(My apologies for the delay.)

>>3740948

You've come a long way to be here.

Over the Howling Mountains. Across the Plains of Silence. And further still, all the way from the beginning.

Once - what seems like forever ago - you were a Knight of the Radiant Order.

After the battle of Blood Marsh, where steel and faith shattered beneath the hell-forged weaponry of invincible land titans, the blood-mad hordes of the Twisted and their High One overlords, you are merely the last.

The Order died, but it did not surrender. As long as one Paladin still, to fight for the world and all that it holds, there is always hope. And if not, there remains the chance for vengeance.

Thus did you swear, by the God old and new, by the great secrets, by word and by deed and by blood. A terrible oath, a vow that carried you all the way to the Forge of the World, where you claimed...

[ ] Thorn, Blade of Grief
[ ] Barago, Sword of Joy
[ ] Covenant, Blade of Unity
[ ] Ruin, Sword of Wrath
[ ] Nemesis, Blade of Terror

> What now, adventurer?

>>3741212
>[ ] Barago, Sword of Joy
our enen

>>3741212
>[X] Covenant, Blade of Unity
Something something friendship something something.

>>3741212
> Barago, Blade of Joy.

I bet it's a katana.

>>3741212
>[ ] Nemesis, Blade of Terror

>>3741212
>[ ] Covenant, Blade of Unity

>>3741212
>[ ] Nemesis, Blade of Terror

>>3741298
Heya! Good to see you here, Key.

>>3741345
Hi anon, also good taste.

>>3741298
>>3741285

(Your SACRED EMOTION is TRUST. You may also draw power from ACCEPTANCE and ADMIRATION.)

(Note that this is not restricted solely to the TRUST, ACCEPTANCE and ADMIRATION that you personally feel: It can also be drained from others, or even the enemy.)

> [X] Covenant, Blade of Unity

The bastard sword gleams, otherworldly, in your hands. It is a wonderous weapon, seemingly grown rather than forged - the flanges of its elaborate hilt and elegant blade are set with strange stones glistening in shades deeper than emerald and blooming with growths of the finest silver. The guard is fashioned as a tangle of flowering brambles, and the blade is the deep and glorious crimson of a blood brother's oath.

Stone and metal and wood, united as one. Heaven and Earth, brought together in a single blade - tempered

But appearances can be deceiving.

It is not a sword that *brings* unity, but a blade that uses it. That devours it, the way a flame devours fuel.

The faith a priest holds in his gods.

The trust one man puts in another, as they fight side-by-side.

The conviction of a sworn oath.

The unbreakable bonds between brothers.

The admiration the people feel, when their champion takes the field, to bestride the earth like a colossus.

Trust, acceptance and admiration into power.

In your hands, surrounded by the unlikely crew of heroes that have fought and shed blood and broken bread with you, it *sings*.

Somewhere, there's an explosion. A ragged blast, like the brief dawn of a glorious sun. Vulture-winged predators tumble away, shredded and burned, wisps of smoke trailing in their wake. Proud Pegasus Knights and Gryphon-riders do battle with Fell Beasts and mechanical wyverns, lances glittering bravely in the light of the false dawn that hovers above. Even the precious few Windblade fighters - glorious constructions of glass and white wood - have taken to the skies, their bolt-throwers filling the air with white-fletched arrows as they battle the dragon engines and winged terrors the Grandmaster has brought to this final conflict.

You feel *admiration* for them, and it feeds the blade.

You find that everything feeds the blade, now.

"Whoooooo-hoooooooo!" Derrik punches the air with one hand, clinging on with the other, as the heat of the blast batters him. He's a swashbuckling figure right out of a maiden's pillow-book, the hero of a thousand romances. He flourishes his rapier, the crystal blade - almost invisible - gleaming as it whips through the air. He's grinning, a devil-may-care grin beneath his shock of white hair - a bandolier of jewel-pommeled knives strapped across his chest, his stormcoat whipping in the slipstream.

That careless attitude is his protection. As long as he does things exactly like that - headfirst, devil take the hindmost - things are likely to turn out okay.

At least for him.

"Faster!" he shouts. "Gettin' a little hot here, Epi - We gotta take it to them!"

(More)

>>3741388

Behind the Thousand-Forged Dragon's steel-shod skull, Epilson Synthesis-666 doesn't answer. He's busy - His visor clamped down over his face, his photonic scarf fluttering in his wake as glowing filaments extrude from his gauntlets, down into the dragon's systems.

Where his armor ends, his augmentations begin. Fight implants buzz beneath his skin, reinforced with impact bracing and subdermal absorbers. There is brass in his skull-close helmet, circuitry beneath his skin: Once, he was the Shattered Soldier, cast down into the mechanical hell of the Black Pits when the last, doomed revolt of the Tempest Artificers was crushed.

But the Fair Ones remade him, inside and out - He carries a fey-forged blade of light, with an edge that can slice atoms. A gun that reloads itself with ammunition shaped from dreams, that fires rounds that burn with barrow-flame. A light-twisting falsehood cloak that lets him slip through shadows and walk unseen amongst men.

All of it powered by the Gold of the Fair, that uncertain, fickle gift that dissolves beneath the first light of dawn.

"We're making our final approach now," he grits out - every shred of his concentration bent on retaining control of the dragon. You can't see his face beneath his visor, but you can tell that it is handsome and noble.

Not quite the same as Derrik's, who is handsome and noble too.

You soar through the burning skies, as vulture-engines and gryphons rip each other apart - Tangled bodies fall from the heavens, battling furiously even as they plummet. Far, far below, rival armies clash - viridian magics searing into the Twisted horde, as they fight to swarm the walls of the Elven city.

But then you see the great, graven statues of Elven Kings and Queen - Each the size of a colossus - striding through the press. Stone blades and scepters descend, and each one flattens a dozen Twisted inhumans, broken bodies flying through the air.

It looks like the Gods still love Brother Quietude. You can't imagine what he's offered, for a miracle of this magnitude. You know he must be fighting alongside them, taking his place on the walls, calling down lightning and fire and the wrath of the Gods against the High Ones - But unless you succeed, the city will fall.

It may take a day instead of hours, but it will fall all the same. And that you cannot allow.

The dread shape of the Sky Fortress looms above you. Huge sensor towers and eyries hang from the Fortress's underside like stalacites, racing by as the Dragon reaches full velocity. It soars towards the Fortress's stern, veering between pulsing nodes and jutting weapon housings, powering towards the docking bay-

"If it's closed-" Epilson begins. "If the bay's sealed-"

[ ] "It won't be. Trust Ismarck."
[ ] "We'll cut our way in, if we have to. We've come too far.
[ ] "Then we'll just have to improvise. Right, Derrik?"
[ ] "As long as we're together, it won't matter. We're a *team*."
[ ] "Can you cloak us?"

> What now, adventurer?

File: Paladin, Human.png (163 KB, 500x673)

163 KB PNG

>>3741388
>[ ] "As long as we're together, it won't matter. We're a *team*."
>[ ] "It won't be. Trust Ismarck."

>>3741459
support

>>3741459
>>3741476

>[X] "As long as we're together, it won't matter. We're a *team*."

For a moment, Derrik's smile slips. For a moment, you see a melancholy in his eyes.

"Yeah," he says, and his throat is tight with emotion. "Yeah."

>[X] "It won't be. Trust Ismarck."

"Well, *he's* never let us down," Epilson says, to fill the sudden silence. "Unlike some I could name-"

"Aw, you're still going on about *that*?" Derrik's brow furrows, his voice lofty, aggrieved. "All I said is - 'My Lady, what *massive* hotness you have'. I didn't know she was the Queen! She looked like the-"

His words are momentarily drowned out by a series of massive blasts from above. Pyro cannons further up the Fortress's flank open up, the first burning shots blazing past you like shooting stars. Far, far below, the city's ramparts detonate - an entire section of wall collapsing, in a tumbling landslide.

You hear a roar from the Twisted horde, as they surge up the ramp. The leaping flames of the pyrotechnic bombardment gleams on the edges of their cruelly hooked blades.

"Ah, hell. Quietude's in trouble-"

You know.

"I see it," Epilson cuts in. A single hangar bay, open, unbarred. "I'm taking us in-"

A shudder racks the Dragon's form. These things weren't made to ascend, but to *descend* like a bomb dropped from above. The red light in its optics flickers, a groan coming from deep, deep within-

"Epi, we're losing speed-"

"I know! Activating override - Hold on!"

You land.

It's a simple sentence, but it describes a lot of things.

The Thousand-Forged Dragon - wings strained to the limit - comes spinning across the threshold. It slams along the deck, trailing sparks and a scream of tortured metal. One wing rips off entirely as it topples, screeching along the hangar in a parody of a baseball slide.

The hangar is, of course, full of the Twisted.

Epilson slews the dragon into a tortured, barely-controlled crash. The impact scatters wailing, inhuman forms like dead leaves in a hurricane, the dragging scrape of metal-on-metal setting your teeth on edge.

"Jump-!"

You let go. You ride the shock wave as it blasts you - tumbling - away, and you land hard on the blackened streak (hot enough to scorch your boots) that the landing has gouged into the deck. In your hands, Covenant flares with rippling arcs of crimson lightning, as your shoulders drop and your knees bend and the bastard sword comes up to angle in front of your face.

(Continued)

>>3741492

Derrik makes it look *easy*. He flips himself up into the stunningly cold gale - turning a full lips - and lands, catfooted, his rapier in hand. He's got a dagger in the other, and he fires it with a flip of his wrist: It streaks across the distance like a bullet and takes a grunting, bull-headed Twisted in the eye. The warped thing hits the ground like a falling oak, stone-dead, still clawing at the knife before it goes still and slack in death.

Show-off.

"What a rush!" Derrik cheers, as he brings his weapon up - Heedless of the tightening ring of Twisted. They're all terrible hybrids of human and animal and things without name, grown large and bulked with muscle and robust; some snatch up lengths of pipe and tools to use as skull-crushing bludgeons. Others have slabby axes, or hacking blades as they shuffle forward, snorting at each other in their indecipherable language.

"-Shit, that's a lot of them," Derrik mutters. He glances at you, still smiling that devil-may-care grin. "What the hell, let's split. You take the three dozen on the left, I take the dozen on the right and we call it equal, deal?"

The air shimmers. Sparks fly, as light untwists. Epilson materalizes like a Cheshire cat's grin in reverse, a warping shimmer taking on form. His crimson scarf - a little more ragged now - flutters defiantly in his wake.

