"Poor dear," the very old woman puttered about as Cindy was fed a bowl of stew. This world of bright light and oceans served good soup and stew it seemed. The old woman was actually Link's grandmother and if he had a heart, it would ache for the lonely woman. She hid it well, but the absence of both her grandchildren was taking its toll.
She held up a bowl for you to take, smiling. Your face would scare her since you had basically cloned her grandson, but your pot helmet did a good job of hiding that.
"Go on," she said kindly.
You carefully pretended to sip some as the stuff simply settled into the bottom of your fake body. It felt warm if nothing else.
No food effect gained. You have no stomach.
It did nothing for you, but maybe you could ask for some for a certain grumpy cookie?
"Thank you, but Cindy..." you began but the woman held up her hand.
"She's been through a terrible ordeal, what happened?" she inquired.
"Bad people used her because she had magic and...they hurt for the secrets she contained. Her soul and heart are damaged and she may need time," you said as honestly as you could.
Racoon City and its world was a pain, but if there was any of these Null cells about, you should go back and remove them before long. Gran, as she insisted on being called, looked horrified and you patted her shoulder comfortingly, or as close as you could manage.
"It was one of those days," you said. Cindy looked at you slowly.
"Eraqus... this place seems nice," she said quietly.
"Well, this place seems to have a sun compared to where I picked you up, so there is a slight change I suppose," you walked closer.
"Is this heaven?" Cindy asked, eyes not quite alert but she smiled slowly, trying to reassure you. You nodded to Gran who bustled about with more energy than before.
"A nice old lady did feed us so... angel or resident, both could be proof, but I think it's more Paradise than heaven," you mused.
"Not quite in the end, but it's certainly an improvement compared to where we once were," you added and Cindy nodded once.
"I am so down with zombies, labs, and... creeps," she mumbled as her eyes drifted. Gran shuffled over to her with a blanket and draped it over Cindy.
"I'll look after her. You look...no, feel like someone who doesn't stay for long," she said and nodded at her own words.
Soon, you were standing on the highpoint of the island holding a letter. Gran assumed you'd be travelling and hoped you ran into a certain blond child.
You assumed it was fair, she'd watch Cindy and you'd pass on a note if you ever met Link again. The letter vanished into your strange pocket space along with three bottles of still warm soup.
Gran's letter obtained.
X3 Soup obtained. Made with love, or so they claim.
You focused your inner free energy into the symbol of the great sword.
Warrior: 031
Remaining exp: 9
Warrior has reached level 3!
Melee rolls gain +1 to the melee potential. A strike doing D4 damage now does D4+1.
You opened a portal to see what else you could find on this World. Maybe even find Link?
Roll 40.
You stepped out of the portal, seeing something quite unusual. You were on a boat, not rare given the World you were in but... this ship was quite different. You softly walked towards the edge of the ship to see an endless black sky and dozens of haunting blue lights in the air. The air lit up as a storm raged above and the ship rocked, but oddly... didn't move forward or to the side as the waves crashed against it. One of the blue lights was closer than the rest and voices whispered into your head, an endless harsh string of nonsense and accusations.
The rest of the blue orbs began to join in, their whispering becoming a mad wail in the ocean.
Then... all the blue orbs flickered out, one by one in rapid succession, bring darkness across the ship. But a light did appear after a moment, a single hazy lantern light near the cabin door that creaked open. You lurched towards it, moving your hips as you closed the door once then kicked it open to show your dominance.
"Eraqus, Dusk against supernatural crime," you announced deadpanned. Something hit you in the back and you were forced forward a step as the door slammed shut, leaving you in pitch black darkness leading down into the belly of the ship.
You summoned your mace in a swirl of Nothing energy and the end began to shine with a bland white light. Revealing... things that skittered along the wall, fleeing from the light. You moved your light around, but besides very old wood and cobwebs with no spiders, you were alone.
