hunger, a most holy place, has been infected with a loathsome form of chaos."

Dark Priests huh. Well I suppose knowing how it's the influence of the Gods that makes things fucked up, I suppose it is 'holy' but this worlds holy isn't the same as my worlds.

"An Adolescent Miasma, a cursed relic of the Warring Edges has not only resurfaced but has characteristically sought to bring slaughter and madness to the world." Casting a glance to August and I he throws in a line for 'our benefit.' "The stewardship of humanity regarding the supernatural is naturally under our jurisdiction."

Huh. I guess humanity wouldn't have hunted dragons to extinction or survived into such a mundane, wonderless age if not for a legacy hunter organization.

Blondie speaks up first. "Can such a beast be destroyed?"

The boring priest seems to address the question first "well, most knowledge we have is theological. But our library is world renowned. If we had the luxury to wait we could look it up. But contemporary accounts of the Warring Edges make a very big deal of certain Lineages committing Sundering to each other. The only thing else I can recall is the Ezkizo Lineage becoming rare due to a high amount of Sundering. Erm. That is to say, it has been made a matter of historical note when it has happened?"

An in universe lore guy! Gotta bother this guy on the road.

The axe guy just grunts.

As the silence persists, rather than just hope Moonless sorts this out, since they end up having the sword in them, or just hope August handles it, I ask a tone to set the tone as I normally do when it's just August for a baseline of what a thing even does.

"Do we have any inkling of how Miasma's mental influence even works? Is it just wielding it? Can you have it on your person and only be in danger when it's used?"

God, weirdly enough as I try to imagine how you could encounter someone inflicted with Miasma I can't help but remember the first bit of roleplay I did ever.

A fucking werewolf encounter, in this high school lunch informal sort of game.

I made a dark elf priest since I thought it would be cool. God, now is not the time for vintage cringe.

"Neurological Science and the higher mysteries are separate matters. Nothing that the Vatican does includes a bunch of skeptics trying to quantify God." The scarred priest brusquely answers.

Well, a insane mother fucker wielding the sword of madness tends to align with him swinging it I suppose, and whose to say we will even have to worry about transporting it.

"Fork found in kitchen, huh. Alright, well I suppose we aren't acquainted and our cooperation might matter more with success than lore. I am Erik, apprentice to August, I use a sling. Because although I can complicate things, I can appreciate consistency and simplicity. For bushcraft and self defense I also carry a hand axe."

"Olav. Good taste." Blondie hefts his own much more executioner-like axe which his hand was resting on.

"Ah well since I have spoken up early, I will go first amongst my fellow priests? Brother Emanuel. At your service." A boring guy introduces himself.

"Corbin, Defender of Humanity. I am the most devout among my brothers, and that is a strength in itself." The scarred, zealot introduces himself.

"My name is Daimon. I am the holder of power invested in me by rituals to connect to Our Christ." Bleached hair nods solemnly and meets my gaze.

—

2 September 1939
3 years before Termina
Vatican Outskirts on the road

"Seriously crazy right? The day we all meet, the day we prepare to set out the war is declared! A new Great War!" Emanuel is charmingly animated about the coming trench warfare.

Although naive, anti-war sentiment seems to have its big break after the Second World War. All Quiet on the Western Front among other media.

"It's a dark omen." Olav pointedly corrects, while also assuming the timing is indeed portentous. Y'know in that tough guy one liner sort of way.

Olav seriously talks like he is constantly delivering Punisher one-liners. Wacky.

"Ha, I for one welcome the coming darkness, it is only by enduring such that humans can emerge brighter like the Ascended Ones!" Strangely enough, Corbin agrees with both.

"I personally fear, even with the genuine article seals and papers of the Vatican we will be seen as spies." Spy craft is either what the story is about, or basically invisible. But I mean come on, what would a military commander think? Bunch of religious and armed weirdos. The priests with their short crucifix shaped short swords are a bit of proper pageantry of course but would you assume an enemy would dot their i's and cross their t's?

I might be getting a little lost in the sauce. I don't like the idea of fighting soldiers and I might be mixing up World War anecdotes in my head, but like they went as far as to make cow costumes for spying.

"I steered through the last spot of war just fine Son, watch and learn. Though in this case, navigating people and negotiations really would be in your benefit to take an interest in."

I let out a long suffering groan in response, I will never be a social butterfly. I just hate it. I have no desire to be anyone but my unvarnished shitty self. "I will keep my eyes open." I concede that I should pay attention but change is hard.

"That's a good lad, always making me proud with his work ethic and how attentive he is to proper instruction." I just groan again, I am at least happy August isn't treating me like he would when I was a kid and physically messing with me to embarrass me.

He is just setting up messing with me later, or leaving it at just that verbal barb.

As the laughter settles, I take the initiative and address the most nerdy of the priests. "Emanuel, was hoping to pass the journey chatting to you. You seem to be well read, I was hoping to learn more about some of the finer points of Gods and the world."

"Haaaa…" with a fond?... Sigh he smiles faintly. "I am not opposed, the best way to learn is to teach but the focus of my research has been rather boring? I was curious as to the differences found in directions of Alll-Mer. There is obvious, just false information on all the Gods. But Alll-Mer has a strange flair for conflicting information? Perhaps as Humanity's first Human God, or the fact he was a human 'Old God' before we reclassified him as the first 'Ascended God.' Honestly I wish I had some assists to help me fact check and visit Amon, and the Eastern Sanctuaries! I have sent letters but a first hand account or at least someone looking for the same discrepancies as me would aid me greatly."

HOLY-is this guy just, such a fucking nerd he is trying to stumble on Sulfur?

Fuck, fuck… He is 'dangerous' to talk to. Daan's adoptive Dad, he used what information he had for crazy evil.

Emmanuel might not be 'moral' if given the chance to settle his own search for the truth with blood. Fuck.

Double fuck actually, if these guys practice Mind Reading like Samarie they would have just caught that. But there is no reaction to Samarie's name. Or Sulfur lore hints in my head so I need to play it cool.

"Really nerdy. But hey so was Enki and he changed the world, do you happen to be an Enlightened Soul too?" Casual, act natural.

"You subscribe to Soul Theory? Well if you must know I was born in a solstice, so I am an 'Order' soul. Though I don't feel as though it bears out into my personality or values I was raised in the church and feel more so like a scholar than anything else, honestly I was surprised I was assigned a mission. I was lucky enough to learn a spell, but there hadn't been much of a hint they would need me! Or well perhaps the war changed things… Do… you think the Vatican knew about the war?!" Neat, also wow that is an interesting theory.

"Maybe… It depends on if they had connections too, or a read on the movements of the New Gods?" I elect to be honest, I kind of have a line in the sand of keeping some Alll-mer lore close to my chest but being too closed off might make me appear 'shifty.'

"New-oh my it seems you do have much to learn, my new disciple! The New Gods, originating with the Fellowship are not Gods at all, it is simply a title or role that was passed down for some 600 hundred years by powerful mages." I feel a strange sense of ennui.

It's almost like I'm listening to a lore video again.

But… it sounds like it was written by DarkSydePhil or something!

---
AN - Threw out a random name for a made up Alien sword lineage and some other thoughts running with the concept a single screenshot has given us pre-update. Also, Emanuel has like lore in my own head although we won't address it since we are moving fast. If you are curious I will spoiler it.

Spoiler

The priest who gave out the mission/contract or a priest higher up the chain wants him dead for potential Sulfur stuff. I'm not sure what side the Vatican would fall on for yes or no, but someone sent him with the express idea this mission would kill him.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - https://youtu.be/1NfSdOpQ3oA recommended listening.

Also QQ sidenote, I could see myself writing some lewd scenes that aren't cannon. If I get a neat idea. I am unsure if I want to do a post like that soon, since it will jump ahead a fair bit. I guess I'm curious about what people on this site think. I feel silly asking since in my own head the answer is 'what are you stupid? two cakes is two cakes.'
—
20 September 1939
3 years before Termina
Rondon Countryside

It was foggy.

I mean its fucking fake England right?

But O'saa claims foggy days like we see in the fog of war of Prehevil is a sign of the mystical pouring into our world.

But, considering its one sword, and well one wolf waiting in the wings off in the woods somewhere. It probably isn't a sign, erm not a sign of anything but this country is wet.

'Essence of Rondon' god… was that clip a vine? Despite being a teenager I'm also an 'Unc.'

I sigh in utter nostalgia at a brain rot I'm utterly disconnected from. Culture that exists only in my head.

I can't help but think of a voice tape of Ulysses from Fallout New Vegas.

It's an utterly poetic scene, I hope someone animates it one day, but it's about 'being honored' by dumb post apocalypse tribals.

His tribe and their 'Twisted Hairs' were plundered, it was as if his tribe had become 'grinning ghosts' painted red by firelight and blood. His instinct, his understanding of a dead culture pushed him to try and comprehend their hair knots. But it was all imitation, the intention of their hairstyles was all affecting a look, no 'communication' because they had no possibility of accessing that culture.

I think there was a line like, about a Tarantino movie? A compliment, 'you set a post apocalyptic movie after a real apocalypse.'

I am unable to… To be the lurker, the passive observer of the tides of human collective fascination and amusement.

The 'interface' and 'content' of my old self has disappeared.

It feels almost strange how little I see my own thoughts reflected in other Iseakai type media.

Well I suppose there are pressing immediate concerns, demon lords, or space whales that take up some of your mental bandwidth.

But how can we as modern people have so much time spent in being 'doom scrollers' or in my case an avid reader, and not in some part come to realize part of your identity has evaporated.

Part of my 'self' had vanished, that left room to put my nose to the grindstone, it had 'utility' but despite living a kind of life that should fuel my imagination, I am stuck in a gray fog that is real and unreal.

I think that is the kind of thing August was trying to get at, and pull out of me when we first began hunting monsters.

My 'drive' and how it is a thing I experience externally, not internally.

I don't… Know if I am able to be that kind of person. Driven, ambitious… Heroic?

I kind of want to say 'fuck it magic.'

But there's so much we don't understand.

To even discuss it in my head, it has to kind of be prefaced or well warning labelled that this is basically head cannon to the universe I am living in.

Magic is… Probably based in sympathetic magic.

As a lore guy and Tabletop Gamer you may have at one point like me wondered about magic like 'True Names' and why they for example can compel devils magically?

The magic of true names Onomacy is a specific version of sympathetic magic.

The name, or ritualist action, or even material components like say how some molasses lets you cast 'Slow.' That all taps into the same idea or feeling that humans have that boils down to 'Like commands Like.'

Elder Scrolls has some really deep lore, seriously drinking potions and eating food in stopped time is cannon erm to some degree depending on how cannon an internet post is. But it has a very useful quote to plunder from the King of Worms, on the subject of 'Mantling' aka creating sympathetic connections between yourself and role until you can wield it magically.

'Walk like them, until they must walk like you.'

Ok, I can feel myself getting lost in the weeds, fucked misty English countryside notwithstanding.

Why did I have to spout all this lore garbage? Well to answer the question I asked, when I first heard about it.

How did humans create the spell Demon Seed?

Perhaps you can even expand that to how Pocket Cat, Ronteals, and all living stories work magically speaking?

Humans repeat a story over and over, blood spilt, human 'seed' sown in the dead again and again in a blind zealous pursuit to birth a divine servitor that you have a power over as 'Father' of it.

Each telling of the bloody necrophiliac story is a plank of a bridge, and the spell is just a flight of fancy… Until it isn't.

Perhaps there is some aspect of this very idea in the Logic Project. A zealous human desire poured into a story, we repeat until it's true.

So if I wanted a spell of my own, a power to mirror Nas'hrah's own 'Darkness' it is hard to say how possible it is. We see examples of it. But it's either… Broad like the Logic Project, or iterative over generations seemingly.

Le'Garde's Asterisks, and Nas'hrah's spell might be more due to the power of Godhood. The Yellow King has the power immediately upon ascension I think?

The whole squad pauses as August raises an arm to his side.

Could be a false alarm… But best to err on the safe side and now act like we had just stumbled into enemy territory.

"We probably should have discussed it, but do we have a formation?" I whisper in the precious few seconds we may have if it's something 'heard' and not seen. Tracks can last a while, although like with crime statistics within a day is best or you miss things?

Although we haven't really discussed strengths, August easily takes the lead "A loose circle, stay in sight, but fan out slightly, we need eyes."

Equipment check, keep the axe close at hand, I gather loose stones in preparation for a fight and load a lumpy stone into the pouch of the sling.

Anxiously I swish the projectile side to side as I plod quietly, moving like the hunter.

All of our breathing has quieted leaving an eerie stillness to the grey world.

No sounds… Damn was so caught in my head, no bird sounds, no nothing.

The reasons assholes in movies say its 'too quiet' is because animals are rather averse to being politely out of the way barring running the fuck away from predators.

Skin tingles, I take a small breath, and shift my body, trying to quietly work out the budding tension in me. But the feeling has left me feeling superstitious and paranoid. I want to call out but don't. I want to fight but can't.

But, ultimately, in this business you have to trust your gut. "Dad." I whisper as tenderly as I can as I shake my head to scan the almost grey curtain around us.

"Something?" He whispers his arm tight, but the arrow pinched in his fingers doesn't move an inch.

"A feeling." I grimace, pinching my eyes as I drown and ground down the feeling of anticipation.

"First hunt?" Olav asks, August shakes his head to say 'no' and Olav seems to respect it coming from him.

Daimon, has a kind of rosemary I can't quite tell, but he begins to loop it, my own left hand drifts to the axe at my waist.

The my eyes almost feel blown open at the sudden rushing sound, where?-

Corbin, perhaps as expected of someone 'Engraved' to the point of making it their 'class' moves fighting the mist wrapped figure, but as Corbin draws two Sabbath blades rather than aggressively dig in he recoils back hacking.

My sling whips in the air, extending my reach before I lose, as the figure steps forward massive oversized great sword held parallel like a Dark Souls character blocking with the heavy blades I see… a Parasitized human in military dregs, drab utilitarian rags. Gaunt face, sunken eyes which hide wide eyes dilated in consuming madness.

"Overlap side fire?" I call out, me and August are consummate marksmen plus it's only natural we have the best coordination under fire.

"Can do better than that." August replies as he covers his quiver with a hand to keep the arrows in place as he jumps, and scrambles up a tree to the side before pulling himself one handed into the nook where the tree branch splits to catch the most sun. A natural sniper tower.

As I mechanically load a stone, then pull the leather string I had let go to loose, Daimon's robes ripple before tearing.

I don't know what kind of fleshy church made monster I'm even looking at. Winged, arm like protrusions bumpy and… ribbon like? Loose skin hangs off the new limbs in strips. False feathers?

Gruesome angel? I think capital M 'Marriages' can't subsume their flesh when they… 'Become one union of flesh.'

"YOU… YOU DID THIS TO ME…" Rasping hateful words rip from the blade morphed human.

Olav enters combat as Emanuel summons a Blood sword while chanting about 'Christ's Rage.'

"I will be the modern man who Sunders you." Olav promises as his axe slams down on what I can now see is an arm that has become Miasma.

He traps the Miasma under his haft and slams a foot down trying to wedge it into the dirt.

Miasma's wielder's arm groans and creaks unnaturally and the blade reverses like its arm is double jointed. The blade grinds up the haft catching fingers with speed almost unnatural.

Covering Olav as he steps back August and I pinch him with projectiles coming from 2 sides, with a horrible cry the blade hews the air almost like in an arc to fend off a spear charge.

Load, reach for the string but as I force my hands to move I call to Olav "spare axe!" After I prepare my next shot I drop my axe in front of me then step to the side to shoot.

"YOU! YOU! SENT ME TO DIE, IN THE DARK!" As Miasma pursues Daimon and Emanuel flank it between themselves, Daimon's flesh wings buffet and slap at Miasma as Emanuel cries "Christ take you, enemy of man!" while his sword of seething blood leaves a weeping gash.

"August 1, 2. I'm one." Moving, talking, and nerves from being in a fight has me sweating even if my breathing is regular if deep.

As Miasma prunes and pares down Daimon I shout "one!" and loose. "Two" August's rejoinder is swift as an arrow as the Miasma growls and lets loose a smog of deadly haze as our fire overlaps.

As the melee fighters are forced to retreat to the mist edge and further I loose a stone into the dark black haze, stones are free, I'm not going to run out easily.

In a brief breather where 2 stones sail into the darkness, silence is broken by a wild lunging mad sweeping blade, Miasma almost dressed in a cowl of black toxin has bowled over and is carving apart Daimon. At his gruesome cries the others run around the black as quick as they dare as it endures stone and arrow shot true by our family duo as it focuses on dealing damage.

Emanuel moving quickly without consideration enough for his own damn life is pitted into a grinding blade lock. But the monster has the sheer power advantage and is muscling him down and whirls on him, with a kick it sends Emanuel tumbling into the dispersing toxic cloud.

Olav with a hand axe and Corbin lock eyes as they look across from each other past Miasma.

"HATRED, CHAOS, RIVERS OF BLOOD, YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME!" The thing hatefully cries.

"One" In a moment as the blade turns to me August fires, signaling to our melee locked allies a moment of distraction. "How many rocks does it take for you to die? I am going to find out." I growl as I set another stone into my sling.

Once again but thinner this time, it cuts Corbin off with a smaller cloud of toxic acrid air, but that advantage is enough to enter a brief exchange on winning terms with Olav, where it shoves its blade right through his guts and lifts him in the air on his weapon before swinging with Olav lodged on the blade, cutting through him as his body touches the ground with his own mass making the sword fall harder.

Corbin and a stricken Emanuel are left now.

Emanuel is trembling from poison or fear as the monster swings wildly fighting both attackers, and only making progress once its toxin builds up enough to gain even more pressure.

August whistles, I grimly nod as I understand who he is calling for.

Everyone's attention is split as the fight's clamor is interrupted by the thumping of a great beast moving at predatory speed

"On our side!" August warns as bounding from the side of the clearing is Moonless.

It whuffs in perhaps recognition before letting out a call that shakes the clearing with its about horse sized body.

https://youtu.be/wGUZGn7Yk_Q

Miasma acts quickly not stopping even as its battered with another round of fire from sling and bow.

In recognizing the threat it acts overly aggressively with a bone reverberating strike knocking Emanuel down then coup de grace with a brutal skull splitting slash, as its leaving itself open to focus purely on offense Corbin carves at its sides almost paring down our foe to the ribs before he is forced on the defensive until Moonless latches down on free arm and growls and strains tearing it off leaving a gushing stump.

"CUTTING CUTTING CUT UNTIL IT'S ALL WASHED AWAY BY RED!" The voice is manic now straining as it washes itself in black haze again if nowhere near as big as the one that cut us all off.

"One!" I call out this time urging us both to fire with so much less space for it to hide "Two!" August's arrow does not pass through the other side, landing true.

Bursting from the cloud again it meets Moonless in an almost fated clash, its blade sinking down Moonless bursting forth its grim jaw trapping the other arm and sawing until a brutal snap.

As Corbin catches his breath, I grab Olav's axe, heaving it until I lift it and let gravity drive it down onto the body, again, and again.

Double taps are fine for humans, with monsters I think the best policy is to play it safe.

Burn the body ideally.

Leaving the axe buried in the severed sternum in the corpse I approach Moonless, but she warns me off with a growl.

Whether it's her decision or the swords… It seems she has a burden to bear until all things reach their climax… In Prehevil.


—
AN - Miasma has about the same strength as Bone Shears, while being more accurate and one handed. But I mean, for hype and aura it has to be absolutely wild compared to normal weapons, given the right conditions in a very mystical dungeon perhaps. Despite any Soul Edge accusations, apparently the blade was inspired by DMC's Sparda sword, eh according to the wiki I mean.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - I felt like I had enough to push a chapter out, and I can sort out the pay off later.

Time keeping - Termina begins on a Tuesday? I think we get that from someone saying it's Wednesday on day 2? That is to say as we get closer I will start calculating around September 29th 1942, since the article date we have is 17th and another article mentions the war's end about 2 weeks ago. Just seemed about time to keep time since i don't think we will have any 'substantive' chapters after I wrap up this mini arc.

—

January 5th 1941
1 year and 8 months before Termina
Kaiser's Bremen - a fort conveniently erased from more recent maps.

As my hatchet falls, August's arrow sinks into the throat of the other guard.

My grip shifts, tightening into a fist around the axe handle. But there is no time for self indictment or reflection.

Moving with quick decisive action, I follow through, stealing the dead man's rifle and a spare stripper clip. August searching the other tosses me his spare clip then withdraws an industrial turn key.

As I take the rifle to sling over my back and set the ammo into a pocket, I follow him to a bunker's hatch, a long shaft down into the dark heart of the earth.

"What a thrill…" I chuckle to myself as I can't help myself as all we can see and hear is the rungs in front of us, and the echo of our own climb around us.

"Enemy territory." August gently, a stern fatherly reminder that I should know better.

"Yeah, a fucking black site for Kaiser, hard to forget. Nerves. Sorry." The war has dragged on for a long time now… Rationing, war bonds, the kind of towns you see, the vibrancy is occasionally tamped down on in a real quiet way. The men are gone, just kids, women. August gets some pretty fucking direct attention in those towns, let me fucking tell you, I mean I get it man is gentleman explorer and monster slayer buff! The whole package, he is romance cover material! Minus… Fabio style hair? Is that the model's name?

That's to say, Kaiser's fronts have been pulled thin enough for reserves of this no name base to be reassigned to reinforce his flanks, August is taking this moment of military ramp up and the lapse of strength to move for the jugular.

We aren't an army, we didn't need roads, trains, roads or towns to arrive in the heart of his Empire. No supply train, no bullets or gas that we depend on to make progress.

I just realized how fucking scary a determined rugged survivalist like August is. These are the kind of fuckers who survive the apocalypse for a reason.

As I step off the ladder and join August as he clears the room at the bottom, it's featureless and stark, with a check point just a head.

