This Story is based during the events of the podcast, Eidolon Playtest. Whereas it tries to act as canon as possible (Making a story separate from the events but based around them), it is strictly up to the makers of the phenomenal podcast to decide.
Eidolon PUNK also vaguely uses rules from the PbtA system of EIDOLON: Become Your Best Self. If you find inconsistencies between this story and the rules, please note that I have not read the rules. And even if I did, I would always choose the most dramatic events.
"Perhaps... despite our efforts, we were ineffective. We were wrong."
The abandoned warehouse had stayed devoid of life for... if anyone had bothered to count, they would have known it to be about 15 years, possible more. The only sentient being to enter that building was the occasional insect, but they would soon learn that it was not a place to enter.
It serves no purpose – at least, so everyone who went near it thought. In truth, it was a self-inflicted prison, one for a man who sat in the middle of the building, gathering dust on his still body. Was he dead? In a sense, yes. He breathed air, but he did not think. He sensed, but he did not interpret. He lived, but he was not alive.
Until now. A voice pierced the silence of the wood and iron building, echoing across the man's skull. The voice he heard was not his own; yet, in many ways, it was. There was a connection between him and the voice. An old one. One that had been severed all those years ago.
"The Estate has found new... workers, despite all of our efforts. I need your power, Nathan. I am your Eidolon, after all."
Slowly, with as much effort as he could muster, his eyes opened. In front of him was an ever-changing form, never seeming to stay in one shape for too long. It started as a massive, golden owl, shifted into a sword made of stained glass, and lastly into a small, silver ball. He reached out and grabbed the small object, feeling a sharp tingle shoot up his arm, into his shoulder, and straight into his brain. He shook his head instinctively, and opened his palm. The ball rolled in his hand, impatient.
"Calm, Eidolon." Nathan whispered, and the ball stopped moving. "We have unfinished work. Where did you put my blood?"
Let me introduce myself.
The name's Isaac Ford. I'm your classic sixteen-year-old nerd; energetic, nerdy, and maybe plays a bit too much video games. Look, I'm progressing to top 20 in A Link Between Worlds speed runs.
I live in a small house in eastern Windsor, Ontario, where I attend Massey Secondary. I'm what you call an extrovert, since very few people actually dislike me. There are a couple. Actually, one of them hates my guts, but let's ignore him.
Getting the picture? Good.
I woke up to my alarm blaring loudly. I shot out of my bed and smacked the button to turn it off, but it kept beeping obnoxiously. Groaning, I leaned down and unplugged the clock, brushing my shoulder-length blond hair out of my eyes when I stood up.
Behind me, I heard the door open. I turned around to see my dad open the door. He was in his work outfit, working for a company named Tregaskiss. They made welding guns.
You wouldn't think we were related – possibly because we weren't. He's been my stepfather since I was three, but he's pretty much my full dad. We've known each other for over 13 years. He had long, black hair in a draping ponytail, and a medium-length beard with two white streaks on each side of the chin. I had no beard. I was a 16-year-old white boy.
"Dad," I muttered, yawning. "I need a new clock."
"Nope." He shook his head, but there was a smile in that beard. "You're keeping that one."
"This thing is ancient!" I held the clock up, turning it around. "This thing was made in, like, the eighties. You got Brianna a new clock!"
"That was because we didn't have an extra." He stepped out of the doorway. "Enough about clocks, kiddo. You got to get ready, I'm not driving you to school today. Work's calling. Also, if you miss the bus, calm your Grandma. Me and your mother are going to be out of town for today and tomorrow, so we can't pick you up."
"Yeah, sure. Sounds great." I nodded, giving him a hug as he left for work.
I rubbed the sleepiness out of my eyes and started getting ready. After I ate my breakfast and brushed my teeth, I threw on a pair of jeans, a red flannel button-up with a white undershirt, and threw my binder into my backpack. I tied my shoulder-length blond hair back into a ponytail, but got frustrated that it wasn't working like I wanted it to and fringed the hair tie into a drawer. I pulled out my phone and started swiping notifications, then grabbed my backpack, put on some shoes, and waltzed out the door.
I slid out onto the bus stop and stepped up to the only other person at the bus stop. She was about my age, with long, messy brown hair and tan skin. She had grey sweater and black sweatpants, so it looked like she crawled out of bed and threw a sweater on. I gave her a quick glance and ignored her, tapping on my phone and reading a book, tapping to the page I had left off. I really needed to start using bookmarks.
She looked down the road, giving an exhausted sigh. Turning to me, she asked "When does the bus usually arrive?"
"Around 8:30." I said, not looking up. She gave me a look I didn't quite catch and leaned against a streetlight, pulling put a little glass cube, with purple smoke swirling within it, out of her pocket. I gave it a quick look, not sure what to make of it. She saw me staring at it and quickly shoved it into her backpack.
"What're you looking at?" She asked sharply. I shook my head and said, "Cool cube.", returning to my phone. I swiped to the page I had left off, and we proceeded to ignore each other for the rest of our wait. Although, that cube stayed in the back of my mind for the rest of the day.
"Yo!" my friend, Daniel called out for me. I gave a smirk as we met in the hallway, doing a rather complicated handshake – which was made harder by the fact that he was holding three textbooks in his hands. Daniel was slightly shorter than me, with a heavier build. We knew each other from elementary school, and people occasionally called us a dynamic duo. We just called each other homies.
Out of the two, Daniel was definitely the computer whiz, while I was a nerdier kind of... nerd. I was better at video games then him, which is something I like to bring up to prove I have power over him. I'm also decent at sports. He avoids them with every inch of his body.
"What's your first class?" I asked, as we made our way towards his locker. He pulled out his schedule and answered "Math. What about you, dude?"