You head down and in the large hallway, the lantern light was back, but this time it was being held by something. A small transparent red ghost with an animal mask, it hissed at you. You hissed back and then three more of various colours emerged, shooting towards you, cackling and moaning.
You tried communicating and bowed, trying to convey the emptiness in your own body to the ghosts.
25, req 80 = fail
One of them shot through you and vanished, easily filling your body like it was simply a suit or a sock...
Oh... wait. It was.
Your body lurched towards the wall where a broken portion of it was smashed, leaving behind some home-made stakes and spikes.
Roll 86 pass
You stopped and utterly flooded yourself with that aching all encompassing consuming pain of having no heart. These things had theirs... they died and no lingered in memory alone. You would not let them disregard your pain!
The ghost inside squealed, fleeing your body.
You opened a portal and got out. This ship was too much for you now… for now.
-
Well... this place was already getting marked down less than stellar. Snow... snow...ice...snow...
Oh and very angry men with guns. That was something to mark down as annoying. You saw something besides the generic black goons and orders being shouted about. You lanced up at the large water pillar as men kicked in ice frozen doors and a helicopter landed.
You moved like paper in the wind until you finally saw colour other than white and black.
Well, black was still here, it was just too much black to be real.
"-Find her," the man demanded. He pointed a clawed gauntlet at the soldier who ran off. A woman stepped off the helicopter and eyed the frozen base with distaste.
"Wha't ah mess..." she said and hauled a large gun off her back.
"Mess? Are we being real? This is hell," came another pissed off accented woman, but she didn't emerge from her many layers of fur and coat.
The man stared around and his white mask of some reaper complete with his black clothes and rather massive twin guns was complete with many...many belts of bullets. The woman was odd, not shivering despite the fact she was barely wearing what would be considered... wise clothing. Also, she was blue like she was dead already with long legs and a longer sniper rifle.
The woman in the helicopter was wearing purple but her dark skin was shivering.
"Are you sure it wasn't just a, I dunno, failure? A glitch in the system?" the woman demanded and the dead woman looked back.
"One of tee stasis pods is alreedy empty," she warned in a thick accent. Dark man rolled his neck.
"She's awake and hiding. Her fear is alive," he rasped and vanished into a literal moving cloud of darkness. The young woman finally leaned forward to glare, showing heavily dyed hair and a pissed expression.
"And this is worth freezing our asses off? Voy a morir!" she hissed. The dead woman tilted her head.
"She haz the data we need. Someone wants it bad enough to pay...tee extra mile," she almost purred those words.
"And what could some frumpy middle-age nerd have that's worth soooo much?" the younger one demanded.
"Data about the storm... zee event... and a door. Orders are orders," the woman replied and used a grappling hook to snake her way up on high. You saw motion to the side and you turned your head to see blinking digital eyes noticing you as well.
There was a moment of pause as you stared at the floating robot thing and it stared back. It tried to scan you or beep and as soon as it made the little noise, a red dot quickly zoomed up the place you were hiding.
You reached for the robot, hoping to grab him. You knew the world was still accepting you as an arrival so you could feel your form shift if you wanted to change classes in an instant. You felt the floppy wizard hat settle on your head as you twisted, holding the alarmed robot close as the red dot focused directly where your heart would be.
Eraqus: 40
WM: 77+10 =87
The woman must have had insane reflexes and timing because the bullet tore through you like lightning, pinging off the wall behind you and sending a barrage of snow to smash you towards the ground.
You raised a hand to the air and three pink cubes began to cover your front. Perhaps it was the sensation of pain, perhaps it was the confusion, perhaps it was the smirk on the woman's face as she grappled closer to line up another shot, but your magic surged. The woman was forced to dodge as an additional cube flew at her, smashing into the metal railing and bending it before the pink cube ruptured.
Cubes now summon in group of 4 and can be shot at a target for d3 blunt ranged.
The robot lifted and beeped, drawing your attention to a small outtower near the edge of the base.