"Don't count me out yet," he says, as he draws his sword. The blade is a blaze of light, white-hot like a bar of metal fresh from the forge: It has no edge, but it does nothing but cut. In his other hand, his pulse repeater hums as it comes to life, charging rings cycling as he brings it up.

"All right, sixteen each. Sounds goods to you?"

Of course.

After all, you're-

(Choose two.)

[ ] The mightiest swordsman alive. (STRENGTH, important for hand-to-hand combat.)
[ ] The greatest duelist the Order has ever known. (DEXTERITY, for dodging and initiative)
[ ] A bastion of endurance. (CONSTITUTION, for your HP and resisting damage / status effects.)
[ ] Handsome and noble, but in not quite the same way. (CHARISMA, personal attractiveness and siphoning your Sacred Emotion)

> What now, adventurer?

>>3741525
>[ ] A bastion of endurance. (CONSTITUTION, for your HP and resisting damage / status effects.)
>[ ] Handsome and noble, but in not quite the same way. (CHARISMA, personal attractiveness and siphoning your Sacred Emotion)

>>3741569
support

>>3741525

> [ ] The mightiest swordsman alive. (STRENGTH, important for hand-to-hand combat.)
> [ ] Handsome and noble, but in not quite the same way. (CHARISMA, personal attractiveness and siphoning your Sacred Emotion)

>>3741525
>>3741569
Support.

>>3741212
>Ruin, Sword of Wrath

Well that’s neat. There’s a weapon in my quest that has the exact same name

>>3741569
>>3741576
>[X] A bastion of endurance. (CONSTITUTION, for your HP and resisting damage / status effects.)
>[X] Handsome and noble, but in not quite the same way. (CHARISMA, personal attractiveness and siphoning your Sacred Emotion)

"Charrrrgeeeeee!"

And as always, you lead the assault. You pound forward, ahead of the others, out-running them all. You surge forward with a terrible acceleration, single-minded as a locomotive. You see tusks and gritted teeth and blankly feral animal eyes, the host of the Twisted tilting back from you in fear-

You smash down into them. You drive into the enemy mass, breaking bone. The blunt impact of your form throws your opponents into the air. They strike at you, clubbing and clawing, but the peerless steel armor of your now-vanished Order is blade-proof. The tongues of swords crack as they rebound off you, the handles of axes and tools snapping.

You don't feel them. You don't even slow down.

When you raise Covenant in both hands - when it you bring it down - they come to pieces. Each strike is a blazing red flare, a writhe of crimson lightning leaping out to scourge all others in the way. The terrible red blade sweeps across like the scythe of death itself, an actual drizzle of blood droplets flying off it, less vivid that the crimson of the edge.

You don't watch your flanks, or guard your back. The others are there for you, and your trust in them is your power. Your cloak swirls around you, as Covenant - unimaginably sharp - carves and carves again without slowing down. Derrik cheers as he dives past you, driving both blades into a goat-man's face - He levels it with a kick, and sends knives spinning into the backs of the Twisted that charge past him.

Epilson moves among them like a mirage. He is a hunter, blank and invisible. His falsehood shield twists around him, the blows and swings aimed at him falling short - Each time, he appears behind them, his hissing blade buried in their spines. He's a blur of motion, firing his pulse repeater with his other hand, burning shots stitching through the press as they turn the Twisted into living, screaming torches.

Your world narrows to a blood-slick stretch of deck, Covenant in your plated fists, spinning, falling, killing. It weaves a lattice of rose-red light around you, eviscerating everything that comes close - You feel an impact, turn, and kill your attacker with a single blow, sending a jackal-fanged hand (still contorted with rage) flying above the press.

And then the Twisted are falling back, fleeing.

Some of them flee the wrath of the Neo Prime, with his alien weapons and light-twisting cloak. Others flee the laughing killer who hurls pearl-handled daggers after them, some spasming and convulsing as they clutch - futilely - at the throwing knives in their backs.

Most of them run from you.

(More)

>>3741638

As the last weapons clatter to the ground, as the pounding of scurrying feet recede into the distance, you take stock. Your muscles burn within your armor, Covenant's glow receding faintly as blood cooks - then disintegrates - along the blade.

None of you are wounded. Or hurt, even.

"Twenty," Epilson says. Heat gouts from his weapon's vents, the heat-sinks glowing cherry-red as he lowers his pulse repeater.

"What?" Derrik blinks, as he wipes a splash of blood from his face. "Twenty what?"

"I was keeping count. Ten for me, six for you - And twenty, for him."

Derrik pouts, as he reaches out to pull a dagger free from a corpse. "Well, we can't *all* be Emotion Knights. A man's gotta know his limits, you know. Where next?"

Epilson glances down at his wrist-display, presses a few buttons on the keyboard. Holographic projectors sketch a schematic in the air before him.

"The control room," he says. "It isn't far."

-----------------------------

It isn't.

There are traps, of course. Turrets that unfold from the walls and unleash a hail of repeating bolts down the corridors. Mechanical killers like clockwork Runners (with their snap-out scimitar blades and poisoned spurs) and the taller, striding form of Justifiers, with their cloaks and twin-bladed spears.

Twisted warriors, and their Amper leaders. The mirror-masked centurions of the Praetorians, tall and terrible in their brass armor.

All they do is to slow you down.

Your pouches are now full of gold coins and gems pried from the dead, dug from the walls. In some rooms, you find priceless artifacts of spun silver and platinum - in others, you find potions that heal or strengthen and sooth. There's an elf maiden, too, and she clings - briefly, in her tattered gown - to Derrik as he soothes her, but not without a shy glance at you.

Outside, the battle rages on. You think fleetingly of how the ground war is going, but no one mentions it aloud. Why would you? This is the best part of your lives - the three of your against the darkness and the unknown. Your comrades at your sides, death all around. A quest that could last forever, without ever leaving the Sky Fortress.

At the great doors of the control one, a masked, hooded High One - In his robes of flayed skin, crowned with a crest of pagan horns - and his ochre-cloaked retinue put up a fight.

A very brief fight.

You do what you do best, and the High One's baleful curses end in a blood-flecked gurgle, as Covenant puts an end to his unholy work.

"Ah, shit," Derrik mutters, looking up at the imposing adamant doors to the control room. "Epi, can you hack-"

Epilson has a hand at the side of his head, data streaming across his visor. Machine-code circles him, holographic glyphs searching for alignment.

"-It could be tricky. The code's a complex one-"

There is a rumble, and the doors slide open.

(More)

>>3741642

The control room is a vast place. The tiered stations of the Fortress's bridge rise up around vast hololithic plates, like the stalls of an amphitheater. Black crystal spires flicker with colorless sparks, casting a ghostly light over the occult symbols and glyphs carved into the walls.

The room is knee-deep in bodies.

"Holy shittttttttt," Derrik breathes. It appears that half of crew attacked the other half, in an unreasoning frenzy, with anything they could lay on hand. Or with anything, really.

You can actually see the bite marks.

The survivors - variously - shot themselves, stabbed themselves in the throat, or flung themselves to their deaths through the windows.

"And I thought you'd never get here."

Ismarck's voice is rich, mellifluous, as he stands amid all the carnage. He has a brass-chased pistol in one hand, but it's unfired, a trophy. The Dictator's black-and-red robes flutter around him; they don't show the blood. The symbol of his calling, the four-sided pyramid, glows with a faint green light - as green as his eyes - as it sways lightly from his earring.

You all have one.

Derrick wears his six-sided Die on a chain around his neck, held in a golden clasp - a gift from some long-forgotten romance.

Epilson bears his ten-sider in his right gauntlet, where it rotates with the ease of a perpetual motion machine.

Your eight-sider - Symbol of the eight Sacred Emotions - is set in your armor, above your heart.

Ismarck cocks his head to the side. He's a saturine figure, devilishly handsome. Also noble.

"Quietude couldn't make it? Guess he's still holding down the fort."

Epilson takes in the tableau of carnage. "...Did you do *all* this?"

A chuckle. Ismarck folds his hands around the pistol's haft.

"Well, they mostly did it to themselves. Tragic, really. I *might* have helped - A word or two in the right ear. You know how it is."

Some kill with swords, or magic, or flights of dragons.

The Dictator only needs his voice.

(More)

>>3741674

You serve a Sacred Emotion, but the Dictator wields them the way an artist wields a brush.

You're glad he's on your side.

Or maybe, that's exactly what he wants you to think.

"Gentlemen, we've got a problem," Ismarck says. "You've cleared out the halls, but...The Grandmaster's men aren't idiots. Once they realize they've been locked out from the control room - Well, they're going to want to take it back."

He shrugs.

"And...Honestly, I don't know how the controls work. That's why I was just chillin', here. Going nowhere in particular. Killing time."

"-Waiting for you guys to show up."

"Enough of this," Epilson cuts in. "We're out of time. Where's the Grandmaster?"

"Where else? He's in the Sanctuary, obviously. He's got the portal in there: If he breaks the Seal, he'll summon the Fallen Lords from Beyond, and..."

"-we lose. Game over."

"Ah, hell," Derrik mutters. "We've got to hold here, and we need Epilson at the controls - We'll never make it in ti-"

"-He could do it."

Ismarck gestures at you.

"What?"

"He's an Emotion Knight. He could do it - By himself, if he had to. And he probably has to...Who else could?"

"You've got to be shitting me."

"No, I'm serious. Deadly serious. It's just..."

Ismarck hesitates. Just for a moment.

"-I'm going to need to work on him. Just this one time."

"No," Epilson cuts in. "Absolutely not. You *swore*. No Dictatorship on another Play-"

"It's his decision."

[ ] "I don't like it, but...Just this once."
[ ] "All right. I trust you."
[ ] "If it's the only way to beat the Grandmaster..."
[ ] "There's no choice, is there? We'll never make it in time, otherwise."

> What now, adventurer?

>>3741688
> [ ] "All right. I trust you."

No way around it, really.

>>3741735
> [X] "All right. I trust you."

Derrick bristles.

"I-" he begins, before Epilson puts a hand on his shoulder. The Neo shakes his head, just once.

Ismarck nods, gravely.

"I'm honored by your trust," he says. He's closer, now - Right in front of you.

And then he speaks. For a moment, it is as if his left eye burns with smokeless flame.

His warm and human hand gives your shoulder a warm and human squeeze.

"You can do this. You were the greatest of the Order - You can be the greatest knight who ever lives. I believe that, my friend. I believe in you."

"*We* believe in you. All of us."

"*I* trust you."

"I *trust* you."

"I trust *you*."

And you feel it. Welling up within you.

The faith they have in you. The faith you have in yourself. The surety that everything has purpose, and there was a reason you were brought to this place. Here and now is the time of fulfillment.