Keeping the rifle in place on my back I draw the sling, not that the sling is 'silent' no weapon really is, the sling can even be whistling artillery style loud if you shape the stone right, Mesoamericans did that. Fuck- do not think about how wacky Funger Aztecs are not the time!

Back on point, sound carries in a closed fucking room, a bunker is basically a closed room. A whistle, a thump, a slam might carry. But a gunshot is thunder in a bottle down here.

Not that you can't run things loud, and fast. But obviously running into prepared ground, kill boxes, and whatever magical freaks Kaiser may have stationed here, if he has a failed 'Platoon' or something to spread around his empire fighting that on the bunker's terms and not ours? Bad idea.

Rounding the corner, August's bow is pulled taut and I am trailing behind. Best to go for the hand axe either to throw or leap and run interference if need be. Sling is just too slow, compared to even a bumbling officer drawing a pistol.

As we round into the office with 2 soldiers in it. Not ideal for us, I move regardless, how slow are they, does surprise slow them enough to kill.

August's shot is quick, the officer standing tips, red gushing from his neck hole bloody rivulets running down the arrow shaft.

The other soldier is reaching for a rifle, I throw my axe catching the soldier in the arm, the rifle slings off my shoulder and brandishing it like a club, I go for the ankle, as they go down, I viscously bring it down again and again on their skull until my stomach is churning.

Fuck.

Despite the moral, creeping comprehension of a broken face and busted brain case staring me in the face, I'm also stung by the fact I'm young, not strong, too sloppy. Still a goddamn teenager.

Being prepared for the fight was enough this time. It haunts me eternally, preparation for Prehevil. I take the man's pistol, and his belt for the holster attached.

The stillness of the aftermath is somewhat sickening and suffocating.

Safety, quiet, all feels like an illusion. Even if no one heard, the world feels like it is just waiting to open a pit from under your feet.

No raid siren, no arriving soldiers, no strobing lights.

The edge of danger wanes, despite the tension subtly growing layer by layer the further we get.

Then as we breach the long, long stark featureless hallway we are greeted by a room lit by lightbulbs in little cages.

The room is vast, warehouse sized but it's not a mere 'storage' or 'crates' we see.

What is seen can be described as nothing less than a 'Human Orchard.'

Below under catwalks are circles ritualistically carved in neat little rows, as if a plow have drawn a straight little furrow for them, above each circle a woman's corpse has been place, then above this 'fertile soil' these glass like thin ethereal trees with violently purple tubes or veins reaching from the body through the branches and ending in sparse 'fruit.' The tear drop shaped orbs on the branches vary in size but they all are like a purple pit of a fruit got… Wrapped in tear drop shaped rigid jagged glass.

As we pass one I reach out, snapping a 'full' fruit from the tree and shiver as I look down.

Once I think of how it kind of reminds me of a lumpy soul stone. I remember hearing about a neat item with vague lore.

Some kind of experiment created them, and I suppose Bremen brought them along with their army to Prehevil?

"Artificial Souls."

Nazi goddamn science used some ritual, some process to make corpses perhaps even once living women into 'seed bearers' for these trees which almost exclusively seem to burst forth and tear their way out of their stomachs.

A terrible mirror to 'Demon Seed' perhaps. 'Why not' artificial life can already be produced from a discarded womb, why not settle something new and terrible in there, here in the dark.

Instead of creating a pet killer, the very 'essence of life' is harvested.

Distilled.

Prepared and for what? Raw material? Can it even be for the Logic Project? Le'garde is fighting to reclaim it. So it can't be Logic. What…

It can't be to spoof a sacrifice, why all this effort to what, trick Grogoroth? Sacrificing humans is probably easier, no research and novel developments needed.

Hard to feel, so many steps behind. To know that Le'garde is running this process and it isn't even his end game.

To him, it's just… Stuff? Resource. Material magical advantage?

It is hollowing to think about. Not just how cruel the enterprise might be, but just how… In the grand scheme of things. What is this facility even worth to him?

I can't help but feel like I exist in the mere… Margin of the manuscript of the world there's a terrifying gap of what is possible, with Le'garde being a sort of God and perhaps prepping for Plan C right fucking now.

"If those guards have seen this shit, I want back my complicated feelings." Despite saying that I immediately can't help but think i'd shut the fuck up and abide evil too rather than get executed for treason.

Apparently 'Mom can you pick me up, I'm scared' isn't a defense for military tribunal, go figure.

Well, considering Pav has what 'bury the trauma' as a skill. Shit.

Bad out here.

"Get down, jump and hide." August whispers and I move without waiting. I hang off the side of the cat walk and drop, not able to fully roll with the rifle. I tumble as much as I can and still near a body shivering faintly at being so close to the corpse of a naked woman as something… Passes overhead.

Bulky, spherical, chains-no barbed wire which hold it together shoot out like limbs, it secures around tree limbs and the cat walk and swings around, searching at the center of its sides, instead of an eye, embedded into it are the music note like things Le'garde summons.

August caught the sounds of it, metal scratching as the barbs dig in as the ball swooshes in the air.

Thinking in the tension as it patrols, I wonder if I used the gun to shoot the barbed wire. Perhaps that's its weak point? That or its 'implanted eyes.'

But the plan is deferred as it twists and swings away.

I look down at the woman, draped limbs pulled in a star shape over a star in a circle.

Like a spark my mind answers what this might be, Vitruvia, a woman in the Vitruvian man position limbs splayed over a Vitruvia star.

Vitruvia is really odd, designer of humanity, possibly shaper of Alll-mer, I think Daan's healing skills use her?

Perhaps due to Le'garde, real doctors and scientists have been empowered with eldritch lore to make less wholesome skills and rituals.

Same source, power wise I mean but Daan is kind of 'that guy' still for the balance he takes to his own medical practice.

I think… I never used Daan, or party members to any degree with 30 minutes of gameplay a lifetime ago.

I am pretty sure, I am only vaguely aware of Pathologic organ harvesting medical shit because my brother is something of a Pathologic head.

On that note, back to the facility, I would prefer not to doxx myself, him, if someone is reading my thoughts. Thinking about family that I will probably never meet again, also a fucking bummer.

"Dad, if we die, I love you by the way. I probably don't say that enough." As we climb up the ladder back onto the cat walk, he claps me on the shoulder, softly but hard.

"It won't come to that." His voice is cold and hard like iron.

I nod, we didn't come all this way to die. Not even with Termina, I am doing my utmost to 'not die.'

For whatever scheme or task comes after, I want to live. The question is if I can bring myself to kill, how much killing I can take.

"Guess we don't die easy." My words are soft and casual as we enter a new hall. I am mindful of keeping things under the radar still. "How rude of us."

My wry comment gets a clipped chuckle enough to acknowledge but not enough to give us away as we stalk the dark.

Finally we throw open the door to a situation that can't be handled by two men, patience, and skill.

We find some kind of corpse processing room, hunched over men in fatigues gloves and masks, wrist deep in cadavers shoving strange tumor like seeds into their stomachs where a surgeon has made a cut for them to 'fill in' without holding up the doctor in his coat at his operating table to the side.

Nothing to it, going for the rifle, pushing the safety, aim, and pull the trigger, the gun shot rings out as August nails the high priority target, the surgeon crippling his leg with an arrow. I follow up the rifle shot with a double tap, then I think better of trying to keep up the pace out numbered at bolt action speed.

Dropping the rifle, I pull out the pistol and slam 3 rapid shots into another man as August shoots an arrow through the back of one man's hand.

Sirens blare, and lights strobe, men approach our choke point at the door.

Thinking quickly I empty the pistol aim not a consideration then dropping it behind me I reach for my axe as August fires another arrow.

I am pushed back into the hall as a man with a butcher like blade comes after me, as August shoots his shoulder I force him back and chop his wrist mangling it, he wildly kicks making me groan as the ache blooms and heat blossoms against my side before I retaliate chopping twice down bring him down.

August takes the front position to cover me, he uses a simple knife but he is quick and deadly enough to dispatch another man of the wounded before us leaving one left we finally out number.

Drinking some of a blue vial I apply the rest to my side as August knocks the scalpel from the doctor and begins to threaten him as I pick up all my weapons and reload.

Only the spare pistol clip left. But the rifle is still flush with ammo, despite it still being problematic to use.

"You will answer my questions. I have no personal malice for you, you can live to see your family again. But you won't try my patience." As the sirens wail, I have to watch the door and wonder, will they come or settle in and defend key points?

"T-the plan isn't explained to us, t-the only one who would know Kaiser's plan is the lead scientist! D-doctor Blome!" I swap from both walls as I hold one angle, then the other. Hearing no boots, I move carefully and maintain a vigil on both sides.

"What is your job?"
"I-I cut the bodies as directed, t-the process headed by D-doctor, G-gerhard Blome, his name is-full name- Doctor Blome. W-we don't know where he even gets the samples we put inside from! We only receive corpses, food, ammo, n-not whatever we even put in them! Kaiser has them made by him or something!"
"Your medical opinion on all this?"
"W-well w-war makes hard choices… C-complicated? I-if the war effort can be served with corpses, t-that's lives, young men's lives on both sides we can save i-if this ends the war?"

My back is turned to the conversation but I hear a thump, perhaps of a back being pressed to the wall. Perhaps a head to counter, probably not from the lack of scream just a grunt…

"War makes monsters of us all, I see. I kill monsters."
"I-i would put our men back together, i-if the command came down! I was put here! I didn't ask to be a mere corpse cutter, because they can't trust an untrained man to do a simple medical job!"
"Very well, I am not a monster. I will do you the courtesy of trying you with your medical belts, and not strapping you to the table to butcher you as you have others. So long as I have, your word, that you won't give me cause to regret mercy."
"Y-Yes m-my wound too please I don't want to die. Please."
Not enough soldiers, or… perhaps it's not military doctrine to immediately assume two saboteurs are independent actors?

Playing with cards face down, they have to be afraid and aware of the possibility of a squad or some mobilization of a fire time and not just two guys.

No report, no sightings just gunshots ringing in halls.

Guys above with no idea who is attacking where, and guys below securing Doctors, or files, or choke points.

Or at least, that's why I think we meet no resistance, no horde of soldiers coming down the hall.

Cards face down, blindness is mutual for both parties, so who can say.

Well, I suppose Hamilton the musical had a point, 'got to have skin in the game to win in the game' even if in not in so few words.

—

AN - The 'Facility Guard' is probably reminiscent of the Mortar Field update enemy we don't have yet.

In terms of what I imagine is going on with artificial souls, it was such a neat idea to me. So here is my take, Vitruvia can allow a ritual to harness the innate human ability to foster life in itself to tap into 'raw soul material.' An Artificial Soul born from 'playing god' has none of the characteristics that humans have, since the soul is pure essence with no body or mind to anchor it. That means it can do other things like cheapen spells, but not perhaps what Kaiser was hoping for as a side goal of 'forcibly ascending all humans with soul manipulation.'

Le'garde is weirdly hopefully utopian, even if the utopia is like 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas' where it costs a literal human sacrifice to make it. So I think being as smart as he is, he imagines he might 'not ever' be as well positioned as he is now, and he also has seen human capabilities continually expand, so he uses the war now for a plan C in 100 years if humans figure out more, or if Logic permits new possibilities.

So he sold his supporters on this human ascension scheme while never admitting it will happen in this lifetime, which I mean people probably buy since he is experimenting and creating enhanced troopers.

Also I mentioned Daan? I'm not sure it's a point of lore that he is the premiere doctor of the entire setting? He is 'unique' enough to come from two different traditions of medicine and work under Einer Von Dutch, a skilled surgeon and occultist in his own right that I think he could be a contender for some 'best doctor' award. I mean who else is curing blindness?

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - A friend advised me to make a boss fight, my first thought was 'well that's a little video game-y' but I mean. Is it a video game world?

—

January 5th 1941
1 year and 8 months before Termina
The Human Orchard - Bunker Rooms

Stalking deeper into the bunker there is no internal forked choke point with guards on either side or prepared kill box like I imagined was possible.

It's… Tight rooms, terrible for the rifle, we actually might be in a bit of a tight spot if we room clear into a guy with a shotgun just waiting.

It's not a cataclysmic death scenario where you just get meat grinder-ed, it's closer to tunnels in 'Nam where it's just you with your knife and the voices in your head to guide you.

Which means I am relying on an axe and the pistol.

It kind of is neat to really appreciate a variety of weapons, generalist weapons are succeeding where the rifle optimized for marksmanship or massed warfare are less useful for quick close quarters battles.

Honestly, Marcoh has raised in my estimation for combat power, well in absence of a shotgun, direct combat power in utterly tight spaces is nice to have.

I also do not like the idea of killing him for it.

It makes me more competent, but for a niche, I really hate the idea of killing people to feel 'well rounded.'

Really, really shitty and annoying thought. I would be scraping for what… The possibility instead of the worst possible scenario such as Worm, I get foisted into JJK?

Like fisticuffs matter there? But really what would I do? Budget Hollow Purple people with black orb?

Enough treading over a future I can't control. I can only do so much to plan for a future where I have 'agency.'

The task set before me could be capricious enough that even my best effort will make it so I'm pushed into story fitting my new power level. Even if I do my best I can just end up with a mischievous god that changes its plan on me.

Pistol up, check corners and ceiling, clear each room with my Father covering me.

One room at a time, that's all I can, one room of certainty at a time.

Slowly we gain purchase in the seemingly understaffed rooms. Perhaps, intentionally vacated rooms if there was a gathered response force.

Eventually we don't need to look very hard to see where the last of the guards are seemingly making their hold out.

A hall with bags of sand forming a defensive position at the other end of the hall.

Well, I guess these guys planned around their rifles, so they made a place to hold out where rifles are slightly better for.

I feel a tad silly I didn't really think about it from their end like that.

Thankfully a niche skill I have been working on can finally show some of it's potential as I pull out the rifle.

Weaving hand signs with my off hand I turn from out of cover and unleash a wobbling pyroclastic amorphous blob into the sand bags, scorching and catching alight the canvas.

And… There wasn't the same backlash for casting it as usual, I pat the artificial soul in my pocket, and I can't help but think this bad boy was an equipable wasn't it?

Magic has become rather sexy with how much easier it is to do now.

For now I just have to send rifle fire down range to keep them sweating near the fire and present them from having free reign to put it out.

I care more about my safety than accuracy, but my position isn't burning down so slow rolling them is in my favor. Unless they decide to leap over, then I have the pistol I suppose.

Grisly fucking thoughts. But I guess that is the price you pay, though I can't say I even have the luxury to really know what I am buying. I only am teased with the fact that there is an 'end goal' to my time here. A quiet expectation that I trade my time, experiences of being normal, a life where I don't burn out these poor fucking soldiers, for something worth it.

I have this terrible fucking annoying 'always connecting things in my head' comparison thing I do.

It's so fucking dark I'm comparing this real people freaking out on the other side of the hall to this 'dying soldier voice lines compilation' I once listened to for some video game.

I hate it in here sometimes. It does not feel ok to be like this.

Fundamentally we draw on our experiences to inform us as we move onto new things, I just feel like I was wired wrong when I 'oh boy I surely want to recollect on the specific sounds of soldiers having the war is hell experience.'

I have no idea if 'neurosis' like this is 'common' but it feels almost dehumanizing in this specific case.

There's also a subtle dawning horror in how I'm treating soldiers.

I am a Youjo Senki LARPer so I have no idea how the reincarnator to war criminal pipeline flows, but I feel like I'm either in that pipeline or that people who play TTRPGs are generally menaces and can't be trusted with power.

Speaking of soldiers, they break, kicking down or jumping over the bags and breaking out of their burning defenses to try their luck as aggressor.

Drawing the pistol I empty the clip down the hall taking two out before they can cross as August takes down legs with his bow.

With a final rifle shot we step out carefully into the hall and I put down the poor motherfuckers that got downed but not killed.

Pistol empty, and not much rifle ammo left, but well, more rifle ammo to rummage for.

Spending ammo to ensure safety is fine if you ask me, medicine is weirdly harder to come across sometimes.

Stepping through the sandbags and checking for more enemies we are left with the door they decided needed guarding.

Entering the room, its dominated by a monolithic machine, out of the foundation of flesh, women's bodies are piled close, trees are forked and bent into a glassy canopy around a machine, tree branches feed into tubes that grasp and feed all the fruit of this tree into a central padded seat where a man with messy hair tense face and an intense gaze as he stares at us through a thickly reinforced glass.

BLAM the rifle bullet plinks off the glass, I feed a bullet in the top to refill as I shrug "had to try."

Oddly I can't help but think how that would be bad form in a TTRPG game, a dungeon master puts in work that you respect, an actual evil scientist not so much.

"Yes your kind does, doesn't it?" I'm struck that his voice is kind of grating, it's kind of glaring "you don't think, you just destroy that which you don't understand even if it ultimately is for YOUR benefit!"

I groan, this wiry guy is kind of an 'archetypal' nerd. Like a half life science team tier Nerd with a capital for emphasis. "So, you're gonna monologue huh?"
"You listen, but this, all this is beyond your understanding! This chair is an equal to the throne of the GODS! Wrought with human hands! After I kill you, I will stand at Kaiser's side as his EQUAL!"

The tree veins pulse, the corpses at the feet of the great machine wither as if sucked dry in moments, a light that pushes at the boundaries of what a mind can comprehend stings with violent expansion from just seeing it, but at its epicenter the scientist cries out, wildly, madly.

The sound twists until it stops sounding… Humans.

As the light dims, his arms are cracked and detached as if a stone statue had been chipped by many chisels, its arms crawl and pound at the glass as the scientist keeps morphing and becoming weathered and utterly broken as it is statuesque.

As fractal lines grow in the glass as it pushes its way out of its mechanical throne, in the throes of its brutal ascension I wind up my hands preparing for a spell to set it to burn as it cries "LIKENED UNTO THE GODS… COLONIZING EVEN THE HEAVENS!"

It glides, its legs morphing into a singular limb as it grows almost rigid trapped in its own form. Then the ridged stone-like texture on its arms seems to expand, like chips of stone growing over it.

"EXPLOIT, EXTRAPOLATE, EVEN FURTHER!" Like how a new god is a parody of the Funger 1 cast it cries, as if it has been reduced by its state.

I don't recall what those parody gods say, only design details of how they look stick in my head.

"Am I supposed to be entertained?" God August is so fucking cool.

Pushing through, everything August has the look of a man that has long since steeled himself.

Gritting my teeth I am the rifle and fire as I begin to circle, forcing it to split its attention.

August's provoking words seem to have the effect of leaving me free to attack and focus, rather than glide forward and smash I see the stone chips push out like that push pin game where you can make an outline of your face by pressing into it, but it's like a hand emerging from the other side, from inside pushing out.

The hand from its center is slow until it shoots out, connected to its main body by a purple vein.

"A weakness?" I call out my insight as the hand whips and swings in August.

Aiming for its chest I aim to shoot the vein, the wire connecting it to its attacking hand.

Instead of purple blood, or even green hue, pale cement like ichor drips and boils as it slides near the burning consuming its chest.

It glides to the side, turning to me, its arm swiping through the air. I move toward it, then skid against the floor and slide under it.

As it rights itself back to me as I stare at it, I see a bright green arrow sticking into its chest, sending a destabilizing ripple through it.

I gasp as I remember O'saa can get shot with such an arrow but I have to file that away as I scramble up and I empty my clip into its chest while I have the time.

"I-I AM THE NEW MOLD-" As it screams its strained final words I perform the gestures and send a final crackling gout of fire into its chest.

As it dies, it doesn't crumble so much as stiffen, harden and become inert.

Even as I knock it over sending clattering to the ground it doesn't break.

So much for the double tap.

—
January 5th 1941
1 year and 8 months before Termina
The Human Orchard - The Doctor's Gravestone

Notes, rolls of magnetic film, invoices, and more are looted, we assess our condition and tools.

Then we must contend with what we left behind us before we can finally make good on our escape.

The Orchard's gardener, Kaiser's little monster.

As we back track, careful and quiet through the empty rooms double checking on our way back, we come back to the first hall where the butcher's room was.

"Above or below?: I ask August, personally I assume this thing might have missed us before there was an alarm, now perhaps speed might be our ally.

"Below." I nod in agreement, perhaps it might be slower if we have to climb back up. But, whose to say we are even faster than this monster. Or that it can't knock us around or off the catwalk overseeing the trees.

Sliding down the wall, we stalk the all too open grounds of Kaiser's garden.

As we stalk down the rows of trees this time I hear the 'Gardner' approach.

It's faster now, spinning in the air as it zig zags towards us.

August's bow being pulled taut is the only warning I need.

Different monster, same solution.

Arcane movements create a fire that burns until it dies, then as it literally tries to swing into us like a wrecking ball, I target the barbed wire strung on it.

As it rolls past us and bowls down a tree, "Move?" I start pulling away as I work the bolt of the rifle.

"Not too hasty, but yes." August quickly replies as we jog and keep an eye on the now rolling ball.

Swerving I put trees between us as it pinballs/plinkos towards us.

With a great push, I scramble up the tree, faintly feeling surprise this thin tree can support me as I jump again to grab a branch, swing up to the cat walk, making it start to circle of August.

I fire off two shots seemingly to little effect to the great mass of the wrapped up ball.

To kill it do you need to focus the eyes? The wire might literally help it be stable?

"Durable!" I shout my firm conclusion over the warehouse.

August with much more ease jumps on a tree then springs up to the cat walk catching the catwalk with an outstretched hand, with his bow in the other he swings his leg up and pull his body up onto the catwalk.

The ball rolls around beneath us, before it ramps up a tree bouncing against the bottom of the catwalk making it shudder under us.

I slide but catch a hand rail and pull myself back up, where August seems to have little issue.

"Speed!" I shout and make a concerted effort to push.

A flash of a thought strikes me as I think about how August can just pull through things and an terrible terrible fucking meme.

"I want to live!" I speak it into being anyway and push, this frantic escape is the affirmation of life.

Impotently the ball is left below as we pull up the long ladder back up. August knife in his teeth and me pistol in one hand just in case we meet resistance at the ladder.

