File: 1354686045868.png-(1.49 MB, 1366x768, jokerhouse6.png)

From the looks of it, Akira's flat - Just another dilapated apartment, in a building left to fester - would have been a cramped, depressing mess at the best of times. It's small, tightly packed with every conceivable kind of junk; Odd, unpleasant curios, boxes stacked haphazardly atop one another, as if halfway through the process of unpacking...

-And, of course, reams and reams of paper.

After the flash-fire, and the spontaneous downpour from the sprinklers that followed...Well, it's actually *worse*. Half the place is scorched black, as if by some cataclysmic explosion - The half that *isn't* is slowly dissolving, a clotted, gritty mess of melted paper and overturned furniture.

There's a dead body on the floor. It's the last thing you noticed - As if you were blocking it out, and absorbing all the non-disturbing details until you just couldn't put it off any longer.

It's burnt, almost to the bone - The melted remnants of a grinning plastic mask fused to the ruin of the face. Curled on the floor, in an almost fetal position, the narrative becomes all too obvious: The thrashing, flailing desperation as the flames ate into it...Until, at last, it sank to the floor to die. One hand is clenched tight around something, skin peeling back from blackened knuckles - Reaching forward, in an oddly imploring gesture.

Not too far away - In the silent corridors outside, on the winding, stone-cut stairs - you can hear the clatter of footsteps, the scuff of shoes...

-Someone's coming.

[ ] Wait.
[ ] Find somewhere to hide.
[ ] Search the corpse.
[ ] Search the place.
[ ] Free.

YOU HAVE CONTROL

[ x] Search the place. if we hear only one set of footsteps
Then
[ x] search the corpse.

>>21896560

Shitshitshit.

> [X] Search the corpse.
> [X] Search the place.

Previous poster here, i owuld like to change that,

First, inspect the corpse's rigt hand, then hide.
If it's an enemy we can ambush the mofo

Also:shit.

The one time I catch a joker quest, and I have to go to work in five minutes.

We killed the Thief, didn't we?

>>21896688

No, isn't Akira still alive? He was at the play, taking photos.

>>21896711
maybe Akira is not the thief?

>>21896688
Maybe not, since we found the corpse of a smiler. Maybe he fought Akira
in the Red World, and got pasted

> [X] Search the corpse.

Conscious of the incoming footsteps, you kneel besides the corpse - The *wretched* smell rising from it making your gorge rise. Charred meat and human waste; It makes your stomach churn, enough that you nearly gag - The thought of actually *touching* it...

Thankfully, a quick once-over's more than enough; It's so badly burnt that it doesn't *have* pockets - The charred fabric twisted into odd and eerie shapes, striated patterns running across the blackened flesh. The right hand is another story - Gripping something tightly, so *tightly*, that the sharp edges are biting into the bony palm. The fingers curl away, as you *pull* hard - opening like the twitching legs of a half-crushed spider, as you look down...

It's...A crystal, a multi-faceted gem of a rough cut - With the qualities of quartz, but with a smoky violet light that reminds you of an amethyest. It's warm to the touch, an oddly familiar...

-Memory stirs.

Bardiel. Bardiel used something like thi-

Abruptly, *cold* scorches you - A bitter, biting cold, so cold it *burns*. Stung, you snatch your hand away, sending the flawed crystal tumbling...But it's already losing it's color, becoming an opaque grey, as the Nihl Sphere - tucked away in your pocket - *throbs*, just once, like the beat of a black heart.

(Continued.)

> [X] Find somewhere to hide.

Hide...But *where*? The flat is small, cramped - It definently doesn't *look* promising. Your shoes splashing through pooling water and soggy papers, you duck behind a fallen bookshelf; Toppled over the remnants of a moth-eaten couch, nearly broken in half, and hunker down...

-Someone's at the door, now.

The handle turns - Hinges creaking, as the door swings inwards. There's a sound, a vocalization that merges a hiss and a sigh; Through a gap in the furnishings, you see a form silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by the cold blue light outside...

-And the faded green camera bag in his hand.

You hear the *snap* of the bolt being drawn, as - casually, as if the sight before him isn't anything spectacular - Akira shuts and locks the door behind him. There's a slouch to his stance, as if he's laboring under an unspeakable weariness; The room going dark, darker than before, as the faint external light is shut out.

"...You can come out now, you know," he says. His voice is clipped, cold - Professional, somehow, in a way you've never heard before. Then: "-I wouldn't suggest transforming, either; *He* found out why, the hard way."

[ ] Free.

YOU HAVE CONTROL

>>21896976

He's onto us.

> [X] Free.

> Step out.
> "Now I know why we weren't invited to the housewarming."

>>21896976

> [X] ""Your place doesn't look so hot, Akira."

>>21896976

[X]

> "It's me, Anon. Don't do anything crazy."

>>21896976
"Hey Akira, I think you left the oven on."

Damn, according to OPs twitter he got banned for referral links, which sucks.

>>21897456

Seriously? Goddamn it.

>>21897472
Yup. Goddamn it indeed, I sometimes hate the referral link thing as it often bans people who run things I like.