All that has come before was in service to a great and profound destiny.

All trace of doubt leaves you. All trace of weakness. You are fearless, peerless, unstoppable. Your heart pumps tingling fire instead of blood, your lungs sucking in the very clouds.

You give it all to the blade.

Covenant blazes bright. Brighter. Snapping arcs of scarlet lightning fork out from the ruby blaze. They crackle across the joins of your armor.

Brighter than ever before. Brighter than the sun itself.

And you-

You become the storm.

----------------------------------

You are driving down the halls of the Sky Fortress, towards the Grandmaster's Sanctuary. Your pulse thunders an urgent cadence in your ears, as your blade becomes a sweeping scythe, a blur. Three times its length, like solid lightning, like lambent flame.

There's an army before you. Elite Twisted warriors. Bound demons. Dreadnoughts, for they truly know no fear.

You hurl yourself into them. You plough through the closing wall, slicing heads and torsos, armor and axes, anything that stands in your way.

In a very real way, Ismarck has made you invincible.

The enemy heedlessly gathers, too close and thick, as if hoping to bury you with their numbers.

As if butter can stop a blowtorch.

A mechanical horror - three times your size - lumbers into place. A bolt cannon spits blazing rounds - each shot a flaming, screaming skull - at you. But you dodge the gunfire and sever both weapon-limbs in the same terrible stroke, and you punch Covenant into it's motive core. It shudders to a stop, beginning to burn from within as the fire guts it.

Then you are past them. The corridor opens up into a wide chamber as you cut through the last of the dying, disintegrating warriors. The Grandmaster's champion stands before the gates of Sanctuary - A titanic armored ogre, a misshapen giant in gleaming golden armor and two wicked axes.

Kal Tsoth the Forsaken. Warlord of the Black Flame, Supreme Commander of the Ironbound. Slayer of a thousand. Defiler of the Dead.

(More)

>>3741760

Covenant shears through the desperate cross of his blades, and buries itself into his black heart. The unbreakable gates of the Sanctuary explode, as Kal Tsoth's flaming corpse hurtles through them like a rogue meteor - It crumbles to dust as you step over his fallen form, Covenant singing a high, fey song of death. Glyphs and lightning circle you, more amber than crimson.

Here and now, you could do anything. Lay waste to a country. Slay a God.

Break the world.

The Grandmaster stands within his Sanctuary - An inviolable chamber at the very heart of the Sky Fortress, surrounded by statuary and the implements of ritual. Ancient tomes float in the air, swarming with wicked ruins; the walls hum with the rising song of power.

He is a horror. A skeletal giant, encased in armor, sheathed in black and yellow silks. His hands are cased in shining silver gauntlets, clawed and segmented. He has a crown, a crown of iron spikes, with a dozen glittering eyes - still alive, darting in agony - in the band.

In one hand, he holds the symbol of mastery: His twenty-sider, throbbing with unholy light.

*We are ready. We are coming.*

Behind him, a black portal stretches open. Black shadows move through the opening, rushing past you and towards the battlefield far, far below.

*We come slowly, but we come. Use your strength, Grandmaster. Open this gate as wide as the world itself. We will all serve you. We are Many.*

"I've won," the Grandmaster hisses. His voice is a dust-dry rasp, a whisper from lightless tombs.

"I've *won*. The Gate is open, and it can only be closed from the *inside*. And all of you - every last one of you - are too small and puny and *weak* to stop me. I win, now and forever. I win, for all time."

His unclean voice swells in exultation, as he beckons.

"You're too late, little Knight. You die here, and then the world dies with you."

"I see you stand alone. Where are the other 'Paragons', insect? Have they fled, and left you to face me alone?"

[ ] "You're wrong, Grandmaster. You're the one who dies here."
[ ] "It ends, all right. But for both of us."
[ ] "I'm ready to die. Are you?"
[ ] "They're always with me. And they'll always be."
[ ] "You have no idea what you face, do you?"
[ ] Attack.
[ ] Free.

> What now, adventurer?

>>3741766
[ ] "They're always with me. And they'll always be."
"After all this time, Grandmaster, you still don't understand. I am never alone."

>[ ] Attack.

>>3741766
>[X] "They're always with me. And they'll always be."
Powered by unity, right? Let's play to the tropes. I'm sure there's no way that can go wrong here.

>>3741766
>[ ] "They're always with me. And they'll always be."

>>3741816
>>3741821

> [X] "They're always with me. And they'll always be."
> [X] "After all this time, Grandmaster, you still don't understand. I am never alone."
> [X] "They're always with me. And they'll always be."


The Grandmaster's dead eyes - pinpoints of light, set within his skull - smoke with hate.

"Fool," he says.

He lifts his arms, his robes spreading wide like raptor's wings. Tendrils of yellow lightning flicker around his silver gauntlets, as foul winds suck and screech.

"Fool!" His voice is a shout of thunder. "All you shall find is *DEATH*!"

Lightning blasts from his hands. Forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred. You barely have time to angle your blade to catch them, as they claw towards you.

> [X] Attack.

You charge. The Grandmaster's wrath burns into you. Your cloak catches fire. Your armor slags. You smell your own flesh cooking, bright stabs of pain in every muscle.

This is it. The final moment. The final effort.

Covenant rams through the Grandmaster's heart, with so much force that it spears out the other side.

It doesn't kill him. Not even slightly. Ichor sprays from the terrible wound, but the scourging whips of lightning do not stop. They burn into you, a blanket of flames swirling against your back.

The Grandmaster laughs. It is a wild cackle, the laughter of a man who knows that he's won. He knows that the world is his, now.

But you don't stop. You continue the charge, with every last iota of strength you have left.

The portal yawns at his back, and the Grandmaster's laughter becomes a scream.

"You'll die too! YOU'LL DIE TOO!"

Skeletal hands tear at your flesh, leaving wounds that will never heal.

"You don't know what lies beyond! You don't know what waits! Eternal torment - ETERNAL!"

Maybe.

But you know that he fears it, and you do not.

The last thing you hear is the Grandmaster's howl, and you realize - for something immortal, something eternal, the prospect of annihilation must be a uniquely terrifying thing. A horror with no equal.

And together - locked, in that terrible embrace - you plunge into the churning portal.

(Continued)

>>3741838

The dice clatter on the table one last time, as Russell - Dungeon Master, forger of worlds - draws a deep breath. He looks at the circle of pale faces around him, but mostly at you: His expression is more solemn than anything you've ever seen before, from a fourteen-year-old.

"-So that's it, then," he says. "Still battling right until the end, the Emotion Knight and the Grandmaster plunge through the Gate."

"Out of one world, and into the next."

There's something terrible final about the way he says it, the way he weighs the D20 in his hand one last time before he sets it down.

"...What that does mean?" Derek - Also known as Derrik, also known as the Fool - asks, uncertain. "Are they dead? Do we win?"

"You don't know that."

"What do you mean - 'We don't know that'? I mean, it happened to *him*. Doesn't he get to know what happened to his character?"

Ryan - Also known as Epilson Sigma-666, also known as the Neo and "Why don't we play Shadowrun instead?" - sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up.

"It's a cliffhanger, Derek," he says. "Look, we all know he's moving away. That's why it went down like this, you know?" He looks at you as he says it, with a wan smile. "Still...It's a pretty cool way to go out. Y'know, the heroic sacrifice and all that."

"Tough luck," Mark - the Dictator, one year older than the rest of you - says. There's sympathy in his voice, as he pats your shoulder. "I really thought you were going to pull it off. Really, I did."

"I still say it's bullshit. We *agreed* that the Dictator doesn't get to use his powers on other PCs. I mean, it just breaks the game in half. He beat the Grandmaster all by *himself*!"

"Yeah, that needs work."

"Still, I call-"

"Okay, okay." Russell waves a hand, to silence dissent. "Look - I allowed it, just this one time. Because he's moving across the country tomorrow, and...I just wanted to finish things off. As a *group*. Otherwise - It's not like we're going to get another chance."

A kind of silence descends.

Even now, it doesn't seem real to you. Upping stakes. Moving far, far away from everything - from everyone - you've ever known.

"Yeah..." Derek mutters. "I just wish - I just wish Adam was here, too. Doesn't seem fair to leave him out at the end."

"His Mom thinks RPGs are the tools of Satan. You know she's sending him off to Church camp? That's fu...friggin...crazy. They don't let you have *anything* there. I heard they chain you to the bed, if you try and run away-"

A familiar scene. Talking, shooting the shit. Coke in plastic cups. The old-ink smell of the character sheets, the plastic of the dice.

It's hard to think that this is the last time you'll ever see this.

The last time you'll ever see your friends again.

(More)

>>3741840
(I have to run an errand, but I'll be back.)

>>3741840
What even is this quest

>The Gate is open, and it can only be closed from the *inside*
>charge, with every last iota of strength you have left
We wouldn't have had enough strength left to close the portal, would we?

What was the next step in our master plan?

>>3741846
I get the feeling that it's either going to be a Isekai or a Not-Stranger Things quest.

>>3741846
Gonna be honest, I was expecting something like this the moment I twigged to this being Die. Only I guess it's a reverse-Die, with us not actually being sucked into the gameworld but the gameworld just being a game that we then cut to our real characters?

>>3741853
The way I see it, we've still got a portal sitting open in an ostensibly-fictional world that supposedly can't be closed. Either what's over there is coming here, or what's here is going over there.

Or it's all an elaborate red herring, and this is actually Find a New RPG Group in a New Town Quest.

>>3741858
>Or it's all an elaborate red herring, and this is actually Find a New RPG Group in a New Town Quest.
Well at least we have an idea of what may happen next.

>>3741858
The game the kids were playing was Die, an RPG based on the comic of the same name by Keiron Gillen. That's about a group of five people in their forties dealing with being returned to the fantasy realm they were sucked into as teens by a magic RPG. I'm not sure if the portal actually being real would then be exactly what we should expect or way too on the nose.

File: Die_agram.jpg (106 KB, 1200x600)

106 KB JPG

>>3741840

It's a balmy summer night. Somewhere, you can hear cicadas chirping.

And then – You hear the honk of a horn, downstairs.

Your parents are here.

“Awwww, man...”

It's not like you can put off the inevitable. You rise – a little reluctantly – looking around the small circle one last time.

“Hey – Best of luck, yeah?”

“Write to us sometime!”

“It's not going to be the same without you, man. You know that.”

You move to set your eight-sider down – But Russel shakes his head.

“Hold on to it,” he says. “I'm loaning it you, all right? One of these days, we'll finish up.”

