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buttrinthum2024-07-20 09:30 am
TDM #10 OVERFLOW
Whether it be sleep or death, you feel your eyes close, and as your body begins to let go, you see a barn owl that is flying through the darkness, soon sweeping you across the clouded sky. You feel yourself mouth the words, “I wish, I wish..” and utter your deepest and darkest desire.
When you regain consciousness, you’ll find you are in an unfamiliar place with no recognition of how you arrived here. You have the clothes on your back, but nothing else. No weapons and if you had a particular superpower, you’ll notice it is missing. All you have is a satchel with a piece of bread, a vial of water, and a potion. The potion could be red, blue or golden. There are no instructions about these potions other than two words: Drink Me.
Will you drink it or not?
There is a parchment, handwritten in scrawling, jagged lettering that seems a bit... ominous:
You’re in a garden, surrounded by flowers and plants– most of which you cannot identify. However, there are a few that you can make out: Sunflowers and Hibiscus. You’ll soon find out that being around the Sunflower makes it difficult to pass through the already disorienting garden, even with the light guiding you. Where patches of them grow, even if only waist-high, you cannot pass through them, over them, or even destroy them to get them out of your way. In each grouping that blocks your path, there is one that has a key-shaped opening in the middle of the flower. Maybe the key is nearby? (Spoiler: it's probably under a rock nearby that you forgot to check!) The hibiscus offers an entirely different effect - inhaling the pollen grants you the temporary ability to shoot fireballs out of your hands. But be careful, those fireballs are difficult to control and seem to bounce in random directions no matter how hard you try to aim (cannot be used to destroy the sunflowers). The effect ends once you step out of the garden.
Somnius is once again recovering from a devastating blow. Buildings need to be restored to their former glory and the emotional turmoil of the previous weeks surely needs to be alleviated. What better way to lighten the mood than a little fun for the whole family? A new arcade has appeared in town, beckoning residents with its stone doors set wide open.
With multiple levels, a variety of games and even a snackbar, Appl3 Pi Arcade is sure to be a hit!
Of course, as with everything that ever happens in Somnius, the arcades appearance is not without some complications. For one, playing the games inside might see characters teleported into the machine itself, perfectly pixelated to fit the game they're in. Hope you weren't about to fight the final boss, because now you might be fighting for your life! The good news is, if you die in the game... you don't die in real life and are just popped back out into the arcade again.
Strange things happen outside the arcade too. Walking down the road you might suddenly see a healthbar pop up above someone's head. Are you supposed to fight them? Are they going to fight you? Best to be cautious and reach for any trusty weapons you have just in case. Weapons that have become pixelated and can be pulled seemingly out of nowhere like some kind of hammerspace. They are also prone to breaking and shattering into glimmering pixel pieces (your normal weapons are still intact, don't worry).
Boxes and pots around Somnius are somehow more breakable than usual, smashed open with a single swing of those pixel weapons and producing gold coins! What a shame gold coins aren't the currency here. But if you don't want to destroy more things around Somnius, why not try fishing instead? That seems safe - if not suddenly more difficult with the fishing minigame that popped up in front of you. Quick! Keep the fish icon in the green bar or you'll lose it!
All things considered? It's all relatively harmless fun up until-
Vaeros wakes up. For those new to town, this means nothing. For those that were here for the castle raid? They can rest assured that they're in for a surprise. The Overlord of Visium has finally awoken from his Hyalily induced coma and he is furious. A shout echoes from the castle:
A wave of magical energy sweeps through the town, shaking it to the very core. Miraculously, the destroyed buildings and any remnants of the forest onslaught are gone and returned to their usual state. Perhaps Vaeros shouting was just another tantrum, an empty threat?
Not quite.
The town has been restored, but the locals? They are nowhere to be seen - cowering in their homes and fleeing to the sanctity of the Church of the Moon in hopes of staying out of sight of Vaeros and Dreamers both. The once tame video game effects are now far more intense - monsters from within those games are now rampaging through the town. They seem to shift through buildings, but if they run face first into a Dreamer, they will find them very corporeal and very deadly.