>>21897492

At least we know that Akira's alive, and probably the thief. He's acting too cool to be anything other than a Player. And did our Nihl Sphere just get a charge from the crystal thing?

>>21897520
He's pretty much certainly a player, he knows about it and has safeguards for Transforming in his house. I'm reasonably sure that he's the thief, it fits him rather well, it explains a lot, and who else would booby-trap their house?

I think it did get a charge, which is nice. We might need to get the Nihl Sphere up and running again to find Hecate again, not sure about that part though.

>>21897520
It's broken, right?
It tries to repair itself with energy (?) contained in crystals.
And in players.

>>21897567

Yes, but where are the crystals coming from? We've seen two smilers carrying them, so far. Shindo had one, and the dead guy has one too.

General specula thread, anyone?

I'm thinking that the Kendo Team Captain is the other player we saw, when we were fighting inox Fang. The samurai look would definitely suit him.

I'm also increasingly convinced that hecate wasn't the chalice queen. There seems to be very few explicitly female players.

So far, we've seen demon players like Pazuzu, (Color)(Name) players that seem to be the predominant ones, and sword-wielding players that are very good at melee combat, and very feral. We're in a category to ourselves, and the black joker is a similar entity.

To use the card metaphor, we've already seen Coins, Swords, Pentacles, and the Jokers. Where's the suit of Hearts?

>>21897626
Pazuzu is most likely either manufacturing the crystals or found them in one of the Armories.

>>21897626

What does the thief fall under? IMO, he's under spades, given his obsession with phantom edge. Do players automatically get their character class, or do they choose it?

>>21897666
It's not very clear for regular players, but the "main" ones are specifically stated as having been inherited from the previous holders. The Thief is probably just a regular player who is aiming to become Phantom Edge's successor.

>>21897666

Swords, definently. It's a subtle one, but he wants to reassemble the Fatal Abyss. To continue on that thing, it seems that everyone's filling a pre-set 'role'.

Us - Standing in for the Red Joker.
The Thief - Phantom Edge.
Hecate - Chalice Queen
Kotone - The Black Joker
Pazuzu - The Black Cardinal

And Argent Prominence is representing himself, so to speak.

>>21897683

No, only the red Joker's armor is inheritable, right? We've killed a lot of players before, but we only gained experience points, we didn't get their powers.

>>21897626
Hearts is Cups or Chalices. In Tarot there is Swords, Batons/Wands, Coins/Pentacles/Rings and Cups/Chalices, which respectively relate to Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts or Air, Fire, Earth, Water.

In the last war we had for finalists the Black Cardinal who was Clubs/Wands, Phantom Edge who was Spades/Swords, Argent Prominence was and is Diamonds/Rings, Chalice Queen who was Hearts/Cups.

The Thief likes the idea of inheritance, he could just be ascribing meaning where there was coincidence, but he thinks he is meant to take the role of Phantom Edge, Hecate is to fill in for the Chalice Queen, Pazzy is taking over for the Black Cardinal, Argent is still around but if he gets knocked off he probably expects Chrome Cypher to take up the mantle.

And as always the Red Joker gets a place.

>>21897626
The suits are the minor trumps from a tarot deck: Cups, Swords, Staves and Pentacles. Coins is another mode of Pentacles. The Jokers are from a 52-card deck.

>>21897666
He's the new Phantom Edge, he's Swords.

>>21897717
Correct, but we're seeing lines of descent anyway.

OP, dunno if you're watching, but bans tend to be lifted at midnight board time, which is in twenty minutes.

>>21897717

> You raise an arm:

[ ] ...Sheathed in pitted black ceramite, with the ponderous unstoppability of a glacier.
[ ] ...Forged from brushed steel, reassuringly solid.
[ ] ...Shaped in lightweight crimson endosteel, with an eerie, fluid grace.

As

[ ] ...Your finger tightens hungrily on the trigger.
[ ] ...Your blade hums to life.
[ ] ...Patient ticks of lightning crackle across your tank-wrecking fist.

I sort of want to know what the alternate versions would be like. We took RED and GUNS, but I think BLACK and SWORD or GREY and FISTS would have been awesome, too.

Did the Op ever mention what our old armor looked like?

>>21897766
Yeah he did, I think, it's been a bit. If I remember correctly we were bigger, tough as nails, grey steel, and had a fucking powerfist.

>>21897766
Yes.

File: 1354693555982.jpg-(54 KB, 640x480, fisto.jpg)

>>21897766

It was grey, and we had a powerfist. Apparently, it was something like this.

>>21897766
It would have been interesting to see us in different colors and with a different weapon, but I've really come to love the crimson gunslinger that we are. Though the image wasn't complete until we acquired our bitching longcoat.

File: 1354693896877.jpg-(133 KB, 1000x875, evilsword.jpg)

>>21897766

>BLACK and SWORD

That would be fucking badass.

>>21897766
I just realized we chose to be the Red Joker there.

I wonder what the steel choice would have made us?

>>21897520

A more pressing question is, which girl do we go for? I like Mio: She's just so nice, which makes her like a breath of fresh air amid all the gloom.