[ ] “Yeah.”
[ ] “I hope so.”
[ ] “I'll be counting on it.”
[ ] “Hey – Thanks for everything.”
[ ] “I'm...not sure we'll get the chance. But I'll try.”
[ ] Say nothing.
[ ] Free.

> What now, adventurer?

>>3741887
>[X] “I'm...not sure we'll get the chance. But I'll try.”

>>3741887
>[ ] “I'll be counting on it.”
>[ ] “Hey – Thanks for everything.”
>[ ] Free.
Do we have something of ours to leave with them in return?

>>3741889
(Anything you could reasonably be expected to carry.)

>>3741888
>>3741889

> [X] “I'm...not sure we'll get the chance. But I'll try.”

Across the country. To you, that may as well be a whole other world.

> [X] “I'll be counting on it.”
> [X] “Hey – Thanks for everything.”

Russel smiles, a little pained.

“Yeah,” he says. “I'd...like to thank you, too. Having you at the table...It's been fun.”

“Unlike some I could name-” Mark says, with a significant glance at Derek-

> [X] Free.
> [X] Do we have something of ours to leave with them in return?

You reach into your pocket. There's an old coin you found at the riverbank, this one time – You're not sure if it's real silver or not, but it's so tarnished that even the faces are indecipharable. Pirate treasure, you remember one of them – who, exactly? - saying...But that was before you all agreed that pirates were lame.

You set it down on the table, marking your place.

One day-

Just maybe-

One day, you'll be back for it.

Perhaps.

“See you around,” Russel says, softly.

The horn sounds again, louder this time. You know how your parents get when they have to wait.

And so you descend the steps, a little reluctant but knowing that it's inevitable. The D8 bright as a gem in your fist, the lustre undimmed. Outside, walking to the car, you look back only one – to see Russel silhouetted against the window, watching as you leave.

He raises a hand, in a benediction or a wave. You think he might be saying something.

Then the door closes, and the summer – as you know it – comes to an end.

That's the last time you ever see him.

(More)

>>3741899

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER...

The rain pounds down from above, relentless, hard. It falls like hail, rattling from the roof of your car.

Gravel crunches beneath the wheels, as you pull into the driveway – Lightning streaking the skies overhead, a heartbeat before the belated crack of thunder.

The mansion – tall, stately, a truly grotesque medieval design – looms over the town below. It's the house that Russel built, either as a dream come true or some kind of early midlife crisis. You remember reading, vaguely, that he made millions in the dot-com bubble and was one of the few who managed to hold on to it after the boom; It could have been either, or both.

But you'll never know.

It's a miracle that the news reached you at all, let alone in time. So much, you find, is gradually lost with the simple passage of time: Try as you might to cling on, it just slips away.

Or maybe it's because you're on the cusp of turning forty.

There are other cars in the driveway, along the gravel path wide enough to let in a tank brigade. You can already tell that you're late, that the storm has come before you get there.

If that isn't a metaphor, you don't know what is.

You've had your ups and downs. Your joys and your sorrows.

But the thing is, the thing that makes your stomach ache and puts the bitter taste of quinine in your mouth is:

(The following are just examples. The main question is: Why is your life terrible?)

[ ] You're alone.
[ ] You're broke.
[ ] Your career is going nowhere.
[ ] You're still fighting your way through the divorce.
[ ] Your ex-wife is taking the kids.
[ ] You're looking at the start of the end, and you honestly can't find a reason to go on.
[ ] You've done nothing meaningful with your life.
[ ] You've fucked up, and you might be looking at a lawsuit or jail time.
[ ] Free

> What now, adventurer?

>>3741913
>[X] You're looking at the start of the end, and you honestly can't find a reason to go on.

>>3741913
>[x] You're alone.
Turns out being hyper focused on work doesn't leave much time for anything.

>>3741913
>[ ] You're alone.
>[ ] You're looking at the start of the end, and you honestly can't find a reason to go on.
You never managed to make many friends in the years since. Your parents' overbearing influence made it difficult until your college years, and by then the social isolation had turned you painfully introverted.

Whatever few friends you'd made since then who helped you out of that shell ever so slightly, you never managed to stay in contact with. By and large you threw yourself into your studies, and then your job.

Without anyone who could empathize with your joys and your fears, is it any wonder that life began to seem so meaningless?

>>3741917
>>3741936
>>3741937

> [X] You're alone.
> [X] You're looking at the start of the end, and you honestly can't find a reason to go on.

What have you really been doing, these past twenty-five years?

Forty is a strange age. Too early to pack it in, too late to start with...anything.

And things have passed you by. They've passed you by, or you've let them slip.

If you think about it, in the cold light of dawn – What do you really have to look forward to? Another twenty years of this? The same thing, only forever? Maybe a gold watch that turns green in a year, if they still do that.

And then what?

That's the question, really. What, then?

That's the one thing Russel will never have to ask himself. Maybe – In a bleak, reductionist, awful way – he was the lucky one.

You're still thinking this, as you step out of the car. It's too near for an umbrella and too far not to get soaked, so you trudge through the downpour and up the steps anyway. A figure leans against the raised bars of the porch, cupping a hand to its mouth – you glimpse the brief flare of flame, smell cheap tobacco.

Adam. He's got a priest's collar, exactly as you'd expect – a coffin nail between his teeth as he puffs away distractedly, almost as if he's merely hoping for something to do. He glances at you, briefly, as you draw closer – And for a moment, a kind of puzzlement crosses his sallow features, before recognition dawns.

“Hey,” he says. “You missed the funeral.”

It couldn't be helped. Getting here was hell.

He shakes his head. He looks tired – there's a slouch to his shoulders, bags under his eyes. His fingers are stained with tobacco, as he stubs out the cigarette.

“-It's all right. You're here, and that's what matters. Come on in: the others are already inside.”

All of them?

“Yes. It's...heartening, really. To know that Russell had so many people who cared for him...”

Adam's voice trails off. His weary eyes are the color of a winter sky, as he adjusts his collar.

“Well. I suppose it doesn't matter, now. But it's a nice gesture.”

(Continued)

>>3741961

It's not quite clear how Russell died.

You know he wasn't drunk – probably. You know no-one else was hurt.

But you also know that they had to cut him out of what remained of his car, and that it was to be a closed-casket funeral.

That – And one more thing.

The inside of the mansion is all checkerboard floors and red carpet, signed Frazetta tapestries and shelves full of well-thumbed books. There's a vast television with game consoles – pristine, in climate-controlled cabinets – like exotic exhibits in a museum, a walk-in cooler with the dark-glass circles of vintages.

Fewer than before, now. There are missing bottles from the racks, like missing teeth in a jaw.

Adam catches your look, and shakes his head. “It's all right. The housekeepers said he wouldn't have minded. And, well-”

He grimaces. “I don't indulge, but I can't blame Ryan for wanting a stiff drink.”

He guides you through the house, walking carefully, treading lightly. As if he's trying not to upset anything, as if this big, empty mansion is simply waiting for its master to return.

There's a vast double-doors, ahead. Light shines out from beneath the door. You hear murmured conversation, the faint clink of glasses.

“Through there,” Adam says. Then-

“Brace yourself. I'd say that everyone's changed...But you already know that.”

The doors open, and beyond-

The light of the later afternoon, discoloured by the storm, floods the chamber through high windows. A round table, carved from stone, dominates the vast space – Around it are six chairs, each cut from silk-smooth wood. The chair backs are draped with banners of red cloth, each one with a certain symbol woven into it-

And in the middle, a map.

It's...the world of Threshold. The Howling Mountains. The Plains of Silence.

There, in the corner – Blood Marsh. The gleaming city of Iranthemar.

All of it, as it should be. All of it, brought to life.

Russell's world.

On the arch above, embossed in gold:

HERE THERE BE DRAGONS.

(More)

>>3741972

“Yo – Look who finally showed up.”

The voice is hoarse, and you get an impression of a broken-veined nose and the beginnings of a beer gut from too many boozy lunches. A friendly giant lumbers up to you and hugs you so hard your ribs creak, positively lifting you off your feet – Before he deals you a slap to the back that sends you sprawling.

“Shit, man...It's been years! How the hell are you, eh?”

For a moment, you don't recognize him – But then, something clicks.

Derrik?

He laughs – guffaws, really. “It's good to see you. Damn good. Come on, pull up a chair and-”

“I've got it.” Another man, with thinning hair that's turning a majestic silver, a suit that looks die-cut. You're sure you saw his TED talk at some point-

“-I'm surprised you watched that,” Mark says. His smile communicates pride, embarrassement – and the grief, that touches his eyes. “I'm glad to see you, too.”

And then he's shaking your hand. Pressing the flesh, in a firm, manly grip – Just like his self-help book, R.I.S.E For An All New You.

“You've read that?” A flash of carefully measured surprise in his eyes. Carefully measured modest smile. “I've actually been working on a follow-up, and...”

“Since we're all here,” a voice cuts in, “-we should probably get started.”

There, at the table, with the low hum of motors. Ryan.

His wheelchair rotates to face you, and – at last – you notice...

He follows your gaze, and his lips tighten as his eyes rest on the stumps of his legs.

“IED,” he says, like he must have a million times before. “It's not so bad. Prostheses are really good these days, but...They itch something fierce. But – You should see the other guy.”

"All things considered...I was the lucky one. I'm grateful for that. Really, I am."

(More)

>>3741987

When you take your seat at the table, you notice something odd – A drawer, set under the table, by your right. It opens, gliding out on smooth castors; Inside, you see a single, tarnished silver coin.

You're back. It's been twenty-five years, but you're back.

Too late to do any good.

There's something of an awkward meeting, in how you all sit around the table. The middle-aged Knights of the Round Table, the Grail long gone. Or the beginnings of some half-assed conspiracy, maybe.

It's Mark who breaks the silence, clearing his throat delicately.

“Well,” he says. “It looks like we're all here. Has everyone been filled in?”

[ ] “Yes.”
[ ] “I skimmed it on the way over.”
[ ] “...Oh God, I can't believe we're really doing this. It was twenty-five years ago – I can barely remember any of it.”
[ ] “Sure, but...Exactly who's going to be the DM?”
[ ] “I'll need some time to read up. Who's got the character sheets?”
[ ] “Same rules as before?”
[ ] "For the record - This is probably the strangest thing I've ever done."
[ ] Free.

> What now, adventurer?

>>3741991
>[ ] “Sure, but...Exactly who's going to be the DM?”

>>3741991
>[x] “Sure, but...Exactly who's going to be the DM?”
>[x] "New or Old characters?"
Wouldn't hurt to check with the group.

