Here comes the quest side of the madness...
The decoration of this place was nice. It reflected your inner self.
Bland, white, and lacking anything to really call exciting. Riku seemed slow to get a move on. He sighed and touched his stomach.
"Can you believe I've not had anything to eat since a day ago?" he sighed and you wibbled slightly.
"I haven't eaten since I died," you tried building a friendship by sharing in woes. The glare you got seemed to say you weren't succeeding.
"King Mickey said you weren't dead... just not really real. Kinda some empty shell since you lost your heart," he grunted. You stared. The sheer bomb he just dropped on you made you emulate shock.
"King? The mouse is a king?" you echoed faintly. Riku gave another shrug.
"I met him when I met you. You were passed out for hours. Aqua... she said you were a good thing," he said as he leaned against the wall as his stomach grumbled unhappily. You looked around and decided that even dust did not reside here.
Short of offering yourself up like an unappealing rubber sock, the boy didn't have much to eat around here.
"Aqua and Mickey got cut off from us. I didn't... I don't have control over darkness or a Keyblade. I had no way of avoiding getting lost," he said looking down. You shrugged.
"Then get a Keyblade or control the darkness. Either or, but we got one way forward," you pointed to the massive white door up the stairs. Riku moved forward, but a blast of darkness appeared, cutting a heavy black into the white room.
Out stepped a man that looked like Riku on steroids, hair from a fabulous ad, and clothes that suggest stripper pirate.
"Ansem!" Riku growled, summoning his goth sword. The name held no meaning for you. Unless it was Terra, Ven, Aqua, Mickey, Sora or Riku... you didn't care much. The man stepped forward again and his eyes blaze gold on a face tanned to perfection.
"So, you have come to this erstwhile castle after all. You look weak without the Darkness filling you, Riku," the man spoke and it was the voice! It was the voice to die for! He gave you a look of disgust and hate.
"Consorting with dolls, are we?" he mocked. You tilted your head, but Riku stepped in front of me.
"Leave him out of this. I'd rather talk to him than you!" he spat. Riku seemed to have a lot of anger. Ansem just laughed and shook his head.
"Such anger... you think I had done something to deserve it... but good. Cultivate that hate, you will need it soon enough," Ansem warned and threw something at Riku, the boy caught it and you stared at the fact he didn't even look when he did that...
These people had reflexes of a squirrel.
Ansem vanished without another word. Riku glared at the empty space before he held out a blue card showing some fancy steampunk castle.
"Hollow Bastion..." he said quietly. Empty Castle. Neat name. Sounded like a joint you had to hit up one day.
"He sounded like an ass. Who was he?" you asked as you slithered up Riku's body to stare at the card. He gasped in surprise before throwing you off him like a rag, you floated lazily in the air before landing.
"Ansem is the man who manipulated everyone to open Kingdom Hearts. He... I let him use my body because I was so angry and the power was too tempting. I let him hurt my friends," Riku turned to the door and his face went frowny.
Grumpy cookie indeed...
"So, he used you... is that why his voice came out of your mouth on that beach?" you asked politely. Riku turned with surprise but then nodded.
"Yeah, I don't think he's altogether gone. I can feel him in my Heart," Riku sighed and his stomach growled.
"And your stomach too?" you inquired dryly. The boy blushed a little and sat down.
"Don't suppose you have anything to eat in that hood?" he asked hopefully. You shook your head. You could try portaling to food? Your portals weren't exactly accurate, but without a pull from Aqua, you had no other use from them.
Riku sighed and stood up to touch the huge white door. The card shined in his hand. A loud creak sounded out as the doors split open from the middle, revealing an overpowering blast of light that you both walked into.
What happened next was... bizarre. You felt flashes of movement, some odd visions of pipes leaking magic dust and more Heartless... you saw Riku fighting... but between it all was deep slumbering moments.
After some time, you blinked as existence returned. Riku spun in surprise.
"Eraqus!" he said in relief. You were in another huge white room and the doors behind you closed with a click. You had no idea what was going on.
"You vanished and you turned into a card that helped me fight this fake-Maleficent-" Riku cut himself off with a inhale.