I've also warmed to Natsumi and Kotone a lot, especially Natsumi. Kotone seems to be a pretty calm girl, but there's an incredible amount of sexual tension in every scene with have with natsumi. I keep getting the feeling she's just going to jump us, one of these days.

>>21897915

No love for asuna? For shame.

A good question is, how the other classes use meter. We use it to summon up more and bigger guns, but do they see the same level-up screen we do? And how about the book full of weird writing, which we've yet to decipher?

>>21897915
Kotone told us that the Chalice Queen was waiting for us, which probably means that Hecate is waiting for us.

We are getting her back if we have to wade through a river of blood.

I agree that Mio is nice, but it's really not fair for us to get in a relationship with someone when we're the Red Joker. It's just rude, all of our dates will end with someone around us catching fire and dying. We'll just ignore preexisting dates and so on because we got a lead on something and have to go murder people. It's just not fair to subject someone we care about to the tragedy that comes from being in our vicinity.

I also like Asuna, but I raise the same points in regard to her.

>>21897915
I'm pretty sure Natsumi is a big no no. First off, that would be NTR, and second, we just friendzoned her. Nothing good can come from poking that hornets nest.

Though I am conflicted between Mio and Kotone as well. It's a tough choice.

>>21897915

Mio, definitely. She's a sweetie.

We're going to an all-girl's school at some point in the near future, so we might get a chance to know her better then. Not to mention her birthday.

>>21897952

Pazuzu had magic. The swordsmen had sword skills. The demons had...Magic, too, I guess.

Hecate relied entirely on the nihl sphere, and seemed to have no combat powers at all. Except for summoning the robots to help her.

>>21897963
Unless she meant the original Chalice Queen.

>>21898018
>birthday

Yeah, that's in what? 2 days?

>>21897987
Well, Kotone kinda shot us down...

>>21898061

Not exactly. She expressed interest, but she seems to be terrified of herself. Not to mention, resigned.

OP's ban still hasn't been lifted?

>>21898061

Damn, and she's the best girl, too.

>>21896544

Would anyone mind if I ran a gaiden game based on this Quest? I love the setting, but I kind of want to give it a shot with a different kind of protagonist. That is, if Op doesn't mind.

>>21899069
I wouldn't mind, as long as it was good. Though OP's opinion is probably the one that matters the most.

>>21899069

You should check with OP on Twitter.

>>21898041

Yeah, what happened to her, anyway?

From what we know:

Red Joker: Dead. (Confirmed.)
Argent Prominence: Active. (Confirmed.)
Chalice Queen: 'Did something?'
Phantom Edge: Probably dead. Last seen stabbing the Black Cardinal.
Black Cardinal: Last seen fighting with Phantom Edge.

>>21899621
There's three possibilities I can think of, first is that Hecate is the original Chalice Queen, this seems unlikely, the second is that she is dead, the third is that she is alive but everyone thinks she is dead.

If she was still around and kicking the Thief wouldn't have called Hecate the Chalice Queen, unless he didn't know she hadn't kicked the bucket.

Kotone's words either imply that Hecate is still alive and she holds a similar opinion to the Thief about people succeeding last game's finalists, or that the Old Chalice Queen is around and might pay us a visit.

>>21899689

The one silver lining is that Pazuz doesn't have her. Bardiel seems to have confirmed it before he died, and I'm fairly sure they'd have held it over our heads if they knew where she was.

>>21899755
That's nice. Though we're still going to rip off Pazzy's face and shove a railgun down his throat, he's too much of an asshole to let live.

Though Pazzy could be withholding information from Bardiel, but I think since Bardiel was at Nara's Dreamland when it happened he probably would know if she was gone.

>>21899858

I don't think Bardiel was part of the family when we killed him. He seemed especially desperate, and driven entirely by hate.

Did we ever find out what he was trying to do, at the hospital?

God damnit, I get hammered with bros and miss Joker Quest. God damn Cas and it's shitty filter made me miss last ones as well.

>>21900171

I have my suspicions that it had to relate to his heavily burned hand. Call it a hunch though.

>>21899069
Yes please!
It would be useful to get a twitter account for this game, methinks.

>>21902043

There is...

It was linked several threads ago.

Bumping in the vain hope OP comes back.

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>>21896544
Oh god that HUcast makes me moist..

>>21897987
It can't be NTR if she doesn't really love her current bf and still really holds a flame for the MC.

>>21904429
Either way there's nothing but drama and bad feels down that road.

>>21904441

There is always drama and bad feels down any road as long as Anonymous is at the helm.

Tentative bump in hopes OP comes back...

Bumpan.

Ugh, terribly sorry, gentlemen; My ban has, at last, been lifted. However, I'll be a little busy for the next few days - I'll run the upcoming instalment of Joker Quest this Sunday, or Monday.

i.e. : 09/12/2012 or 10/12/2012

Once again, my apologies: Hope to make it up to you guys, as soon as I can establish a regular schedule.

>>21916754
It's okay, not your fault, real life comes before quests. We'll be waiting for you.