>>3741999
>>3742017

> [X] "New or old characters?"

“New, I think,” Mark says, just as Ryan says “Old.”

They look at each other, and Mark shrugs – with a faintly sad smile – conceding the point.

“You're right,” he says. “One last adventure, then.”

“Adam, Derek – You're fine with that?”

“I am,” Adam says, quietly.

“I don't see why not,” Derek says. “Just gotta brush the dust off. Get back in the saddle. You know – All of that.”

“-I might change some things,” Mark says. “It's...Well, we're different from who we used to be.” He seems faintly embarrassed, somehow. “You know – In the interest of moving things along, and all that.”

“That's fine, too.”

And for a while, there's a quiet rustle of paper, handed around the room. There's a sheet for each of you, faded to look like aged parchment, the text crisp and clear on the faux-scrolled paper. And yours, too – Though you note that a certain section has been left blank:

[ ] Thorn, Blade of Grief
[ ] Barago, Sword of Joy
[ ] Covenant, Blade of Unity
[ ] Ruin, Sword of Wrath
[ ] Nemesis, Blade of Terror

That same choice again, after twenty-five years. Strange to think that it still matters.

And for a long moment, there's just the patient skritch-scratch of pencils on paper...

>[x] “Sure, but...Exactly who's going to be the DM?”

A pause. A kind of silence.

Then-

“-I'll do it,” Adam – Or is it Father Adam? - says. “I'm...a little out of touch, but it feels right. It should be me, really.” He looks at you when he says it: Somehow, it sounds almost like an apology.

With careful, precise motions, he folds his sheet in half and sets his die atop it - “Suppose I won't be needing this,” he murmurs, as he takes up the leather-bound tome of campaign notes. He turns the cover, looking down at the hand-written text on the page:

“Hmmmm. Interesting.”
“What is it?”

He glances over at Derek, with a little shrug.

“Well...It's silly, really. Like a ritual. The first page says...”

“'Tell the players to pick up their class Die, and then close their eyes'. I know it's giving away a little, but...I'd like to stress it's not my idea.”

Mark sighs, a soft sound. “Oh, Russell,” he says, fondly. “Always with the theatrics.” His fingers fold around his four-sider, as he closes his eyes - “Very well, then. Shall we?”

Derek clenches his fist around his die. He shifts in his seat, making himself comfortable, closes his eyes.

Then Ryan.

Then Adam.

It feels like there's something in the air. A strange tension, over those bowed heads.

The moment lingers, and you realize – They're waiting for you.

[ ] Free

> What now, adventurer?

>>3742029
(If you wish to change your weapon, this is your chance.)

>>3742029
>Close your eyes.
Also stick to Covenant.Just like old times.

>>3742032
support

>>3742029
>[X] Covenant, Blade of Unity
>[X] Close our eyes
It would be nice to believe in the power of bonds and faith as mattering. One more time.

>>3742032
>>3742078
>>3742097
> [X] Covenant, Blade of Unity

No change from before, then.

One last adventure. The last, and the greatest.

You're struck by a strange thought:

Ismarck and Epilson, Brother Quietude and Derrik Galte – They're not even fictional characters.

They're simultaneously both less and more than real characters.

Less because they don’t have real selves. They don’t have dialogue, or full backstories. They’re just a bunch of numbers. They’re vehicles or tools PCs use. They’re masks.

But more because part of them isn’t fiction at all, it’s human - it’s their player half. It’s you.

Or Mark, or Derek, or Ryan or Adam.

And you wonder what that moment is like for them, when they become playable.

It must be like possession, like a person succumbing to the presence of a god or demon. A trance, then a shuddering, as of flesh rebelling against the new presence. Then the eyes open and they’re a stranger’s.

But what’s it like for the player that possesses them? There’s a little bit that goes the other way. The fleeting impression of living in their world, playing by their rules.

You're still thinking this as you take the eight-sider in your hand, and make your hand a fist. It rattles, lightly, within.

-That sense of potential, the rotation that threatens a storm-

Adam's voice, seemingly from far, far away.

“All right. 'Lower your dice to the table, and release-'”

The storm hits.

The world goes away.

(More)

>>3742110

The room heaves.

There is a flash of light, so bright you can actually see it through your closed eyes.

For several heartbeats, everything becomes a stuttering black-and-white negative of itself. There is a roaring, a sound like distant thunder - A sound that hits you deep in the chest, like a car crash at close range.

A barrage of rain - Or is that sleet? - hits the glass walls of the room, battering them in a spontaneous flurry.

There is a symphony of monstrous shrieks. Laughter. A discordant piping, enough to make your teeth vibrate.

Then a sense of falling, falling, a lurching descent-

--------------------------------

A peal of thunder wakes you. There's a scent of ozone in the air, the moaning of the wind.

As your eyes open, you find yourselves sprawled on the ground - As if you've fallen from a great distance, and only just hit.

You're in the great war-room, but the skies are gone.

Instead, you see a roiling, churning void, laced with silver threads. Blobs of bright light flit through the web, electronic screeches reverberating through the glass despite the distance.

Every so often, the strands chime and pulse, staining the vista with a roiling, sickly indigo light. There are curling, thrashing mists of purple and red, coiling just beyond the all-round windows...Like hands pressed against the glass, looking for a way in.

The other chairs are empty.

The map is alive. The map is moving.

You see tiny clouds scudding across the living world of threshold. You see flocks of birds, soaring above the Howling Mountains. The waves, lapping against the edge of the disc, tiny breakers cresting against the surf.

And in front of you rests your eight-sider, glowing with a fierce internal fire. Like a torch, as if it ripples with half-seen flame.

You taste quinine in your mouth. Nausea churns in your gut.

Something - A sheet of paper? - flutters down serenely from above, like a dry leaf, crinkling slightly where it lands.

You glimpse:

ONCE MORE, THE FALLEN LORDS THREATEN THE REALM!

THE THRESHOLD CALLS OUT FOR HEROES!

As you stare, uncomprehending, the paper crisps away, becoming flecks of ash before it hits the ground.

You are alone.

[ ] Free

> What now, adventurer?

File: transit.jpg (208 KB, 688x825)

208 KB JPG

>>3742130
(Forgot the image.)

>>3742130
>[X] Study the map. The die is the obvious thing to focus on, but you're a bit scared to touch it yet.

(I have to stop for now, but I'll continue next time.)

>>3742130
What's going on? This- this isn't a prank, is it?

Look for the others. You seem to be in no danger for now, but are they?

>>3742175
>>3743132

You stare down at the map.

Rich black ink creates beautiful hills and mountains with mere brushstroke. Enigmatic unnamed towers are noted deep in areas swallowed by wild forest. It draws you in, encourages you to explore it in ways you feel on some deep level, yet cannot name.

Like some well or fountain, discovered bubbling deep within you.

Like youth again.

Like the excitement of the unknown.

Not fear...

Haven, to the West - the last redoubt of the Elder races, the dwarven forges of the Hollow Mountains giving way to vast forest and the last Elven cities.

The vast deserts of the Plains of Silence, to the South - the Nomad Kingdoms and Scavenger-Lords of the Empire of Brass, in service to the Shrouded Prophet.

To the East, the Sea of Jade. Pirates and raiders and roving sword-masters from the exotic lands beyond the horizon, from all the places that always were and that you have never seen.

The blasted, savage lands to the North, home of the Wyvern Kings and the strange cthonic creatures from the Black Pits. The ancient machines of the long-lost Olamic Solidarity, strange and terrible and powerful beyond belief.

Distant names...

Heroes' Hearth.

The Shuddering Lands.

Greyguild-on-the-Moors.

Serakub.

A voice, on the very edge of perception:

"In search of the unknown."

And there is something about that phrase that resonates within your mind. Wherever that is.
Wherever this is.

You see a world of possibilities and adventures. Lost civilizations and stories not told for thousands of years. Danger, and reward. Some forever playground of youth and all the good things it was ever meant to be. The terror and the intrigue.

Or is it?

The map that lies before you; All things known and unknown.

And then you hear-

The windows rattle. Things move, in the churning void.

(More)

>>3744298

A face - A *face* - spoiled by frightened eyes and a screaming mouth, forms from the rippling matter outside the glass. It slams against the window, deforming as it bursts against it, dissipating back into the raging tides from whence it came.

You can see shapes churning in the mass, half-defined *things* that might be faces or limbs...Distant stormclouds rippling, as if agitated.

It feels like something's coming.

A faint buzzing, buzzing, like an insect drone - like the chirring of locust wings.

WE HUNGER

[ ] Free

> What now, adventurer?

>>3744301
>>Draw our sword

>>3744310
(You don't have one. You're a forty-year old man dressed for a funeral.)

>>3744301
This is no time to be reminiscing over childhood fantasies. Whatever this is, it's clearly serious. Your friends have vanished, and you have no idea whether they're still safe.

Search for something to arm yourself with. Look over their seats for any signs of where they might have gone. And start searching - hopefully they can't have gone far.

Watch your back; until you find them, you're going to be on your own. As if that's any different from how it's been all these years.

>>3744301
Grab the die.

>>3744316
This then

>>3744316
>>3744317
>>3744363

Something is coming.

Something terrible, ungodly. Riding the storm.

You know this, deep in your bones. It's primal, a chill rippling up your spine as you tear your gaze away from the map. Away from the temptation of following the ink-black lines there and back again.

Where are they?

How long were you unconscious? It couldn't have been more than a moment. As the maelstorm outside flashes and flickers with all the colors of nightmare, your gaze sweeps the room-

The chairs are empty. They're all empty. They look like they've been empty for a long time.

And-

You see Ryan's wheelchair. It's empty, too – the wheels still locked, strangely forlorn without an occupant. He couldn't have left the room without it, so where...?

You look for a weapon. A way out. Your skin crawls, and you feel ice-water running through your veins. There are sounds, just on the edge of perception. Whispers.

WE HUNGER

The doors – You cross over to them in four long strides. They're sealed, as if barred from the other side; You pull at them, then – belatedly – push, but they refused to give.

They don't look like they're made of wood, now...They're glassy, carved from something shiny and red, silver runes worked into their surface.

Some kind of stone-

There. There's a broadsword over the mantle, in a glass casing. You know that it must be a prop, a toy, but...

There is a CRACK. It's a brittle sound, a sound like a rifle shot.

The windows explode. Stained-glass sprays, and you duck as shards rain down in a flailing hail.

Lightning blasts the clouds, and lightning blasts the room.