'The home stretch.'

This is it, just normal fucking soldiers after this.

—
AN - Is it possible to learn Sisu from my backstory? I don't think so, but I think to August's concerted effort I'd say it's got potential to be awakened since there won't be a tormented one around the festival in this version.

As a DM/Game Designer the official name for Dr. Blome as an enemy would be "False Idol." Though as a being that is only like as good as the second phase of the The God of Fear and Hunger (this one for clarity https://www.artstation.com/artwork/AlLnqo) it isn't any where near as durable, I think an ideal barrage on weak spot that's burning makes it kind of weak compared to other magical threats.

Also neat lore head thought, could this 'false ascension' be useful if combined with a Soul Anchor? I dunno maybe? It's neat to imagine old alchemy from 600 years ago being required reading for modern occult mass tragedy.

Next chapter we move into the lull before Termina, talking about what mystic things we can learn from Blome and inch closer to the last train out of the Vatican on the fateful night before it arrives in Prehevil morning 1.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - A surprise tool that will help us later!

—

January 10th 1941
1 year and 8 months before Termina
Bremen wilderness

"Son… If you respect your opponent, you don't make the same mistake twice." August is uncharacteristically serious.

Makes sense, we just had a job as big if not bigger than the Miasama job.

"Kaiser is no fool hmmm?..." I muse as his words are honestly a very 'hunter like' insight to realize that after you catch the deer at the water's edge you might not get 'lucky' twice.

It was just the way August read intent, mapped terrain, and assigned danger all at once.

If we respect him, we won't gamble our lives that his preparation is insufficient.

Or perhaps it is him who respects us in that case? His mistake we took for all it was worth.

"Do we need to get magical help, the Vatican or something?" I ponder what the next steps of the plan would even be, what new angles are available.

"That would tell us more about Phylacteries, not about the specific one we seek." August speaks firmly, really settling into that fatherly tone.

"Erik, I think we might be best served parting ways."

August is cutting me loose…

He wants to do something so dangerous, he doesn't think he can take me. Or something like that.

August is leaving me behind.

"Erik, this need not worry you. Do you think you can be charming and politely walk past soldiers? Do you think you can blend in amongst others?"

I try to stretch my shoulders and stand as I can't seem to sit still at the moment. "... I guess it's Dad's job to worry huh." I am at an utter loss.

I don't want to argue, I don't want to impose, or have some kind of teenage tantrum.

But I have… Little recourse but acceptance, oh wait isn't that the end of the grief cycle?

"Erik-" As August speaks I interrupt him. "I think I understand in my own way. If… We are saying goodbye. We should make it worth something… L-like when we left Valland." I get misty eyed as I mention that sentimental moment.

"Dad, I… I want to write you a letter. So after we say goodbye you will have something real, because I want to make it count, I want to say it meant something." Tears spill over my cheek, not just from how tender a heart can be at farewells.

I admit to faint insecurity that August was a character I knew once. The feeling that this life is borrowed, that Termina is inevitable, that I will never make it out of the Bunker after meeting Logic.

Entertaining such things only creates barriers, only pushes people that I have to take on faith are real, that my time, my life here matters.

"Ah." August faintly grins "Well as your Father I must also show you how it's done! Let's exchange letters. Let's say you open mine whenever you miss me most! It's an act of sentiment, no? I would not tie my gift to an arbitrary limit of time."

"I… I want you to read mine before you kill Kaiser. Any time after you learn the war is ending, I want to have certainty that I communicated my feelings to you. Will we part ways now, or will you see me off some distance still down the road. I suppose we could use the time to compose our thoughts… As for… what I do now, I think I shall prepare for the end of the war, and for all the stars to turn into place. Let's head toward the Vatican one last time."

—

March 10th 1941
1 year and 6 months before Termina
Vatican Apartment

Magic is the most interesting thing to work on as I wait for the stars to align and the papers to say the war is over then I start watching the trains like a hawk.

Otherwise, I am not being unreasonable or a doomsday prepper about it.

Fundamentally camping in the outskirts or shady places and saving money to cash out is not acceptable, I need a certain amount of security and privacy to look over this evil Bremen experiment shit without looking over my shoulder too much.

Maybe I could cozy up to the priests and still get that security and other benefits too, but I would be handing out a loaded gun and saying 'don't shoot' to a bunch of Funger freaks that make Samarie so, despite probably not living to see that consequence I'm notionally opposed to setting the world to implode after I'm gone.

Also, my family lives on this planet now that I think about it.

Anyway, while I certainly could be doing more… For example explosives, they kind of freak me out. I am only smart enough/have heard real fire bugs talk about it to know boiling gasoline is something you should be careful about and the anarchist's cookbook is for posers supposedly.

Apparently if you really want to end up on a government list there's some 'munitions manual' I never looked into that you should use.

I only know about that shit in the abstract, soaking sawdust in gas to make a hillbilly explosive just seems like it's going to get me in trouble.

'Sir why does your luggage stink to high hell.' I would be so fucking embarrassed getting arrested before Termina for fucking around too much.

So what's actually on the table?

I am in the market for a pull cart, a box with a handle on a stick with wheels.

Not very glamorous but, I have to reckon with the fact of moving heads, multiple weapons, books and more around.

I can't just 'Death Stranding' it and tie boxes to my arms and legs. Although a back pack and hip back will be plenty to have on me, is there that one washing machine you crawl through? So I need some modest storage for my person as well. Also a belt with lots of pouches, why not try and maximize how many trinkets you can get with upgraded slots no one in Termina had the time to even try and get!
Save up a tidy sum to get a splash of essentials, bandages, food, booze. I don't know why not pick up every backstory option. Not that I truly recall all of them.

Just enough to pad out some of the resource scarcity.

Oh yeah, and a bone saw… Necessary to become stronger…

It is so absurd. I am a transmigrator, I have traveled and fought, and like how humans end up boiling water with everything. It all boils down to a shopping list.

'Give me a spice forged double Black Orb with a side of Black Smog.' Ugggh…

I suppose I wish the world was… More enchanting. Less mundane. I hate it when even that which I wish was transcendent feels so 'by the number.'

Maybe I am simply a fool, a sucker that would 'soy jak' pointing and screaming if my aesthetics were catered too and that magic looked like Elden Ring style magic with ethereal beauty and striking celestial awe.

Anyway I guess magic is something I can't keep beating around the bush, I think I can square not feeling catered to by magic and being interested in it.

So, are you curious about evil magic Nazi rituals?

Yeah me too, the 'expression' of magic we see from the 'Orchard' and its fruits is the simple part but the not so simple part was the circuitous route they took up to that point.

Perhaps like how Demon Seed needed to be built up, there was a great confused exploratory phase where they tried many experiments starting with the 'human womb' in a Vitruvian ritual.
They tried all kinds of circle designs, geometric, the golden ratio spiral, even a humble 'unbroken' ritual circle which is simply an unadorned circle which bears the star inside.

They took a very scatter shot approach, but once they simply couldn't breach the 'wall' magic imposed on all of us, they had begun as a matter of course explored up over, under or all the way around the wall.

For mages of this world, myself included, the roundabout path is the shortest one.

Blome's particular genius was to try and appeal the problem upward to Vitruvia's greater's.

Using Sylvian rituals, Vinushka rituals (aka Nanush their pre-death name should you somehow hear that useless tidbit first,) with women, with fruit seeds with all sorts of connotations.

Blome's big break was peach pits, the particular mythic nature such as with the tales of the peach boy in Edo but also, its biological nature to concentrate and destroy, how it bears cyanide.

That was enough piled debris to climb the wall of 'impossibility' and reach the lush field of 'opportunity.'

The real magic is a ritual you perform over a peach pit.

Placing the seed into a specific new design, one with a thin tree reminiscent of the final product. Using this 'Blossoming' circle of Sylvian use it and transmute the seed into a ritual material that is implanted in a womb, the body is brought over a Vitruvia 'unbroken' circle. After that it simply needs time to grow.

What really intrigues me is the 'Blossoming' circle. Was there a process of glimpsing or creating other minor trees, stunted lesser growths which hinted at the symbol they would eventually carve to enact their plan?

There is something to be said of 'symmetry' in the greater scheme of things.

There is an absurd enemy in Termina, some impossible enemy that does nothing, a big pile of shirts, yes the 'irrational' monolith? Why does it exist? I think someone in a video pointed out that it's certainly an interesting wrinkle that it exists in the same city that is birthing a monument of 'Logic.'

It's a shame humans are not bent toward exploring why this is.

I wonder if the New Gods know, or could explain a thread of this 'divine dualism'... I should make a list should I meet them, I think the intro has you see them. Perhaps I might very well get a response since unlike the character I can choose to speak.

Perhaps even when I won't be in the best state to ponder the answer.

Either way despite the curious nature of the circle I can't imagine I couldn't do it. So im now the proud mage of a sum total of one spell and one ritual, two rituals if you count the process as two separate rituals.

That's about all my immediate plans, aside from discreetly researching gun ownership and travel. Levi has his rifle in the game, but no one looks twice at a soldier I suppose, I might raise some eyebrows strapped and bagged and ready for the apocalypse even if this a pre 9/11 world, I am certain people would still have concerns about robbery at least…

Even if I only get the pistol and some ammo in by smuggling it, I am not improperly prepared by any measure. I had never even had the faith I would have even that.

—

AN - Would it be reasonable to remove the rifle from play? Hard to say from a cursory look there is an interesting bit of real world gun restrictions that restricts and permits pistols but rifles were not subject to the same scrutiny.

Which makes sense, if rifles are in such surplus at this time and the 'war rifle' isn't a lean mean full auto monster, why make such a big show of such obvious arms.

If people have nothing to say, I guess I can coin flip it. Also I imagine the Vatican is such a big city it's pretty easy to miss meeting Contestants, would there be any interest in any interludes before we skip right up to boarding the train?

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - How much is Lire worth? I can't really say some of the bigger Lire coins seem to be silver and like 100 Lire is a bit of gold. Even if I could figure that out to compare a soul stone I would have to convert it to shillings so I went with a modest number, I would say it's due to there not being a tragedy right outside, and I'm not really tracking resources to that degree. Side note, the Vatican in our real world had their own Lira mint? Kind of neat how important the Vatican is, I think in Funger there is no difference and the Vatican set the standard even if they don't operate the only mint anymore.

—

February 20th 1942
7 months before Termina
Vatican City - Curio Shop

"Nothing on Sarko then?" Who would even buy a desiccated bug in a jar? Man, I am really sad this place seems to be a 'healing crystal' scam type shop rather than a place of real arcane import.

I was hoping just from proximity, some real nuggets of wisdom or power trickled down into the local shops.

But that has never been in line with the true nature of humans.

Places like Hogwarts or magic schools where sharing of magic is normal and equal to all parties, at least notionally with mud bloods and such, are a thing of 'fantasy.'

Humans gatekeep, withhold, and create monopolies on knowledge and skill.

If things worked like how I wished, Le'garde and his experiments would be common instead of an exceptional stain on the world. That is kind of the word I dream of, a mageocracy type civilization that weaves the stories of their lives to touch the tapestry of the cosmos. Yet, would I even be happy if I had my way?

Would those magic loving humans I imagine being 'more' have plumbing?

The grass is always greener, especially when you are the one defining the fence and the other pastures.

"Is that really the quality of passing occultists? Pressing old women over dusty old names." Alongside the bell at the door, its chime was joined by a snarking voice.

As I turn I see a woman with a white dress shirt that was covered by a modest sleeveless black dress, she had dreary drab sort of brown hair falling around her shoulders and in her face was piercings around her lips.

I recognized her, oh, had I met Marcoh instead I suppose I might have been tempted to try and worm my way into his trust and help him with his gangster problem. But although she isn't as 'valuable' to me or perhaps 'vulnerable' to a lore guy with an angle.

I am quite curious about how to enjoy this 'random encounter' with someone with the makings of an occultist of startling skill.

"I am unsure if I would be welcome, my last dalliance with the church was on their invitation, and I wasn't that receptive to an offer beyond business. If you could liaise, or perhaps I could impose on your time directly I suppose that could be a fine way to pass the time." Really, over the months you really push what you can think of preparation wise, I went out of my way to make a homemade pinecone pig and got some chain clippers since I doubt the debug patch of grass translates to there being random useful items in the bushes near the tracks.

I could use more things to do than push ups, side jobs, and idle reading time even though I suppose I should treasure the opportunity to have free time, I can't help but feel the immediacy of threat weighing on me.

Despite how cognitively I want to really savor the moment, I can't let myself off the hook except on an excuse like a rest day. I feel accountable I suppose. I will be held to account soon enough.

"Well I suppose I have been studying the matter of the Divine for almost my whole life. I suppose you must have some opinion or learning on the matter to be seeking 'Sarko' here of all places." Marina snarks although I suppose her interest is warring with I suppose skepticism regarding who she must have had for company all this time.

"I will do my utmost to be mindful of Brother Emanuel's pitfalls. Then I suppose as at least the son of a Gentleman I should offer a place of your choosing, a cafe or some such to delightfully juxtapose the modern era's new dictation of the divine." Poor bastard, I rather liked him though who can say if this will score me or lose me points? I hedged my bets to not be insulting while acknowledging the power of the unrestrained 'yapper' engaged in his special interest.

Her eyebrow however the winds may be turning shoots up. "He wasn't bad, well, he could certainly get ahead of himself. Hmphm. As for your 'gentlemanly' offer I suppose I can take you up on that, so long as you measure your expectations buddy. Let's get out of here and I will show you around the nicer parts of town."

"Allow me a moment to finish my business here." might as well pick up some chalk while I am here. "Excuse me proprietress but this orb…" pure purple, dull and seemingly inert while remaining a perfect sphere.

The crone manning the counter smiles; the look feels almost exaggerated. "You are indeed a discerning customer, a soul stone is a well regarded object of power to many practitioners; some say that merely holding one can grant new strengths to its holder! I will let it go for say 40 Lira including the chalk, I presume from your talk with the lady you have the money of our Vatican?"

"Let's not haggle too much, it would be rude for me to keep the lady waiting after all, since this one is unfilled and the 'hard work' has to be done by me, why not let me have it at a discount. Only have so much petty cash on me after all." I cast a meaningful glance at the door and Marina, hoping that the circumstances will help me rather than drawing out negotiation.

The smile seems to become genuine at seeing me squeezed. "Very well, wouldn't want to welch on a promise made to a lady.~ 25 Lira, I am feeling generous." I nod and quickly sort the cash and stow my purchases as Marina begins to purposefully walk the cobbled streets towards where the roads begin to be more paved.

"So what are you looking for, really. Not very 'conventional' to seek out the occult like you seem to be." How interesting, how honest should I be exactly, I am not used to lying but my circumstances are so unique it's hard to believe.

"Lots of reasons, it is difficult to really pin down, I suppose the problem is there are two 'honest' answers. One is I feel let down by the mundane, the other is a… 'Practical' need for power. Unfortunate need, and fortunate to be curious by inclination?" I suppose that is vague enough to give a rough vibe.

"Power, you really think you're the next Alll-mer or something?" I sigh, I can't help but concede I have my own doubts, but well, I look at the future 'Termina' through the eyes of a 'Meta Gamer' or a 'dirty min-maxer' since the only point to show up is to rifle through the God's pockets.

Since I have a choice. If I can allow myself to be at the whims of others, I can just live a life should I allow myself.

But like a devil on my shoulder a certain JJK character's quote whispers in my ear like a devil on my shoulder.

'But, that's how losers think!'

"How do you even define the 'Strongest Mage of the Modern Age.' To simply deal the most damage? I am not satisfied with such an answer personally, I want breadth and versatility too. To me, the desire for power is a desire to erase insecurity, if not in totality then in so far as I can cover physical needs." Water walking, Simple Transmutation, Blood Portals, all these things add more tools.

Black Orb, Danse Macabe, and Spice Forge might create the strongest 'punch' but my desires are not limited by… Simple 'DPS.'

"Holy shit, ahaha I haven't heard this kind of thing since I was 11!" Despite my sincerity I somehow find my face flushed faintly. "You're serious! Ha! You are interesting most of the boys got over their 'powerful sorcerer' phase. Especially after I excelled where they didn't."

"It's a man's romance." I say it flatly. It's a phrase I picked up reading something, probably mecha related... But 'Romance' is what I am searching for in a world seemingly bereft of it. I will probably reuse it, I just like the phrase.

"It's cute, in its own sort of way. Maybe, I guess it is sort of honest. The right word is endearing I think." As I sigh she seems to cut me a break and talk about the city. "Anyway with shipping harder with the armies about that would sink shipments not going to them, some rationing is inevitable, but the ecclesiastical class have the power to look after themselves. There is a bakery that the church prefers, so as a generous ambassador of the Vatican I might as well extend some grace to a visitor."

"Well you certainly have a flair for portraying the disinterested casual Princess." Really though extending someone else's corruption or soft power as her own, it has some flair, if she was a mafia heiress I could imagine her leading me to one of those tax front pizza places that are really good since they exist for mafia guys. "For your next birthday, you hoping to be gifted your own private army?"

With a soft chuckle she trills "Off with their heads~ mmm, I think it does suit me."

How strange.

Two magicians in the same city, talking about seemingly nothing at all.

No, talking about us, as people.

But this is not a world where one can really understand magic by understanding a person.

Perhaps it is simply a sign of Marina being 'spiritually attuned' or perhaps having a high wisdom or something.

"Got lost in your own head Gloomy, anything to share?" Marina teases me as we enter and I begin to peruse.

"Less sourdough than normal, I guess sourdough is 'common' huh. Also I have little experience in discussing the greater mysteries outside of Emanuel, so I am not sure how to do it? Emanuel was very happy to carry a conversation himself." I idly comment, before realizing what I am talking about, I can't figure out how to even begin discussing something like that.

"Yeah, yeast is hard to get with the war I guess." I nod at Marina as I feel a little dumb for not knowing even the basics of baking.

"I've mostly eaten from forage or hunting. Perhaps I would have an easier time in the war the most." I recall a faint impression from the original movie, All Quiet on the Western Front. What was most striking to me was the scene about the farm boy reacting to the horses getting hurt, but when the boys first got assigned an old guy looked out for them. Saw them fed in what ways he could.

It's been so long. Yet I think about another world war and the sad desperate justification of a boy arguing they should take the boots lest let someone else scavenge them.

"You'd also have more reasons to brood Gloomy." Marina helpfully lines the soldiering life with a bit of silver for me.

I get a sandwich and Marina orders a small shortcake. We walk to a secluded water fountain in a small plaza before she begins. "Well, do you have a preference? Is Sarko your favorite, or do more conventional faiths appeal more to you."

"Fear and Hunger." Title drop, but seriously knowing the world that comes in her passing. "There is this Edo art thing where you fix something that was broken with gold, channeling bad things into something of value is admirable. It is something anyone can strive for rather than just 'being good' or 'born better.'"

"With you being bent on power I am surprised you don't idolize the destroyer." Marina idly comments.

"Second favorite. Not for nature but for acts, giving blood magic to humans, being curious enough about us to try living as a human." Grogoroth in his boss fight mentors and freely speaks on the nature of the divine I think.

'Nice Guy Grogoroth.'

"You are quite complimentary of the Gods, do you have dislikes?" Marina poses an interesting question, I have gripes with how magic seems to exist, but would I beef with the Gods if given a chance?

"Maybe. I would say there are two I potentially dislike but I also grant that the Gods are alien and inscrutable, so while it is easy to ascribe humanity to them their minds are unlikely to even resemble ours. Before it was consumed by Fear and Hunger did the Depths have any 'hatred' or 'malice' unlikely I think. Humans are more loathsome than the Gods, so I feel like it's rather unfair to even judge them." That is without really getting into Sulfur and "Rher's deals. But I also could know more about them.

One theory I saw online once was about Rher being a protector as well with his ever watchful eye. A guardian from things that exist beyond the universe.

Perhaps my insertion to this universe would have been contested once upon a time.

I can't tell if I hate that or not.

"So it's like how you can't blame the cat for ruining the rug?" Water bottle spritzing Sulfur but a cat is certainly a mental image. The Human Mind is a real treat, glorious pattern recognition.

"More so that a carnivore's nature is to hunt. Is it sad that a rabbit got mauled to death? Yes, but can we assign blame? Blame is the sticking point for me, since that is a question that is a bit beyond our grasp. Even if we could in some way identify their natures, we would then have the question of the context of their creation." Do I hate Rher? I think 'Rher' is being pointed as a weapon, no volition, thus no blame. I might have sore feelings after Termina, certainly for his nature to be such a pain in my ass.

But cognitively, my ability to comprehend also allows me to take a wider view of the situation. That view is ultimately… Distancing I suppose.

"I guess that's why most studies are focused on Alll-mer and Fear and Hunger. Human minds, latching onto fundamentally human concepts. We also know their 'story' the Old God's mystery is less 'clean' for us."

"Ambiguity makes a certain degree of shape, how do you have humans or even a world without a creator deity, at least if you subscribe to the mystic. Nowadays it wouldn't be surprising if people just say the 'world' is a chemical reaction if they have never seen the mystical with their own eyes."

"Do you believe in a divine hand in creation or the creation of humans?" Marina asks and that actually is a very interesting question.

"They say Abyssonians believe the world existed before the Gods and they are mere powerful interlopers. I can't really say, personally, with Grogorth taking human shape that implies he liked us well enough, perhaps enough to have had a hand in making us…"

The conversation draws on, we discuss theory and personal belief on who, what, and why of the Gods even long after both of us had finished eating.

—

May 11th 1942
4 months before Termina
Unassuming accommodations

"YOU! W-WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS WITH MARINA?" Her black hair almost reminds me of Jotaro Kujo of how it seems to disappear around her back, and down near her nonexistent chest.

It's almost funny, when I'm confronted at where I'm renting an attic, like she is a jealous lover who has finally made will meet karma.

"Did you know Brother Daimon? You got the same unnatural sort of look." I idly fish for information as I control myself and create space.