"I'm glad you're okay," he said finally.
You were... a card?
"What is it with this place and cards?" you asked flatly. You were glad you could not panic. A panicking sock was just so unsightly.
Before Riku could answer, a voice spoke out.
"Why do you shun the darkness?" the familiar voice called. Riku turned, huffing in annoyance. It was a shame such a voice was lost to melodram- you meant... Darkness. Yes... Darkness.
"Come on, I know you heard me; every word I said to Maleficent," Riku called out with a tone you were beginning to call 'his frumpy voice'.
"Darkness is your weapon. It is time you learned you must accept it," Ansem's voice called out and Riku turned to make sure you weren't about to be ambushed.
"What is he talking about? He sounds like a pushy teacher," you sighed.
"Silence, impotent shell. Your words belie a purpose, a passion... I do not know why you cling to Riku, but whoever your master is... they'd be wise to retreat from their schemes," Ansem warned and appeared in a flash.
"All you have been talking about is the darkness. I can only assume you wanna pull me back in...so you can play puppet master," Riku sneered, holding his sword at the ready. The tanned man smirked
"Clever boy. I knew you'd be the one to most appropriately serve me. And now, surrender to me again-" he raised a hand, doing something creepy with his fingers like he was grasping at something.
"You're crazy! Not a chance!" he roared and leapt at Ansem with a slash, but the man easily caught it and used a wave of darkness to send him flying back. Riku landed loudly and rolled to a stop.
"So weak, you were too weak to beat Sora and you had Darkness on your side then as a crutch, but you still failed," Ansem sneered. You tilted your head. Given what was supposed to happen and the fact Kingdom Hearts was closed and Riku spoke of Ansem like he was beaten...
"Didn't you lose to Sora and had Darkness? Sounds like a losing strategy," you mused aloud. There was a loud silence for a moment. Riku struggled to sit up with a smirk. Ansem scowled but decided to ignore you.
"Submit. Bow to me. Open your heart to Darkness once more. You have no other power otherwise and Sora will be lost to you forever," he warned. Shadows began to encircle Riku before the ghost of Mickey Mouse the King appeared over Riku, banishing the shadows.
This was weird. Mickey went on to slap Ansem's words about and talk about light... Dark... lightlight... Ansem went on about Darkness, Light, weak Light, Dark. You stood there for sometime, just waiting for it to be over.
Then Riku vanished in a portal of Darkness that left no trace behind. You stared... looking around showed no Riku, Ansem, or Mickey. Speaking of Mickey... where was the ghost of Sad blueberry muffin?
You searched for a link to Riku but found the cookie was offline no matter how hard you searched. You tried sensing for Aqua, but the results were bad. This place... this castle, was shifting you around. The more you tried to find Aqua, the more the walls swallowed your intent and sent them far away. A dozen dizzying flashes of empty hallways, rooms with no substance, and lost forgotten halls filled your mind.
It seemed all but the heart of this place was intent on misleading you and the heart... was simply untouchable to you. Having nothing better to do, you portalled out to get Riku some food.
Portal result: Bad
The place you ended up was... interesting. It was a large city in perpetual night time. The buildings loomed and alleys were narrowly packed together to form some insidious maze. The smell of burning cars and the distant howling of screaming people were an odd aesthetic, but you had a mission to complete. You moved zigzagged through the air over walls of smashed cars, and shadowy fences. The city reminded you of something... something important about yourself, but it was gone before it could bloom in your memory. Honestly, you were the brightest thing around in this drab place.
You read a road sign.
"Raccoon City? I guess if they have varmine, they'll have fast food!" you quipped. You moved over the road and the people moving about gave you a side glance. Well, the ones that had eyes. It seemed something quite dire happened to the people of this city.
Most of them looked dead, but still moved.
One sniffed, but in the end, the zombies ignored you entirely. You looked around for a way to go. You couldn't see much, so you decided to head deeper into the city to find some place to grab sealed food. Zombies looked bity, so maybe it was virus type zombies? Who knew?
