[ti]story[/ti]Story Quest: Silent Night

Alistair had such confidence in him- Blackthorne wasn’t convinced. More people didn’t really mean more safety- It usually meant more complications…

He frowned, trying to untangle what to say, catching sight of Domino, and her massive dudunsparce. That drew a smile from him, and he gave the woman a slight nod. Seeing her there helped- She said she loved being support, so that was one relief off his shoulders.

But- Alistair’s… um, friend, Lacrimosa- seemed… very… in character. Blackthorne looked over at Ali, trying to see how he and his pidove were doing. “Oh- um, that seems… uh. Interesting?” Blackthorne’s compliment faltered as he noticed what the item was. Huh. Certainly… different.

A flicker caught his attention- it was Alistair’s friend. And with him was not a pokemon- not really. It looked like a sprigatito, but ephemeral, like he was only able to see it out of the edges of his vision. The man’s health, too, was incredibly low-

Only 100 total hp? Why was he here?

“Um… ” Blackthorne let out a sigh. It- it probably couldn’t be helped. This was Alistair’s friend. “Trick or treat,” He ordered, the pumpkaboo giggling madly, shooting candies at the space the phantom seemed to not-occupy.

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Nero's attention flicked back to Saint as the friendly quester addressed him again, though it seemed Nero's less than stellar greeting had scared him away. Good... good? Yeah, he needed to concentrate on this. It was a rhythm game, right? That took focus to get right, and he'd already proven that he wasn't great at that. It was good that a familiar face who had helped to bolster him the last time he was in an unusual and potentially uncomfortable situation was walking away from him so soon... That was fine actually...

Anyway, whatever, it was just a game. Most of those were single player anyway, and he hadn't started this one for the social aspects. It was all about the... um... nostalgia? ... He hadn't actually worked out what it was that kept drawing him back towards UNOVR each day yet. It was an escape, something to do, and far more interesting than his real life was these days... And actually maybe that first one was the reason he should be dwelling on now. How many exercises had he skipped now? How many video appointments had he just not shown up to? Maybe 'escape' was too mild of a term - he was actively running away every time he slipped the WorldScreen back on.

The pickax slammed the ground with enough force to make the Electrike jump in surprise. The vibrations rippled up his arms, shaking his thoughts away just as he had hoped it would, his teeth gritting together in aggressive focus now. No more thinking, no more talking, just working. The pickax slammed down again, Nero initially forgetting all about keeping in time with the music until a few intentionally rhythmic yaps from his little partner Pokemon brought him back on track again. With less force and better timing, the pickax swung again, the Electrike pawing at the dirt alongside him to help clear whatever it was that they'd uncovered.

Maybe orioncayge would look over again and see what he was doing and be impressed with his hard work...

... oh shut up!

Electrike: 350/400

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Bee started to swing his pickaxe in earnest, following Bunya's advice and chunking through the layer of human-remained topsoil as he chatted with Josh Devlin, Hekate, Honya and Cypress. Jaws the Granbull followed suit, using his broad, pink quartz paws to pull away massive clods of the rotten earth.

"Good think I brought a dog!" Bee commented, as his pick hit the soil, making a tiny GREAT! appear in the air.

"Yeah I think this part is new, or at least I've never heard anything about it before," Bee said to Hekate. "Last time orioncayge and I were here, we ended up in an abandoned town. There were all these...I guess zombies? They were infected by some rot creature that was in the water treatment plant. Pretty wild stuff." Bee remembered the swollen red eyes of the beast. He swallowed. "Mistra can be a bit, uh, rough. What happened to you and your little guy?"

He nodded at Honya's question. It was a good one. Mistra was one of the strangest places in the game. "Moving through Mistra can be a real ordeal. Not just because of the specters, but because the landscape and everything in it is pulled straight from your subconscious." He tapped his head to indicate where most people kept their brain. "Unless you went in being previously traumatized by the inside of a massive crater, you probably wouldn't end up anywhere like here."

Bee thought about it for a moment. Was this a premade location then? Or was the crater the culmination of their collective trauma? Had THE CURVE been lovingly rendered by someone in the graphics department, or did it represent some deep, ancestral fear. Like the simian fear of falling. Or the reptilian fear of being hit with a meteor.

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Big Bee uses WIDE GUARD on Hekate's Torchic and Cypress's Fomantis!

They both take only 25 DAMAGE for their last post

Jaws the Granbull 620/770

Bee smiled as Jade Jager got his joke, and was then deeply wounded when she said she didn't even know him. Of course she knew him! He was Big Bee! He'd even introduced himself! He closed out of the UI before he could finish sending her a friend request.

But then she announced a loud question to the dig site at large.

"D'you think souls are real?"

Now there was a question Bee could get stuck into. Just like he was getting stuck into this crawling, blackened soil. It was like trying to scoop tar out of a glove-box. Somehow it slid back into place with every hit. Whatever the ground was here, it was at least semi-liquid.