"Art. In fact, the majority of this year is art." I looked over the timetable. "Good thing I'm practiced in the way of the quill. That's your locker over there, right?" I pointed to a locker beside a computer lab, which was poetic.
"Yeah, dude." We approached the locker. Daniel gave me some of his things he was holding to free his hands. "I'll never understand how you can draw like that. The best thing I drew was, like, a chicken in grade seven." He said, fiddling with the lock and finally opening it.
"That chicken looked like an ostrich." I teased, putting the boos into his locker for him. He stuffed his coat onto the hanger and lightly punched me on the shoulder for the insult, but we both laughed and said we'd meet up at my house after school, since my parents weren't home, and my sister had moved out two years before. We gave one last first bump as we left.
School went by slowly, since we really did nothing except for introduce ourselves to our classmates. By the time I managed to get to the end of the day, I was mentally exhausted, and I really couldn't wait to go home. I stepped out the back and walked straight into a person standing to my path.
"Oop!" I stumbled backwards, fumbling with my phone and managing to get it into my pocket. The kid silently watches me fumble with the device, and when I managed to shove it away, he cleared his throat.
I realized this was Michael, one of the players on our basketball team. He was about the same height as me – around 5'10 – but whereas I was built like a stick, he was built like a brick, so he looked much bigger than me.
"'Sup, Isaac." He said, holding a hand out. I shook it quickly.
"Long time no see, Mitch. Were you standing in my path for a reason, or was I just...?" I asked, and Mitch laughed.
"Nah, you're fine, man. I was looking for you, but I didn't expect to find you in this way." He answered. "Listen, man, you remember what happened last year? With Will?"
"A lot of things happened with Will." I told him truthfully. "Which one in particular?"
"Last day of the grade. When you tripped him up?"
I almost let loose a couple of choice words at that. Will was the star basketball player in our school, who also had it for me after he realized I was practically a twig that he could snap in half. On the last day, he chucked a football that hit me in the stomach really hard, so I had angrily thrown the ball back at him. I wasn't directly aiming for the eye, but I was quite pleased when that's where it hit.
He wasn't as pleased as I was, and promised to beat me into a pulp. Before he could go through with his promise, I slipped onto a crowded bus and ended up somewhere downtown.
"He still wants to?" I muttered. "That's a problem."
"Yeah, man. Look, it might not be a good idea to come to school tom-"
I cut him off with "Nah, I'll come. He can't be too mad. Besides, if he is, I'll just-" I started to shadowbox, when I realized it was a bit less 'practiced martial arts' and resembled something closer to flailing.
"I'll just avoid him." I resigned, shoving my hands into my pockets.
"Whatever, bro. Don't say I didn't warn you man." He raised his hands in surrender and began jogging past me and towards the gym inside the school. I looked towards where the buses were waiting, and saw that the last one had just pulled out onto the road. This time I did, in fact, let out a choice word and pulled out my phone.
Just as I swiped at the phone icon to call my dad, I felt an electric shock shoot into my fingers. Yelping in surprise, I dropped the phone onto the ground. Looking at my hand for any sign of damage, I reached down and picked up my phone again, which had been saved by the black casing around it. This time, when I tried to turn the screen on, it remained black. I continued to hold the button, shaking the phone around in an annoyed sort of way.
"Having trouble with your phone?" A female voice asked behind me. Startled, I turned around and saw a woman in a full on Men In Black outfit – black suit, black tie, and sunglasses. She looked like she was in her 60's, which was confirmed when she gave a disapproving look at the device in my hand.
"I'll never understand you teenagers. So attached to such corrupting objects." She noted, and despite the weird lady talking to me, I sighed.
"It's a phone. I pretty much only use it for music and whatnot, when it turns on." I directed that last statement at my phone, as I continued to press and hold the power button. She watched this with an increasingly amused look crossing her face, and finally cleared her throat. "I believe you are one Isaac Ford? Son of one James Ford?"
"I – wha? How'd you know that?" I stopped messing with my phone and looked up at her. She smirked and held out a hand to shake. "I know many things. I've actually come to offer you a deal, something that is rather tempting. In my professional opinion."
"Just because you're wearing a suit, does not mean you are a professional." I told her, but I reluctantly shoo her hand. "I would introduce myself, but supposedly you already know my deal. And I still don't know yours."
"My deal? Well, were I to explain, you wouldn't quite believe it." She shrugged. "But, if that's the case, there's no harm in telling you. My name is Katherine, and I have an Eidolon named Longview. It can detect powerful Eidolon users, and those who have the potential to become one. I can sense that you, Isaac Ford, are destined for greater things. Even Gabriel agrees."
I stood there, blinking, then after one last long blink, I opened my mouth to say something, then decided not to say anything. She nodded in confirmation, and took out a Rubik's cube that was complete on each side. She gave me a questioning glance, which made me ask "What are you waiting for me to say?"
"Are you going to help us?" She asked, clearly as annoyed from this encounter as I was. I gave her a look like, seriously? And answered "No? I mean, you're some old lady, who came up to me and asked to do some sort of magic job? Yeah, no."
She nodded, and continued to nod for frankly too long. When she stopped nodding, she gave me an appraising look, and said "Thanks for the Memories, do your thing."
Before I could question why she incorrectly said the lyrics to a Fall Out Boy song, my phone suddenly got hot, and I dropped it out of surprise. Right before it hit the ground again, I saw a bright flash of lightning as the streak blasted into my stomach, blasting me off my feet and onto the pavement.
The lady kneeled in front of my paralyzed body; her appraising look replaced with a disapproving one. Shaking her head, she said "You just needed to say yes, Isaac. I may have jumped the gun a bit, but we don't have much time. Reality is ending, and you're going to play a part."
And after that quick villain exchange, I blacked out as I felt something hit the back of my head.