You came across more zombies, one even looked red like it was mad, but soon you were a crossroads.
Police station... Hospital... Zoo... or Water Treatment Plant. The few food places you saw were up in smoke, so that was just dandy. You could try a few homes, but Riku might object to personally stolen food from a house...
If he didn't turn into a zombie after a few bites. Your ability to open portals had a slight cooldown. It would be some time before you could open one strong enough to cross the distance back to Riku. An hour maybe, no biggie...
The zoo sounded nice.
The zoo was not nice.
You stared as a pack of wolves that had chunks of their face, limbs, and spine torn off surrounded you. Why the human zombies didn't care for you, but the wolves didn't like you was strange. The entire place had been infected by whatever crazy lab virus let loose.
A wolf jumped at you, bloody teeth bared. You were so entranced by the creature that not only did it bite into you, squeezing your body rather painfully, something else came attracted to the sound of the combat. A wall smashed apart into pieces as a giant elephant covered in bite marks and bleeding from its mouth and eyes stared down at the fight.
HP: 109
The elephant stomped on a wolf making a smear along the ground as it began to charge at you. You zigzagged unnaturally around its huge frame, ending up hovering above its back as it smashed two more wolves apart and tore cages and exhibits apart in rage.
This was not your problem. You turned to flitter through the air and did your best to avoid notice. Your movements had those weird noises, however... you hoped the elephant ignored you. The elephant turned, ready to charge after you, but... it suddenly stopped. The torn trunk lifted and waved about with a weird motion like a snake. The trunk snapped in a direction and the Elephant... took off, lumbering with a subtlety that was unnatural to the beast.
You could see why as you floated slightly higher. A group of people pushed the zoo gate open in a pressing urge, shutting it to keep the human zombies out.
"Cindy! Get the chain on!" a man in a black uniform with the letters 'R.P.D' on his body armour yelled. They had no idea that in about two minutes, an elephant would be bearing down on them with hunger.
You could maybe move a little faster... the Elephant had to turn to avoid fires and broken bars that would spear it. The dense destruction and smoke giving it cover... You guessed Aqua would want you to save these people. You could hear her sad muffiny voice now.
"Eraqus, the people need you. The key says to save them!" you tried sarcasm but lacked any annoyance to convey it correctly. You dove like an arrow for the back of the Elephant's neck but misjudged it, shot past and being tangled in its trunk. The beady bleeding eyes stared down at you.
"This is unfortunate," you commented and the elephant slammed you into its mouth which was filled with trapped rotting meat and gore. Teeth gnashed at you with mindless hunger.
HP: 94
You were quite done with being a chew toy. You had a goal and this mindless beast run with mindless emotions and glutton would not be your true end. You turned on your back and thrust all four limbs up the roof of its mouth.
Your silvery arms and legs pierced the flesh, raining fluids in a gushing waterfall down at you.
You had a slight motion... something you recalled... Ah, yes. Aqua and her magic. You focused as the Elephant screamed as you scrambled its brain matter.
"Thunder," you said blankly... calmly. Your entire body exploded in the arching energy which travelled right into the already whisked brain matter.
The elephant stopped screaming. You think it because the entire upper half of its skull exploded in a rain of blood and viscera.
Just maybe. The defeat of the creature was interesting. You wanted to say you felt something inside change, but feelings didn't quite work so you guessed you sensed the change.
You stepped out of the ruined skull holes and paused. Something was definitely changing... you felt faint... you stared as the people running towards, guns drawn, began to slow down. Not out of shock, but as if time decided to suddenly stop working.
You toppled over in surprise and the ground swallowed you. You fell through an ocean. Dark... water. Not too cold or too warm, just... dark. You weren't in the zoo anymore, nor with Riku or in the Realm of Darkness.
You were somewhere else.
A faint light in the dark below attracted your attention. A large stained glass platform with a silver outline appeared... it would be beautiful if not for the fact only the thinnest of lines around the edge remained of this thing. The entire middle was gone, as if something heavy had smashed it... snatched it.
