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  1. Paradisi Gloria Lailah was feeling pretty good, all things considered. The implicit threat of violence against her person or the church she was staying at had not entirely gone away, but at least Sibyl was focused on other things now. Things could swing back the other way at any moment, Lailah thought, but she could keep talking and keep things engaged. The existence of two other capes in the room ostensibly on her side (they were from G3, after all) who she was helping accomplish a mission of their own also bolstered her confidence. Her power, represented by those little balls of light, probably betrayed that to an extent, but they were ever-wary and responded to the slightest twinge in her emotional state anyway. Capricious little things. She adored them. “What’s the saying?” she said. “Power corrupts? Or is it the desire for power that corrupts people? It’s difficult to tell when so many people can do so many different things, I suppose.” A new voice echoed through the church. “Oh dear. It looks like we’re interrupting something.” The speaker was just inside the church entrance: Hellhound, complete with her cup-sized dog still poking out of their bag. Lailah looked at the three capes around her. Did they know about Hellhound? Surely at least by reputation, right? Hellhound also surveyed the church’s occupants, and their eyes stopped on Sibyl. “I see Caesar isn’t the only one with a sense of humor when it comes to shaking down the church,” they said with a wry grin. “And it’s lucky for us, too, since we’ve got a bone to pick with you, demon girl.” “Us?” Lailah said. She knew Hellhound was attached to their dog but she thought it was a “singular unit” sort of relationship, like when they said “I” their canine companion was implied to be included in that statement. In that sense, they were alone. As if on cue, the stained glass on all four arms of the church shattered simultaneously as four more Gibbons members crashed through. Two of them, the one coming in near the entrance -- near Hellhound -- and the one coming through the glass depicting the fight over the sun managed a well-executed roll to avoid serious damage, while the other two flanking them all to the left and right did more of a swoop before lowering themselves to the ground under their own power. There were five of them now. “Archangel Lailah,” Hellhound said, “by order of Scarlet City’s new hegemon, Caesar of the Gibbons Gang, you are to step down as leader of the Apostles effective immediately.” And maybe it was the pride and confidence of just a few minutes ago still coursing through her veins, but Lailah’s answer was immediate: “No.” OOC
  2. THE VOID A PLAY IN ONE ACT CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY Z. C-ko Moderators of Yanma’s Custom Monsters forum Girls of the Chorus THE VOID was originally performed at the Kashira Shadow Playhouse as part of the PMDUOS event on the evening of June 2, 2023. SCENE Z. is alone on an empty stage. Z.: Oh, what fresh hell is this? Is this even allowed? Fuck, you would think I’d have been granted the decency of being free from extra bullshit at this point. Okay, no, I would have accepted one of two things happening when I fell asleep: The dungeon bullshit would have been all a dream and I’d just wake up to a normal life, or my subconscious would pull from memories my conscious mind could not, and I could get desperate flashes of another me that doesn’t exist anymore. But this is neither. I’m still a Zorua, though. Fuck me. [They move to the front of the stage] Hey, anyone watching this? No? Typical. Stage lights dim, save a lone spotlight center stage, where Z. was just standing. Z. (turning around): No. [The spotlight reluctantly moves to where Z. is now. Z. turns back around] (Sound Cue #1) Z.: I guess I do remember some things. It’s dumb forum drama, because of course it is, but a forum update made YCM’s mod forum available to the general user base. It got fixed, but basically, any sort of gossip anyone could get their hands on got posted to the miscellaneous forum. The posters got banned and the threads were deleted pretty quickly, but some people’s download buttons were even faster. The voices of the YCM MODERATORS recount their posts from offstage Moderator 1: Oh my God would Zeta just shut up? Moderator 2: Decides they're a they now and makes it their whole personality lmao Moderator 1: Not even that just like... I’ll dock them for calling Summer a bitch ass-cunt or whatever and that’ll put them on their best behavior for a bit but then the warning points go away and they’re back on their bullshit again. Moderator 3: Summer is a bitch ass-cunt to be fair Moderator 1: That’s besides the point.[trails off] Z.: That was a fun two weeks. It all got derailed into some bullshit about mod transparency that went nowhere, and I never got an apology or anything, but I wasn’t really asking for one. The point was, for a hot second there, everyone was on my side. And the thing about people being on your side, they tend to question you a lot less. (Sound Cue #2) The spotlight dims to a barely-noticeable circle on the floor and the back wall of the stage is illuminated. Z.: What now? (Sound Cue #3) The shadow of C-KO appears crossing the back wall from right to left and back again. She is carrying a gramophone. C-ko: Extra! Extra! The CHORUS is represented by more shadows cast on the back wall in the shape of accusatory finger-pointing. C-KO no longer has her gramophone, and her clothing shifts as the accusations continue. This would make sense in, like, a shooting script instead of a stageplay but technically this is neither -- it’s a dream sequence -- so you figure it out. Chorus Girl 1: Aha! You’ve got fox paws for hands. You’re not human, you’re a foxgirl! C-ko: Nope! I’m a human! These are just gloves -- it’s getting kind of cold. Chorus Girl 2: Aha! You’ve got hooves for feet. You’re not human, you’re a horsegirl! C-ko: I see why you’d think that, but these are just very fashionable shoes. They’re all the rage in Paris. Chorus Girl 3: Aha! You’ve got rabbit ears. You’re not human, you’re a bunnygirl! C-ko: No! No! These are just, uh, wearable antennae for my phone so I can get better reception. I promise I’m human! Z: Why do you want to be human so badly? C-ko: [screams] CURTAIN After a dream that felt like it could have lasted either five minutes or nine months, Z. woke up in an entirely new place with no sign of the conflict that had rendered them comatose in the first place. On the one hand, they were glad to not be fighting anymore, especially with the embarrassing showing that had gotten them put to sleep in the first place, but, on the other hand, that Cleffa had something coming to them, and Z. wanted to be the one to do it. There was a zero percent chance that they were ever going to see that particular Cleffa ever again, so their frustration was entirely empty, which really made it all even worse. Their Oran Berry was missing too, a crime that had too many mundane explanations (it fell out somewhere, someone needed it in an emergency, that fucking Cleffa took it) to really blame anyone currently present, so that only compounded everything. “Fuck,” Z. said for want of anything else to say. Almost everyone else was crowding some other Pokémon that was sleeping nearby. Z. couldn’t remember the exact specifics, but they were pretty sure that most anyone would be mad if they woke up to a sudden horde of people clamoring for attention, especially if one of those people looked like he was six people. It was a Jirachi too, so it had the power to back that anger up. Even Es the Rotom had gone over to pester the thing, and Z. had been pretty sure that if any of them were going to wait for them to wake up and cheer when it happened, it was her. Z. huffed and pulled themself to their feet. It felt incredibly natural to do that downward-facing dog to upward-facing dog yoga stretch thing, but it felt weird that it felt natural, if that made sense. Like, it made sense that it felt normal, but- “It doesn’t really matter,” Z. said. It was kind of to that and the previous thought wrapped all into one. Of all the humans-turned-Pokémon, Ears the Noibat had the right idea. If the Jirachi was going to be helpful, it was going to be helpful regardless of whether it was being pestered with an extra meaningless question. Of course, Ears was better at getting a view from higher up, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t do the same thing, but on the ground. “I’m going this way,” Z. said, pointing in the opposite direction the Noibat was looking.