Not only that, but the lines are starting to blur between reality and fiction again, the healthbar above your head flickering in and out, the monsters turning from pixel beasts to real, live animals that roam Somnius - both feral and not. One second you are walking through town, and the next you are stepping onto a platform that starts to break under your weight, demanding you jump to the next platform before you plummet into an odd, multicolored abyss.
And strangest of all is that music coming from the labyrinth, growing louder when you approach and fading out when you move away.
Welcome to the labyrinthum TDM! Characters will arrive depowered and with only their clothing, and will be given a satchel with a crystal pendant, a communication device, some water and bread and a magic potion. If they drink the potion, they will manifest an elemental, healing or animal transformation ability.
With the exception of Castle Vaeros, characters are free to go as they please, so feel free to place them in any of the locations available on the map. Yes, this includes the Labyrinth - though characters will not be able to clear the maze.
You can find more information about the game here. Any questions regarding the TDM can go under the comment below.
no subject
And Mithrun is on a mission.
He cannot believe that he has found himself within another Dungeon, not so easily. And this one… it is so open, far too open… How was the dungeon lord protecting it? How was the demon contained? By their very nature a more mature Dungeon needed to be labyrinthine, cramped and dark and confusing to those who would attempt to seal them or steal from them, so could this be but a fledgeling… ?
If that was so, the lord should be inexperienced, the demon yet weak. If he can just find it—
He suddenly plants a foot, twists, and reaches out to grab for the wrist of the person behind him.]
no subject
[Chortling like an amused child, Demi-Fiend hop-skips backwards to narrowly avoid getting snagged by the guy's startlingly fast reflexes! He almost got caught there! Impressive... rare for Demi-Fiend to encounter someone that could almost catch him off guard like that.]
Almost, but no dice! [He grins, feline-like, revealing a flash of sharp canines for a moment.] I got pretty close there, though! You should be more careful, noodle boy. What if I'd been a hungry monster, eh?
no subject
But you are not.
[- And then away, back to his original destination. If not stopped, he will simply return to his original course. If this other person is playing around... He can find someone else to bother soon enough, surely.]
no subject
[Talk about a one-track mind. Demi-Fiend wasn't sure whether to be insulted or amused when the guy just ambled off again, like Demi-Fiend was nothing more than a harmless nuisance to brush off. It'd been... a long time since Demi-Fiend had ever been legitimately harmless. To think he'd experience this kind of indignity again...
It was really novel. It amused him.]
What a freak. Well, anyway.
[He trots after noodle boy to walk alongside though with at least an arm's length between them. Doesn't stop him from shamelessly staring intently at noodle boy's face in profile, though, his grey eyes very... intense. Assessing.
Thing is, along with the power nerf, Demi-Fiend's sense of smell was nerfed too. No sensing demons or other ne'er-do-wells with a sniff test or even by sensing changes in magatsuhi frequencies with his horn, and since this place had real live actual humans, Demi-Fiend had to be careful here. This guy may be a demon he can be rough with... or a human he had to be gentle with. He had to figure it out somehow.]
no subject
That fact doesn't change. And while Mithrun was not ignorant at all of the cruelties humans were capable of inflicting on one another... He doesn't really care about them. Not only because he was generally able to rely on his powers to either retreat or defeat others, but... the desire to worry about his own well-being had been consumed along with the rest of his wants. He only had one left, and as long as it did not prevent him from getting revenge on the demon that had devoured all but the scraps of him...
Whether it was annoyance, pain, humiliation... What happened was of no concern.
He does not respond to the insults.
He does not comment on being stared at. (That, he was even more used to. Since his return from the dungeon, he has been examined countless times by academics, mages, and doctors. His profile is beautiful, androgynous... but marred and unkempt. His skin is sallow, his ears, which seem to have once been long and pointed, have been sliced and long-healed over. Nerve damage on the right side of his face makes his eyelids droop around the prosthetic that replaces what should have been an eye.)
... He does not stop the stranger from following him, either. He is heading towards the labyrinth.]
no subject
You're a deranged lunatic, aren't you?