You were going to fall through the middle. There was nothing there to catch you. You neared and a flash from the dark soared towards you. It was a glowing fragment of light. It touched the collapsed plateau and it was just big enough to land on. In the fragment, you saw blue hair.
"Eraqus... hold on... I'll find you," you heard Aqua promise. Her fragment clicked into some invisible slot and changed to a green. Some tiny piece of a picture you couldn't see. You stood there for a long moment.
From the edge of this dark realm... symbols began to blaze forth in the energy you were coming to know as that weightless nothing. Nothing.
"Your journey is trapped at Dusk. How it ends... is up to you," said a voice far away.
"The day that you... well, you weren't foretold. I guess we'll just have to see," an amused man added. You briefly saw a weird man in a coat with silver chains dangling down.
"Knock 'em dead, Dusky," he gave you twin thumbs up and vanished.
EXP needed to level: 31. Gained EXP from Zombie Elephant: 100
Level 3 reached!
Rewards held until following section is over.
The symbols burning in the air spun around the broken plateau. Each one of them showed an image. There were 13 in total.
The symbols went as follows. A spellbook surrounded by blocks. A crossbow of sorts. A lance surrounded by swirls. A shield frozen over. A strange sword. A book covered in shadows. A giant greatsword. Twin wheels of fire. An instrument with bubbles. Cards showing an ace. A scythe with petals coming off it. Weird knives crackling with energy. The final one was hard to see for a moment before it finally revealed a curving katana of sorts.
They hovered there for a moment. Waiting on you.
You picked the spellbook before magic was neat, you guessed.
Sorcerer of Oblivion Class unlocked.
Next class unlock at level 5.
3 levels transferred to Sorcerer class.
Sorcerer: level 3!
Level 1: Gained 1 NP! Max: 4
Level 2: + 1 bonus to Magic offence rolls.
Level 3: Cube Creation. Rank: Basic. Create three blocks for 1 NP. Each has 1 HP.
Sorcerer level 4 requires: 31 EXP
Banked EXP: 7
The world around you began to fade and you felt weight settling on your head as you blinked once and found yourself back at the zoo.
You reached up to find a strange white silvery floppy hat on your head. You took it off to see a strange symbol. You put the hat back on to find it as quite glued to your hooded head without you pulling it off. Handy.
"The fuck are you?" someone screamed. You turned to see the nose of a handgun being pointed at you as three people stared at you. You tilted your head.
"I'm Nobody important," you concluded.
"It talks..." the girl named Cindy whispered. She wore some kind of server's uniform. White blouse and skirt. Quite impressive to see her run from zombies in heels.
"I also just saved you from this miserable creature. Must you aim at me?" you asked the man in the police uniform. He hesitated but didn't lower his gun.
"Are you with Umbrella?" he finally asked. You tilted your head and to your faux-amusement, the brimmed wizard hat flopped as well.
"I'm afraid I do not belong to any umbrella companies. I think it won't rain for a small time," you said, trying to sound confident.
"It ain't a fucking Zombie... maybe its a drone?" some guy hissed, holding a shotgun.
"I need somewhere to find food. Do you know where I can acquire non-infected food?" you tried to be polite. The woman pushed the shotgun down and then the handgun.
"You boys watch my back... this needs someone who isn't trigger happy," she chided and walked over, stopping 5 feet away.
"My name is Cindy... sorry for the guns. You have to understand we're all in danger and scared," she said, putting on a pretty smile. You stared.
"You came to a zoo when the zombie plague broke out?" you asked flatly. Cindy's smile fell a tad.
"There's an escape helicopter waiting on the far side! You can escape with us, we saw you kill the elephant and I have some granola bars..." Cindy fished in her pocket.
That seemed... acceptable Food, Aqua's approval, and maybe a chance to gain more power.
"Very well. I am Eraqus. I shall accompany you to this helicopter," you nodded in agreement. Cindy smiled and turned to her colleagues.
"This is Kevin and David," she introduced. Neither men looked happy at the circumstances unfolding. You stepped forward and everyone recoiled at your exaggerated movements.
"The fuck is wrong with him?" the man known as David growled as he stepped back into some light to show his worker's jumpsuit as if he were a repairman of some kind. Kevin just shivered.