  3. While all the people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” -Luke 20:45-47 (NIV)Melissa found herself awash with nostalgia. There were many such stores back home on Ambrosia, most of them more Duel-Monsters focused than this one seemed to be what with its figurines and comics and such, but the aesthetic was still all the same. Everything was just a bit cramped and the light was just a bit too artificial. She inhaled through her nose, though, and immediately regretted it. That was a difference. In a world where just about everyone had to visit a store like this at one point in their life or another, everyone at least had the decency to shower first. Not so here. If she had to describe it (and she really didn’t want to think about the smell for longer than it took to get it out of her system), it was like sweat, peaches, and onions. Somehow, the combination of those three things was worse than any of them individually. It was the sort of thing that immediately made Melissa want to turn around and find another store, but something told her that all stores would be like this. This was just how it was here. Also, she was with Fen, and she didn’t want to drag her friend and squad leader around searching for some imagined ideal. This was just something she would have to deal with. Anyway, Fen had asked her a question. “I guess we go to the counter?” Melissa said. “It looks like there are cards there, we can get a closer look at them, or maybe they have packs or starter decks behind the counter.” There was a little rustling from some faraway shelf which Melissa heard but tried to ignore. Talking with whoever was running the shop about recommendations was going to be a hard enough challenge as it was. Misplaced nostalgia, breathing, talking, being a good friend… The obstacles had increased dramatically since Melissa had stepped into the store. Much of that went away, though, when she got a good look at the cards in question. “Oh, this is Duel Monsters,” she said. The way she said it the first time was in a way like she didn’t really believe it, like she hadn’t quite processed what that meant. It took a second utterance for it to actually take hold. “Oh,” she said. “This is Duel Monsters.” “Fen, this is the game I was telling you about,” Melissa said. Even though she was crouched down in front of the case she was visibly bouncing up and down with excitement. All these cards with font sizes that made words barely legible, she could read them. It was like a whole extra language class was unlocked. And this was for a game she barely played! Just being born and raised in a culture that sorted itself primarily through card play was enough. So it was nostalgia again, but it was of a different kind. “Yeah, I can definitely show you how to play this.” Her eyes finally noticed the price tags attached to the singles. “Wait, Graceful Charity costs how much here?” “Excuuuse me.” Melissa shot straight up. It was the same sort of feeling she’d had when Julian surprised her, only this time she’d just managed to keep Zadkiel from appearing and wrecking the store with its size alone. She almost dared not turn around, eventually only doing so out of a sense of politeness. Describing the speaker required processing him for longer than Melissa could stand. He had a hat Melissa couldn’t describe, a sweatshirt with faces on it she definitely didn’t want to think about, a voice that had already had a negative effect on her, and, as he got even closer, she noticed that the store’s pungent odor had gotten even stronger. And yet, he persisted. Worse, he persisted by mangling a perfectly good poem. “And what should my wandering ear but a-hear,” he said, “but the voice of a lovely, female dear,” A snort. He actually snorted. “Or two dears, as the case may be.” He took one final step forward, and Melissa pressed her back against the counter as if it would give her any extra distance between herself and the stench. “I don’t mean any trouble, but did I hear you call the greatest card game of all time ‘Duel Monsters?’” “Um,” Melissa said. She wasn’t sure what else she could say to that. “I’m a nice person by nature,” he said with a leering smile that was anything but nice, “so when I hear a grossly unfactual statement such as that, I can’t help but correct it. It’s only called ‘Duel Monsters’ in the show, you see. All real fans know that in real life it is named after the show itself: ‘Yu-Gi-Oh!’” Melissa. Of all the times for the angels to speak up, this was not a great one. We cannot help but notice your heart rate has spiked dramatically. Do you need us to- “No,” Melissa muttered. “I know.” It was unfortunate that she said it out loud because it meant he heard it too. “You know? Well, if you know the objective truth, why would you say otherwise? People might think you’re talking about some other game, like ‘Duel Masters,’ which, as we all know, had to be renamed because of this exact problem. Here:” He pulled a pen and a piece of paper from the pocket of his sweatshirt and scribbled on it. “If you ever want to know more about the greatest game in teh world that is Yu-Gi-Oh! give me a call. We can talk about it among… other things.” “Hey!” It was another voice, this one coming from behind her, and it was mercifully normal-sounding. Another benefit to the new voice, as soon as the man heard it, whatever color his face had instantly disappeared. He flicked the paper Melissa’s way and didn’t even watch to see if she stopped it from fluttering to the ground (she didn’t) as he awkwardly shuffled out of the store and disappeared into the crowd. Melissa exhaled, partly to release all that wound-up tension and un-contort her body and partly because, well, again, that smell. She’d been holding her breath as much as she could. The rescuing voice spoke again, “He’s banned from the store and he knows it. I wasn’t paying attention, sorry.” She turned around to see the speaker behind the counter, a perfectly normal man in his thirties whose most notable features were some particularly wild hair and a name tag that said “Nelson” attached to a black shirt that said COACH in block white letters. “Are you alright?” he said. “Um,” Melissa said. Her heart was still racing, and measured breaths weren’t helping. It was all she could do to manage a “Thank you.” She bent down to pick up the paper now that the guy wasn’t around to see her do it, mostly out of a sense of cleanliness, and she noted the scribble on it. “bradley l braderson” the card read. Then, in brackets, “(the l stands for leigh).” There was a phone number below that. “If you want my advice, you should get rid of that,” Nelson said. “You don’t know where