The air is thick and sour, and the drone of chattering bugs increases in volume. There is a noxious smoke, a vile ozone stench, unfurling in space - A sickening taste, like the worst parts of a hangover and bile. A numbing dislocation - a kaleidoscope of nauseating colors.

You see eyes - ocelli in compound form - materializing, red light beginning to froth up as shapes resolve.

They look like an anatomist’s diagram of human musculature: The wall of muscle around the ribs, the tendons of the arms, the sinews of the throat.

Their faces are leering skulls, masks fashioned from bone. Stub horns curl from discolored skull brows.

And then there are the eyes.

The lidless eyes staring out of those mask slits - Held in cups of circuitry - are inhuman. They shine with that crimson hell-light.

There's - Oh God - there's four of them, three shambling and lurching, one tall and imperious like a flayed priest. Static crackles, binaric blurts. A bone-tipped finger points forward, as unknowable syllables issue from the speaker-grille maw of the tallest one.

Those two words, again:

WE HUNGER

(More)

File: fallen.jpg (345 KB, 1007x827)

345 KB JPG

>>3744473

The pagan-horned terror glides forward, with unholy grace. Silently, slowly, as if it has all the time in the world. The lesser monsters growl and snuffle, drooling clear fluid from their nightmare maws-

You hear a hiss, see smoke curl up where it eats into the ground. Acid.

This has to be a nightmare, you think, because that is what everyone thinks. This has to be a dream, though you already know it's not.

Your hand gropes across the table, searching for something to throw. It closes on something small and hard and hot, something that spits coils of light between your fingers-

The Die. It's the Die.

It sings to you. The light twists, coiling...

Fire coruscates around you, crimson light spilling out in every direction at once, as you are remade.

Everything – everything – snaps into sharp relief.

It is as if you have been wearing ill-fitting spectacles your entire life, and they have been removed. That, and the aches and pains deep in your muscles, deep in your gut, that you've been trying to ignore. You feel strength – wholeness - coursing through you, as the weight of years falls away...

You feel ten years younger.

Twenty.

Your mind becomes clear, vital and vibrant. It feels like your dull limbs have cast off their weights, fanning fading embers into a roaring blaze.

Armor. You have armor. Armor that is chrome steel, curves and angles of mirror that gleams like dawn's own rhodos dactylos in the stormlight. It fits you like a glove, gauntlets and greaves and pauldrons, chainmail so fine it could only be mithril.

Your cloak swirls in your wake, and it bears with it the proud symbol of the Order Radiant: The sunburst-and-sword, more profound that any flag.

And - Glowing like a hot ember – your die shines a ruby's inner fire, set into your gorget.

The fleshless terrors-

-the Fallen, something whispers-

-snarl with hatred, but mostly hunger. They have shied back from the light that engulfs you, the light that you are. But it seems to break the spell, and the first horrors lurch forward...

There is a sword sheathed at your hip.

You draw. One motion. The blade flashes in the stormlight like a thing suddenly become electric. A cold, living thing that defines the line between life and death.

And it seems to you, in the sudden flash of crimson steel, that the blade you have drawn is living death. Embodied.

(More)

(Brief explanation to follow.)

>>3744486

You hold it ready to strike, with both hands gripped around the hilt as they should be. Ready for the single, ripping slash that feels so right. As though you've been trained a thousand million times to execute only such and in only this fashion.

As if you've been wielding this sword all your life.

The first of the Fallen comes at you in a rush. Venom drips from razored claws.

And that's when you strike, with just one cut. Like unexpected lightning.

You strike through it. Not at it, as you know you would have. But through it, as you've never trained to do.

It howls. A chittering binaric howl, as the blade bites. And then it can no longer scream in the bare second that follows, as two halves flop to the ground as the ember-eyed horror once did, and will never do again. Black oil and old blood fountains from the wound, spraying the walls, staining the map.

In your hands-

An elaborate hilt and elegant blade are set with strange stones glistening in shades deeper than emerald and blooming with growths of the finest silver-

-a tangle of flowering brambles for the guard-

-a blade that is the deep and glorious crimson of a blood brother's oath-

No fucking way.

Covenant, you think. Sword of Unity.

And what else could it be?

It is-

[ ] Brutal. Peerlessly lethal. (Special: If inflicts a Wound on your opponent, inflict two Wounds instead.)
[ ] Lightning-quick. (Special: When removing a Guard from your opponent, remove two Guard instead one.)
[ ] So well-balanced, it feels like it could swing itself. (Uses Dexterity instead of Strength. Special: Recover two Guard.)

> What now, adventurer?

File: Die - Core Rules (Cheat Sheet).pdf (29 KB, PDF)

29 KB PDF

>>3744491
(This Quest runs on a dice-pool system, using D6s. Specials trigger when you roll a 6 or above.)

(You have Guard and HP. Damage is removed from your Guard - which can be restored simply by taking a turn to recover - and then from HP, once all your Guard is depleted. If your HP is reduced to 0, you are incapacitated and die at the end of the scene.)

(Your statistics are:

Strength: 3
Dexterity: 3
Constitution: 4
Charisma: 4
Wisdom: 2
Intelligence: 2

Guard: 3
Health: 4)

(An average human has 1s or 2s in each pool. 3 is Olympic-tier. 4 is borderline superhuman.)

>>3744491
>[X] Lightning-quick. (Special: When removing a Guard from your opponent, remove two Guard instead one.)

>>3744491
>[ ] Brutal. Peerlessly lethal. (Special: If inflicts a Wound on your opponent, inflict two Wounds instead.)

>>3744491
>[ ] So well-balanced, it feels like it could swing itself. (Uses Dexterity instead of Strength. Special: Recover two Guard.)
I'm going to assume that streamlining the number of stats we rely on is good here for progression, even if it isn't immediately useful.

The Specials activate once every 2 attacks on average with our current stats, so I'm going to go with dying slightly less rather than dealing 1 more damage about half of half the time. Kinda fits mechanically with our juggernaut theme too.

>>3744494

[ ] Brutal. Peerlessly lethal. (Special: If inflicts a Wound on your opponent, inflict two Wounds instead.)

>>3744494
That was a ride getting to this point.
Keep it up

>>3744600
>>3745037

> [ ] Brutal. Peerlessly lethal. (Special: If inflicts a Wound on your opponent, inflict two Wounds instead.)

A sword has a single purpose: to cut.

Covenant's crimson edge is sharper than a razor's. When you swing, there is a moan as if the air itself is cut.

And for one moment, you're a child again. Scrambling over riverbanks. Swinging a stick at your friends.

Slaying ninjas, in the ruins of the world.

But this is no dream. This is no fantasy. You can feel it, deep down, like a long-forgotten truth rising to the surface: This is as real as the blood you will shed.

The Fallen spring for you. The torches of their eyes flare with bloodlust, with hunger. Raw muscle bunches over tortured metal bones, cables snapping taut - the guttural uluations of their howls making your ears ring. Talons snap towards you, like lightning bolts-

You have no shield. Instead, you turn your shoulder, and drive into your attacker.

The blunt impact - the massive kinetic force you can muster - smashes the beast to the ground. You half-turn - moving on instinct - and strike your other attacker through the shoulder with your whirring blade.

There is an alarming release of blood. Huge quantities of it, like a geyser. You see red meat folded around cables and iron bones, as the Fallen shears apart. The howl becomes a burbling screech, dopplering up and down the register - terminating in a subhuman noise, like a burst of static, as both halves twitch once and then go still.

From the corner of your vision, a flash like fire-

You weave Covenant before you, like a fan. Once. Smooth, effortless.

A blot of midnight flame spews towards you. Terrible heat. Rushing heat. It slams into the whirling wall of your blade - chopping around with a propeller's lethal velocity - and breaks around it. The dark fire gushes past on either side, and the far wall bursts into flame; You smell stone burning, as the hungry fire begins to eat into it.

But you are unharmed.

The fire churns around you, crackling, roaring, and finds no purchase on you. You hear - distantly - a snarl, as the remaining beast staggers back from the blaze, for all unclean things fear fire. Even this pitch-black, lightless inferno that comes from nowhere good.

The sideways column of flame roaring from the tall, flayed horror's hands dies down to silent flickers. The skull-visage of grinning death leers at you from across the span of the room, and you detect...

-Fear. Uncertainity.

All of this, because of the blade in your hands. The sword that you know will never fail you.

And in that surety - in that trust - there is power.

(More)

>>3745993

It's a flicker, really. A pale shadow of the emotion.

But - as crimson lightning blossoms from Covenant's blade, the first flickers of power ambling across your knuckles - just this once, it's enough.

(Choose one Lesser and one Greater Ability from the list - explanatory post to follow.)

LESSER:

[ ] Covenant's lightning wards you from harm. (+1 Defence)
[ ] Range is no bar to Covenant's fury. (You can attack with your Arcane Weapon at a range equivalent to a bow.)
[ ] The blade turns attacks back against the offender. (When an opponent fails to hit you with an attack, you gain a free attack back at them.)

GREATER:

[ ] Your blade can unleash a single, terrible blow that cleaves all before it. (This attack bypasses Guard. This attack can only target one individual. This stacks with Brutal.)
[ ] When surrounded and outnumbered, you become as the reaper's scythe in the fall of the great harvest at summer's end. (Apply the results of your next attack to all enemies within attack range.)
[ ] Covenant's light brings the enemy to you, so you may better smite them. (Choose one opponent. The opponent moves to attack you, and cannot attack anyone else until you choose to allow them to do so, or until you're incapacitated.)

> What now, adventurer?

(The Emotion Knight draws power from the emotion he feels. In your case, these are the emotions of TRUST, ACCEPTANCE and ADMIRATION, as well as the compound emotions of LOVE and SUBMISSION.)

(Your Emotional Scale is ranked from 0 - 8. The human limit for emotion is around 3 - e.g. Fear of 3 is equivalent to the terror you'll feel when being stalked through your house by a psychopath. Rage of 3 is equivalent to confronting the murderer of your parents. Most human beings are rendered unconscious by emotions on the scale of a 4.)

(As long as you are above 0 on the Emotional Scale, you gain Advantage on any attack you make with Covenant. Your Lesser Ability is also activated.)

(At any time, you can choose to expend 1 point from the Emotional Scale, to activate your Greater Ability.)

(Note that your Defense is 2 i.e. Your opponent needs to roll 2 successes in order to inflict 1 point of damage on you. Generally, most conventional opponents roll 2 - 3 dice when attacking.)

