Chevaleresse

go ahead

Visrii would have seen Heartless already, since everyone was intro'd at the same time.

"Alright. Now that we're clear on that. . . Thank you, Snow. Yeah, the Heartless are basically mindless. Like animals, almost. Their only goal is to consume more hearts. They do act with pack tactics sometimes - so a lot of the times, killing the biggest or meanest one around will cause them to disperse - but they won't do a lot more than swarm you unless someone's directing them. A lot of people try to bend them to their own will, and it works, right until someone stronger comes around. These ones didn't start out organized, but their sheer numbers are a problem, and they seem to be acting with some more intelligence lately. They don't control animals, as far as I know. They do mimic them, sometimes; are you talking about those strange ones that have been showing up lately? Do you think they might not be Heartless at all? I suppose they are really strange. . . No emblems, and no glowing yellow eyes. But yeah, they just pop up out of thin air sometimes. IT seems like there's some limit to it, so you don't get jumped by entire armies of them, but you can't really be quite sure when you're safe." By now, the party would have reached another set of steps, this one a bit more staggered. "The shops are up there. They'll give you the supplies we can spare. Visit me in this house-" he gestures at the one behind him, near the stair "- when you're ready to go. ((They'll give each person a Potion, which heals for 10 HP on use. The party can also grab a total of 4 Bangles, which are simple +1 res armor items. Decide amongst yourselves who needs them.))

Both of you are currently on your last chance. Dial it back. You're the fucking heroes of the multiverse, not murderhobos. If you want to do Chaotic Evil shit you can at LEAST wait until after the god damn tutorial.

Leon abruptly whirls and drives a knee straight into this man's gut. "Do you want to run that idea by me again?"

Leon tries very hard to ignore the idiocy going on behind him as the group (presumably) follows him, electing instead to take the excuse to reminisce a bit. He does give It that Embraces an odd look, for a moment; she was strange even by his own standards, with her communication equally thus. Still, it got the idea across. "Yeah, this place wasn't always barren ruins. Lots of people used to live here before the Heartless took over; they weren't always all over the place like this, or at least I don't think they were. Needless to say, when they conquered this world, they didn't exactly treat it very nicely, and the process of kicking them out - well, out far enough that we could move back in - was messy." "Anyway, it's just a little further to our little base of operations. Past that are the shops; normally they'll charge for supplies but we're asking a dangerous favor, so take what you need when we get there, within reason. Meanwhile, the Hellfire Knight is still somehow visibly on edge through the cloak and such, what with the fighting suddenly breaking out. It's not that she was a stranger to combat, but this sort of lethal intent. . . And over something so minor? She shook her head, moving her thoughts to another matter. Magna was . . . not human, clearly, or at least had an unusual prosthetic arm. She hadn't really maintained contact long enough to thoroughly analyze what she'd felt. Maybe she should ask, but that would probably end up with her doffing her disguise, and she wasn't quite ready to do so.

also i'm going to plotkill everyone who makes such a consistent issue of themselves. I can literally throw whatever I want at you whenever I want at you due to the nature of the game. You've been warned.

Suddenly, the flat of a blade strikes the back of Solomon's head, sending his unconscious form crumpling to the ground. "Is there any way you idiots could avoid trying to kill each other? If you keep this up we'll just have to find a way to fend off the Heartless on our own, because there's no way in hell we're handing valuable supplies over to people that behave like this." He irritably brandishes his gunblade at the group before returning it to his belt with rather more force than necessary. "No, I don't know why your gun doesn't work on Heartless. As for fixing the defenses of this place, we haven't knocked anything down because the overall goal is to restore this place to what it used to look like, once upon a time. Before the Heartless. Just follow me, and someone carry these two morons so we can deal with them." He proceeds down the stairs in a huff.

This is a pretty close representation of how the area appears in the source material, btw. (This was made for MMD so it's not the actual same thing, but yeah.)

It took most of Hiroki's self-control to not instinctively flail when Kagari hugged her. She wasn't exactly used to sudden displays of affection, particularly ones involving physical contact, and the entire situation of the tournament held her in a near-constant state of being on edge; that was part of why she wore the disguise. Having a layer of isolation helped her calm down and think, not to mention making the slim chance of someone deciding that foul play was the best option that much slimmer by adding in ambiguity as to whether she would go down easily if surprised. Failing any proper way to respond to the hug - since she couldn't whisper to Kagari to cut it out due to the voice changer blasting her voice out across the room - she simply elected to try not to react to it at all; it was quite nice, if she was honest, but she couldn't admit that in front of everyone. It was a sign of weakness.

Um. Is Mommo literally ONLY wearing socks?