that paper’s been. Hell, give it to me and I’ll burn it for you.” “Thank you,” Melissa said again. “Um, actually, do you know where the restroom on this floor is?”It had been a while since Melissa had had a good scream. As the world came crashing down on her, all she could really do was let it all out. Every so often, she’d hear sounds from outside her stall -- from the rest of the restroom. Most of the time, it was people trying their best to not pay attention, but occasionally she got a knock on her stall asking questions like “Are you alright?” or “Is there anything I can do to help?” Those people were met with a meek “No, thank you.” On one occasion, a woman was like “Hell yeah, let it all out, sister,” which got a half-laugh from Melissa, though it quickly turned into a coughing fit. “You know, I actually thought I was past this,” Melissa said as she finally exited her stall. “I don’t- I guess that I thought I handled being taken from my home okay, and that was the worst thing that could happen to me. Plus, with all the fighting…” The angels, at least, were sympathetic. You have been focused on other things. they said. But after spending time creating a new normal for yourself, it is only natural that old issues would come back to the fore. “I guess,” Melissa said. She turned on the sink and started washing her hands. “Now that I’m thinking about it more, Mauvache did summon us while I was in a restroom, and that wasn’t that long ago.” Also included in her hand-washing procedure was splashing water on her face a few times. You were also in a highly emotional state, having just discovered another thing reminding you of your home. Anyone might have been affected by someone or something disrupting that. “Mm.” Melissa moved on to drying her hands, opting for the automatic towel dispenser over the high-tech air drying machine. “Also, you don’t have to warn me about my heart rate or other things that happen when I’m stressed, you know. I know when it happens. I think being reminded just makes it worse.” You have our apologies. “It’s alright. We’re still working things out.” The last step of this restroom trip was a few deep breaths. Speaking of her heart rate, Melissa had a hand on her heart as she inhaled so she could feel herself returning to normal. “I left Fen alone there,” she said. “I hope she’s okay.”The game store still had a stench to it, but it was the residual kind, where all the clutter made it impossible to aerate properly. It probably wasn’t just Bradley Leigh Braderson that made it smell like that, Melissa realized. It was probably a bunch of different people who either didn’t know their own personal hygiene or didn’t care. It was a little judgemental of her to think that way, she realized, and she made a mental note to remember it in case she ever did find a proper capital C Catholic priest on Prana, but in the moment, she felt like she deserved to feel a little scorn. She shuffled back into the store with a mumbled apology, but she realized she probably should give a proper one not just for herself but for the hobby she was supposed to be introducing. “I’m sorry, Fen,” she said. “My world has people like that too, but everyone plays this game so they’re more of an outlier. I wasn’t really expecting it.” “You’re guardians?” Nelson asked. “Actually, no, I recognize you now that I think about it. I just read a bunch of interviews with Mauvache’s latest crop, and you were in there, I think.” He pointed at Melissa. “I think I’ve seen your picture floating around the mall too. Some amateur photographer is selling prints?” Melissa winced, but she still managed to make a snark. “I think if you tell me that I might have to go hide in the bathroom again,” she said. “I’m especially glad Bradley didn’t recognize us, then.” Nelson laughed. “Well, I’m certainly not going to tell him,” he said. “Honored to have you in the store all the same, though. What can I get for you?” Melissa scanned the wall behind the counter, full of various packs and decks that she didn’t recognize and a few that she did. “I’ll take, uh, that one,” she said, pointing to one of the starter decks. It had a picture of a young woman and a fairy on it, back to back and striking a dramatic pose. “Fen? I’m sure they’re all fine so does any of the key art strike your fancy?”
  4. “Ah, there’s that light failure again,” Brian said into his phone. He was glad he kept the flashlight on so he didn’t have to fumble around in the dark. “But I’m still here. I’m alive.” He scanned the area again with the light taking note of his surroundings. Yeah, it was still the same room he was just in, no mystic fakery there. There were urinals and a sink and a - “Jesus Christ.” Where the toilet had been was a ghost. It was the kind of ghost with wet hair that covered her face and stretched all the way to the ground where it mangled together into a heap. It was a sorry wretch of a ghost, all things considered, Brian thought. Still, its sudden appearance had given him a little jump, “I’m not going to say I didn’t believe you before, Carmen, but I found the ghost,” he said. To the ghost, but still with the phone listening in, he said, “Excuse me, can I just…” He extended his arm out with one of the seals in hand and kept going forward, ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that whatever it was it really ought not to be. If the ghost disappeared again, he’d just stick the seal on the toilet. If it stayed dormant, he’d stick it on its forehead and figure out something from there. He didn’t actually know how the seals were supposed to work. The ghost, though, did neither of those things. It grabbed Brian’s arm with a speed he wasn’t ready for, and its hand was clammy to the touch. “Excuse me, that’s-” Brian grunted. He tried to push forward, just, like, slide down the grip so he could stick the seal on something, but the ghost’s grip was firm enough there to make it kind of a struggle. And it had one free hand too, but it didn’t try to grab Brian with that one. Instead, it reached up to its head area and parted its hair, revealing itself to not only not have a face, but had a void instead of a face, a gaping hole that was impossibly deep for its place in the ghost’s body. It was directing the seal -- and Brian’s arm -- towards that. “Nope. Nope nope nope. No thanks,” Brian said. He yanked his arm back, but it took a few tries before he could get his wrist free. For the second time that night, Brian found himself sprinting for the bathroom door. He spotted Carmen as he came out, hung up the phone, and ran back over. “Okay, new plan. Let’s go back to the van and, uh, see what other stuff Shiki might have left for us.”