>>3746000
>[ ] Range is no bar to Covenant's fury. (You can attack with your Arcane Weapon at a range equivalent to a bow.)
>[ ] When surrounded and outnumbered, you become as the reaper's scythe in the fall of the great harvest at summer's end. (Apply the results of your next attack to all enemies within attack range.)
I really want the +1 Defense. But the combination is too synergistic for me to ignore.

>>3746000
Absolutely the +1 Defense and the Brutal attack.

>>3746000
>[X] Covenant's lightning wards you from harm. (+1 Defence)
>[X] Covenant's light brings the enemy to you, so you may better smite them. (Choose one opponent. The opponent moves to attack you, and cannot attack anyone else until you choose to allow them to do so, or until you're incapacitated.)

So, trying to think about this from a character standpoint, which since Emotion Knight powers are emotion-fueled is also a min-maxing standpoint. We're fueled by Trust, Acceptance and Admiration. That means the ability to take hits for our party is going to be pretty valuable. Build trust and admiration by always being there to intercept the enemy. So the defense bonus is natural, keep us from getting hurt as easily. The taunt fits, too, redirect tough opponents away from party members, build trust by keeping them safe.

>>3746301
They're all good, but I think the Harvest attack or the Brutal attack is better than the aggro ability.

>>3746000
>[ ] The blade turns attacks back against the offender. (When an opponent fails to hit you with an attack, you gain a free attack back at them.)
>[ ] Your blade can unleash a single, terrible blow that cleaves all before it. (This attack bypasses Guard. This attack can only target one individual. This stacks with Brutal.)
We are duel GOD

>>3746000
LESSER:

[ ] Covenant's lightning wards you from harm. (+1 Defence)

[ ] When surrounded and outnumbered, you become as the reaper's scythe in the fall of the great harvest at summer's end. (Apply the results of your next attack to all enemies within attack range.)

>>3747190
>>3746874
>>3746785
>>3746301
>>3746085
>>3746070

> [X] Covenant's lightning wards you from harm. (+1 Defence)

Lightning leaps and crackles. It gathers around you like an aura, like your own personal storm.

Black fire licks at your heels, as you stride forward. Fear eclipses hunger; the Fallen leader shies back from your remorseless advance. There is a blurt of binary code-

The last beast hurls itself at you. The thing's optics buzz with frantic fury, driven forward by a will not its own. The Fallen's knife-first rakes sparks from your armor, as it tries to punch up beneath your guard, to eviscerate you - Chainmail links rattle, the dull impact scraping and scratching against the peerless metal, searching for a seam of weakness...

Your foot cracks into the thing's chest, and you return the favor with a savage slash as it staggers back. Entrails spill from the Fallen's ruptured form, and most of the matter isn't organic - you glimpse yellow plastic tubes, intestinal augmetics and synthetic processing sacs, amid things like clots of dark meat-

*Most* of the matter isn't organic.

Not all.

Static crackles across the channel, and it topples on its back, twitching as the life drains out of it.

And then it is only you and the Fallen leader.

> [X] Your blade can unleash a single, terrible blow that cleaves all before it. (This attack bypasses Guard. This attack can only target one individual. This stacks with Brutal.)

A blurt of sound. A burst of binary code, though the flayed priest's vox-plugs.

Tatters of skin flap around the thing's form, as it blanches - Clawed hands raised, to summon more fire, to rain curses down upon you-

(More)

>>3751239

But you are accelerating. You close the distance, as a blast of dark flame fireballs against the crackling mantle of Covenant's lightning, red swallowing the black.

Two long strides.

It is turning. It is turning to flee, to vanish back into the storm-

And you heave an over-arm swing that chops right down the Fallen's centerline. The blow shears through that crown of pagan horns, and continues on to slice down into the Fallen's chest.

The scream that follows is the loudest you've ever heard. It ends in a burst of white noise, as you wrench the blade out...

-sideways.

And then the room is silent, except for the rising howl of the winds of infinity, lit by the fitful flicker of the storm outside. You clean Covenant with a cloth you keep for such.

The mere act, standing there in the storm-lit gloom, is a brief moment of not thinking.

Not trying to understand. Not even being constantly amazed or terrified at what you're experiencing, or passing through.

And somehow, it's an adventure. The mundane act of wiping the blade clean is incredibly calming to you: Once the blade is free of ichor and old blood, you feel as though you've packaged the whole of the battle, so it will not trouble you the way the leering flayed faces of the Fallen did.

As if the cleaning of the blade is just as much a ceremony as using it to deal out death and slaughter.

The sense-memories of the brief, lethal exchange - Blades and claws and fire - play themselves out through your mind, like phantoms. And from it, you learn-

[ ] The impact of your charge is a terrible thing indeed. (You have Advantage when you charge into combat.)
[ ] You find serenity in the space between blows. (After slaying an opponent, you have Advantage in your next attack.)
[ ] It is your way to withstand the enemy's assault, then strike. (If your opponent fails to harm you, your next attack against them has Advantage.)

> What now, adventurer?

>>3751243
>[ ] It is your way to withstand the enemy's assault, then strike. (If your opponent fails to harm you, your next attack against them has Advantage.)
Advantage after killing an opponent would be pretty awesome if we had a multi-attack.

>>3751243
> [ ] It is your way to withstand the enemy's assault, then strike. (If your opponent fails to harm you, your next attack against them has Advantage.)

This seems like the most consistent and useful option.

>>3751243
>[X] It is your way to withstand the enemy's assault, then strike. (If your opponent fails to harm you, your next attack against them has Advantage.)

>>3751243
>[ ] It is your way to withstand the enemy's assault, then strike. (If your opponent fails to harm you, your next attack against them has Advantage.)

File: thresh chamber.jpg (73 KB, 1280x720)

73 KB JPG

>>3751714
>>3751959
>>3751967
>>3752009

>[X] It is your way to withstand the enemy's assault, then strike. (If your opponent fails to harm you, your next attack against them has Advantage.)

Exactly how you know this, you can't be sure – Only that you do.

Only that this knowledge is as much a part of you as the arcane blade you now wield, like the handsome (and, incidentally, noble) visage that looks back at you from the polished stone of the great table.

You look like...yourself. More like yourself than you've ever been.

As if someone has taken the most heroic, most idealized version of you that has ever been – shorn of the many defeats of middle-age and the thousand misfortunes that have brought you here. It is as if that beaten, sucked-in, vaguely hangdog sense of inevitability has been banished at last, and what awaits is...

-What, exactly?

Is this what happened to the others? To Mark, Ryan, Adam and Derek?

But that seems like a secondary consideration.

Because the great doors behind you – slowly, with ponderous grace – are beginning to open.

A sound breathes through the black space of the chamber, as they swing outwards slowly, pale light shining through. Behind you, rain and sleet spills into the room from the storm-tossed blackness outside, the ground trembling faintly beneath your feet. Hair-thin fissures spiderweb across the walls, an atonal moaning echoing in your ears...

The grey light beyond the doors beckons.

Something about it strikes a chord, like a memory you've never really had. Like the fragment of someone else's story.

Reality has worn thin, thin and ancient like bleached cloth. You feel the rising winds snatch at your cloak: You're finished, here. It's time for your departure.

You can already smell the minute change in the air. Whatever purpose this place – this liminal space, in-between worlds – was created for has been done with. It is no longer needed, and is being allowed to dissipate.

The only way out is forward.

Thought becomes action becomes deed, and you plunge into the light.

...

..

.

Falling. There is a long, blank interval - Churning energies sliding and dancing around you. There is no up, no down, no world. Just the long, long plummet, and the wail of the wind in your ears. You glimpse seething masses of storm-tossed cloud, whipping past you - Hungry claws plucking at your form, aetheric energies swirling and lashing out in tenebrous arcs...

And a glimpse of something. A scrap of parchment – A loose page, borne on the stormwinds, perpetually out of reach-

...Gone before you can read it.

And then there is only the fall, the descent, out of one world and into the next.

(More)

>>3752425

There is a roar in your ears, like the sea coming in. Light spills around you, grey as fog.

Beneath your feet: Black stone, gilded with images of serpents and angels. The pungent undertone of incense. An impression of a vast space, of stone walls scored with the graven images of long-forgotten gods. Empty-eyed statues, staring mournfully down at all they behold-

A temple, you think, remembering the faded image on a long-ago book. You remember Russel holding it out, like a trophy-

“-this is what we're going to play-”

A great brazen idol with glittering gemstone eyes-

You hear...chanting. The same syllables, over and over. The sound makes the stone itself resonate, a vibration that thrums up around you, shivering the high arches of the high-vaulted chamber you've found yourself it as the sound runs up the pillars.

Smoke, fuming from the ember-glow of braziers.

The stench of cooking meat.

Fear-sweat. Unwashed clothes. The pungent reek of incense.

Blood.

Behind you: the churning grey light of the portal, framed by an arch of gleaming obsidian. Wicked runes squirm across the surface, gold against the black. The eerie radiance glints across the cruder glyphs marked out across the polished tiles, with something too dark and thick to be merely paint.

The vast room – a chapel, perhaps – is full.

People, four dozen – maybe more – dull-eyed and terrified, shackled together in groups a half-dozen strong. Their chains are looped through iron rings set into the chapel's capacious marble floor, each group of prisoners guarded by robed overseers armed with implements of sacrifice – Long, serrated knives, bronze lances, spiked goads and ugly chopping swords like pointed cleavers.

(More)

>>3752601

Some of the overseers – cultists – swagger amongst the prisoners, carrying flails and smoldering censers. Others are chanting, in thick, guttural voices, contributing to that atonal moaning-

No. Not prisoners. Sacrifices.

You have a nasty feeling that – very soon – the chant is about to reach a crescendo.

The sacrifices are staring at you. Faces pale in the twitching light, jaws slack – staring as if mesmerized. Their clothes are ripped, torn, hanging off them like ribbons – But you note the faint gleam of metal, fragments of armor stark against what might have once been white-and-blue cloth.

There's a girl, a redhead, in the remnants of what looks like a cavalry officer's uniform: On her knees, her wrists shackled together and chained to the iron ring before her, her green eyes are so very, very wide as she stares directly at you-

And – As if your mind has blotted out the disturbing elements until you simply can't deny it any longer – you realize that none of the cultists are human.

You see...Hooves. Curving ram's-horns. A nest of tentacles where a hand should be. A three-fingered claw gripping a stave. A warped wolf's-muzzle, contorted in a perpetual snarl. Hunched, warped, crammed full of muscle. Legs that bend the wrong way, a profusion of mismatched eyes – A confusion of form. There is something with a too-wide mouth crammed full of clear, clattering quills, with a hyena's curved spine and sickle-bladed talons-

And something within you whispers – the Twisted.

