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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.
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[For the first time, Demi-Fiend seems a bit wrongfooted and uncertain about the conversation's direction. The thing was, his 'story' was not something he thought about too deeply. The details were too... well, and the event were, well, and... the whole thing was just well. So long as you keep marching forwards, punching anything in your path, the sad thoughts can't catch you...
...
There was no punching or marching here, however, so he put his hands on his hips and declared dramatically:]
I'm a high school graduate.
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[He... couldn't remember the name of his school, actually. Everything from before the world exploding was all fuzzy, just because it had been so long ago. He thinks. Maybe? It had to have been a decade at least? Ish? Or more? He couldn't remember...]
The school was, uh, I think... I think it was... it might've been... Jouin...?
[...that sounded familiar, so it had to be that one, right?]
Uh, yeah, Jouin! I graduated from Jouin, Tokyo. Uh, not really thinking about college right now, though. Probably couldn't anyways. [He never got his exam results back u-u ] I forgot everythin' to do with academic stuff.
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Jouin? Eh? Jouin! Tokoyo? Eh? Never heard of Jouin. [ She moves her legs around like a child playfully kicking them about, ] Sounds like a fun place and whats with the tats? [ Tattoos. ] They kind of look like mana circuits to BB.
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'Mana circuits'? Never heard of those, but I got these when Lucifer ambushed me in a hospital basement and put a bug in me.
[He does not elaborate on this.]
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Demi-Fiend is just kinda like. 🧍 right now because this is the first time anyone legitimately asked him 'you good, man?' and not following it up with some sort of suckerpunch because demons are, in general, sociopathic assholes.
(Well, the only exception to that rule was Pixie, who doesn't count because she was there from the beginning when he crawled off that hospital bed disorientated and clawing at his eye from when the bug- well yeah, so knew he was Not Good from the start.)]
I, uh...
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[He snaps out of it after a moment, though, and he even laughs obnoxiously as if him being anything but good was ludicrous.]
My origin story sounds like the plot to a bad early-2000s RPG, true, but it's all good. The tattoos are cool, and it helped me survive, so I can't complain. People have had it way worse than me.
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Yeah, sure you are. [ BB leans back a bit watching him with ever-rising intrigue. ]
Yeah? A run-in with Lucifer is just your everyday then? Sounds rough, BB-chan can't imagine, she met Nyarlathotep once - that's a Cosmic Eldritch God in case you don't know - and like, boy that was a riot to deal with! [ She laughs like this conversation is the most normal convo in the world. ] After that BB-chan became much more powerful and leveled up her Villain stat tree so she could trap someone in a time loop over and over again and never let her leave. [ She sighs, so sad. Makes a frowny face. ] They did end up leaving though.
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[He genuinely means it! Villain stats? Timeloop prisons???? He can't trap people in timeloop prisons what the hell. Why didn't Lucifer give him that power?? That bastard definitely had that power since he kept bending time into a pretzel when they duked it out that one time (god he hated that move so much).
Anyway, he sees an opportunity for the focus to shift awaaaaaaaaaaaaay from him and onto BB the Bald (no matter what she says this is what she is eternally in his mind now). He rapidly starts talking, hoping throwing enough conversation starters at the wall would have one stick like spaghetti.]
Shame about your timeloop prisoner escaping though. But that means you get to hunt them, right? Oh, wait, were they were your girlfriend? Family member? Rival? Arch-enemy? Are you locked in an eternal game of cat-and-mouse? Also how did you do the timeloop, there's this guy I wouldn't mind locking in one because he's kinda bad at dealing with his shit that doesn't involve the people he cares about dying horribly and he's being all depressed about it.
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Uwaaa, girlfriend is too soon! BB-chan and Master haven't gotten to that level yet, and with all the servants flocking to them it will never be that way anyway. [ BB sighs sadly, a girl can dream though and maybe - ] BB-chan was putting them in a time jail so they could live happily for the rest of forever and never know suffering - but... They chose to suffer instead, and try to save all of humanity - it's just like Master-chan to do that!
[ She shrugs, as if, it is what it is. ]
Ehh? He sounds SUPER villainous - like way evil levels far away from BB-chan, and she is a big bad final boss!! [ Throws this information out there, and flips her hair like she is the coolest thing in the world. ] A lot of time stuff BB-chan does revolves around reality space warping, it's complicated.
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That Nahobino guy of his just kept tripping over corpses on his way to achieving a world where that wouldn't happen anymore... never mind that he's perpetuating an unfair system that'll simply cause more corpses when the world had to be destroyed and made anew again!!! But sadly Nahobino does not listen to Demi-Fiend about the unfairness of reality and ignores him about destroying it all for good u-u (because when they meet Demi-Fiend's way of trying to convey his intentions is by... beating the shit out of him.... there are mixed signals, is what I'm saying).]
Oh, complicated is bad... but I'm not put off! This guy's a good guy! That's why I wanna timeloop him! If I stick him where like, he doesn't get all max depresso so all the bad stuff doesn't happen, then I can take my time convincing him how to make his life waaaay better than letting himself get pulled into a lose-lose game where he's just a dumbass pawn dancing at the end of someone's strings. He can actually make the world that he wants, and not what other people tell him to make!
[Oh my he's- he's getting heated here. There is passion alight in his eyes... he feels strongly about this topic, okay. Nahobino left an Impression, and he Wants To Help, but the only he knows how to Help is by Killing and/or Destroying the Bad Thing (the bad thing is subjective, Demi-Fiend thinks it's the cyclical nature of creation and destruction, Nahobino thinks it's the whole 'the world is ending help where is the scotch tape' situation exploding his Tokyo).]
I wanna help him break free from his stupid lameass fate! Beating him up hasn't worked... so maybe I should timeloop him! [But if it's 'Complicated' then...] Oh! Idea! What if, uh, when we get out of this weird place, you timeloop this guy for me, and I'll play wingman for you and this Master of yours.
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c o m p l e t e l y unrelated.
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[Demi-Fiend crossed his arms and frowned deeply, the hamster starting up a sluggish trot in his brain wheel. A favour unrelated to wingmanning... wait, she can't mean-?!]
You... you won't make me do puzzles, will you?!
[His big trauma button: puzzle boy.............]
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[...]
At some point. When I feel like it.
[And when he figured out the whole, uh, unable to just Simply Leave problem he was having here. He could normally just nope out of dimensions whose vibes he didn't like, but he couldn't do that here for some reason... troubling. It meant he needed to find a specific person to punch.]
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[Wait...]
Oh, guess I can't leave you in the dust if we're gonna fight... and you're gonna do that timeloop thing. Hrm. Okay, you can come with me when I figure it ou- when I feel like leaving!
[nod nod!!!!]
And with that settled, I guess I should introduce myself. I'm the Demi-Fiend.
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Demi-Fiend? It sounds like a title, very interesting name, also sounds like a name someone gives themself to sound cool and edgy. Either way, Demi-fiend then! Nice to meet you, [ She gives the dead not dead monster a pat. ] So, when are you planning to leave?
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Uh, aha, hm. Well. Well.
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Not any time soon!
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Oh, because you want to have a look around?
[ Welp, she totes gets what he's about now! ]
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[Patting himself on the back aw yeah he's so smooth.]
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[ She guesses she can be helpful, for now. ]
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