  5. Chris’ only solace was that the hulking thing didn’t notice why it had slowed down, because he’d been left kind of a sitting duck holding onto that string. Not that the alternative was much better. It just loomed over Ziun instead, arm raised to deal a crushing blow. “Hey! No!” Chris said. He brought his sword into the back of its leg. It was a blow that, on, you know, a person, might have hobbled them for life, but the hulk had no such issues. Chris didn’t even get to distract the thing, Ziun still had to deal with its fist, and then Chris had to deal with the backhand that was almost like a follow-through. He tried to fall back but pulled on the string and teleported to the end, which got him out of the way, yes, but because he wasn’t expecting it, he got off-balance and had to turn his dodge into a failed half-somersault and he had to scramble back to his feet. He had its attention now. It was hard to think with that sort of monster in front of you. Even other large monsters they’d faced -- a minotaur, a particularly unusually-sized rat, whatever -- weren’t this big. Chris fell back on his baser instincts and the actual swordplay instruction he’d received. His opponent was bigger than him and had a bigger reach. It was to his advantage if he got up close. Well, so long as he didn’t get grabbed. But he could be on the lookout for that, at least. He ran back in and took swing at the thing’s other leg. The swing had a similar effect as the last: not much, and the reaction from the hulk was much the same, but this time, now that it didn’t have to readjust, it raised both fists and brought them down. Thankfully, the gap between its legs was big enough that Chris could just sneak through, and he found himself next to Ziun. “Okay, while it’s distracted,” he said, “uh, get away from it?” He swiveled his head and locked eyes with another cultist. “Estellise, cover me!” he said, and charged in.
  6. (band is streetlight manifesto that's not really made clear by the video title or description)
  7. 6.5/10 sure 7/10 you're going to say something like "this was in the credits of some video game you haven't played"OP Suggestion: there's another mystery skulls album it's fine 7/10
  8. Brian dutifully answered his phone when called. “Check, check,” he said. He heard his voice coming from Carmen’s phone, which would have been the most unnerving thing he’d experienced that day if not for, you know, the ghosts. But again, the ghosts weren’t going to keep him from doing his job, and neither was the phone thing. He went over to the box of seals and refreshed his own personal stock of the things, before turning the flashlight on and pointing it at a wall to make sure it worked. It was pretty cheap, just like everything else Shiki seemed to give them, Brian mused, but it shone bright enough to see the spot even with all the lights in the cafeteria on, which was good enough for him. “There’s this guy in my fraternity,” Brian mused as he finished gearing up, “uh, Rho Alpha Delta if you care. His name is Carmichael, and he’s as much a stick in the mud as that sort of name suggests. He was always trying to tell us off for doing admittedly stupid shit, like jumping onto a trampoline from the frat house roof or whatever. Everyone else in turn would call him a coward for, you know, obvious reasons and Carmichael was always like, ‘Cowards live.’ And, you know, fair enough. Carmichael Jones is still alive and with us today, and doing Jackass stunts is a good way to end up dead. But he’s also a nervous wreck with no hobbies working a dead-end job because he’s too fucking scared to quit. “Anyway, the point is, cowards live, sure,” Brian said, “but that’s because they don’t do anything else. Going in now.” He crossed the threshold back into the restroom. The lights were back on, which made having the flashlight on a little embarrassing, but there wasn’t anyone to see it, so the embarrassment quickly faded. “Pretty normal in here,” Brian said. He realized Carmen probably didn’t have a good idea of what a “normal” high school boy’s restroom looked like, but he wasn’t about to elaborate. “Like I said, I’m mostly done, just gotta take care of the one toilet that spooked me the first time around.” He pulled out the seals and aimed the flashlight right at the corner toilet. The lights flickered, but the flashlight was just good enough to keep the ambient light levels above the proper spooky zone. He stuck his phone in the crook of his shoulder and pulled out the seals. “Just gonna keep talking until this is done, Carmen. I promise I won’t cry wolf or anything either, just for you.”
  9. further darkest dungeon updates: simply uninstalling mods doesn't fix the problem which means i need to try some more involved fixes, something made all the more frustrating because more involved fixes are harder to find. this probably won't be a "delayed until next week" thing, this'll have to be a "until further notice" thing.

    1. yui

      yui

      did you try verifying integrity of game files via steam (assuming it's a steam install)? that fixes a lot of things.