You used another cube to smash into the ground sending the snow high into the air, making the already thick storm worse. Just in time to bury under the snow and slither as a black cloud swarmed towards where you landed and footprints were forming all on their own in the snow. You held the robot as you moved through the frozen snow like a snake.
"No heat... ze is using protection," came a familiar voice over a radio. The owner was just a few feet away and would notice you shifting the snow.
"Yeah... yeah... terrible," a snarky accent voice said. You were surprised as you watched as she shifted snow to reveal you and your scared robot friend and was grinning, a strange automatic gun in her hand. She winked and gestured towards the tower as she sauntered off, cursing people in something like Spanish from the Mexican dialect.
You would say you felt curious on why she was helping you or worried she might be setting a trap... or even amused at her manner.
You could say that. But it'd be a lie.
You made it to the tower as Snowball floated into a side window where very human hands reached for it.
"Snowball! Your feed went dark and I got so worried!" came a woman with an accent that hinted at one of the many dialects of China, but you guessed it could be a faint mandarin. You slipped in through the window and the girl in a large parka and glasses covered her mouth to smother a scream.
"Hello. Amazing to meet you, I assume you are the person that those strange individuals are seeking?" you asked politely before a shoe, a tennis racket, a mug, and a few pens were thrown at you. Was she chanting some... banishing spell in her native language?
"It would please me greatly if you would stop that. I am trying to help your small friend after all." you called and she hesitated, hand holding a thermos.
The woman eyed your hat, your strange body, your open zipper mouth, and you took a step towards her, hip thrusting in greeting.
Her eyes rolled and she collapsed into a pile of notes and supplies, the landing causing a bit of noise.
You could see the familiar laser dot shining through the window and you turned to see something interesting.
A knocked out black guard with a gun carefully placed away from him. The robot was making sad noises at the unconscious woman. This woman had taken one of them out!
You grabbed the gun and it was coated in the energy of Nothing. The black thing became silver and dark purple. The barrel had narrowed and the muzzle actually extended slightly forming a single jutting metal spike to act as a crosshair. The weapon itself was actually attached to your arm now like a glove.
Repeated Lament: does d3 per shot. Does three shots per activation. Takes 1 turn to reload.
The gun vanished the next moment, gone from your magic hands. You turned and tried to open a portal near Mei and it came out looking warped and a strong suction of wind began to draw in notes, machine parts and Snowball barely was able to keep safe by burying into the woman's underarm. This portal wasn't leading to anywhere you knew and you were dangerously low on vitality and energy.
The portal was not of this world. The door began to bang before someone started shooting it with a loud gun.
"No solicitors!" you warned and the shots did stop for a moment. Then dark smoke began to leak into the bullet holes.
You began to drag her towards the portal and the wind picked up, almost eagerly swallowing the unconscious body of the woman.
Roll ? 96
The door flew open as the man was reforming himself, not wanting to be sucked into the portal in his cloud form. His coat ruffled furiously as a heavy wind brushed past him and you got the woman into the portal and jumped in yourself.
The force of the wind was the last thing you felt as the doorway closed.
-
Stars. So many stars.
The woman stared up from the town square. She had said her name was Mei and then went quiet as she just stared. It was a strange place, you had to admit. It made you... want to feel... mostly at ease, at home...
The sign near a giant gate was clear.
Traverse Town. A few people milled around, clearly lost as Mei was, but they tried to act like they lived here or had been for sometime. You walked towards Mei from the alley you had all landed in but someone strode past you.
"Asombrosa," the woman said with clear awe. Her swagger and dyed hair made her look even odder in this town.
The woman from the snow place turned and spread her arms wide.
"What an internet deadzone! I'm in hell!" she laughed.
She leaned down towards you and grinned.
"Hola... me and you have got some chitchat to make..." she smirked. Pursing her purple lipstick mouth, she reached out and poked your inner face, that was fragile and you winced.
"Boop!" she grinned like a demon.