"I was eaten by a zombie elephant and blew its brains out, forgive me if I move unnaturally" you replied with absolute seriousness.
No one seemed to speak after that.
But shortly as you passed the long emptied reptile house, you heard them whispering...
"-Kind of home-grown soldier?" Kevin wondered.
"He has a symbol, but I've never seen it before," Cindy added.
"It isn't right," David muttered. Ahead, where the zebras were kept, something moved out of the shadows.
Two things. Glaring red eyes and a blood soaked fur showed two giant lionesses. Their claws looked overgrown and some olde saber tooth tiger seemed to be showing in their fangs. You pointed your needle arm and felt the power as slightly easier to channel.
Lightning exploded out of your limb and hit one of the charging lionesses head on. The impact made it collapse as volts coursed through it, burning its fur along with skin. A bullet from Cindy finished it over, the prone from making it an easy shot.
Kevin aimed a perfect shot into the eye of the second beast, but it still powered on. David stumbled in a panic and shot wide. His shot went wide and Kevin's shooting arm was torn to chunks. He screamed as he dropped. The lioness pounced, you had maybe seconds to move yourself. Magic taking too long to properly line up.
The lioness was just faster. It landed on Kevin biting deep into his neck. The damage was too much and the beast reared back with her pound of flesh. Cindy's eyes went wide and before you could reach the beast, she began to shoot her gun in a detached manner as she screamed noiseslly and wounded.
Two bullets missed, but three dug deep into the creature. Brain matter exploded out from one bullet's impact and the creature slumped dead. Kevin choked and spluttered as he bled profusely from his neck.
"Shit, is he gonna turn?" David said slowly. Cindy turned her gun on him and pulled the trigger, but it clicked empty.
"You bastard! You did this! You horrible man!" she sobbed as she tried to pull out a spray of some kind. Kevin took her hand.
"Won't... make it. Save… resources," he encouraged. Cindy sobbed as he closed his eyes, but he raised his gun and put it against his head.
"I won't make you... do this later... not very cool of me... to..come back," he said weakly, choking up his blood. He looked at you.
"Get them...safe?" he wheezed. You stared down at the man. Just for a moment, you didn't need to pretend to know which emotion you needed to use...
It came to the forefront of your mind.
Determination. You still had to fake it slightly, but this was a mission, and you felt good about missions.
Cindy closed her eyes and David stood there, ashen faced.
"Yes. You may rest easy," you promised. Kevin nodded once and the bang of gunfire was loud and the clatter of a gun falling as even louder somehow.
What an interesting man. You would have liked to talk to him more. The two humans went off and you picked up something seemed to fall from his body after a second.
It was a badge with the same laters 'R.P.D'. Inside was the face of the man. ' : Officer'. It seemed oddly heavy.
Accessory found: Fallen Warrior: +2 rolls against Resident Evil Zombies. +1 HP.
It radiated some power... but Cindy might like this as well.
You chewed this choice over in your mind as your felt power rising up in your form once more.
X2 Lionesses defeated. 30 EXP gained.
Level up!
Sorcerer level 4!
Learned: Final Drop: If a magical attack is cast with only one NP left. A bonus roll may be rolled to potentially add more damage. Only usable when Sorcerer class is equipped.
Eraqus:
HP: 10
NP:3 out of 4
EXP: 130 Total Level 4(124 exp so far) needed exp to level 5: 155
Banked: 6
Innate skills:
Reversal + 15 to movement
N link:
Aqua link 1: Gives 3 Np
Spells:
Reflect
Thunder
Classes:
Sorcerer bonus level 4:
+1 mp
+ 1 bonus to Magic offence rolls.
Cube Creation. Rank: Basic. Create three blocks for 1 NP. Each has 1 HP.
Final Drop: If a magical attack is cast with only one NP left. A bonus roll may be rolled to potentially add more damage. Only usable when Sorcerer class is equipped.
Accessories:
Fallen Warrior: +2 rolls against Resident Evil Zombies. +1 HP. A badge with inside.