"T-This! I! It's! Not about me or- him!" her face flashes as she bites at her lip and darkly leers as she forces herself into my door so I can't slam it on her. "W-what are you doing you- playboy?!"

Playboy? I had braced for an awful lot, but not that.

"Really? I always saw myself as something of a hermit or nerd?" I haven't really been at the center of anyone's attention. Even as a kid it wasn't really positive attention for the most part.

"SHUT UP W-With your fake modesty! Y-you have m-muscles and hair!" I can't help but laugh as I realize how juxtaposed my outside is with my internal self.

I have been hiking, fighting, and growing stronger my whole life.

I hadn't ever really internalized that growth, I always just pushed myself, my mind twisting under threat of- What is Coming.

The male/female gaze version of myself, a 'play boy,' well at least that's how- The Stalker sees it. I never wanted to buff up personally, though ending up a little buff isn't bad, it's just I suppose my ideal form is lithe and lean. Though that takes less work I suppose.

"I will take that as a compliment. But uh, what do you even get out of this… Do you want me to say that I will politely let you take your shot? It will only make her curious if I suddenly break ties." I suspect she doesn't even have a plan for what she wants. What her 'end game' could even look like, I understand her intentions I suppose.

Although I am not that attached to people as I share her struggles to piece together how to 'interface' with people.

"W-what e-even are you?! Urgh it's like I'm talking to a brick wall…" Samarie complains at me after seeking me out to harass me. I am almost offended by the entitlement, I'm not, I acknowledge I'm not making things easy for her.

"Well I am not Marina's keeper. You can settle things with her, instead of me, and maybe actually get something out of it. But that would include an element of risk no? You would have to reveal yourself, and BE seen." Unfortunately rather than reflect at my provocation they draw a fucking knife.

I move under the immediate threat, the blade scrapes against my arm as I pin her arm to the door frame as I undergo a dramatic transformation as I glower while trying to control myself.

"That was fucking really rude." I growl as I slam her arm, bending her wrist forcing her to drop the knife. "Not to say that I am 'nice.' But I was keeping things 'civil.'" Her own civility only implied to be lacking as begin to breathe calmer, my intensity fading as the danger fades.

"I-i-i you-uou." As she stammers I sigh and look at her.

"What happens after I let you go?" It is probably valuable to recent the conversation.

"I-I'll leave?" The Stalker sounds hilariously uncertain, which is rather funny considering my own thoughts on the matter.

"I WOULD have been fine with that before you tried to cut me." Not to be mean or exploitative, I certainly would feel sore just 'letting bygones be bygones' with someone who attacked me. I am usually a pretty even keeled and ambivalent guy. "I would say you owe me, especially if you want this staying a private matter between us, and you didn't want me complaining to Marina you fucking stabbed me. You aren't getting that knife back, by the way" Not that I know exactly what to do with her owing me one yet.

"------" Samarie mumbles something, I patiently wait but as she doesn't try again I sigh.

"A little louder please." Today is such bullshit.

"I-its my ritual knife." Ok, fucking and? She looks at me like I am supposed to intuit something.

"Did Marina give it to you or something? Are you seriously demanding the knife you stabbed me with." Stalker nods making me sigh, as I am just supposed to believe that I guess.

"I-I need it…" She mumbles again as I stare at her incredulously.

Is it seriously so important you be 'blood besties' that use the same knife? Fucking nuts. "I will let you go, I will hold onto the knife for now. You will sit down. I will bandage myself. We will have a polite conversation where we discuss how you are going to earn this knife back, which won't be today unless you offer me some other form of collateral." As she nods I kick the blade toward myself and let her go, watching her for a moment before I pick up the knife and head inside keeping an eye on her.

It's certainly awkward as the silence lingers on as I tightly coil the bandage to stem the flow, fuck now I need more bandages too. I should perhaps invest in a bit more of that and antibiotics.

"Now, let's talk, from the top. Let's see, I am Erik, I have met Marina occasionally these past few months. Addressing your previous concern, I guess I am not in a great time of my life to pursue a relationship. Not to say I wouldn't have one I guess. I would be open with Marina that I wouldn't be able to stick around, which I am not going to be telling her apropos of nothing with since a relationship isn't my express goal. Concerns? Ideas for how to earn your knife back?"

"S-Samarie. I-I am rather deeply connected to the Vatican…" She turns her gaze to the floor boards.

I tap the hilt of the knife with a finger, Samarie might be a road to something valuable or valuable herself.

"Perhaps, my time is limited, personal instructions from you over a period of the next few months might be valuable. Would you like to schedule it so they overlap at least once with Marina so you just so happen to meet a mutual acquaintance, say we write the lesson off that day and perhaps spend some time together as 3 young scholars?" Not that she deserves me to wing man for her, but I don't hate her despite how glaring she can feel to my own flaws.

"M-Marina. I-I would… I-I don't… W-what would I even say…?" my mouth twitches into a frown, before a scoff lightly.

"What you normally say, or 'sorry for intruding, I must have got the day mixed up.' Or have you even met her?" It's a very curious case of attachment, supposing you aren't generous to call it love.

"Y-Y… I haven't. I-I care for her, but w-we weren't ever in the same circles, s-so I would've had to force it to happen! It, I mean it as in uhm meet her." Occult secrets might not be fucking worth it.

I hate 'will they won't they' bullshit in stories, why would I like trying to interfere personally. "Look." I sigh bluntly, "I can facilitate, make the meeting casual, introduce you, fill space, but connection isn't something you can force or fashion for someone else. Fuck I can even give dating advice I guess. But if you ask that, some onus to make it 'work out' is on you."

The utter mess of a woman seems to burn with a blush "I-i, t-that's a lot of pressure. W-what if-"

I sigh, interrupting her. "They say the things in life worth doing are hard. It's maybe even 'good' to get some bumps early in a relationship so you have that level of trust that you both can work through things."

"I-I wouldn't mess things up with her… I-I'd protect her…" So. Not. Worth it.

"Let's say I am Marina. Here is an example of a crisis." I feel almost like 'The Spy' helping 'Scout' as I let a girly affectation enter my voice. "Samarie, I want to have a life outside of you, you are suffocating me by insisting to be part of everything I do." I don't shout, I don't reassure but I firmly state the point like I am firm on this.

Samarie's face pales her eyes dart from side to side "I-I can just make myself, less noticeable, disappear, that's the same as not being there..."

Oh Lord. Give. Patience.

—

AN - Samarie 100% the type of freak to steal Marina's engraving knife, and use it on herself for occult rituals.

Oddly, I can be kind of fair to Rher knowing what's coming, something I would have a long time to accept as a kind of devil's bargain. But Samarie coming around unannounced and uninvited would make me a tad snippy at the moment. Humans are just weird I guess.

What can you get out of Samarie? I think Masturbation is easy, a skill we should all have in theory. Her blood ritual is probably just a mundane technique performed over and over until affinity increases. In Termina it only takes one as the boundary to the Green is thinner. So I would say both.

What to do about mind reading, KOTOR and I think Young Justice? Used the same 'trick' of creating a wall or a kind of meditative preoccupation. Rather than ripping that my method is to internally reference a 'zip file.' Termina becomes capital letters 'What is Coming' in the same way certain shows have villains just say 'we're going to have to use that.' It's purposeful ambiguity that still brings to mind relevant information. Perhaps it wouldn't work against a jedi but it suits the needs of workable writing that respects mind reading as a power. Also progression, from Pocket Cat to now Erik has had a long time to categorize things.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwTMoW7qaYo recommended listening.

Also not to steal Fabled Webs gimmick, but did you know a caterpillar eats itself to become a butterfly? Just figured I would mention that for no reason.

—
September 28th 1942
Twas the night before Termina
Vatican City Train Station

Since the Midnight Gazette printed its peace paper I have been spending my evenings at the train depot.

Fastidious, waiting for the 'official' start just in case.

I COULD have shown up to Prehevil early notionally, but with the mystic situation being what it is, would I show up with the Bremen army and be part of the 'Second Festival,' because yes Termina actually takes place as a third consecutive Festival of Termina.

Some miss able dialogue you probably never even read in game, that I picked up thanks to internet theory or lore nerdery.

I am taking a bet that the final festival is important, cosmically significant, and not just a chance to say kill O'saa and take his skill and perhaps even Nah'shrah.

Despite having consciously decided all this, despite living in fear of it for all this time and striving in the expectation of becoming ready for today.

I feel like I am marching to death row anyway as I approach the ticket lady.

"Got tired of watching?" I can't help but laugh too much at such a polite joke.

"Something like that, do I need to pay for additional luggage? I have my passport here, seems like it's about time to move on from the Vatican. Bohemia probably isn't nice this time of year with the war and what not. But hey, why wait for history to come to me in the papers I guess." It feels so stupid talking about this, making polite idle conversation before I step into the ring of champions and put myself in a rock and a hard place just to 'save myself' later. In some future universe I have been teased with.

Life feels patently absurd for me.

"It's not primarily a passenger train, but yeah with military occupation of the capital of Bohemia, you should be fine with your baggage and cart. It's rather empty, well for people getting on, it has some passengers already in it from previous stations but I heard it's rather sparse right now." Speaking of absurd, I have the strangest sympathy for this woman manning the counter, she is probably rather bored and yet.

"Well at least I will be lucky enough for some conversation on the rails it seems, sorry but I would like to get settled, do I need baggage tags or something?" Just like that I enter the limbo between passenger and pedestrian.

Name attached, stowed, inventoried, and put in the trains compartment.

This is the most I'll be unburdened for the next 3 days.

This is the lightest, freest version of myself that will exist from this moment to what might very well be the rest of my life.

Absurd, the rest of my life, spending it on this vague promise.

It is a choice, just turn around, just walk away from the horror and madness.

It sounds… Impossible to come so far and reject the call of the hero's journey.

I think of a story, I always do, the best Pokémon fan work to maybe ever exist.

Festival of Champions, there was a moment where Gary was going through it and… Karen called him out on what was going on with his head.

A 'curse,' from… The start I hadn't been cursed. I had 'cursed' my own life to meet the expectation of an alien's, of a monster's, of a Random Omnipotent force's promise.

Conditioning, I had conditioned myself, I repeated the story to myself and created a truth within myself that no magic needed to enforce.

How hadn't I seen it? How could I have been so blind?

Submissive Soul, huh. I was vulnerable to it. I was pushed into this flow, and I didn't let myself see it until the threat was so close I could feel the prickle of the reaper's scythe against my skin.

What a fool, what a fool I've been.

I sadly chuckle as I enter the train car, a valuable opportunity. As well a chance to get out of my own head.

Tanaka, O'saa, Karin, Levi, and Daan can already be seen, alongside a Maroch I had spotted on the train platform now seated in a corner seat.

O'saa… A man likely to be a victim of my greed, from his perspective of the meeting Nas'hrah whispers about each person that introduces themselves.

If I was a paranoid old wizard, I would be less suspicious of someone that tried to openly manipulate me. I had played a character that was like that in a DnD, a level 20 'World of Strength' paladin.

"Mind if I join you? Perhaps have a conversation before the… momentous arrival?" I smile faintly as I place a hand on the cushioned train seat.

After a long moment he finally meets my gaze with those deeply yellow eyes of his. Strange how I had forgotten that, so strange… Oddly, anime in its aesthetics to me. With a dismissive rich deep voice that seems to reverberate slightly "I very much prefer my mind uncluttered, it is a man's strongest weapon." His face is excessively neutral; it feels like he is giving me the cold shoulder until he follows up. "I care not where you came from or the name of your Mother. Should you be capable of respecting that, come and join me."

"Well the Gods help those who help themselves." I casually sit but I can't help but feel a creeping edge of tension, at what is to come.

"How cliche. You glimpse the grand scheme and yet have the audacity not only to approach an intellectual and scholar with the mere folk wisdom of a drunkard." O'saa is ever so composed as he is casually dismissive.

"Sorry, I simply didn't know what to say. What would you say is the greatest act a practitioner of magic can do?" I probably have too much on my mind, a dangerous habit. But at least in this moment we can perhaps engage a bit of sophistry.

"Magic is a well trodden path even if memory of it has left the world, I suppose the 'best' a practitioner can do is strive in other fields. The founder of the Yellow Mages was a Sultan of old." Very even keeled, I suppose we are both the same that way.

But the very thought sets me on edge. I kind of want to blow my lid and ask if perhaps he is the way he is because he feels magic has let him down. It doesn't honor commitment, or well act like humans would like I suppose.

"Mmm. I always kind of liked the idea of leaving a mark on the art itself. Passing on new magic. Bringing novelty to the art if possible. Though I mean, I would have to live long enough." I had figured I would end up in the bunker since long ago

It was always more of a 'wouldn't that be nice' sort of thought. Oh I wonder what I would do with all this time to be alive with?

It is kind of depressing, to live past my peak and have no challenge worthy of me when I become the strongest mage of the modern day, for no one to ever know my name.

But if I were of my own volition make myself the sacrifice, no one would have to die. Because strength is the objective, people are certain to die.

I might kill them.

"My, a rather audacious notion to imply you could do what countless priests, and mages have failed to do." O'saa snarks coolly.

"Is it? Humans are jealous and we hoard our advantages. I had always had a private suspicion that magic had become lost until it's now the realm of fraudsters and fakes. I had figured that spells were lost, that the body of knowledge is intentionally fractured."

"Have you considered it is merely your own assumption that 'Magic' could be whole?" O'saa plays the philosophical opposing dialectic. Perhaps playing Funger Plato and intentionally using dialogue to open ideas?

"Do you believe humans are capable of creating magic without the assistance of the universal conceptual power of the gods?" One of the first interpretations or perhaps misinterpretations I heard about O'saa or perhaps made up based on something I heard in a video. Was that their particular enlightenment in their solo survivor ending had them eventually lead an organization to create an expansion of magic for humans.

"Well, the force of magic is limited by the human mind, whatever you call it, willpower or ego its all the same. A more honed mind is a more dangerous one. The human will fights and tries to assert itself over the 'higher powers.' By accessing the forces of the Greater Scheme of things you can do anything, well supposing you had foolish and firm unstoppable 'faith' that it was possible. So yes, I do believe so insofar as rationally we can understand the Greater Scheme if motivated can do so on our behalf." Interesting, it also really twists some of the ideas I have stewed on for a long time. Like Kaiser's asterisk spell, learning that would be kind of cool, but I would need a belief the same as him to pull the right lever.

"Huh, I never really considered magic as a force of the 'greater scheme' or even as separate from the Gods really. The only magic humans ever seem to attempt is built on their crutches." at my thoughtful tone O'saa seems to laugh.

"Well, who is to say? Human record is as faulty as the minds and hands of the humans that made them. It is a rather intense theological debate, the nature of the divine that is. We can agree they are conceptual forces, that at least is indisputable fact, but their source and nature are merely interpretations of shadows."

Very Platonic, it's actually rather charming. I'm so introverted I have never had a strong sense of how different people of this era can be from the 'brain rot' modern era I'm from. O'saa kind of pings that sense of a person that is… Classically educated…?

"Well, human cognition or 'belief' can seemingly even be predated upon by things 'beyond' our world like Ronteals. Perhaps despite accessing this conceptual force, the human belief to straddle it is too vast, so I allowed the easy path the God's made to take up too much space in my own head." Belief being a core part of magic clicks in a certain way, I just hadn't read Nas'hrah making a spell as him channeling his own belief he has to conquer Grogorth's Traces.

A belief so strong it looped right around to destroying him.

It would almost be a shame to kill him, O'saa is more than his skills, he is a scholar and a wealth of lore. He is the key to certain lore points, like talking to Daan about Sulfur.

"Could I sway you into an alliance with me?" Despite it perhaps not being in my interest, I should be open to the idea.

"I am certain I could do better than a whelp who doesn't appear to have even endured his first decade of hardship." Fucking dick… Considering the amount of idiots that died in the Game Termina to stupid shit like jumping down the toilet I can't say I blame him.

But his smug aura offends me.

Perhaps it's just not the kind of world where we overcome the darkness by uniting threads of light, into a scattered colorful party to stand for hope.

Oh so long ago… The first JJK thing I think I ever watched, it had a thumbnail, something like the world was evil, or built on evil…

A frayed thread from a lifetime ago, yet I hold on so tightly.

"Erik?" from over my shoulder I see Marina in her canon outfit, Samarie meanwhile isn't really a fashion or accessories sort of gal she wears the same blouse as usual.

"Excuse me, it seems other conversations must be shared. I will leave you to your peace." I stand leaving the rather stifling and imperious O'saa and walk with Marina and Samarie to an empty seat and join across from them. "So Prehevil huh, not exactly the nicest place to visit this time of year." I idly snark, I can't help but feel all sorts of strange.

If there were a time to waver it is now I suppose.

"Family business, but you-why didn't you tell us, why are you leaving, what has happened?" Marina is pressing as Samarie's eyes flick between us, well that is indeed a wrinkle to being friendly I suppose.

"Was just sort of waiting for the right moment. I suppose I have belonged to the road most of my life anyway. My friendship was always more of a passing acquaintance deal, at most I would send you letters like how I send letters home." Although in their case I suppose my usual standoffish attitude was somewhat suspended.

Samarie stumbles, in her clumsy all too honest affection. She flinches as I think that.

Anyway I took, and shared advice I once heard that a date with a third wheel didn't matter. The blurring between a 'date' and a normal social outing doesn't have to be a rigid thing with no overlap. Samarie needed me to be a little more engaged, I guess I responded without thinking of what comes after.

"Erik, you seem out of sorts. The man who insulted you, made you quiet?" I sigh as Marina presses me, it feels like I have a winding Escher painting staircase to interpret to even attempt honesty.

"Suppose… I also have some 'family business.' Marina, I have someone I intend to kill. It might be best if you avoid Prehevil all together." Crazy, am I going soft or something.

"Erik, w-what's going on?" Samarie finally breaks her silence as I chuckle sadly.

I stand up and grab the seat and lean on it for a long moment. "I… As I said, it's a bad time of year to visit. Excuse me, I think I need to clear my head."

I drift in my loneliness over to a lone chair so I can suffocate whatever is gripping my heart, so the plan can be executed.

Damn myself yet again, curse myself to restrict myself to the path of power lest I tremble and weep begging my unkind God for another chance at power, to overcome the helplessness my kindness would inflict.

Whatever Solipsism that is necessary to make myself the protagonist of this world, author of my own story, I must embrace it.

I had grown so much, but August had always seen this hadn't he?

Tears spill in the silence, and I let out a ragged breath.

My heart was always too soft.

Woe betide the contestants, a darkness is coming, because I want to live.

I want to live. I want to live, and that means I will seize the means if I have to.

I chuckle softly, I feel oddly like Philip from Library of Ruina, an sublime coward who cannot even face himself! He dresses his actions and beliefs in pretension to fool themselves and to give them freedom to kill or to run away so long as the reasons are 'just.'

'The most dangerous kind of person.' One that screams 'for the sake of others' as he stabs you.

I sink back into the seat as I mournfully look out the window, as the train rattles on, the world of the veiled night blurs dimly.

After some time the heaviness of my mind seems to finally come over me, and I sleep at last before the morning of the first day.

—

AN - This is the first direct acknowledgement of how my brain probably would tangle itself into a knot. The specifics aren't really able to be seen, in what specific ways this tendency can make me a 'worse' version of myself without even Moonscorching. It is probably the beginning of bad things to see it then say 'nah let it rock.'

O'saa is not likely to be very prominent since he has Spice Forge, Meditation, and Danse Macabre but he is rather contradictory; he has so little to say and yet has so much character!

I obviously dig him, I played as him. But also he is such an asshole, even if he thought I was useful we see that it takes him being arrowed, met with kindness, and for you to assert your interest in tech/bunkers to join. He has a lot of locks to get on side.

Also talking to my brother there was this meme we both laughed at he reminded me of for O'saa. Someone on the train gets approached reading Plato or something and gets asked "Are you an intellectual?" I forgot the reader's response, probably no, but it's followed by "you're reading Plato, that's why you're not an intellectual."

It's like, not even a performative reading joke, it's a diss for being at the level where you read Plato, like its kindergarten stuff. O'saa is 100% that kind of guy, so it was useful to keep in mind for tone.

I think just like when Erik cries on his birthday, we are both distant people, but people like Marina and Samarie closing the distance doesn't leave us unaffected.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - Does the janitor just carry his Kassara all the time? I dunno, anyway here is the first of slight fussing with enemies with what they look like and do. I also have an idea for the Rifleman villagers and how their guns are busted for the player, making that a lore point.

—

September 29th 1942
'The Day Of' but for me and my twisted life, it was Tuesday
The Train Car?...


I come to wakefulness with a certain clarity. I stand up and stretch as though the seats are comfortable. I did sleep seated, although given the lack of cushions for roadside continent spanning travel it's far from the worst sleep I've had.

There is an eerie hair raising sense of wrongness as I sway on the still tumbling train, we haven't arrived…?

Tanaka and Marcoh both are asleep in my view. The faint recesses of my own internal encyclopedia skill- I think I am what a high Disco Elysium encyclopedia skill looks like in a normal thought process- never mind that.

I recall the canon player character being the first to wake up, but first the cubes and the janitor. The weirdly important cubes, which link to Logic somehow?

I internally grumble at this fucking janitor knowing shit I don't know as I pass the storage of the train.

I take my trusty hand axe and sling, I don't think the janitor is worth worrying about to bring out the big stuff for.

I almost feel underdressed not wearing all my gear and the wagon, with all my prep I simply know I can feel more prepared as I walk past towering, floor to ceiling stacked suitcases as I trot toward an almost holographic blue glowing butterfly.

The living lucid dream of Logic.

Actually that is a fine reason to pause. Logic can already influence, subtly hint, guide or at least flicker before our eyes here. How curious, perhaps that is simply the influence of even a baby God, or prenatal God? Or perhaps alludes to the utter abstraction of a God, in an… Atemporal way.

Can there be a trace of Logic before Logic? Can Logic spells be used before her coming should we already know the invocations?