    2. radio414

      radio414

      thank you for the suggestion but unfortunately that did not fix the issue

  10. Just Getting Started The Archangel Lailah clearly wasn't sure whether it was a good twist of fate that heroes had shown up when they had or bad in that they both seemed to know each other. Her eyes darted back and forth between both parties and she visibly flinched when Sibyl and Aeon discussed vandalizing the church. Particularly observant capes might also have noticed how her breath quickened and how the two orbs of light flanking her grew significantly more jittery. She recovered a little, though. She waved her hand and whispered, "No, not yet,” and the lights settled back down. “I think, technically, it's six ears,” Lailah said, responding to Thessa's little snark, “but alright.” She folded The Fates’ proposed sermon in half, stood up, and brushed herself off. “Let’s go back downstairs. I suggest this for two reasons: I think it will be easier to make the points I need to make with the stained glass as a backdrop -- one in particular, I think, will do just fine -- and the second is, well, if things continue to escalate as they are now, the naves are a bit more open and certainly more replaceable than the materials contained within this office. I would also prefer the loser, whoever she may be, be allowed to flee this place and lick her wounds.” She looked right at Sibyl as she said that second one. “I do hate that you came all the way up here only to be brought back down, but I suppose it can’t be helped. Please,” she said, and she gestured back down. Lailah managed to catch up with Sibyl as they descended the stairway. “If it were anyone else,” she said, “if it was Kris or the pastor of some other church reading this, I would permit them to do so. It is specifically taking advantage of my position as Archangel that I take umbrage with, though I suppose that’s what your employers were aiming for. Still, keep that in mind.” When everyone arrived back downstairs, the sun was shining through one of the stained glass panels in such a way as to cast its image on the ground. It was warped, yes, stretching all the way down the arm, across the altar, only ending part of the way down the opposite arm of the church’s X shape, but the mixing colors only added to the mystique of it. Lailah seemed pleased, anyway. She marched forward ahead of everyone before turning around and walking backward, ready to present it to all who would listen. The stained glass behind her depicted two figures holding up a central sphere that a dark figure overhead threatened to push everything back down to earth. “So,” she said. “G3 needs to learn more about the end of the world, hm? They need to brace for Nihil’s inevitable return, do they? How may I be of service?” OOC
  11. Chris had hoped that the giant mass of flesh was as slow as it looked, but no, it was normal speed, and “normal speed” plus “massive body” meant “faster than them.” Running was out, then, and fighting still looked pretty unappealing. What did that leave them? Well, if he were being charitable, Chris could have called their remaining options “taking advantage of the party’s own advantages,” but he was a thief and had been raised rich besides. When had he ever been charitable? No, this was just “fighting dirty.” In lieu of some other plan, they kept running, but that didn’t mean Chris wasn’t trying to figure something out. He already had his magic string in hand, maybe something with that? Or they could hack at the thing’s ankles, keep it from going as fast? Maybe it was controlled by the chanting cultists and if they killed all four of those the bloody hulk would go down with them? They’d chanted even through some of Ziun’s illusions, so whatever it was, it did seem important. Their numbers were just about equal too. That had to be worth something. “See if we can’t deal with those cultists,” Chris said. “I’ve got an idea to slow this big thing down.” It was a stupid idea, but it was an idea, and there was not a lot of time to think of something better. He anchored his string in the air and split off, running perpendicular to everyone else as he extended the string out behind him. Eventually, he curved around, making sure the thing’s feet got wrapped up, and then he stopped and braced for the line to go taut. He wanted to trip it. Ideally, it wouldn’t be able to pull itself up after crashing to the ground, but Chris knew better than to hope for something like that. He didn’t even get to get that far, though. He caught the thing’s legs, yes, but although his string was able to anchor itself, he wasn’t able to anchor himself. “Um. Um!” He could feel his boots give way against the floor and he started sliding along. “Okay, it’s slowed down now, but, uh, new plan: help!”
  12. no darkest dungeon post today because the game keeps crashing on me so now i gotta debug instead thanks for understanding go play darkest dungeon two or something it's out now

  13. lydia tár isn't a real person she can't hurt you

  14. “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body -- whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free -- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.” 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 (NIV)Yes, she had been the one to extend the invitation and yes, she was not the one who had done the lion’s share of the cooking that morning, but Melissa still couldn’t help but feel a little self-conscious as everyone sat down to breakfast. Ironically, by asking, she’d done a number of other, smaller things without asking, so for most of breakfast, she just kept her head down and tried to avoid drawing any further attention to herself. It worked out well enough. Their guest -- Melissa was pretty sure she heard her say her name was Penelope? -- was the center of attention and seemed to revel in it, so Melissa just tried to stay out of the way. Still, when Penelope mentioned team names and started engaging with Trevor directly, Melissa couldn’t help but wonder, and that wondering started turning into wondering aloud. “Everyone has these such amazing team names,” Melissa said. “We were with Squad Grandpa yesterday, now Ultimate Strategy… I’m sure Salvo and Natasha have something equally exciting.” She turned to Fen. “And yet, I don't know what we’re supposed to call ourselves. Fen, you're our leader, do you have any ideas?” Fen seemed surprised by the question, to the point of even letting out a little “Eh?” which dampened Melissa’s spirits just a little bit further, but the girl did give it some thought, literally chewing on the question as she looked from person to person then back down at her own food. When she came back up, though, it was with a smile on her face. “How about Manna?” “‘Manna’ like the bread or ‘Mana’ like the- Oh, I get it!” Melissa laughed. “That’s very clever, Fen, I think that’s a wonderful name.“ She wanted to immediately tell Trevor, too, but he was busy apparently implying Squad Unfailing Strategy wasn’t the best squad in all of Prana, which Penelope took offense to. “It is quite the logical fallacy to assume one squad is better than another when you know nothing of said squad,” Penelope said. “But to answer your question, it really depends. So far they tend to be between three and five. The first squad, in fact, has only three.” Melissa quickly jumped in. “You’ll have to forgive him,” she said. “He’s- we’re all still new at this. We don’t even have a team name yet, though Fen just came up with Squad Manna which I kind of like? Do we have to do anything past that like tell Mauvache or get it registered or something?” “You don’t have to. She’ll know,” Penelope said. “But perhaps you should tell her anyway just out of courtesy.” “Oh,” Melissa said. Of course that was the answer. “Um.” Like, it made sense, but it was another step in an already busy day, and she didn’t want to be the reason people were late to an appointment for the second day in a row. She looked at Fen, who she’d already made plans for the day with, and at Trevor, who she hadn’t even thought to ask about yet, back at Penelope, which would have been the silliest decision of all of them, and willed herself to make a decision. “Trevor, someone texted Fen and me with plans already, do you think you could tell Mauvache for us then?” Breakfast continued until everyone was finished. Melissa just had to check on Bartleby, help wash everyone’s plates, and then go to the restroom and wash up before she was heading out. She also saw Penelope out before she left. “I hope you enjoyed the meal, Miss Penelope. We’ll try to keep Trevor out of trouble Will we be seeing you again, do you think?”