"Of course souls are real!" Big Bee said. "Calling it a soul is a bit misleading, but we all know what it is an experience it, right? A soul is what gives you that feeling when you MAKE something. It's like...pride in creation? Any time you play music and finish a piece of art, or spend time with a friend, you can feel your soul just glowing."

"Just like your stomach tells you when you're thirst and your feet tell you when you've walked too much, your soul tells you that the whole point of life is to create things!"

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Jaws the Granbull 570/770

It stunk. Stank? Hell if she knew. Jade only knew that she became more conscious of it in putrid waves, the sickening smell of burning fat and flesh. It coiled around her like an invisible serpent, throwing a tightening loop around her windpipe.

She leaned on her shovel, trying desperately not to gag. “Where’s that coming from?” she said, pulling up her ninja mask to try and filter out the stench. It had no effect– her ailment was of the mind, not body.

It made her imagine things she didn't want to.

Big Bee answering her question was at least partially a distraction. The green-haired woman tried to nod, but found herself retching instead.

<Are you okay? What's up?> Goose asked curiously, jumping back up onto her shoulder to peer into her eyes. <Are you sick?>

“You mean you can't–” Jade shut up, clamping her jaw as she felt another wave of nausea coming on. She pinched her nose. “...Never mind,” she croaked when the wave passed. Smoke. Sizzling hair.

Why am I trying to hide this? Should she still be having normal conversations, trying to pretend everything was okay? Hell, there was no way this was just the alcohol coming back to bite her in the VR world, right?

“Good answer,” she finally managed to tell Big Bee. She leaned harder on her shovel and almost fell over as it dug an inch into another ash tile and disintegrated it, dropping a foot down. “But for those of us that don't create nothing, what does that mean? What if you're just motoring along, day by day, waiting for the next paycheck?”

To create was human. But maybe the most human thing was just laying in bed, sleepless, late at night, wishing you could fix all the mistakes you'd made. There was no soul there, that was for sure.

Maybe that place was where souls went to die.

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CORE ABILITY: DODGE

MONFERNO: 200/250 HP

By sheer luck, Rook managed to hit something. He paused, pickaxe embedded in solid rock, before carefully extracting it and brushing away the rubble. Much of it was only ash, and he was fortunate this character model came with gloves, though he still found himself yearning for proper equipment.

“Helios, it appears I’ve struck gold,” Rook chuckled, resting the handle of his pickaxe against his leg and brushing the chunk of stone he’d unearthed until the jagged pattern at its center revealed itself.

“I do appreciate the detail.” It was in-tact and almost perfectly round, more a prop for a show than an actual fossil, but there was an interesting shape embedded into it. “A… fish, perhaps? Fossilized Drake, it says, so maybe there is a fish-like dragon in this game. Would you like to take a look?”

If Helios were to agree, he’d lend it, and if he didn’t, Rook would simply pocket it. “This is actually quite fun,” he hummed, resuming his digging, unaware that his beloved Rowlet had gone from the furred collar around his neck—now having burrowed fully under the jacket, perched on his back under the cover in his attempt to drown out the noise. It made Rook look hunchbacked.

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TIBBLES || 400/500

Jade had a sharp eye out for anyone else who might affirm her olfactory senses weren't going off the deep end, and two dudes in particular (Rook and Josh Devlin) didn't look like they were having a fun time. "You guys smell that shit too, right?" she called, then immediately regretted raising her voice. Not because it echoed, or carried, but because it felt swallowed. As if something huge and unknowable was not only listening, but standing very near.

It was the same fear that led people to douse their campfires in the middle of the night-- for fear the signs of life might draw the eyes of the unknown.

"Sometimes I miss real life," Jade muttered to herself, reaching down into the hole to grope around for the fossil she'd uncovered. She flinched as her fingers brushed against something slithery-- more of that creepy tinsel?!-- and snatched her hand back, but when she leaned over the hole to peer into it, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a piece of pinkish stone with a weird, liver-shaped outline on it.

<Ooh, what's that?> Goose peered in from the other side, bumping against Jade's head. "Ow! I dunno, lemme check," the green-haired woman said, rubbing her temple with a scowl.

Against her better judgment, steeling her will, she reached down again and felt her fingers close around the rock. She pulled it out, looked it over with no sign of recognition, then handed it to Goose. "Here. Hold onto this, I dunno if the doctor will... want it later." She got another whiff of burning hair and flesh and tried not to retch. "Ugh. Christ, I'm gonna be sick."

<I'll dig the next one,> Goose offered, wrapping her prehensile tail around the fossil to keep it safe and tugging the shovel away from her trainer in the meanwhile. <Hiyah! Hiyah! Watch out fossils, Goose is comin' for ya!> The Monferno struck the ground haphazardly all around herself, finally falling into an accidental rhythm that coincided with the sleigh bells.

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CORE ABILITY: DODGE

MONFERNO: 175/250 HP