Honestly the Obsidian CRPG Tyranny teased me with its glorious spell system, and the fucking quill sword guy also said some really cool and freaky lore like that too! Like the 'Gods' of that setting could be argued to not be the source, merely the discoverer or spell developer.

I mean, why not, if it's only your personal belief that is the matrix that interfaces with magic?

So many interesting implications that people aren't able to tap! Time travel, while possible, just isn't common. I mean there is probably only ONE cube of the depths…

Speaking of cubes… As I pass under the arch of luggage as I step through the darkness I am greeted by the eerie wooden diagonal planks that look like a skewed and twisted room, or a poor house made by a drunk carpenter.

The off brand silent hill dimension. The Rher dimension… Some people might even call this a Noosphere, or is it Nu?

"You! I've been looking EVERYWHERE for you!" Janitor Funger stomps over to me from beside a table, cock out as is customary for the John Funger enemy type.

Sadly only The Elite Guards made off with all the codpieces and refused to share.

Restraining my disgust for the bare assed potbellied freak before me I sigh "There simply isn't enough proselytizing of the Sulfur God, can I really be blamed for missing the order when the good word is so well hidden by his enemies?"

I shiver as he puts his fucking hands on me to lead me to the table "Stupid fucking human, you don't need to only stand only DIE in his name when its asked of you! Now we are too damn busy to educate useless ANTS like you!"

I should have really just rolled up to kill this guy, should have thrown rocks at him, should have known better than to talk to monstrosities.

As I sit a table over from a Goddess in waiting, I ask as I smash wooden slats against each other searching for the groves until they click together "You're Oliva's sister?" I hadn't thought of what I'd say to her. Too many plates to spin around here.

The woman in the pink dress in red shoes smiles. Really smiles, the sort of smile so earnest and heartfelt you can't help but think of it as startling to see. Her eyes flick over her shoulders and she waves me away from the table as I sigh, I snag a cube as I begin to walk into the dark sling ready as I hear it.

"Where do you think you're going!?" I groan with disgust as he pulls out a rusty red short blade with only its edge gleaming from his gaping back wound, hell of a pocket, really showing us pants wearing saps what's up.

Whipping the sling through the air I loose a stone and slip around the table maintaining distance, with a throaty raspy almost smoker like growl the Janitor clambers up the table grumbling like the radio is staticky or like his car is acting up "Humans always so uppity, despicable sacks of flesh."

I catch his leg with the axe head making him fall flat on the table, with a great breath I duck under the table and tumble it with my shoulder tilting him on the ground with the table falling over him.

I gasp as I strike like an animal, climbing onto the table to suppress him, I butcher his wounded leg, until I'm panting ragged and hard. I lay into his legs until the thrashing stops under me and I see I've torn him to shreds, pulped stripped flesh with bones glimmering in the dark to greet me.

I swallow and blink away tears as the scent of iron is overpowering, "Uhrr." I groan and walk away from the table for fresher air. I shake out the tingling, gooseflesh.

I pass the Janitor's probably torture device, and stand at the step to the next phase of the dream.

As I enter the hall of the New Gods, I feel suddenly like there is a bubble in my head, a pressure that is growing and trying to push out the sides of my skull.

"W-What is Magic?" I perform the question even as I have to struggle with the sensation of, even these half idealized creatures pressing their very natures into my head.

At their silence I just groan my frustration. I pinch my eyes and control my breathing even as I let out strained breaths-

"Ah there you are…" I shiver as a ghostly voice, vacant and emotionless Per'kle speaks.

As I look at the strange yellow robed and crowned man I can't help but gasp at Rher.

Even just looking at him, I blink rapidly as he looks almost shrouded in a dancing flickering off green visual static. Its mouth looked so expansive, a jagged craggy ravine revealing nothing as it judges humanity.

Its eyes pitch black and four in total.

"Got you pulled out from that nasty place. You were going deep in that rabbit hole."

"Have you read Luis Carol's works?" I can't help but ask incredulously.

"Lewis Carroll." The snide mother fucker corrects me, which beggars the question of this schemer's deal is.

"My Master bids you to join a jubilee of celestial proportions, as our words can not reach each other. I will speak on his behalf. I am Per'kele, Servant of the Delinquent Moon. Oh yes, and the Festival of Termina is upon us."

"A Festival of Termina." I quip bitterly.

Per'kele only coldly laughs "You will find the Trickster God Rher is not over bothered by such legalistic pedantry-"

"Bullshit, Pocket Cat is strapped to his pretty little kitty collar in rules and restrictions."

To my surprise Per'kele only ruthlessly chuckles. "I have had similar argumentative welcomes, but your sources are much more charming than 'my Mother' I must admit. I do hope we meet again, quarrelsome one. Under the moonlight, naturally."

—
Monologue With The Moon
Day 1 Morning
The Train Car - Prehevil Outskirts

Got my axe, a cube, have my belt pouches and such which I picked up from the dream.

As I step up out of the seat again, the rolling train has stopped.

I pass by a dozing 'Count Dragula.' As I pull luggage up and off my own he grumbles and steps out passing over a magic circle.

I realize, it's actually fine I didn't see the cart in my dream, had I been tempted to whip out the bone saw that early… It would make me way more rude than 'loud.'

I grab the rest of my gear and dump it into the pull wagon as I step off the train with it.

"-So that must be the best course of action for now." Daan is speaking to the group as I step out and set my stuff down as I begin to loop various bags, pouches, and gear as I look over the group, all on the ground except Abella who is looking over the engine from a side platform on the train.

"Hey, gloomy here is Erik. We are acquainted from before the train." Marina tilts her head at me as I pause fussing with my stuff.

"It's going to be a long 3 days." I sigh, I have the feeling like even if I could formulate a warning. I don't know how to make it 'land right.'

If I wanted to…

If.

"Oh it seems there were still people inside the train. I assume you're equally confused as us, the train left us stranded on the outskirts of the city. The train personnel, everyone gone. The train won't budge an inch. Hey, any luck up there?" Daan turns to Abella as she just sighs.

"I like engineering because things follow clear logic, when you have a problem it's a missing part or a broken axel. It's nonsensical that the train won't start. But the engine is fine, I have tried everything I can think of." Abella tosses oil smeared workers gloves to the side as she moves to the ladder to join us.

"Speaking of peculiar… You saw the nightmare too? Not to presume but we all did. Well if you didn't I suppose that's evidence… of something…" The woman sitting on the ground speaks. Poor Oliva, paraplegic to boot.

Before I can respond the woman in the oversized coat groans "Not this talk again! We should have interrogated that Bremen Pig. Too quick to run off I'd say… Perhaps running after setting off a hallucinogenic bomb on the train, a sadistic army experiment! No, they are out of war prisoners, they need to source guinea pigs elsewhere!"

Similarly Daan also responds coldly to Karin's spurious paranoia. "I wish I had your capacity and feist… But I don't believe every conspiracy theory floating around."

Karin's face twitches as she takes a step forward and pushes her hands into her jacket "I don't need some flaky eye patched foreigner telling me what's possible. You haven't seen what I've seen during the 'Great War.'"

"Almost all men and women the past few years have covered the war or Alll-mer help them, be covered by it. As a Doctor I have seen my share of hallucinogens, from first hand experience I can tell you there are no known chemicals that create visions *that vivid let alone identical among so many people."

As Daan gestures to all of us Marina speaks up "It must have been a premonition of some kind… There are all kinds of interpretations to dreams like these, it has been said the great scholar Enki Anakarian himself had his dreams lead him to the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger… I think the servant dude had something important to say…"

"You can't throw names around and expect us to believe superstitious crap like that?" The Rondon Gentleman speaks up from the side "You all began to babble as soon as you woke up, I think you all convinced yourselves it's the same dream."

"That doesn't account for my perspective then. I had a dream, and in terms of portents the moon is very particular, it is associated with Rher. A hateful jealous God. But of particular note for us, are 'Festivals of Termina' closely associated with the development of the term Lunacy. Accounts of sudden vivid violence in history can be attributed to events just like these."

"Erik, you knew." Samarie quietly accuses from behind Marina.

"You do… don't you, what is this Erik?" Marina drops the accusation to probe more innocently.

I give her a hard look. "A hell of a mess, and you've very well stepped into it now. But I suppose you now have the opportunity of a lifetime to glimpse the terror of the cosmos. Hope you write a hell of a book." Leaving unsaid, well needing to survive first.

"I don't have time for this 'ominous' doom telling. How do we get to the city and get real help?" Karin huffs, pearls before swine I suppose.

Marina looks between me and Karin before sighing, pointing up over the trees and into the mist she gestures to the tower. "See that tower. It is at the very center of town, supposedly always been there, the town grew up around it. Always ready to 'guide and judge' Prehevilian folk."

"You better believe I am going to get to the bottom of this." Karin vows as she begins to stalk into the woods.

"Excuse me Doctor-" "Erik-" as I try to flag down Daan, at the very same time Marina tries to talk to me.

Decisions, decisions. "I wanted a private conversation… But I suppose you can listen in. Daan, you came to this town for answers. I can use a hand with all that is happening, and I think we have a mutual interest. But for doing you a favor and trusting you with my disclosure… I want some loyalty in return."

As we move to the vacated inside of the train I begin to idly rifle through things now that I am at liberty to toss this place ah, the map, and well maybe loose change.

"Kid, you may think you have this all… 'figured out.' But-" As Daan tries to down play my offer I don't let him.

"You came to the right place to investigate that symbol. But the pieces of information you seek require locks and keys. I have awareness of answers for you, and you could be useful to me in foiling the entity which the Baron shed blood for." Then after looking right at him I scan some of the nearby paper debris.

Daan's face pales, Marina seems to blink and look between us. "Erik…" Her words don't even seem to coalesce as Daan's face hardens.

"How much do you know, you knew about this… 'Termina' and you act like you know why I am here. But I am not so easily bought in by a charlatan merely… implying." Daan looks deeply into my eyes as I catch his gaze as I tilt my head.

"I know what you lost that eye trying to do. I am curious if it is teachable in fact. I know you got your job with the Baron because of your parents, I know about the God of the symbol, and the yellow mage if you asked him? Assuming you weren't brushed off he would simply say it's forgotten by time before the fellowship censored by those 'New Gods' perhaps, or that he merely can place the name to the triangles. Lets say the reason I know is also why I am here. My 'Patron' allowed me to view this scene like it was a game set before 14 players, at the cost of having to take a seat at the table."

Not quite true, but true enough. A dark deal or a burden makes more sense than the quirky facts of my life.

"You're a fool." Daan stares down at the ground, a heaviness settles over him as he takes a long drag from his smoke, "but I suppose I am twice the fool for coming here, I knew I was chasing Einer's madness. It seems I have indeed found it huh. Supposing I run into similar enough problems with or without you I suppose I am getting the better end of this deal than going off alone. Spit your 'arcane truth' then, I trust you won't leave your collaborator in the dark."

"Ok. Where are we talking about a God here, so where do Gods come from? Either beyond or ascension. Here in Prehevil we can meet a 'witness' if we take him at his word… He is old enough to stand beside Alll-mer as an Apostle. How does a God come from the same time? That same witness can warn us should he watch on as he shapes statues of ourselves. That warning pertains to Alll-mer and the mystery deity. Alll-mer in the throes of his ascension sought to grow beyond his human darkness, the shadow of the subconscious he imposed on his carvings and he split his 'human evil' from himself, and he cast that which was best left forgotten into the burning pits. That God is now named after his fate 'Sulfur.'"

"God of Human Evil… I suppose we have a God of Fear and Hunger, why not I suppose. What's that got to do with… Why did Elise die…" Daan seems to almost physically sag as he asks. "What was her Father even hoping to accomplish."

Oh, I am a dumbass. Of course he would care about how that evil trickled into his own life and closure.

"It has to do with the dream, Per'kele didn't show off his real face. His true allegiance is to Sulfur. The true goal of this madness and bloodshed is for him to scout out 'talent' for his cult. Someone bloodthirsty and broken enough to see freedom in hellfire. If you pass his muster he will duel you to the death atop the tower and Sulfur will burn away exactly what Alll-mer took with him when they separated. You will become an insane unrepentant murderer, with a flair for blue face paint."

"What… He killed her for... Already was already insane… How could I have missed the signs… Oh God…" Daan smooths his face with his hands.

"My interest isn't ending the festival, but it's incidental to where my real goal is. If you want to end their scheme, join me Daan." I can't help but feel a tad silly at my offer, real goal? My purpose is to drink deeply from all that is on offer here, the ending is 'preference' I suppose.

"Two fools huh, that's the most I can hope for. I always wondered if I was merely the smartest fool in the room ha. Let me get my doctor's bag…" Daan pinches the cigarette between his fingers not even flinching as he crushes the flame and steps away.

As Daan steps away Marina makes her move. "You warned me, you knew about patches over there, Erik do you know about. Me?"

I sigh and look between her and Samarie "In the 'game' you dramatically enter just in time to see your Dad get stabbed. Your Father cares in his own way. As he bleeds on the church stones he told you that you had nothing tethering you to Prehevil. He wanted you to stay away."

Fathers… They worry, don't they?

"My Dad is in danger…?" My smile becomes strained as I almost want to laugh.

"The… The game's board couldn't account for me breaking the rules. I wouldn't worry about it. The positions of the pieces have changed with you meeting me, try to stay alive. Guess my offer extends to you, but well 'I have less power over you.'"

At my teasing tone Marina fucking punches my arm "you better believe it. But don't think that means you can keep any more of the good secrets from me. Seriously, you have been hiding all this the whole time?"

Frowning slightly I sigh "would it be believable? I don't know. You saying you wouldn't get scared off so easily? Yeah I guess you can say that now."

"Well. I-I won't leave Samarie alone. So I am coming too…" Samarie puts on a brave face as she grips her own wrist behind Marina.

Maybe if I am lucky I figured I would have Daan and someone else. Maybe use the Kaiser files I got on Karin. Now I have a whole party. Damn I just realized how I flubbed stocking up on food, 4 mouths… Ah! Why didn't I divide by four!

—

AN - The weapon and item accounting will be a little loose. I don't think even a prepared person can handle everything Termina has to offer, so in chapter 1 there was the magic tattoo I will remind you of. So multiple runs worth of allowance is there, Erik will get the first death scenario I had playing Termina.

Though with proper Termina kicking off I have to now handle the breadth of possibility. Like what would Funger circles do in a 'Save'-less world. Also would a ascended Sulfur circle do anything?

I think we need a bit of meandering and action in the next chapter but I am curious about how much of that y'all want since a Termina play by play is probably better covered on Youtube.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

Not quite a music recommendation as usual, this track's mood is a bit too bombastic I'd say, but I do love the 'eating your foes to grow in power' thematic they share https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T_4oIWcOwk

—
Day 1 Morning
Prehevil Outskirts

"Why are we bumbling through the woods exactly? As you can see I left my good hiking boots, I was expecting to poke around the city after all." Daan complains as I poke around another electric poles that are wooden well, in the case of one nearby actually a crucifix.

Which is a very particular form of fucked up now I think about it. There is that authentic protection crucifix in the village square? So isn't this one just for the love of the game?

"We got some herbs out of it, and if I am right… Ah, this is the log!" It is a bit of a disappointment, I recall Levi has party dialogue about this location, but it's a beer and some loose change. Then again a beer does become a fireball or two. Actually is beer better than bullets? Huh.

It is more flexible the more spells I get…

It becomes healing, what I actually have a damage over time, or an area of effect attack.

"Anyway… I got some over boots but they are sized for me. But we are close to the river and a… threat. We are going to have to get used to fighting people and… To survive we are gonna have to butcher the bodies. Daan, can you do healing using organs?"

"Killing isn't enough eh?" His eye flickers as a faint smile tugs on a corner of his lip. "Yes. A little skill I picked refined in the army, rather than be some kind of 'slicing and dicing' hero… I mostly tended to bullet wounds, shrapnel, the odd chemical attack. What are you expecting to need to heal? Hearts and the thymus were the most in demand organ back on the battlefield." Daan draws a scalpel from his doctor's bag as he twists it in a display of the fabled 'hands of a doctor.'

I cast my mind to what I know of the threats of this town. "Poison is a bit rare but a threat, we might only need like 3 at a time? Bleeding and infection is common…" I cast my mind to priests, crimson fathers, moonscorches… "Uh can you do anything about burns?" I recall there was a fan enemy to be added to the game, a half Sulfur ascended thing, I bet it does fire things.

"Well there is a river nearby, go for a swim." I chuckle at Daan's casual dismissal, I wonder if he… No, there is the flame trooper, a unique death napalm is a thing even if Daan hasn't worked out well, how to heal a condition that usually kills terribly.

"You wouldn't happen to need their heads for your stuff?" As I clarify, Daan narrows his eye.

"Erik what does that mean?" Marina asks leading well to the awkward point I have been building toward.

"I uh may need to saw a lot of people's heads off." For emphasis I pull out the bone saw from the cart feeling a tad barbaric for doing so.

"Eyes." Daan answers coldly with a word at the side show before him as he rubs his face. "What the hell have I signed up for?" He sighs perhaps for Marina and Samarie's benefit, so they know how sane he is about all this absurd bullshit.

"I didn't make the rules, I just use them to win alright, anyway…" As we step on the river side I can't help but recall the statue I faintly see buried in the stones, it's rather beautiful in person. In a Dark Souls, decrepit world sort of way. "Fights across the river so battle plans. I have a sling, I can hand over my axe to one of the girls, I have some guns but I think it is a bit early to waste them on just 'some guy.' There is some freaky shit out here, real fucking problematic things."

The military, Caesar like statue is moss speckled, buried in loose rubble, worn down and dirt splotched. In the lull after I speak I sigh, I guess I made the party, I have to take responsibility for making it.

"Guess I am in charge huh." I had wanted to survive, other people would help do that, but I really hadn't worked out until now that agency and leadership were something I would end up taking.

Did O'saa figure that out…?

He already knew… That he would have cede agency to the group if not to a leader, to actually get the security and aid..

Wisdom. I am utterly lacking in wisdom, of perception beyond the skimming of a surface.

"Not to be overly presumptuous but, I guess that in a crisis, there is little slack for consensus and diplomacy. There is one rule to my tyranny, for now, a battle is no time for a vote." I steal a line from a youtube video about the logistics of piracy, sea faring piracy not digital downloads.

"Don't expect me to salute like a good soldier." Daan vaguely consents.

Samarie as usual looks to Marina, for them both the answer comes "Well, don't expect silence from me, I will want to know what the plan is, or what is happening."

"We will remove the threats that will stop our way, and take what we can from every cooling corpse. A gun man now, those who lost themselves to the scorch of the moon in general, and things that may yet be worse than humans. What spells do we have? I know simple pyromancy."

"Same as well, not quite a spell but there is ritual scarring, a fleshy supplication for blessing."

Samarie runs a hand over a scar over her arm and looks darkly down at the river "Hurting."

Quite a potent amount of power we command as a group, Hurting… The power to attune to Grogoroth deeply, at the cost of being anemic is perhaps a bargain for the church.

A cruel calculus but one only the most significant lore wise institution is poised to make.

"I think I would like Fear and Hunger sculpted into my face. Later. The threat should come first."

Daan keeps his scalpel, it's probably equivalent or better than a basic knife, considering Samarie once stabbed me she might have plenty of familiarity with a knife. I hand my axe to Marina as I prepare my sling.

As we walk up the stony beach path to the sewer I swallow silently as there are more statues than I recall… They are much more buried or broken but this strange river side is sprinkled here and there with stone human visages.

I can't help but feel faintly unsettled from an image I can't even really recall anymore past the striking details. It makes me feel so less prepared than I would hope.

I flick my gaze to the strange tattoo no one has ever remarked on seeing on my skin.

The other worldly gift. Perhaps I have no choice in needing help in overcoming a truly unfair world that tears me down just as much as it might empower me.

"The jubilee… feeds the parched earth with red drink…" As the party advances on the lone rifleman he tremors and shoulders his rifle as we hurriedly steal what ground we can to get cover of the tree line.

"His arms." I call out my target as I begin to spin up the sling.

As the rifleman works the bolt of his gun, he actually sticks his hand into a gnarled looking rifle, it looks as if metal burrs of the chewed up metal rub against his skin as he forces the gun to cycle by sticking a thin elongated hand.

Like an exaggerated garand thumb or something, his body has changed to keep firing even when the world has lost its sense.

He is surrounded as the stone sphere flies into him, Samarie hacking into the side of his body as Daan makes a deft cut to his wrist while Marina slams the axe where my sling stone struck the shoulder.

Like a pack of dogs we bring him down without remorse.

As Daan is graciously sparring me the stomach churning duty of chopping the head from the gun hand, I pull the bullets from the gun with a stick from nearby. Speaking of sticks, I make my own pinecone pig while I have free access to greenery.

I had kept a pinecone around in the cart for this moment because I was always kind of paranoid its function needs a 'thin reality' to work, or at least work to the effect we see in game.

"Samarie, keep a hold of this for me will you?" She looks at me questioningly and I suppose that's part of the answers I'm expected to give.

"It's a folk magic, god, thing. I am hoping it helps, it might tangibly do so-as in bringing things after a fight or such. Actually I should have brought multiple pinecones if it worked, hindsight is 20/20." I didn't hedge a bet on pinecone pig despite the youtube challenge runner building absurdly restrictive rulesets only to come out on top thanks to a goddamn pinecone pig.

I really should have considered 'what if it works, bring like 4 just in case.' Well, supposing having multiples meant multiple attempts to roll the pinecone pig loot table, which I can't say I know, or if that would even equate to tackling the festival outside the game.

As we advance to the lake shore I idly mention "There is a lake shanty town type thing out on the water, maybe, there is a future location that will tell us if we even need to go there. We can try and explore it a bit after town."

I just have to assume that updates I haven't had the chance to play exist, fidelity to the 'vision' or setting of Prehevil, it is probably possible to even explore locations not in game even if I might not catch onto what exactly isn't 'within game' since I hadn't been too interested past the early game.