  15. RDT_20230506_122901932212469305705435.jp

    ironic, we're at a point in darkest dungeon where we're not even going to find any dirty bandages anymore. new post is up after a week break read all about it.

     

  16. ←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Sixty-Three -- The Belly of the Beast The interminable stone halls are but an antechamber. The creature is vast beyond measure and must be battled from within. Step over the threshold, and let the terrible truth worm its way into your mind. The best way to describe this mission is to just show you the provisions screen and let you take it all in from there. I know we haven’t done a lot of Long-length dungeons, so if you don’t remember, those gave you two campfire logs to play with. This scenario, the one “Exhausting”-length dungeon in the entire game, gives you four. Does it deserve such a commendation? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, it is designed to be such a marathon. The map is huge, with fights seen nowhere else in the game, and each one will inflict a massive amount of blight damage that we just have to grind through. That’s why we’re packing so many antivenoms and that’s why we’re bringing Paracelsus along even though she’s still only at resolve level four. Having Battlefield Medicine as an option is worth the extra stress damage she’s going to take. The entire party, actually, is designed around one core quality: We want to be able to hit the back row as hard as possible. Boudica the Hellion naturally follows from this, given her Iron Swan ability, and each of the other three, Damian, Hakima, and the aforementioned Paracelsus each have a similarly hard-hitting move. This is the most beast-heavy of the Darkest Dungeon runs, so Elmer also gets a bonus while attacking them, and Damian can act as a backup healer in a pinch. Now, the four campfire logs do provide another interesting mechanical quirk of the run: they take up space. Like the Hands of Glory from the quest before, this run crimps the space available in your pack. I would have loved to bring some holy water, for example, but settled on the extra food to make sure everyone was healed up between fights. I also experienced a slight consequence of not being able to fight my way all the way to the Viscount on our two attempts -- I had to devote a slot to blood to compensate for Damian’s curse. There is one advantage on our side, though: knowledge. The game wants this run to be a marathon, but if you know what you’re doing, you can turn it into a sprint. Let’s look at the map for a second: Our goal is that curio location in the middle of the map. On the surface, it’s not that hard to navigate the labrinthine map and reach the locus beacon in only five fights. The game isn’t going to make it that easy, but we’ll get to that when we get to that. The first fight is just some hounds, anyway. These showed up in the last dungeon as part of one of the Templar fights. They’re threatening, with a few different annoying attacks, but they were in that fight as fodder, basically, to diversify the different Templar encounters. The same is true here. They can barely pull Paracelsus out of position before they get cut, whipped, and bit down. It certainly helps that, with the excess of campfire logs, we’ve already got our buffs set up. And here is the thing I’ve been alluding to for several posts now. The Mammoth Cyst and White Cell Stalk fights. The Mammoth Cyst is Darkest Dungeon’s version of a Beholder, with a bevy of different attacks, all of them devastating, and two actions per round to spend using them. If it blights you, it’s doing it for eight (8!) a turn. When it’s dealing normal damage, it’s attacking for seventeen, and it’s hitting two heroes as it’s doing so. It’s got 25 PROT, so it ignores a quarter of all damage dealt to it, and it can heal itself. When I say this dungeon is a grind, it’s really this fight that is a grind, and there are several on the map. And saying all this still discounts the real problem of the fight, which is the White Cell Stalk. The White Cell Stalk, in comparison to its Mammoth counterpart, is pretty easy to kill. It only has 25 health, one action a turn, and no PROT. It has a unique move, however, called Teleport, which does exactly what it says it does -- it teleports the party out of the fight, to a random point in the dungeon. Sometimes, it will even teleport you to another fight! This is where the grind sets in, you see? Every round, the likelihood of the White Cell Stalk teleporting you away, negating all progress and probably setting your heroes up for another series of fights and hunger checks, only goes up. It’s easy to kill the White Cell Stalk, but the Mammoth Cyst will just summon another one as soon as it gets another action. The one saving grace of the fight is the White Cell will never cast Teleport on its first turn, so you always have time to deal with it. Still, the fight is daunting. There are a few solutions. The first one is to pray. After all, if you’re teleported to a random point in the dungeon, it’s entirely possible you get teleported to a room closer to your destination. I mean, you don’t have great odds and have to deal with the rest of the dungeon in the meantime, but I’ve seen it done. Better, though, is the same solution we’ve been using for any fight with an enemy with multiple attacks per round -- you just have to DoT them out. This is another benefit of our party composition. Each hero can inflict damage over time. What’s the giant ball the size of a cabin going to do, dodge out of the way? There are three fights left on the optimal route through this dungeon. The first is another filler one. Remember, these fights are meant to wear you down as you make your way back to the Mammoth fights that block the way. Still, we haven’t seen an Antibody yet, nor has a Polyp appeared onscreen, so let’s just show it off real quick. Polyps are annoying for the same reasons Hounds are, while the Antibody at the front plays a support role similar to the White Cell Stalk. This one can’t cast Teleport, though, so it’s a bit safer to take out the other enemies first. The real fights are just ahead, though. Oh, you thought we were done with Templars? We didn’t even bring any of those protective relics, but you thought we were done? I mean, this is a watered-down version of those boss fights. It only has one action per round and it can’t cast that backbreaking Revelation attack, but it can still do all the other attacks we were worried about Templars doing. The most stressful part about this fight to me personally was how Boudica could never seem to land a hit on the thing. She’s wearing an accuracy-boosting Focus Ring. I just thought one accuracy trinket was enough. Still, we fought through enough of these in the last dungeon, a watered-down version isn’t going to scare us too hard. Let’s just move on to the final fight, the thing guarding the Locus Beacon: Ah. No matter what you do, you are going to have to fight at least two Mammoth Cysts and run the risk of being sent away and having to grind back. One thing I didn’t mention before was how the game will give you the decency to remember your progress. You don’t have to fight through all 158 of the Cysts HP every time you come crawling back. Still, you’d like to get it all done in one go. The sprint strategy worked, though. We were in a good enough position after keeping our fights to a minimum to manage these two grinds effectively. Boudica got put on Death’s Door at one point, but it wasn’t ever worrisome. She never got a Deathblow check before Paracelsus healed her back up above zero. That leaves just one more dungeon left to complete the game, and the fourth Darkest Dungeon fight is more one long boss fight than an actual slog like the ones that have come before. That being said, there is a small yet urgent matter that I’d like to take care of first… See you next week for that. -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→