[Asked so matter-of-factedly, more of a statement than a legitimate question, as he continued on without even giving noodle boy a chance to answer.]
So what's the rush, hm? Got someone to kill? To save?
[Beat.]
Or is it...?! A hot date~?
no subject
He lacks the desire to defend himself, protect his reputation, or even play along.
... He also seems to lack any degree of humor or temper, because he does not laugh, nor lash out, over the insinuation that he is doing something so frivolous at a time like this.
The answer?]
Whether they are killed depends on them.
[The dungeon lord did not need to die if they could be convinced to relinquish their contract with the demon... But if not, then the answer was even simpler.]
no subject
[Demi-Fiend trailed off suggestively, but noodle boy didn't so much as look vaguely annoyed or curious! Damn. His bulletproof composure could give Raidou a run for his money. By now even that cold fish would be carrying some tension around his mouth and squinting his eyes in that telltale 'I'm about to shoot you in the head again' glare.
Most demons would be deterred by such apathy. No fun fishing where the fish ain't biting and all that. But Demi-Fiend was simply encouraged. He wanted to dig out some kind of reaction from this human noodle, a mingling of two instincts: the demon in him hungered for the potency of magatsuhi that would dwell in such repressed emotion, and the human in him was simply curious to see what would get this guy to crack. Something had to get under his skin, right?]
Okay, I'm curious about this Schrodinger murder of yours. What's a guy gotta do around here to have you murder them? 'Cuz I'm being pretty annoying and you're not even acknowledging it, man.
no subject
Walking. Fine. It's... taking longer than he would like.]
I do not kill people for being annoying.
[He also did not seem to be particularly set on indulging them, either. He did not mind telling most anyone most anything... because he lacked any desire for privacy. But he did recognize that if others began to think that members of the dungeon investigation unit were the type to murder indiscriminately that he may be held accountable and removed. And he could now allow that, not when it was the only access he had to seeking out his one remaining want.
The answer, at least in the case of a potential Dungeon Lord in this place, is simply,]
If the Dungeon Lord of this realm refutes his contract, I will have no call to kill him either.
no subject
[Dungeon Lord? What type of nerdy-ass title was that? Sounded like something he'd hear a weakling demon ramble about being after staking out a pathetic little fiefdom in a sewer somewhere.]
Actually, not-right. I have no idea what you're talking about, noodle boy. You LARPing your D&D campaign or something?
crawls back from traveling
I have no idea what you’re talking about, either.
I hope you had a fun trip!
[Typical of conservations with the denizens of the Vortex World, though at least this weirdo hadn't attacked him yet. So Demi-Fiend mentally labelled this man 'a freak, but a polite one'. His favourite kind of freak.]
Let's start from the top then, noodle boy: what's a demon lord? Some kinda big hotshot? A strong big hotshot?
Its hot!!!! 🥵
Despite his strange tattoos, which Mithrun was not familiar with, this person looked like a tallman… He wasn’t equipped for a dungeon, that was sure, but some idiots went adventuring woefully unprepared, that was explainable enough…
Still,]
The one who has contracted with a demon to become the lord of a dungeon.
[He sounds like he’s reading from a dictionary. He’s also walking still.]
Since this one was able to somehow bring me here without my realizing, they must be powerful.
[So yes, there were weak ones, sometimes… But this one-
This dungeon was advanced. Too advanced.
It makes his heart almost remember how to sing, crying out to be used up.]
bro same... u-u
[Now they were getting somewhere! Communication! It was glorious. With this renewed understanding, Demi-Fiend peered around him with fresh eyes. Well, it wasn't a Vortex World, and neither was there a Kagutsuchi blazing above their heads - at least, there shouldn't be since Demi-Fiend blew up that fucker ages ago.]
Hm, but they shouldn't be able to do anything. I mean, firstly, there's not enough magatsuhi here. [You need billions of human lives worth to create a whole new world, after all!] And secondly, there's no Vortex World. Everything's all stable and, not getting devoured by some big void thingiemajig. So, I guess they're just some boring devil summoner asshole who'll probably get eaten at some point. The problem solves itself!