There is no resistance to collect the 3 heads of the lakeside, not with so many hands.

But it seems putting down the dying man in the shack is a step to far to go unanswered.

"Erik what are… Why are we killing these…" Marina questions as she points to the now butchered bodies of the moonscorched too busy trying to pull their skin off to be a threat like the gun hand was.

"Yeah… It's kind of… Actually can you start engraving me, this probably calls for some explanation. Doc, these guys burned normally? Burned by radiation? Not quite yeah." As Daan nods he leans down to point and assess the bodies in greater detail.

"I don't necessarily disagree with the thought that they ought to be put down. In case you hadn't noticed by smell alone they are decomposing where they are scratching themselves raw. What happened appears to share certain qualities with both severe sunburns and 'radiation sickness.' Though I can't quite say that these malformed and 'mutated' discrepancies with the human form are from radiation as to the timing of their exposure…" As Daan stands and dusts off his hands I swallow thickly and exhale slowly as I try not to flinch or pull away as my face is etched with the mark of God.

"Yeah, the green hue of the moon above Prehevil is the source. For us the changes would be quite dramatic. Samarie becoming Dysmorphia, Marina becoming the Cocoon, and the boxer becoming a hulking monstrosity. The influence of the Rher is such he is reflecting the green hue of the world under our world. Descend deep enough through the dungeons of Fear and Hunger, you reach the Green, a 'land' of the conceptual. That same Green… Type influence? It 'Moonscorches' humans, it pulls the mask off and replaces you with a parody of your fears or nature… Or something? There is a bit of 'art' to it where you can quibble over the fine details of 'well what does that mean?'" My face feels hot. It's a quiet agony of flesh, my body trying to tell me something is wrong as red lines are set into my skin.

The silence at my lore dump is rather telling.

"The 'monsters' inside us are released by an 'evil' God." After a second I decided to be a little less flippant about my summary. "Though I am a little vague on the details of other festivals. Lunacy is Rher's whole deal. People are crazy around here, this is survival prerequisite even if it isn't a mercy to spare the world of those less able than us from Monsters."

As Marina pulls away from my side, I finally relax my face. Samarie is shooting me a death glare "m-me next Marina. I-I want your m-mark on my face."

I can't help but chuckle as I look at the rolling shore line as we have a bit of an impromptu break.

In the last hours of my life, are these the kind of things I am going to remember?

—

"Welcome o' fresh one. Welcome to the Shitpit of Prehevil." The Wretched Being rasps as we enter his hut, even its outer wall nailed with heads.

After clearing the slums, dropping rocks on the bear traps just to cover any backtracking we do near the elevator, and gaining fuck all from my first chest.

"You a Sulfur cultist or something?" I look at the wall of severed heads, the faces are silently all trapped in the rictus of death, silent screams of the dead and damned. Glassy eyes unblinking even as a bug skates over the film.

As I wretch faintly, Marina and Samarie take a step back as the flies buzz and fill the air with the music of decay to accompany the gallery's offerings.

"Hehe whole world could use a good deep cleansing burn, keh… like when Alll-mer rose up and overthrew the wretched order of things. But no, I don't want part of any order old or new." Holy shit, talk about the strongest nihilist of the modern day.

A man so dispossessed of humanity so encompassing he won't tolerate even the company of Sulfur scorched humans.

"You've got a real shit taste of decor, among other things Mister." Daan quietly seethes at his answer.

"You fresh ones smell too sweet, but that look on your face… Oh how it resembles mine. I feel the same about the Headsman who executed half the town… As well as the pretty fucking priests."

"Whatever you are selling. Do save your breath." Daan scoffs as he dimly looks at the ground of the hut's flattened packed floor. "Altough it's hardly a medically backed. My guts telling me I don't want to catch whatever it is you have."

"Be seeing you." How strange, then again I have been out of sorts since arriving in Prehevil. Still despite being too caught up, I feel there is a sense my words are deeper than intended as they left my mouth.

As we pass through more buildings and see more goddamn bear traps, we catch up to Karin who left while I was enacting the 'Daan Plan.'

"Well, if it isn't the happy campers." Between O'saa and now this shit I can't say I am all that happy with the amount of smug attitudes around here.

"Karin, my capacity to be social is already fucking strained. You know what, I am not even sure why I am even talking to you. I don't think you have a single polite bone in your body." Maybe the town is getting to me, but I seriously cannot handle putting up with Karin's shit right now.

"Well do forgive me for not being too pleased with the Prehevil welcoming committee." I can't help but chuckle at that comment even as Karin continues. "I am a journalist so curiosity is my business but I can't help but wonder what exactly your group is."

"Well we didn't exactly poll for a team name, I guess we all want the same mystic bullshit solved. In abstract." As I check the barrels for scraps I continue "basically the town ain't safe for anyone so we are having a go with me at the lead. You know so we are all a little safer."

"It's almost endearing, I am half way tempted to even say our brave leader cares about us." As Daan sarcastically backhandedly compliments my anxious fretting I literally gape at how cheeky this shit is.

"That's fucking cheating, if I fucking call it 'enlightened self interest' now you are just going to fucking laugh at me. There is no right answer to this touchy feely bullshit." Is this how I suffer aura loss, to fucking teasing over being fastidious. Fuck my life.

"Fuck it lets get out of here, while we are in closed quarters give me my axe back."

As we circuitously walk around the glass we catch two moonscorched sitting down. As we burst into the room we cut them down in short order seizing the initiative.

The rifleman falls first then the man with the sickle is hilariously out numbered.

As I give Marina the task to get ammo and rifle through things, Daan chops up the bodies, I get my gloves and harvest the glass!

I heard they were supposed to be nerfed or something, glass powder/shards is the exact kind of counter bullshit that you need to get one over on the horrors.

"Erik!?" Turning to Samrie I pause as I see her pointing at the pinecone pig, now no longer on her person but poised in the doorway atop a severed head, not just any head mind you but the rat people enemy from the caves I think. Its just sat there on it like it's a cat that likes us back from a successful hunt.

"In the name of Charlotte, 'some pig.'" I am rather flabbergasted. I guess the spawn pool isn't the Fear and Hunger 1 pool.

"Erik!? What does that mean!?"

—

In the darkness of the basement I gasp as I see a wooden book stand next to a raised circle.

"This is it!" I rush over like a power seeking gremlin. I mark the page that the book is open too and check the front.

"Magick in Theory and Practice. Written by Samiri Zimri. Translated by Oscar Renté." Talk about a real magical tradition by scholars for scholars.

"The beauty of these rites is that you cannot change them, but they can change you." I giggle at the utter truth of the words as I can finally place that Fibonacci style circle. It is canon, how come no one mentioned you need specific circles to me ever?

I guess it's a Termina thing and not a Funger 1 thing? I guess it's a good thing I didn't have any skin bibles?

"Erik? You losing you mind over there?" Marina quickly voices concern as I shake my head as I take the severed heads and bring them to the lip of the imperfect circle.

"No. Watch." Already a supernatural chill rolls over the room, Marina freezes as Daan rubs his own arm, Samarie cheekily gets cozier with Marina at her side.

"Unbearable Existence. The Suffering. The Agony." A still pool of blood fills the circle before a throne bound god rises.

"We play the secret song that echoes from within. The sound that is like razors through flesh."

"You who know me and seek my blessing with offerings already in hand. You need only ask, and thou shall receive." Like dirty dim amethysts they spit out broken soul stone shards I immediately set to locking them together. They eagerly join and meld with but the chance to connect and become whole.

"Thank you! We shall be seeing you again!" We are in business baby! We need to get some affinity and books, clear the town, execute someone keeping me from their power… My smile turns a tad frigid, as my focus returns.

I am still so far from complete. So far from power. I was overjoyed with fuel.

I need an engine.

"Well, I did always promise there was a method. It wasn't all madness." I speak softly as I rise and put the stones in my pocket.

"Well. I hope you will all come to recognize in time I can bring this all together." I hope, at least.

—

AN - Since the first run isn't really my end state of what is available and I'm not exactly tracking heads or soul stones, I decided to just have the pinecone pig hit its maximum roll, a ratling head. I think it should have a bit of aura as a treat. I also would the noble pinecone pig count as an ally for the journey into danmachi? I didn't list it since it's not quite an 'entity' but like, would it stop being magical or is it now 'inhabited' by the spirit of a pinecone pig or something?

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - I had my Finnish ww2 freaks mixed up. I thought the white death was some other guy. Aimo Koivunen took an entire squad's worth of meth in one go. Almost makes me curious about what an Electrochemistry maxxer would do in Termina.

It's wild to imagine that with a modest budget someone out there no diffs Termina with prep time, homemade explosives, and over the counter drugs of the WW2 era.

Anyway the tone is a tad scattered, but I am quite proud of it despite it.

Also I simulated the bookshelf rolls and gotta say, kind of peak.

—

Samarie

—
Day 1 Morning
Prehevil Old Town - Near the gate

Erik's mind is singular even amongst other scholars and priests.

When it catches detail, it doesn't index, or analyze.

Instinctually he cites, he brings contrasting or complementary fragments of other texts, experiences, thoughts.

It is almost intrusive sometimes.

But it is somewhat jarring to see him like this.

There were hints before, when he was at the Vatican he was more available. Now he thinks of death, of change, of management, and when he can't hold it all together he wavers and lapses since no one can be mentally prepared for challenge and on point to survive.

'Who the fuck. Pig Mask?... I can't remember this fucker. But a unique enemy is dangerous. We are at our collective weakest.'

Once again as I spy upon his mind, there is another stray thread. A question that is… Awkward.

Unique enemy… It's like he has categorized files in his head.

"It's time to bust out the big gun. Daan I trust you with the rifle. I will sling him after Pig Mask is dead. I will stow the rifle for like, a couple minutes I guess." Even as he alludes to later danger his mind always touches hints like he rubs the names of the file.

'The Tunnel.'

Always. He would always flicker to something.

When I confronted him about one time thinking about missing signs with a Sister he once had, something Marina pulled from his files. When I tried to fish about it later he said he only had a Brother!

I had almost wanted to warn Marina.

"Open fire." Erik calmly orders as he and Daan begin to attack the poisoner in the mask as we retreat.

The man loses his footing and is brought low but even then it isn't enough its not over.

"Hold fire. Keep the rifle handy in case of an ambush." Like moving down a list he ruthlessly tosses a few more stones from his sling until the fumigator stops crawling toward us.

"Cover me, I will double tap then we move onto the spoils."

Erik, is dangerous.

Marina might only see it now but he always has been dangerous.

When we knew him, he was restrained but something terrible happened. Something has changed. I know it has.

But what I can't place is how it happened so quickly, how he pushed himself to become a different person.

I have to just watch and think, and hope that it's enough.

It has to be enough to keep Marina safe.

There is no other option.

—

Marina

—
Day 1 Morning
Two Story House

"Not a bad find even if a skin bible would be really convenient to find right next to a circle." Erik comments, as he seems to have adopted the habit of 'communicating.'

Well that's not entirely true. He wasn't all that shy with commentary whenever Samarie tried to back track or overstep.

"What is a 'good find?' In this humdrum town most anything to get your mind away from Prehevil is worth its weight in gold, in my experience." It is rather notable actually. For the group to pause for a book, I just realized we only really stopped to rummage through crates, pockets, or like the river to talk strategy.

"Well it's 'The Experienced Level of Alchemy' is a little dense for a first pick up. But it talks about how to take methamphetamine mixing it with blue vial for a real fucking party. Also I can distill our blue vials into light blues now."

"Methan-what?" Erik has seemed rather handy with the herbs, but he didn't seem like much of a chemist to suddenly talk about their proper names.

"Pep Pills? Over the counter energy pills? It's Meth." Erik seems to think he is being clear, when it really isn't.

"Ok. So…? Some of the priests take them over coffee. I much prefer coffee, I like to think it empowers my own bitter and black heart." My joke seems to land true as Erik really truly smiles.

Despite being so gloomy, we really both share a flair for gallows humor.

"I don't settle for store bought darkness. I wouldn't sully my own perfect hatred with commercialism." Erik coolly closes the book and drops it in his bag as he left his silly cart upstairs.

"Gloomy, has anyone ever told you that you're an elitist?" My lips curl into a smile, before we both chuckle.

"You're both such children, I can't believe I am the only adult to wrangle you." Patches speaks up as he gleans the bookshelf and sighs.

"Oh yes, so sorry, speaking of serious business…" Erik's gaze flickers and darkens as he expression grows hard. "We are circling back to the train. Well, not completely but we are heading that general way. There is a notable threat. It has a very…" Erik pauses as he actually seems a tad lost on what to even say.

"It's going to attack us with his junk? What?" As I joke I can't help but still as Erik's face sours at that. "No, no, no! Erik! What the hell!"

"Termina is fundamentally unserious. I don't know what you want me to do about it!" Erik protests bringing a hand up to his face before blanching at the musty book smell, while Patches just closes his one good eye and sighs.

"Children."

—

Daan

Recommended listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ieNHByzhHs

—
Day 1 Morning
Woodsman's House

"Termina is upon us!"

Just as the kid said, there is a boney spider-like appendage down there.

As ridiculous as the things they say can be… Local omniscience is more than most snake oil salesmen ever achieve.

"Weapons at hand when the parasite attacks, protecting your face is your own responsibility, you don't want someone else trying to swing at you." It's not complicated, but restating the plan makes it present in everyone's mind and sets everyone sights on the mutual threat.

Perhaps it's better than way.

As Erik once again lets stones fly, reducing himself to a simple reliable weapon, I aim the rifle once more.

I once used to feel excited about seeing such things.

What foolishness, I suppose with the childish antics so fresh in my mind I can't help but wonder if a fascination with violence or darkness is natural.

After the first shot slams into the woodsman's shoulder as he flinches at the thunder of the shot, racking the action back the casing sings as it dances to the side, as the bolt pushes the next round in I aim quickly and the second round blows off his hatchet hand at the wrist.

"Brace!" Erik calls out as the thing around the man's unmentionables unlatches and skitters toward us. Lifting the butt of the rifle I prepare to smack it away, as everyone prepares to intercept a leap.

Erik's reverse grip knife catches the creature in the air as he stakes it to the ground as it writhes. With a visceral crunch he steps down flattening half of it. Breathing a sigh of relief Erik steps back and tenses at the sight of the woodsman approaching.

Erik pulls a sickle from one of the fallen villagers, as the woodsman raises his fist, Erik is faster.

Before the fist falls he side steps and hacks at the woodsman's arm as he carefully paces over the lush ground.

"Save the rifle ammo." Erik calls out coldly as his eyes take on a detached harsh quality.

He shoulders the emotions and puts them away, a dangerous habit to cut off the feelings.

A coldness not matched by a somewhat pale looking Marina.

"D-don't you fucking!" Thin lady has a surprising strength as she wields a pipe and bludgeon's the charging man's brow.

Erik and Samarie take him down as Marina looks down at the bleeding man.

"Old geezer… What happened to his nagging old wife. Erik, did something happen to her? This guy… He would take anything she doled out… How did he snap…"

Erik's mouth twitches at the corners as he has an eerie almost fae expression. "Terimina… Is fundamentally unserious and lets leave it at that." Erik sends a strange look to the goat gnawing cud near the porch.

"Erik! Now is not the time for a joke! Did the cock monster?... Make him go nuts? Kill half the town."

"Marina… He… Was unfortunately a cuckold." With a pointed look he looks back at the goat…

"Erik! D-don't joke about that."

As he steps in the building he leads us down to the basement and there in the dark the old biddy Marina knew is dead slumped near a magic circle making my back tense as I swallow what feelings a sight like this evokes from memory.

Erik hands a paper next to the corpse flicks over it and hands it to Marina as she groans "Nooooo, no fucking way. 'The beast took my wife.' Erik, Prehevil is a backwards shit hole but really?"

"Well. By an alignment of fate, the Rher skin bible is right fucking here. Makes sense I guess the blood is certainly alluding to what this adulterer was doing. Grogoroth being here too is icing on the cake."

With the book in one hand Erik copies the blood smear symbol and makes it complete with white chalk.

"Join hands, we step into another world. Daan, this is a moment for you to glean more about the truth of this world." As my hands join with Erik's and Marina's my expression flickers as the world has changed.

Wooden and dim like the damn dream.

Erik leads on and as we enter a hall a man enshrouded in black with an hat with a feather in it calls out

"Another one heeds my call... Just remember that you came to me, not the vice versa… What a crowd as well, what is it you seek naive ones."

"Daan. This is the witness." A grounding hand comes to shake my arm and pull me forward Erik looks at me expectantly as if I had been preparing since his off handed comment.

"So, you are someone that can confirm the existence of 'Sulfur.'"

With a melodious dark chuckle the man turns to look head on at me "I stood next to your celebrated Christ, Alll-mer the Ascended One. He cleaved the macabre being from the depths of his own mind, in his own image. To confront the 'imperfection' of his essence. The 'ascended one' became two." With a bright grin breaking the darkness the Man in Black chuckles. "Only it was not two gods that mankind yearned for, now was it?"

"What is it then? Because it was evil it had to be destroyed? The God of Human Evil?" My chest thrums in my chest, I had hoped that I could be a rationalist.

I had been extended a hand where I didn't need to tend to the ails of whores and gangsters in Rondon, yet in my weakness I had always turned back to the Gods.

In the war I cut the bodies and sacrificed to return my squad to health.

I had always tried to escape Sylvian who took my parents, always tried to move beyond that damn cat…

"For 'Purity' and 'Absolution' why what choice did he have? Cast away deep, all the way down to the sulfuric pits. Or so we think. I wonder which half of the mirror was stronger? Perhaps the hubris of Alll-mer cast down his better half? Perhaps not."

"So what the one we call Alll-mer is the fake? What? How could that be when Sulfur is 'so obscure' only you and this fucker seem to know of it." Pushing a finger to Erik I grimace, despite my flare up of a temper I realize…

I had sought out this city.

Damn fool, what a foolish wish to understand the symbol. I push my hand into my face.

Mystic deities, an unknown god which mirrors Christ, unholy rituals of death and madness.

All these things are seemingly coherent, but he was being fed nuggets to some 'divine dilemma' for what?

The hell would the answer even mean if he had it? To come merely this far hadn't he already become a mirror to Einer Von Dutch?

How many had Erik ordered dead.

How many heads had he run the saw over until the grinding ended in a wet snap.

"Tell me O' Curious one. Do you believe in the pitch black darkness?"

"Believe? It always seems to be waiting to swallow me up. Any light that distracts me from that seems to be only a cruel whim of fate to accentuate the depths that a human can sink too."

The Man in Black smiles "The true darkness is a rare gift... The saying goes: There is no light without it casting a shadow. Good on one hand and evil on the other. Good can come from bad places, just as bad can come from the good. A constant struggle. A game even."

I laugh. I can't help but feel as though I am surrounded by madmen who speak the same language. Truly.

"Personally, I think any being which makes the circumstances of my life a game…" My words falter, to think anything about me, my life is fun or funny.

Then I think of Erik and Marina joking.

Perhaps the Gods, outsiders, are truly as innocent as they can be.

To laugh, to play with this darkness.

"Marvelous, truly. Maybe my time has come to lend a sword once again. I will aid you in your quest. See you soon." The Man in Black flickers leaving me feeling utterly hollow.

—
Recommended listening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3QNCninDi0
—-
Day 1 Morning
Hatch in the woods

"Have the rifle handy, feel free to spend all the ammo." Erik takes out a pistol now too. With the woodsman's axe now both of the women are prepared for combat.

"Oh spells too. We are running into one of the first real challenges, I think."

I can't help but sigh at how terrible some of the implications the things this kid says are "Erik, you really don't sugarcoat things do you?"

Stiffening, acting almost like a cat he puffs up slightly "I would be so pissed…" Erik can't even seem to finish as he sends a piercing look to me. "I wouldn't like it if my allies didn't emphasize the risk of a Sulfur cultist… Daan this is a person who died in combat and was soul tortured into a super human. I am not 'glazing' them or refusing to frame things so they are palatable. We are getting into fights to the death here."

Glazing, an evocative word, but I have the sense he isn't using it as a replacement for 'sugar coating.'

Just a sense I get from his tone.

"Erik about this shelter, with you knowing so much… Was this always here?" Marina speaks up as Erik hides the cart near a bush and the hatch creaks as he cranks it open.

"Uhhh maybe… Not my strongest suit, it has to do with the Logic Project. So it probably started before the war? I don't exactly have a timeline on things but it is definitely contemporary with our lifetime. A woman around Daan and our age range is in the final bunker, where Logic is all set up? The woman with red shoes. We got visions of her because she is a God or becoming one? Temporal nonsense God stuff?"

Really fucking terrible implications.

"I for one would like to climb down into another terrible pit and put another terrible bloody step behind us." As I step onto the rungs of the ladder I can't help but feel a tad foolish.

Escaping darkness by trying to find a fight in a bunker, a foolish hope.

As we step down the hall eventually we hear the tell tale sound of a bonesaw. We are all a little too familiar by this point.

Erik steps forward and with a mercy shot puts a bullet into the head of a man held in the torturous grasp of a clown?

With a mad chuckle the clown wags a finger as he hums "La da~ da da~"

As I raise my rifle I tense as the face is eerie like a man I recognize, my mind must be playing dirty tricks on me, looking for patterns where there are none-

But the clown looks right in my eyes before his face curdles and becomes serious as he cracks a whip made of needles in the air and walks toward us.

"Let him have it! Don't hold back!" Erik calls out to the group. Grounded by necessity I pull the trigger even as my aim tremors faintly.

As the bullet digs into his pectoral, I blink as the doctor within me immediately diagnoses how tough his muscles would have to be for the bullet to be visible buried in the wound.

'That…'

I shake off the thought after realizing there is little point to examination now.

As Einer-Clown approaches Erik rapidly empties the pistol magazine at his legs. Slowing him down as he takes a knee briefly.

"Magic!" Erik calls the order as he holsters the luger and draws a hand axe while his free hand begins to gesture following after the girls.