Leon sighs very heavily. "It's called a gunblade, and if you make one more wise-ass remark like that you're going to get some very detailed information on how it performs in combat." He clears his throat loudly, and shakes his head again. He begins another explanation as the group draws closer. The rock fades into what looks like the remains of some great fortress, dark crumbling brick making up patches of the walls with that strange, destroyed clockwork running through it in places. He leads them up a set of stairs and into an area that looks to be a bit better repaired; a gate blocks their path before he holds up a card, resulting in a beep and the gate sliding open to permit access. Once inside, it opens up to a path that places them on top of a high wall, overlooking several houses - which appear newer than the ruins - and a set of stairs leading down to the cobblestone street. The other side seems to overlook where they've come from. "So, as I said, there's been this huge number of Heartless around lately, way more than what we're used to dealing with. We think that there's someone or something summoning them or making them, and that something is pretty close to here. We've checked the one Heartless factory we know of already, but that's still dead. All we can really do is follow the trail of Heartless back to the source; we've got a general direction but not enough fighters to both keep the Heartless out of town and go after the source. We were hoping that you could help us out; we've got supplies as I mentioned, and can help get you offworld if you give us enough time. You know, this whole thing with drop-ins happening again reminds me of old times. . . Not good times, overall, but I met a friend during them. Maybe you'll run into him at some point."

alright the fact that some people don't seem to actually be reading posts annoys me, e.g. aiming at nonexistent trees or responding to people with complete non sequiturs. I thought this was a basic thing but I'll remind people to actually read, at minimum, host updates and any posts you plan on responding to from others. EDIT: YO CRONOS THAT MEANS YOU

The cloaked figure glanced between Magna and Kagari, and then stumped over somewhat reluctantly; it was fairly clear that whoever was under the cloak had some measure of difficulty walking. "Hello again," she greeted the idol(?). "You are also working with Magna?" The figure shifted its head toward Leon. "We should follow the rest."

"My name is Leon." He glares at Solomon. "Give me a second. In case you didn't notice, there's like twenty of you, I can't answer every question at once. As far as drinks go, Cid's got a stash somewhere, if you can pry it from his cold, dead hands. We've got food, too. You're right that we normally don't have a problem with these things. There aren't usually this many, though. Here, this'll be easier to explain back in town where we're not worried about more Heartless showing up. Are you gonna follow me back, or what?"

Hiroki walked up, trying not to let her teeth chatter hard enough for her voice changer to pick it up. Did it really have to be this cold in here? I hate the cold, hate it so much. . . Is this supposed to make us uncomfortable, or is it just coincidence? Seriously, I want to just melt this place. . . It is kind of pretty, though, but most ice sculptures I've seen were temperature controlled separately from the room. . . I always wondered why they did that instead of just making a crystal sculpture. I saw one that was made of a blue-tinted crystal so it looked like ice once. . . Gah, what am I doing? Focus, focus, you're going to embarrass yourself in front of another god, and this time Kagari isn't going to strip and pull attention away. . . I think. She bowed, the motion as awkward as usual, before making a simple introduction: "I am the Hellfire Knight." She tried to ignore the fact that the god looked like he was around the same age as herself, and acted even more immature. . . Are all the gods this strange?

The man sighs heavily at Snow's reaction. "Great. Another one that thinks they're gonna do great by themselves. Just, please, for the love of God, don't start talking about your 'inner darkness' or something, I've dealt with enough of that. . ." He seems to be recalling something distant but still irritating before he shakes his head and tries to assume a cheerful demeanor once more. "I'll just be taking you back to town. This world is called Hollow Bastion, by the way. As for Nobodies and Heartless, you've fought some of the latter already. Shadowy things, weird empty heart symbol on them. They devour worlds, shrouding them in darkness forever. . ." Again, he looks distant for a moment. "Nobodies are something else. The shell left behind after a person becomes a Heartless. They sort of don't exist, not the same way we do. I haven't seen any around lately, though. Heartless, though, there's been a huge amount around lately."

Okay, so, after some review, there will be the following adjustments to INIT-affecting flaws: -A flaw that reduces INIT directly should reduce it by -10; this is consistent with Alexandria's flaw, which is essentially a variable penalty from -0 to -19. -A flaw that reduces INIT if hit by a certain element should drop your INIT by half (after bonuses) and then drop you to the bottom on the second hit. Successive hits will be stuns. -A flaw that caps your INIT bonus should have it always be 0.

A man with shaggy, medium-length brown hair in a short black jacket and black pants appears from the direction that Eon had previously seen houses in. He draws closer, waving down the people beginning to leave the area. "Wait! Don't run off just yet. I need to talk to you." After another few moments, giving the people more distant a chance to return to the main group and for himself to get there, slowing from a jog to a walk. Now that he's here, a distinctive weapon can be seen thrust through a loop at his hip; it looks a lot like a broadsword, but it has the distinctive mechanism of a revolver near the handle, complete with a trigger. "I'm guessing you guys are new here. Judging from the Heartless you just took out, and the fact that you're not Nobodies, you're not here to destroy anything. If you just follow me, I can explain a little of what's going on, I think. We've got extra supplies too. I do have a favor to ask, though, so follow me; I'll explain on the way." He gestures toward the direction he came from.

Already rated this one so [bLACK SPEECH]/10

idk check the OP or the post where i said all the new characters that were in

go ahead i'm currently debating about whether to move the plot forward when i wake up tomorrow, tomorrow night, or wait until Sunday night/Monday morning since I'll be busy as hell Sunday and unable to update

[sighs heavily]