  17. Chris was worried he’d have to look away to avoid seeing Ziun and Robin get torn apart by zombies and was almost relieved when the threshold to the stairs became almost completely solid so he wouldn’t have to even will himself to look away. His choice had been removed. It did mean, however, that when Ziun burst through at the last possible second, he was caught completely unawares and both he and the bard fell down several stairs before coming to a stop. Thank goodness Estellise had healing magic, right? “Where’s Robin?” Chris asked. He already knew the answer, though, and didn’t need to hear it said out loud. He swore instead. Technically, the letter of his oath that he would protect Estellise was intact, as was hers to protect him, but the spirit had been broken. He wasn’t always able to protect those he was dungeoneering with. Chris wanted to mourn. He wanted to at least feel Robin’s absence for at least an amount of time equal to their time spent together, but the dungeon wouldn’t let that happen. They had to move on -- he could feel the dungeon beckoning them onwards. They could mourn later. Like the previous floor, this one had one key feature in the center of the room. Also like the previous floor, there were two different classes of enemies: robed cultists all chanting around the central coffin and a singular, well, Chris wasn’t really sure how to describe the monster in the middle of all of them, but it was large, vaguely looked like a person, and didn’t look happy. It wasn’t moving, at least, so maybe it wasn’t actually a threat. Then, of course, the cultists noticed everyone enter. Chris hadn’t even realized that everyone had stepped into the room. He couldn’t even berate everyone else for not doing the usual thing and hanging out in the doorway where they wouldn’t be noticed -- he’d done it too, and he was at the front of the line. But the cultists weren’t reacting too much; they mostly stood where they were and stared back at the floor’s newest occupants, and the hulking monstrosity with them continued to be inert. It was actually kind of awkward. It was an atmosphere he felt he had to break somehow. “Uh, meow?” All at once, the cultists started chanting again, and this time, the hulking thing started moving, stepping up and over the coffin in the middle of the room as it lumbered towards the four remaining adventurers in the party. Chris recognized his mistake. “Oh, that was stupid,” he said. But he couldn’t yell at himself for too long about that, not when they had precious time remaining to avoid fighting that thing. “Estellise?” Looking back, he saw that she had already conjured up her bow. “Okay, uh, uh,” He pointed left, along the outside wall. “This way!” He started to run.
  18. that nun is making the "ah, eto... bleh" face i know i shouldn't say surprisingly good and go into each of these with an open mind but also that was surprisingly good 8.5/10OP Suggestion: new ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT album has some banger songs and some banger song titles 8/10
  19. “Catching his breath” meant retching a couple times -- the rare occasion where he wanted to throw up and had to leave the restroom to do so -- but Brian managed to keep the Taco Bell inside him as he pulled himself up from his doubled-over crouch. “Fuck,” he said again, wiping his mouth and spitting into a nearby trash can. He leaned back and stretched his back. “Okay.” Carmen was having a worse time of it, it seemed. Even having taken the flashlight into the restroom with her, she was now running around the whole cafeteria. Brian almost wondered what Ms. White was thinking watching all this before remembering that he didn’t actually care. He just had a job to do, so he followed after Carmen, “Carmen. Hey, Carmen. Carmen.” He kept saying her name until she actually calmed down and started listening to him. “Carmen,” he said one more time. “Listen to me. I’m sorry you’re feeling like this and it’s a perfectly reasonable reaction to have, but also I feel like this is part of the job so you're going to have to take some deep breaths and be a big girl, okay?” He was projecting a lot more confidence than he actually had but he wasn't about to look weak in front of Carmen, Ms. White, or whatever was in the restrooms. Carmen had indeed been taking deep breaths. Though they were much less the calming deep breaths that he had suggested and much more a result of her hyperventilating. “A- b- t- there- bath- geh-” In trying to stammer out everything the girl’s tongue tripped on her own words and ended up having a bit of a coughing fit. After a slight wheeze, the girl took another deep breath and exhaled. “Phew, that was close,” she said. Then, after a moment panic returned to her eyes as she pointed to the bathroom shouting, “Ghost!” “So you did see a ghost then?” Brian said. “Not a demon or like a djinn or something else? Because all I saw could be attributed to bad wiring and carbon monoxide and while I've accepted that ghosts exist and all that, I didn’t see any ghosts. Speaking of,” He gestured to her flashlight. “Give me that. Electrical failure or ghost, whichever it is I'm pretty sure it's not gonna turn the lights back on for me and I need to finish up.” “I uh- I’m- maybe a demon? Or maybe it's a toilet Djinn?” Carmen seemed to be thrown off by the first question, trying to figure out the specifics before explaining further. “Big- it was tall and went,” and Carmen lifted her hands, wiggling them in Brian's direction. At his flashlight request, the girl hugged it closer to her saying, “It was dark in there too!” The girl looked dejected, her gaze moving downward as she said, “It's gonna drag me into the toilet isn't it…” “Probably,” Brian said, “although if it was a demon I think it would have done so already. It sounds like a ghost.” He made another grab at the flashlight, an actual physical grab and not just a gesture. “You don't have to go