The Maniac clown laughs, he seems utterly disconnected from the pain he ought to be feeling as fire runs up his loose clothes, as a glassy ripple passes I blink as his shoulder is blown off the needle whip clattering as in response he pulls out a Browning High-power.

I duck into the doorway to a locker room as a shot rips into my shoulder as he similarly lets loose a barrage from his gun.

"Other arm!" Erik organizes our focus, I stabilize the rifle against the door frame and fire his forearm isn't as tough or there is less muscle there as flame blooms and rolls over his shoulder taking out his other arm.

"Kill, go for the kill!" A chill goes through me as my gaze darkens and lowers as twist and turn the bolt of the action as Erik moves forward to swing and hack at the collar while Samarie bats his brown with a concussive blow as the clown is ganged up on.

"Mother fucker. Stay fucking down." Even as he falls forward into a pool of blood adrenaline has gotten to Erik as he kicks the body, despite how sickening the sight I can't help but compare how the leather skin resists his kicks and how the heavy corpse limply shifts.

The burning ache of my shoulder pulls at my attention, but I over rule it.

As I step forward and pull the man's face up, paint smeared and blood dabbled.

I stare as if hoping to find flaws, some way I could dispel the notion that this was real.

That a man could die twice-

That… That…

"Hey Daan, you uh. Don't need to get this one. Why don't you take a breather? Take care of that wound."

That. That's what passes for mercy around here huh.

As I light up a smoke and walk over to the lockers just to stay within earshot just in case, the creaking of groaning bone is eventually joined by Erik's voice.

"Ugh gross gross gross…"

Children. I am surrounded by children and madness.

—

AN - Daan is really going through it. Also I thought the gun Needles had was a glock but there is a post from Miro about it being an old browning? I kind of liked the anachronism of Needles having a 'blicky.'

I would say sorry about the tonal whiplash, but like Termina is just like that?... I mean I guess Danmachi also bounces between grimdark and titties. It is what it is?

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - I am updating the post of Erik's art now my Brother has art socials and stuff! Please check it out.

Speaking of Brother, he threatened to watch Danmachi the anime with me as something we could do. I felt the full 5 or whatever seasons were a bit too much and probably… Not good?

But I heard about Sword Oratorio as like other perspective stuff and I didn't know about it so we gave that a try. The group watch only survived two episodes.

His review "It is like sparkling water. It is for exactly 10 people and I'm not one of them." When I asked for clarification he chickened out with a "If you know you know."

My review? Degen core vibe. Real "Dad walks in" joke energy, with Tione getting tongue bondage, and Loki being Loki, plus general fan service. It seems rather confused on what audience it's for… It's so oddly paced, and about Lefiya's growth? She seems like our POV character. Personally I would be pissed at her. WIth the first scene it is some people's job to just tank and by time with a big shield or two shields, that time/effort being wasted because 'uwaaa im scared eto bleh.' Would have me acting like Bete aka an asshole.

Which like, I think is justified if I am talking to a level 3, even if her age means like she is 15 like Bell.

Anway. Mentioned it in thread, but there really ought to be a party limit. There was some talk about 'why not expand the party past the arbitrary for man limit.' Hubris of 5 fucking people means a chapter like this gets sacrificed to trying to set tone for Abella, and its nuts.

I'm starting out this chapter with something that may need a bit of context. Back when the League of Legends card game came out (The first one oh god there's 2 now.) An utterly backwards play was discussed in a discord call as we played, between me and my brother or in a rotating 3 person match with another friend. That leads to a sort of private joke or meme 'Play like a human being.'

Termina being 'Fundamentally Unserious' and repeating this idea is basically carrying forward that spirit and the joke that followed up 'Play like a human' which was 'Jokes are scary.'
When I mentioned this joke phrase of reacting to cosmic absurdity, my brother actually caught on without me even needing to mention 'Play like a human being.' I am a little impressed since we haven't even played LoR in forever…

Also I feel my eyes are more open to whimsy with the past few chapters. There are some lovely interactions with Marcoh and Abella in the sewers, and Marina and Abella around the ice cream store I might work in if I can get the timing right. Marina is particularly 'unserious' she also plays with an echo in the sewers, personally I'd be a little grossed out to play along.

Also Marcoh liking frogs, not quite whimsy. But cute? Still notable, perhaps something to use.

Huh, I guess I am surprised by gaining a stronger appreciation for Funger by building with it.

—
Day 1 Morning
Tunnel 7

"What the hell has happened here?" I can't help but laugh as Abella walked in on the bloody, scorch marked hallway with two decapitated corpses.

"W-well I know this looks bad. Should I even say 'this isn't what it looks like?" As I am laughing my face turns redder than perhaps it had ever gotten in two lifetimes. It's oddly embarrassing to be in this situation.

It's so fucked up I am wired to be more vulnerable to social shame than occult bloody murder. Oh my god, if I pick up Nas'hrah I would get fucking *roasted for this shit.

"Kid, I can't even tell what this is *supposed to look like." Oh my god, I am fucking feeling lightheaded. How long has it been… How long has it been since I had laughed like this?

"Erik! What the fuck-are you crying?" Marina finally steps up as I fight to breathe.

"Marina, this Termina shit, I can't. How is it fundamentally unserious?" Years, oh god years ago I languished and pushed myself to be as poised and prepared as possible. How can it be… Funny?

God, am I fucking tweaking? 'Play like a fucking human being.'

"Uhm. This guy killed Tanaka, that's the name of the businessman." Despite forcing myself to regulate, breathless and woozy my words are rather clumsy as I gather myself.

"Okay… And why are all four of you here?" Abella seems to cast a glance around the austere bunker. "What is this place anyway?"

Well isn't that a puzzle. How on my side is she? Vaguely aligned I guess insofar as we resist Kaiser? She might be a bit more of a moralist though. She is like invested in this shit.

"The woman with red shoes." The core of any alliance we have, is her. "She is deeper in the city, the project, Logic is locked up tight, bunkers like this one will open the way, once we are deeper in the city."

I kind of had a plan in the abstract that Daan could be pulled onside, Abella I hadn't really put that much thought into.

"That's rather pointed kid." Abella seems to waver, as I had been a little too spot on perhaps. I could have approached more gently perhaps, locking on to the woman trapped in the White Bunker was perhaps jumping ahead a few steps.

"Erik is just like that recently." Marina casually almost dismisses how absurd things are around me. "He knows, or well a God told him the future." Well I guess we had been acting on lots of information. I can see why she might think or say that. But man, what terrible opsec.

If we were in the kind of Danganronpa death game where keeping your cards close to your chest meant living or dying, our asses are cooked.

"The… Future?" She seems to double take at the absurd claim. "How does someone who can see the future even end up on the train? Why did you even walk into this tunnel with all this!" Abella doesn't get heated but her incredulous reaction certainly reminds me of her griping about the train magically shutting down, which actually is fairly valid.

Not just about the magical train issues, I love making angsty tabletop characters, for the same reason. Character motivation to my mind should skew towards the gritty or dark.

No well adjusted, happy person signs up to die getting eaten by giant slimes.

Or at least that's the meme version of my beliefs.

"Kaiser might win had I been less motivated. Kaiser waits just before the final room of my 'future vision' waiting just before we can meet the woman with red shoes." After a brief lapse I reconsider how much to bare personally. "And let's just say I have a grudge with Kaiser."

No need to get into it. Ancient blood feuds are a bit much for introductions, well I suppose things could be worse around Prehevil.

"Alright, let's say you are some kind of prophet, and this isn't just… The stuff of bed time stories… What's something only someone from the future could tell me?" Abella seems to weigh the information cautiously despite how well we fumbled handling it.

"You're a rebel, part of the NLU. So is the red shoe girl, obviously. I intend to check out an NLU base in the city. But before I open the gate I want to be careful and handle things like this tunnel and take stray valuables." As Abella purses her lips and begins to digest that Marina laughs.

"Magic secrets, monsters, actual real life lady spies. You have been holding out on me!" Marina playfully accuses me, which I mean I guess she had a real sense of whimsy.

I guess when she decided to come along she did cite curiosity.

"Romantic as that maybe… Let's for the sake of argument say he didn't need some mystic power to do that. He could have gotten a hold of the right person to interrogate or something." While Daan is recalcitrant and 'anti magic' that comes from a place of personal anguish.

Abella however is firm in her beliefs. A zealot of 'Logic?'

No more a lay worshipper, Karin strikes me more as the Zealot.

"Erik the Pinecone!" Samarie, having finally checked over her pockets after the adrenaline had worn off. She points out the doorway where Daan went to take his break.

I crack up laughing again as the fucking Pinecone Pig is standing next to an egg.

"It's so dramatic! What are you a proud Mother or something?" Honestly, the presentation of Pinecone Pig loot drops is a 10 out of 10.

Restored my mind, fed my family, and watered my herbs.

Stowing the egg I hand the Pig back to Samarie and turning back to Abella I can see her lips have thinned as she is trying to interpret what even just happened.

"I will spell it out for your benefit. Pinecone Pig is the greatest of all time, or GOAT for short. They just like, show up and give us things. It's awesome." I can't help but quirk up my lips with a faint expression of amusement.

How amusing, the moment where I wavered on the train I would never have imagined this look on my face, perhaps excluding grim satisfaction I suppose.

I guess I wasn't wrong to have very dim expectations. But continuously as I walk this path, I can't help but keep feeling like… I am stumbling on things I didn't anticipate.

It keeps itching in the back of my skull, this idea that my expectations are kind of… Out of wack.

Daan also regrets his choice of shoe. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess even dedicated preparation can only be so 'methodical.'

Maybe, the problem is my point of reference for competence is regressors or transmigrators with writer/god given perfect knowledge not just of the lay of the land but also key events and items.

In essence a cheat, that unlocks other cheats.

"The pinecone… Gives you things." Abella's expression is faintly sour as if the sheer ludicrousness of the premise of a magical pinecone pig was a bridge too far.

"Yeah, you happened to waltz up to a party of 3 mages and the doctor we happen to be re-traumatizing. If you want to see for yourself some magic, or what's at the bottom of this bunker I guess you are free to. I wouldn't mind you as an extra hand or as someone who can handle improving or maintaining gear for us."

Things that don't matter in a game well, obviously matter. Trading food or something to keep our gear in top share or even improved would be valuable.

"Join?" Abella, glances back to the bodies before sighing. "Just to meet the red shoe girl? And what assassinate Kaiser? Supposing he really is blocking the way to her?"

Oh yeah. I did sort of, if not imply, include that information he is a part of the scheme.

Killing a head of state is usually an issue huh.

"Well, suppose he isn't quite human anymore. Would that make it more palatable?" How to explain the New Gods? Man it isn't exclusive to Le'garde but it is quite the verbal boss fight where you need to educate people on what a New God even is to discuss someone's true plans. "There is a kind of 'false divinity' humans can reach. If you come along you will see me summon one of them, as well as show you the world of our shared dream on the train."

"Well. I suppose if I had ordinary aspirations. I would have listened, and waited, and never had come to this strange place." It's a not quite grudging admittance. "Although I am little leery since I happen to see you…" She nods to the bodies "but I also have to admit that my usual impulse to see something wrong and fix it isn't enough. From our talk I have the feeling it is quite the task to even understand the 'dynamics' of the problems around here."

I guess it's just their own way of working through things. A kind of established internal order where bloody occult murder can slide if it is dressed the right way.

How terrible. I am under no delusions about how fucked I am. The world is just like this.

Rationalizing feels hazardous to me…

Well, maybe coping is a short term buff long term debuff.

Guess we will see if she cracks in 3 days?

Maybe not, I would rather not cut it that close. But between extra adventures like giving the lake shanty a look over. Well being 'completionist' is to my benefit for what scheme I will be enlisted to after this.

Abellaa joins us as Daan rests while we toss the bunker, where we notably find a fucking trench gun and a rat idol. There was also a ballistic shield and a copy of Karin's article laying around but the shotgun in game 2 tapped anything.

The rat figuring paired with my engraving makes me fast enough to get 'extra turns.' Which means I am twice as fast as anything else in the city now?

Either way now all the shit a Dungeon Master would hand waive is physically done, though now I just bothered the shit out of myself at the idea I will be missing things on failed 'perception rolls.'

It is bad out here, why do I have to be on my own case to be extra precious about searching boxes. 'Just don't overlook anything ever.'

Whyyyyyyyy, why would you think that?

With a now lowered mood I huff "Daan get up it is time to get a move on, there is another circle down there."

"By the way I have been meaning to ask Erik, what is up with the Rher symbol? From accounts from occultists, it usually doesn't… Teleport humans to another realm."

Well, that's something. "Huh. Well the way I see it, either it's the festival or the Logic Project. Or well it can be the most fucked version and be somehow both?"

"What if you needed to banish the other worldly during a Termina festival?" Is that what it does? Huh. File that away for later.

As we chat and finally approach the Logic Console to Daan and Abella I nod my head "Look." As not only is the computer there, but the blue glowing hazy moths flicker and disappear.

"A guiding hand." I announce as I begin to figure out how to connect this thing to Logic.

It's utterly archaic, a text prompt, in stark white text on a black screen.

Tapping in a help into the device. From there I have to type in DIR, for directory then I can browse what is stored locally, as seemingly it isn't connect to the mainframe.

Makes sense since Logic is the central… Computer? Hub? Server?

"Quite handy with computers." Abella comments, perhaps as she notes how I seem to handle it just as well as she might. Or more so, if she is more educated toward the standard problem of the day and not say a mind tapped for research in the NLU.

"Yeah I have fortunately used one before, but this is military or some kind of technical government project." I nod to the utterly absurd cable gore that leads to and away from the White Bunker presumably.

It's an almost comical sight, two top mounted cables yellow and red disappear down into a mess of grey, two big cage like plugs, then the two massive pipes surrounding it all.

It looks almost shabby, but perhaps this is what divinity looks like on a metered connection, or maybe it looks so bulky and haphazard since they wanted to avoid having a metered connection.

Flicking open files I can't help but chuckle, "sabotage." I announce to the group as the local files have all been edited to be various insults to a theoretical Bremen reader.

"Marina, check this one out. 'Prizes for the 1942 Bremen Joke Contest. First prize: Five years in prison. Second prize: Three years in concentration camp. Third prize: The state will visit your house to personally congratulate you." The blatant insults in some of them were funny, but the ridicule on screen. It makes me miss slander and agenda so bad.

"People will naturally resist oppression, no matter where we come from." Abella coolly comments with a wry smirk. "We are lucky the people who feel most stifled or oppressed are brilliant and charming."

"And humble." I chuckle as the machinery next to us lets out a sharp electric buzzer like hum before the motor-like sound next to us kicks online.

The now in lore 'unusual' Rher symbol, takes us to the Other World once again

Now with Abella in tow to react. "What… Where are we… Is it oddly hot in here?"

Not the most important bit of information to note, then again my first thoughts were what. A description of a mental sphere I faintly recall. Obsessing over the very fine details which aren't relevant.

"Step out of the closet and look." There was a demon kid looking face with horns for eyes, it was swallowing a pulsing intestine, though now that I think of it, it is rather phallic considering it has what seems like a flesh pipe in its mouth. Yuck.

"What…" as Abella processes how fucked things are I nod grimly.

"Yeah, the 'gas leak' theory ain't long for this world." Perhaps I ought to be excessively clear. "What gas leak affects you on command, every time you use a magic circle, that gives you the same vision every time, oh and you can find other things that don't disappear after you bring them back?"

If it quacks, and sheds water like reality, it might as well be reality.

But distraction comes easily enough as a short distance from the portal is a threat.

I hold out a hand pausing as I see a head nestled in a mound of dirt.

"Ronteals. A rather common threat here. I think their arms are blades." I pause as I assess the group, considering we are all in relatively good health and we massively outnumber I doubt we need guns to take initiative. "If we have space I guess we can give ground, if it targets you cautiously move back. I take the stance that it's better safe than sorry."

Ronteals I know from lore, not gameplay.

Loading the sling, I always take free damage. I am not too prideful to take any enemy lightly. Before the monster erupts from the earth like a dolphin diving from the surface I nail its still head with a stone that leaves an almost deeper brown pockmark as its head splits in half with a monstrous gurgle.

With strange dexterity those scything execution blades that threatened prisoners trapped against a table. Pendulum-like movements ambles forward trying to reap bodies, as it doesn't even seem to have joints, or at least limits to dexterity like humans have.

With just an engraving I had noticed I had been beating enemies to the punch, before I was relatively quick anyway but with a new trinket I find myself twice over empowered to be faster.

Feeling no need to hurry into melee, with 4 other combatants the fray is already chaotic, but my calculations were a bit off.

I had only fought one supernaturally tough enemy and respected him enough to use rifles, pistols, and magic all.

For Ronteals it perhaps wasn't boss monster tier in health, but even armless and headless it doesn't go down.

"When it falls, beat it's body. No resurrections." Measure twice and cut once. A professional doesn't do the same job twice.

Still, it does fall. As I collect stray sling stones I turn to Daan "can you provide a medical opinion on these things?"

With an idle kick he shifts the strangely limp noodly body. "Brunt, a common theme it seems, yet supple? It's odd, hollow. Like a rotten half eaten sack of potatoes. Not sure what else I can say. It seems more like a mannequin than a person."

As I pick up stones one of them rolled into the muddy recess of the Ronteal, as I knelt at the hollow, not only do I grunt at the rotting scent which is concentrated, there is a dim brown luster I see reflecting at me.

Taking my gloves out I push the yielding ground aside and pull a curious brown orb.

"Marina occult analysis?" Not only was it found in another dimension, it has a vibe. It sort of just gives off an impression I can't quite place.

While the Gods felt like pressure, I'm not strained by this thing. It's a mere presence without a feeling like I need to fight it to keep lucid.

"It's pretty. Reminds me of a pearl." Marina has a wicked glint in her eye as she mimics adjusting a monocle.

Well, that was particularly unhelpful.

Sadly the world of Funger is often like that. You get a surface level look, or at best a hazy inference or theory.

Like, the Sun God, we have no idea what's up with them? Its name is probably Amon if the city of Amon is any indication.

"Yeah. That tracks." As much as it frustrates me, I have to force myself to focus on other things. Maybe add these things to my New God question list. "These things are tough enough we fight them for a little bit. Marina and I will swap off pyromancy at the start of every fight. Let them burn for a little as we handle their arms."

After fighting through to a ladder room Abella gasps as rising from the dark depths that seem almost endless below are these pillars with human-like arms peeking from the boards.

"What the… What is that…" Abella looks stricken, the imagery perhaps more striking to her than the flesh tubes, horrific rather than gross? God I hate that I need to interpret that distinction.

"Well Logic is made to house the human collective consciousness. From that consensus it… Does something?... Like the tubes the arm pillars are representative I guess? It is like a low fidelity camera though. You see their fingers?" It is curious. To my mind it obviously recalls AI image gaffs, but I think the most apt description is how low fidelity copies show up in the backrooms.

"So it's people getting shoved in trying to escape?" Abella asks and I realize the… I hadn't ever felt it gave voice to the great hope invested in the project due to my own skepticism.

With an odd melancholy I look at Abella straight on with emphasis. "No… This is the architecture of salvation."

—

AN - Abella has a moment with Karin in Rher's realm where she can rationalize the 'gas leak' answer, even if she comments her imagination was going other places. I think she prefers logical answers, but can accept and conceptualize the freaky?

Rolled a fucking 98 on a chest roll the top 3 possible results are the lighter, shotgun shells, then finally the shot gun at a .6% chance each. Between shells the sexier option is the gun.

The NLU terminal joke is ripped from a real 'Whisper Joke' aka Flüsterwitze. With some minor editing, like removing the location of Dachau since the context of that specific concentration camp is probably obscure unless you are the type to visit holocaust memorials on holiday. Kind of neat to think about how Berlin is remarked on in some of the jokes, the past is another country as they say.

Oh and the Rher symbol, ehhh lore stuff is rather scarce pre-update so I went and implied an eclipse talisman association thing I heard once. Either Marina is wrong or this is an AU. TLDR the Moon can be interpreted as watching over humanity not just as a bastard but as a referee for other lovecrafts.

 

[JustPlainEdgy]

AN - Was just reading up on Pav and he chastises Levi for leaving boots behind for sneakers. Like what? I mean I am also a practical guy, but like Pav, you go around almost bare chested. Really peculiar line in the sand.

I recall seeing a bluesky post on Pav mods, and that Miro would like him not to be white washed just by being an ally.

Being problematic is core to him, by design.

Anyway I called myself out by saying I would have a submissive soul. I have to own it even if I don't really like talking about myself.

Also Mind Read text is blue now like in the game. To separate outside thoughts from inside thoughts.

—
Day 1 Morning
Tunnel 7 Ladder Hatch

'Oh yeah forgot about that'

Yeah. Very convenient to forget about getting held at gun point by evil twinks.

Pav aims a luger at me, mildly distracting me from his rumpled pulled open not quite bare chested Bremen uniform.

The man's cleavage is a little distracting, at least for the fact he is walking around. PREHEVIL like a goddamn male stripper.

How does he even get to Kaiser looking like this? Not to slut shame but is he seriously that skilled?

"Oooh~ You made it out alive. Good boy. My~ what an absolutely darling blush." His words are utterly coy, as they are artificially sweet as saccharine.

So embarrassing. I don't flinch at bloody fucking murder, but soldier boy gets under my skin.

There is no point even engaging with this shit.

"Pav, you got a score to settle with Kaiser right? Your grudge ain't the only one he has accrued in his long life. My Dad and I have almost the same burden as you. Kaiser killed our ancestor's home and razed it for a magic box."

"Oh? How very familiar, and curious. I can believe it, I suppose, but for the life of me… I can't recall asking, and last I checked I was the one with the gun." With an obvious smirk he flourishes the luger, like he is fucking Revolver Ocelot.

"Guess I am in the habit of collecting help. Supposing, they don't put lead in me." Abella is pretty unproblematic, but then again I wouldn't mind having this guy help in the bunker since… I mean not in a mean way, what does this guy have to live for otherwise?

"Oh, please. I can behave." With a faint smile he rolls his eyes, gun still leveled at me. "If I wanted you dead at the time, you'd still be in your deep slumber. But you're not, and I must admit you are far more than you appear aren't you."

Pav's gaze changes, something deeper was in there as he seems to finally really look at me as he scans me.

Trying to find confirmation, or find something that doesn't click or mesh?

"You can't kill Kaiser alone, he is a New God. A being of fucking arcane. A simple execution isn't enough. My Dad and I split up because not only is he difficult to kill, he has used sorcery to bind his life to an item or place."

"What tripe, you haven't seem to have woken up, still lost in the delusions from the train. You can't possibly believe the propaganda they feed the Bremen sheep… What would he even need an army for? A God? Seriously?" Pav's grin grows ear to ear as he clutches his own face.

Really fucking eerie. It sparks a faint memory, that one of his skills is 'Bury the Trauma' or something.

"There is his fucking elite troops. You have to admit that if he has Midnight Suns or whatever they are called you would need a hand?" Saying it like that makes me think of those Warhammer army factions, Emperor's Sons? Something like that.

"You know what, I will let you live and think about your offer since I am in such a swell mood. I just got out of the army. I need some alone time." The musical teasing of his voice ebbs as he seems. "See you around. Should you continue to impress me of course."

As he backs towards the tree line he keeps his gun pointed at me. What a dick.

"Y'all can come up now." I think on reflection. The two world events Pav have included him pointing that pistol at people. I wonder if there will be any ripples to trying to recruit him.

It is a very real question, Pav is kind of a blank canvas for the most part.

As Marina comes up last, purposefully so because well, skirt. "Erik did you really blush?" And of course she has to hone in on that.

Well Ralsei said it best for submissive boys everywhere to Flowery. "It is super context dependent! Drop it. Why are you even asking? Looking for a flower for each hand?" Ugh now those threesome Levi, Samarie, and Marina posts have so much more power in my head.

Fucking Prehevil.

—
Samarie

—
Day 1 Morning
Broken Shack

Erik has put the idea in my head, but I didn't see it until just now.

I was afraid Marina would see him in that light wasn't I?

Steadfast, committed, dedicated…

Bleeding himself until his head is faint in the very same ritual circle he sacrificed a goat to Grogoroth.

I feel clammy as I think of all those who resisted the Elder Priests, those who quailed and recoiled in the Ninth Circle.

Those like me who shut down, grit teeth and bare it because they must.

Erik is driven to use that very same, metaphorically, blood spilling literal self destruction.

Because he is like a character from a book, almost like the Gods, he is some sort of idealized person, or he is pushing himself to be like that.

Now… now there is a gulf from how understood Alll-mer's perfected humanity, and… and my perspective now.

There is something I can't name, perhaps it has to do with the suffering of Alll-mer and the fabled Inverse Crown of Thorns.

Those who sought the ultimate spell, wanted to understand Erik, his world, his perspective.

'Her face has paled, did she never imagine I would use Bloodletting?'

I almost choke at the thought.

Erik… Can pull context, hold so much in his mind. But beyond his context is darkness.

"Erik, the ritual should be complete. That's all." I mumble as I reach out to Marina.

I want to feel grounded, I want to feel ok.

But I am still reeling in my mind, trying to push toward my own purpose.

If Erik is a protagonist in some way… What do I need to become?

—
Erik

—
Day 1 Morning
Mayor's Manor

The bullets are running dry, soon the rifle will spit lint and a moth will fly out of the bolt the next time we reload it.

Progress is good, but I am pretty damn sure a priest can chase you around here… Oh I forgot the butler, what's that guy's deal?

What the hell would I even ask that weirdo? I don't even know how to interface with the butler. Is he even in the know, he shows up to play a role for a Moonscorch? Why?

The museum has shit going on, and a high society that is read in on magic… Him being a servant to them, esoteric high society creeps, makes sense!

What is the point of giving the 'new mayor' a servant to compliment him.

There is simply too much going on for one man to distill or squeeze value out of. If he really is just a butler at most he says he is taking orders from someone else to do it. That makes his actions not even his own, a mere proxy.

Ugh, fighting priests is so much simpler, if I can't shoot the bastard I might as well crush glass and throw glass powder in his face.

I take out my gloves, then prepare what glass I have collected from the nearby houses, then pour the powder in separate pouches…

You know… I must be approaching the point where I stopped playing the game.

I have reaped the shanty town, perhaps there is a lake side visit for me, but this marbled and well structured manor nestled in between the squalor of the hovels, and white walled homes.

This pearl of culture in the muck just might be among the last places I explore while I am at my weakest. The end of the 'early game.'

As I enter the receiving area, it's empty. No butler.

Huh.

Without resistance I began to explore the books of the library.

Starting with the closest book shelf I scan and flip open unlabeled books for skin bibles.

The first notable tome is oddly a book about Prehevil.

'There has been settlement here for as long as the history books cover the area. It has always centered around the mysterious Hollow Tower that works as the central pillar of the community. The city flourished during the cruel age in the 1600s, but it quickly fell from prominence the closer we got to the modern times.'

Hollow Tower. I hadn't had a name for it before.

Nas'hrah would be really useful to have around for the context for the sheer scale of time of what this tower looms over.

'While the churches look to be dedicated to our one true god Alll-mer from the outside, insides tell a whole different story. Ancient gods without name in any known language still linger in those crypts. And why wouldn't they? You can hear the priests chant their masses in the moonlit alleys during the dead of the night. The whole wicked city is a playground for the ancient beings and the people living there offer themselves to the first taker without second thought.'

How did the author know this? Survive knowing this. How strange.

Also, does that last line mean Prehevil women were 'easy?' Damn, what the fuck is this town.

I move onto the next book, having to be satisfied with a glimpse of another life. I shouldn't waste time seeing if the Author kissed and told.

'Who of us doesn't cover their true face and hide behind a persona? In the broad daylight we adopt a social role depending on the surrounding people.'

A boring platform to discuss Rher and the Freudian shadow, persona concepts. Next.

'The Book of Fears.'

Ugh this thing was made to explain the pause menu phobias? A mere clinical text that describes mental issues and how to identify them.

There is a contemporary newspaper dated September 17, 1942.

'The formation of 'The Marching Men of the Nights Day' marked the day Europa officially jumped the shark.'

Is the fucking… Happy Days? A TV show here? Is the Fonzie? In Funger?

Also fuck, the modern military is the Nights Day, Midnight Sun was Le'garde's off brand band of the hawk. I got them mixed up.

I refold the pop culture flashbang and drop it in my cart, might as well help myself.

The final shelf has a town notice tucked in a book as a bookmark.

It is the one with Per'kle's face, the man from the dreams reference image thing.

The selection here is rather lackluster. I would love to read the occult manual front to back, also the skin bibles are as close to a word of God on the subject of the Gods I will get, after all Enki wrote them. But time in the day is quite the resource.

That consideration is why I chose the humble sling. Even if I could fletch, that is a time commitment to gather wood, carve, tip the shafts, everything. Compared to, throw a rock at them, pick up a new rock.

I hope I do get to read the books in the cart, and well that having a cart and collecting things matter.

It is a form of preparation I can do, but unlike skills or magic, items being taken feels a little more hopeful.

As a Dungeon Master, I would be happy if a player tried to answer a prompt I hand out so I think I deserve nice things, also I would be mad at myself for not trying after the fact. So I just have to be diligent when the object is muddled despite how absurd life is lately.

That being said, I can't say I know where to get almost anything besides Miasma, and given the personal history as well as how notable the encounter in the caves is, it's basically a freebie.

Ascending the stairs, doing a thorough sweep I head over to the dining room heading right rather than deeper into the manor and into danger.

Blinking as I enter the room with the table it's not empty.

Henryk is there but he is doing his best Silent Hill impression, specifically the one where the lady is looking into her knife.

Henryk isn't doing that, but he looks zoned out, eyes open but with that thousand yard stare as he fiddles with the knife just… Dicing the blade against the table, as if he was practicing motions, or imagining cooking.

"I can smell it… Rosemary, cardamom, cinnamon… It's all here… It must be…" He is rambling to himself.

I put my arm out creating a silent barrier.

There is a definite chance he is sliding towards Moonscorching.

The 'smart' move is to kill him right now. But the moral complexity of how 4 people will react to killing another 'human.'

That… That can be problematic.

"Erik?" Marina whispers and I silently toss my head back to the stairs, as I make a quick retreat.

Abella is resistant though. She didn't follow suit and fucking went in the dining room.

Damn, the consequences of my fucking actions? God damn it.

"Hey are you alright? I am certain we could spare some food if you are in a tight spot." Abella is immediately so casually helpful, and personable but this really might not be the best time for negotiation and changing hearts and minds.

"No, no. That's not it. That's- I keep hearing things, ticking, endless ticking and I feel so inspired, plagued." Turning around as I approach the door to the dining room standing behind Abella I can see Henryk has stood up and is pacing and swinging his blade, crossing slices in front of himself as his face is now off the table. I can see he has gotten crusty.

'Look Pim this guy is a lost cause-' not fucking now. How do I not set off this bomb Abella poked?

"There is food for us here. All of us in the basement. Why don't we all go?" I burst into the conversation as I hold myself steady as I tense.

"I can literally see new combinations in my head-my mind is almost-full! I can almost imagine the whole process-but I can't-I can't taste it!" He slurps and quivers almost like a drug addict going through a withdrawal.

Even if we get the larder open, will this guy still be fucking human by the time we come upstairs?

"Let's all get down in the basement, then." I quickly try and just wrangle this situation. "You can take the ingredients right away."

"No-no you… You all-" As Henryk begins to ramble horns begin to grow as his skin begins to look more and more leathery as it's forced to stretch.

"To arms!" I call as I see no reason to wait politely for him to begin his metamorphosis into the Gentleman.

I jump to action, from a belt pouch I take the glass powder and pour it into my glove. I toss the glass at his face making the Gentleman yell with, not to one liner, a blind rage.

I thump the door frame with the haft of my hand axe as I draw the Gentleman to the door to give us more maneuverability by taking the fight outside the dining room.

"This side with me." I guide Abella to the left of the door with me as the others are right, closer to the stairs. "Throw your wrench and then get a spare weapon."

Oh god I just had the realization that I am doing callouts like I am a raid leader. I really hate that my mind works like this sometimes.

"Y-YOU RUFFIANS." The Gentleman arms catch the door frame as he squeezes through as his body shifts becoming bulkier, wider and stronger as he begins to lumber.

"Disarm him!" I call and take a swipe at him, taking a chunk out of his arm before cooling my heels to anticipate his strike and blunt his aggression.

I parry and fade back as he tries to spear me with an oversized fork he takes from his pocket somehow. He did a resident evil big growth from nothing, so like a fork sized for him is equally ridiculous I guess.

Past my side the wrench flies, and boy is that near hit whizzing by not a good feeling, the solid hunk of metal impacts the fork arm before falling to the ground with a resounding clatter in the room open from below making the sound carry.

The other half of the party fights off his discordinated knife arm as he takes wide over committed swings to cover more area.

Moving bolder I hack again and again at his arms taking the limb out of commission as it flops useless, his cutlery clattering to the floor as he is unable to hold it.

As the fight moves to the other side of his body, I have to just shift my focus to kneecapping him, swinging low and sweeping to dig into his thighs.

"I will make you into a casserole, I will savor eating you scoundrels!" The gentleman roars as his other arm is awash with blood a white glints of bone peek from his stripped flesh.

He cries out in pain as I move to take his other leg out from under him. "Head! Kill!"

Marina with the other axe lands a telling blow blood spurts in a geyser from his Samarie slams a pipe into his face suppressing him.

As he gasps his death rattle is intentionally ominous "Y-you are all just his pawns…"

But unlike the Dominating New God, I can't be rage baited or gaslight to death.

"Sorry, you have a weak mental." As he dies I swallow as I feel a presence. His soul.

Henryk's soul, the magical presence is textured, it comes tied with a feeling. The room almost feels smaller and tighter before the feeling passes.

New skills. Yipee…

As the grisly work of Daan extracting resources from his body we find the 2nd key to open the gate, well a second contestant head, and the petty cash and such that Henryk had before he died.

I wasn't prepared for that fight, which led to a moment of passivity where my first instinct was to slow roll the fight against a vulnerable opponent. Actually there are quite a few things that didn't go as planned.

I might have more to reign in than just an impulse to be careful. A party that I have to 'be in control of.'

Abella. She is a literal fucking rebel. Of course she would disregard an order she disagreed with, and a caressing soul besides.

"Abella. I wasn't stopping everyone from helping a poor soul out. It was because that guy was fragile. I was acting on information and you weren't. If you are coming along I am asking you to take my fucking lead." Being polite is just excusing bad behavior, I feel a tad uneasy being confrontational, but if she pulls apart the group.

Will people choose me?

Am I their best option?

The leader they respect?

It doesn't matter, if I don't stand up for myself they won't respect me will they?

"Then don't ask me to leave people behind. Don't ask me not to try, helping people is important and doesn't need to just be for people who ask politely." Abella argues back, all the comparisons in my head of leaders trying to exert authority over the crews are just muddled as I feel pressured to respond.

"I was asking for a delay, so we can make a choice as a group. You didn't give the group that choice, you forced the group into a fight we could have avoided, we fought someone we could have saved instead. I told him about what might have saved him, I knew about it we just needed to grab it first."

I can't recall if Henryk is more useful dead than alive, but I need to argue on the principle that I need to call the shots.

"You fucking know everything. Know us. Sure, whatever. You say that, but you seem to not be too bothered about the-... Man we just killed. I hate that. Even if you are going to save people, I don't trust that you're a good person either." Abella refuses to back down, making it so I might need to think about cutting her from the group.

I have to push away the thought that I failed some kind of IRL morality check. I have to not be ashamed of being the 'worse person.'

"I think I can live with that." I feel almost like Commander Sisko from star check swallowing down his moral compunctions. "A guilty conscience is a small price to pay, because there is a big picture discussion you missed at the train. Gods stir in tombs, and which one to wake matters to the whole of humanity." After a second a juxtaposition I saw in a Lancer TTRPG stream comes to mind. "You sacrifice for humans, I sacrifice for Humanity."

That really is the crux of it. I am Lawful Neutral, and Abella is chaotic good.

We can be on the same side, well if she sees that too.

"Oh you can live with hating yourself, great. Just great." As Abella grumbles I realize I probably need to do more than think things. I need to articulate my 'Game-y' thoughts into something real.

"You don't like hard lines in the sand, and you don't like being an asshole or working with one. I am not unsympathetic. I would say you are admirable actually. I am asking to be taken seriously. I put in a lot of work to get here, if you aren't willing to respect that commitment, it's only that disrespect not just to me but everyone I got a problem with. I am asking you not to take the choice away from us when I clearly showed I had something to say about a situation."

There is a rather nerve grinding pause before Abella answers tersely "If people need help, I don't like just sitting back and uselessly poking around the train like an amateur. I would like to know more ahead of time, rather than just rely on your hocus pocus."

I sigh as I cast a glance over to the door to the stairs where Daan has moved looming, keeping an eye out. "I don't have a full picture. I knew Henyrk can become a Moonscorched Mayor, and that for some reason a butler would show up to back his little act. Why does a butler show up? I can't say. I was able to read the script of a play, but live theater mutates live on stage. Living art can't be contained or made simple. In my 'script' Marina, your father, the only interaction with him that is written if you meet him at all is you meeting him while he bleeds out on the ground. That probably won't happen since you are with me. It's a complicated weird mess, I am doing my best to be forthright when I recognize a moment from the play is in front of me. I am being remarkably transparent, so excuse you for thinking I would even care to play mind games. I would rather you leave if you were so unwilling."

"Fine, fine. Arguing over what you hide or don't is useless and we can't double check that except by watching you. I will admit I didn't help right here, but don't expect me to turn my brain off."

There is a suffocating silence after the argument where Marina pointedly seems to be looking away.

I guess she has quite a few mixed thoughts on not following that 'script.'

"Next threat, magical priest. Should be around here somewhere. Let's go. Take his legs down then cut his head off."

Praying in a Old God's circle the priest with the scarred head stands, crossing fingers over his shoulders, up to his head, then down past his chest before he marches almost like a machine towards us.

Crushed glass sparkles in the dim air like white glitter as the priest silently grimaces and stretches Engraved hands Grogoroth and Vinuska I think.

"Fire and hurting." I call out the threats before moving, staying still and letting him adjust his blind aim is not to my benefit.

There is a sense that glass is slightly better than bullets.

In terms of one on one 'Boss' scenarios at least.

The bullets weakened enemies before we got into melee. Glass changes the dynamic into a Bloodborne esq mad dash to the finish line.

Don't let the glassy void of hurting take off a limb that is all we need to do, so I act fast following the glass with a slash to the back of his thigh.

He turns toward me with a few arcane gestures I recognize from Samarie's use of Hurting. I thump loudly left making it sound like a dash or a jump and hold my breath as I sneak the other way.

The void shimmers as it eats some of the wall, I breathe a sigh of relief as Daan and Abella make their strikes taking him down to a knee as he wildly shoots a Pyromancy Trick backward at them.

Bringing the Woodsman's axe down right at his knee Marina takes him down, I follow with Samarie and I hack away at his jugular as Samarie rings his bells with a blow to the side of his head.

Another head for offering, plus a massive fucking soul stone!

The food stores from the basement are piled up in the foyer, so we can take them out to the train with us so we can rest. Plus from the bookcase in the upstairs, there's a new reason to visit the train.

A skin bible of Alll-mer! Teleportation is open baby!

The train as a fallback point away from the danger of the city is pretty nice to have. Plus that's 1 point in Alll-mer which is something.

After failing to get into the basement's locked door, one of the few things I was smart enough to know adventurers always needed was rope. From the room with the leather armor and the key the rope takes us into the locked basement room.

Sure enough there was a free armored skirt, gross pulsing sacks collecting dark ichor which I helped myself to just to see if people have reactions too if I can get questions about it, and finally the chest was kind of a dud, a pressure plate trap.

Before heading out there is the last locked room, the Mayor's study.

-
Recommended listening: https://youtu.be/-JzzNHbWTqI
-

There is a saber in the chest, but most interesting of all is an almost ancient feeling book.

As I flipped open the yellow book, I saw a prismatic array of colors. Underneath the rainbow tide I glimpse a figure with hands raised in a triangle and a picture of an outline of a body oozing a substance and becoming indistinct.

I am divorced from myself, my perspective feels skewed like a camera forced into a wall, or like a lens was suddenly placed over the camera to curve everything and make things feel distant that are supposed to be near.

I let out a shuddering breath as I feel disjointed like I am looking over and outside myself, like there was suddenly friction between my 'soul' and body. Reminding me of how a camera follows around and controls an avatar for a character in a game.

I can literally look at myself from outside my own body, like Erik is another person. He is almost, there is continuity but he isn't me.

I was never a go-getter or a fighter, he is something I pushed myself into being… Because I was afraid. Or made to be afraid.

From behind me I see something, the curvature of the room of this world is so twisted I can quite literally see behind myself in my peripheral vision even as I turn to focus on a man I hadn't seen… All my life. 18 years.

His hair was brown, like mine used to be, his beard grew in with other colors too. His hair where it was newer was brighter, next to dark chocolate was a brighter brown almost a caramel to make the confection all the sweeter. Hair I liked. Hair… Like mine was…

I tear up, as I am faced with the utter reality that… He isn't me either.

I am something new now, I see memories imposed over my vision, a flickering repeating vision of me placed like a prop in the center of a shifting diorama in hallways at work, on the curbside of my neighborhood hood, in my room next to my chair and computer.

I will never be him again.

I am… Like Adam, the biblical Adam. I have eaten of the fruit of Good and Evil, I have traded innocence for something else.

Knowledge.

Pocket Cat had been right, I had never truly cared to be in the driver seat of my own life, the most agency I ever exerted was to grab the wheel and shed blood to just demand the car doesn't veer off a cliff.

What an absurd circumstance, to kill O'saa or how many others. Yet lack passion, lack will to impose my will afterward.

What had those I killed and would kill have died for? For me to ghost through life? To seek base comforts as I always had?

What was I to do with myself? With this third new me, I might just have to live one day.

Steel my heart, and brave risk. Live, not just for my sake.

—

AN - 'Jumping the Shark' is a cultural touchstone my dad showed me once. This guy circled a shark in a lake like 10 times before jumping over it.

It was kind of drawn out, but the way it was digested was… Jumping the Shark means now, peaking then falling off?

Also Happy Days is not only American, to which Vinland isn't quite an analog. It was also began in 1974. Not 1942.

Really odd anachronism huh?

Anyway, where Henryk is between morning and afternoon if unpicked is kind of a weird quirk of how the game is made?

Since his location is the manor from morning to afternoon, and he kind of already starts to lose it by the time you met him first needing to snap him out of it, Henryk a little further off the deep end seems to be what should be there.

I mentioned in the thread of Abella, she is a person who is generally kind while being a pragmatist. I came up with a tone setting line to try and write from "You help people, but you aren't a good person" as kind of soundbite in my head. My brother provided "Even if this is the right thing, I hate having to do this..."

Abella in party talks has empathy for even a dead horse, and will have a bit of a clash with O'saa in the slums. So capturing that aspect of her matters to me.

Which is why I mentioned the basement door that locks the sacks. I can't remember if the key opened that door but I assumed not since a circle is needed to get there if not for a bug.

For the Enlightenment scene I was enraptured by the imagery of recent Deltarune animations about the final? Egg room. https://youtu.be/c9rr4LYgHCU Music selection of Piano for the scene lead to me picking my Favorite FF14 song.

I haven't decided what the God of Fear and Hunger circles do, but for Enlightenment, I think they progressively unlock something, I will decide later after more scenes. The next one I might take a note from KH intros. I loved the questions they posed, even if it was all secretly mechanics.