back in right away. You can stay out here while I finish up. Do you have your phone on you? You can even stay on the line so you'll know if something happens, okay?” Carmen’s grip on it was tight but she didn't put up much of a fight as he yanked out of her hand. The girl shook her head and said, “That sounds even scarier. I’ll uh… just…” She sat down at a table and planted her face against it. “Okay, suit yourself,” Brian said. He went back to in front of the restrooms and fiddled with the flashlight, making sure he knew how it worked (and, for that matter, that it even worked at all) as he steeled himself to reenter the haunted bathroom. He’d have to do this himself. He didn’t want to, but he had to. Did he have to? There were always other options. He could be like Carmen and just close himself off until morning or even exit the building and drive back to the park. Each had its own appeal over going into girl’s restrooms and fighting things that went aboogy-woogy-woo or whatever Carmen did with her arms. He looked back at Carmen. She was still there, which, now that he was thinking of other options, was kind of a weird middle-ground. She wasn’t participating, but she hadn’t left. He walked back over and tapped the table with the flashlight to get her attention. “Okay, actually, you’re going to have to tell me why you’re here, then,” he said. “Not like a smarmy reason like, ‘you drove us here in that van, Brian,’ why are you working for Shiki if you’re going to shut down at the first mildly spooky thing you come across?” He was downplaying his own emotions again, but fuck it. “Did Shiki save your life or something like me? Are you paying off some debt? Is that it? “Or maybe you can’t tell me. Or you can’t right now. Whatever. I’ve gotta go seal up one more toilet, ghost or no ghost. But whatever reason it is, you can’t tell me cowering like a schoolgirl is going to align with those reasons at all. Figure it out.” He took out a pen and wrote his number on the back of a seal. “Call me if you change your mind. I’m going in there.”
  20. eirika (sacred stones) edelgard von hrelsburg (three houses) mercedes (three houses) bernadette (three houses) l'arachel (sacred stones) natasha (sacred stones) franz (sacred stones) dozla (sacred stones)
  21. Anchor Roy Biff, face all red and hands clenched tight around the back of the chair he was leaning on, looked to the world like he was about to throw something -- hands, Sarah, the chair, whatever. Still, he managed to take a few deep breaths before responding to Override’s question. “Not an apostle, then?” he said. “That’s fine. But Lailah’s like every other holy leader Scarlet City has had, so I would have assumed you’d have been able to make some extrapolations.” “She is different,” Sarah chimed in. “She’s quieter than most. And -” “Thank you, Sarah,” Roy said. “It’s true that she’s quiet, but she’s quiet in that ‘wisdom’ sort of way, not in the ‘shy’ sort of way. And she’s not a gang leader. She’s not going to bite your head off if you look at her funny. Here, you want an itemized list of instructions? Do: keep Aeon in check because I worry she’s going to take that last as a challenge -- don’t look at me like that Aeon, you know you are.” He gave the hero in question a wry grin. “Do: be on your guard in case this big meeting goes pear-shaped. Lailah’s current church isn’t that far from Goodale Park so we might need you elsewhere to assist. And don’t, under any circumstances -” He paused, and frowned. “Mustard,” he said. “French or Dijon?” Sarah asked. Roy wheeled around to face Sarah and made a wordless gesture that could only mean, “Does it really matter?” to which Sarah just shrugged and exaggeratedly drew a question mark in her notes. When Roy returned his focus to the actual briefing he’d clearly lost his train of thought and had to move on. “You had better get going,” he said, “before the situation gets even worse.” We Live on a Fucking Planet Baby That’s The Sun One of the central tenets of the Zorrastran faith was that no one church was more important than any other. Whether it was smack dab in the middle of Scarlet City or out in the ruins with a wall practically aligning with the Shimmer, they each had unique quirks that made them stand out. To ascribe value to any one such quality of a church would be to diminish the other qualities, that was the teaching. To that end, no one church could house the Archangel for any significant length of time. Lailah lived the life of a nomad, a wanderer going between churches as she saw fit. They were obligated to house her, of course -- though they would have even without the laws of the church dictating as such -- and she presided over the weekend ceremonies, giving a few remarks if asked before moving on a week or two later. The church she’d ended up at for the first week of November was just outside the Short North area called the Church of the Sacred Harp. The lot used to contain a school building, but that had been torn down decades, if not centuries ago to make room for the large X-shaped building, one with an altar in the middle and rows of pews extending outward in each cardinal direction. At the end of each arm of the X was a scene depicted in stained glass telling the story of Zorro and Astra’s battle with Nil. The door under the scene showing the two, victorious, banishing Nil from the city, and yet with Nil’s final machinations looming overhead, was unlocked as Sibyl arrived, though before she could get a chance to take in too much more of the scenery, she was approached by the church’s pastor. “Welcome,” they said. “You’re a bit earlier than we were expecting but the Archangel Lailah is upstairs and should be ready for your appointment.” A pause. “Although, weren’t there supposed to be two of you? It doesn’t matter, I suppose. If you would just follow me.” The upstairs had a few more pews to view any sort of church service, but was mostly an office space, where the church took care of the various administrative tasks required of it. It was an open office, without walls or cubicles separating the two computers, refrigerator, or, yes, the cot where the Archangel Lailah lay, looking up at the ceiling. At the ceiling? No. In fact, Lailah’s eyes followed two globules of light, each no bigger than an apple, as they danced weightlessly around in the air. It took a prod or two from the pastor for her to even notice Sibyl’s entrance, and the woman scrambled up to a sitting position on the cot, brushing down her costume to something expected of her station. The orbs of light shifted their position as well -- they now flanked Lailah on her left and right. Her eyes fell on Sibyl and she smiled warmly. “Ah, my friend,” she said, revealing herself as someone who called everyone her friend whether she knew them or not, “how are you? Welcome. How may I be of service?” To the pastor, she added, “Thank you, you may leave us now.” OOC
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