“Now is the hour! Now is the moment!”

The brutal utterances of some language beyond name resolves itself into words, the meaning imparted directly into your brain. A tall, almost painfully drawn figure in filthy golden robes stands with its back to you, arms upthrust in victory-

It's simply the most terrifying thing you've ever seen. Possibly in your entire life.

Skin dusted ghost-white with ash. Trophy rings, crude iron jewellery, rattling around spindly arms. A three-horned bull-mask – and you feel nausea twist in your cut, when you realize the horns are not ornamentations – with a gaping maw for the mouth.

And the piercings. Shell-beads and bone-shards hanging from hooks driven into the figure's back, as if to pin those stained robes – the rustling hem still dark with blood and unspeakable fluids – to the thing's form. You can see the hands, and they're missing the middle fingers – the outer two fused together, like a bird's hinged claws.

(More)

File: thres cover.jpg (84 KB, 600x777)

84 KB JPG

>>3752608

“The Grandmaster returns! Chosen of the Fallen Lords, Harbringer of the End, He walks the Threshold once more! Your flesh is their sustenance, your blood their wine!”

A withered hand raises a staff – viciously bladed and baroque, adorned by what might be a whirlpool or a great burning eye hammered in bronze – that crackles with hissing green flame. There are things lashed to it – unspeakable totems, spattered with gore – that writhe and shudder as corospant engulfs them.

“His wait is over. The High Ones rule All Places again from today. Our god lives, and he is eternal.”

Thunder rolls. Something is out there.

Something is listening.

An answering roar arises from below. Some of the captives – hollow-eyed men in the tatters of drab clothing, women in ragged peasant dresses turned shrouds – are openly weeping in terror. But the sacrifices-to-be at the very front – the ones in the stained black-and-white uniform vestiges – are different. You can sense their palpable confusion, as more faces turn towards you.

“Bow before him, flesh! Bow before the Grandmaster, and beg for the mercy of de-”

The horned apostle falls silent. His sceptre crackles and shudders with gusts of emerald flame, as he stops, mid-sentence.

He – It – turns. It is a hunched thing, like a monstrous vulture, spindly and scrawny but reeking of sour magicks. Yellow eyes – sickly, vile – widen within that hideous helm.

And you hear him rasp out one croaking word:

“Impossible.”

[ ] Free

GUARD: 3
HEALTH: 4
EMOTIONAL SCALE: 2 (Trust)

> What now, adventurer?

>>3752611
No words just
>CHARGE
Then hit him with our special attack.

>>3752661
Just do this, to end this bitch face
And draw power from the people watching us

>>3752611
> "The Grandmaster's dead. I'm the man who killed him."

Then cut his fucking head off.

>>3752661
>>3752666
>>3752671

> "The Grandmaster's dead. I'm the man who killed him."

Your words echo in the sudden silence – Silence, except for the rustle of fabric and the crackle of flame.

Those yellow eyes go wide as saucers. There is the sharp hiss of an inhalation.

The horned and bull-helmed High One wrenches his malformed head around. He jerks, flinching back as you advance. Lightning dances across Covenant's edge, and your fell and terrible shadow falls across his format.

“Protect me!” he gurgles out, his voice rising to a shriek. “Slay him! Slay the-”

And then you cut him in half.

Covenant circles around over in your head in a scything cut. The blade flares, the writhe of lightning fanned to a crimson blaze. In a gesture of desperate self-defense, the High One raises his staff to parry, or simply as a talisman-

Your arcane weapon goes through it.

And then it goes through him.

The blade simply does not stop, as it cuts him right across – Carving him, in that single terrible stroke. There is a massive eruption of blood, like a fountain being abruptly turned on. The spray superheats where it meets Covenant's blade, and your bastard sword tears out the other side trailing a slipstream of boiling blood mist, the High One's gurgling screech abruptly cutting out as half of that misshapen form tumbles down the altar's steps.

There is a howl. A howl of fury and despair from the cultists, a braying cacophony from mismatched throats.

The first Twisted come surging up the stairs, their harsh barks and patchwork armor rattling the walls. A snarling jackal-man – flecks of rage spraying from its muzzle, foaming canines biting – comes in chopping with a curved sword. You take his head off with one blow, and the corpse falls against the side of the altar, dead before it can land a single blow.

(More)

>>3752795

Then, like lights flaring to life, you feel it.

Admiration. A surge of it, fierce – To your eyes, it's a flare of red, embers fanned to a blaze. Desperate, instinctive, but all the more potent for that.

The captives have been herded here, like cattle for slaughter. They've seen you emerge from the portal. They've seen you cleave the leader of their jailors, their tormentors, in a single all-carving blow.

And – for a fraction of a second – they believe in you.

It's enough.

A mace whistles at you, torchlight gleaming on an unreal, hideous hyena face. Gleaming yellow canines snarl and bark, the great overhead blow swinging towards your skull-

Covenant carves air. Then it carves flesh. A howl of pain, as the maimed figure topples back into the press, crushed beneath the furious press of attackers as the cultists charge. Something with the head of a fly lunges at you, brass lance leading – You jerk clear, and the long blade shatters the railing.

There – You see a hollow-eyed, sunken-cheeked man who might have been a merchant once, his hands bunched together into fists as he stares at the tableau. Covenant seizes what is within him, the bright sparks of admiration that mingle with fear and surprise and astonishment – And it lances out of him, in a flurry of red light, drawn to your blade like iron fillings to a magnet.

He blanches. He topples over, as other emotions swarm to fill the sudden void. But Covenant's furious light sends red cising lightning leaping up your arms, as you bring the sword around in a blazing arc that disembowels a cultist about to eviscerate you with a knife-

But not all of them are charging. Not all of them have rushed to the attack.

One of the Twisted cultists – in the front row, next to the line of prisoners – raises the spike of his dagger, ready to plunge it into the first cringing victim's heart-

And then the redhead is on her feet. In all the confusion, she's struggled to her feet, hauling the chain back to give herself as much yield as possible.

The rattling black links crack into the cultist's face. It staggers back, howling – It staggers within reach. Desperate hands reach out, dragging it into a quagmire of clutching fingers, the crowd falling on it from all sides, clawing and grappling. It goes down under the weight of them, bones cracking and snapping as frantic men and women kick at it, stamping on that contorted form-

All hell breaks loose. The prisoners seem to surge forward as one entity, and a new note joins the symphony – howls of astonished horror. Shouts of fury. There is shouting, screaming, screeches of agony.

Pandemonium erupts.

(More)

>>3752800

(Explanatory note to follow.)

An axe clangs off your greaves. A club splinters against your back – It doesn't hurt, not really, but the impact sends you stumbling forward, momentarily off-balance. You can see three more cultists closing in with those curved swords and bladed whips, eerie light dancing around a four-fingered hand as scourging power gathers-

You're surrounded. Beset on both sides. You whip Covenant around in a blood-spraying arc, but suddenly the entire platform beneath your feet lurches, slumping sideways – A twisting line of steel lances through the air where your head was a heartbeat ago, faster than a serpent's tongue-

...How many of them are there?

[ ] Free

GUARD: 1/3
HEALTH: 4/4
EMOTIONAL SCALE: 3 (Trust)

> What now, adventurer?

>>3752804

(The Emotion Knight's ultimate ability is Creative Violence. If the Knight has two or more of an emotion, they can expend it all to achieve an incredible feat. Describe what you're trying to do – You can defeat anything which fits one of the nouns on your current level, or below. You are encouraged to interpret 'defeat' poetically, as this ability is about creative violence.)

(This ability is rolled on a single D8. If the Knight rolls the emotion level or beneath, he suffers that number of wounds in achieving his goal. The Emotional Scale falls to 0 immediately afterward.)

(At present, your Emotional Scale caps out at Level 3.)

Level 0: Nothing.

Level 1: Greater and lesser abilities available. Gain Advantage on attacks with Covenant.

Level 2: The Knight can defeat a mob, a blockage, a village, a weakness.

Level 3: The Knight can defeat an army, a mountain range, a town.

(Note that individually powerful opponents may not constitute any of the above, and have to be fought in conventional combat.)

>>3752804
Well, if all of the weight is on one side of the platform because of how many enemies. Lets jump down on the otherside to launch these guys up into the air. While they're midair, we dice them up before all of their bodyparts landing in a heap.

Rolled 5 (1d8)

Rolling

Rolled 3 (1d8)

>>3752804
Guse keep moving, cut though the chains and free the peoples

Rolled 5 (1d8)

>>3752820
>You are encouraged to interpret 'defeat' poetically
'Defeat a mob, a weakness'? Well, there's a mob here: the one in chains - bound, weakened, broken.

Let's help them overcome that. Covenant gains power from their emotions; let's give it back to them.

Leap to their side in a single bound, and empower them each with fraction of our blade's red spark, to defeat their erstwhile captors with their own hands. By chance, we have appeared in their moment of need to be their bulwark, but luck can only carry them so far; fate only helps those that help themselves, and he who does not seize the moment risks losing it forever.

Something we know all too well.

>>3753226
Oh, I like that. Supporting.

>>3753226
+1

>>3753226
+1

>>3752848
>>3752995
>>3753226
>>3754420
>>3754445
>>3754648

Can you actually do that? You recall Russell talking about a power like that, an ability – But in practice, you never used it. That was, after all, a long, long time ago.

Or perhaps not. The Emotion Knight and the Dictator were always diametrically opposed: The Emotion Knight takes. The Dictator gives, up to the point of madness.

You might not be able to share your power with the others – in your hands, Covenant groans in seeming distress as the thought, the sullen flicker of amber lightning playing over plated fists.

But you can give them the power to save themselves.

You sidestep the lashing arc of a bladed whip, and you pivot to confront the boar-headed cultist who just missed you. He's dazed, seemingly bewildered that you could move so fast: In that moment of confusion, you surge forward and cut off his head with one slice.

There is strength behind the cut, all of it that you can put behind it, because the creature's bull neck is thick with fat and muscles. But the blade cares little for resistance, and it feels as though you are merely pushing it through heavy cream. Possibly even freshly-whipped butter.

But nothing more than that.

You drive a single kick into the sudden corpse, and it slams into the oncoming Twisted. And then – in the moment this buys you – you vault the railing in a leap.

There is no hesitation. You move with purpose, already thinking of your next action.

It occurs to you, distantly, that you've killed more people than you've ever met in your entire life. Monsters, really.

With their howls – thwarted, furious – at your back, you sprint towards the captives. Some of them are freshly splattered in blood, from the overseer they've wrenched down and mauled – the chain raking back and forth against the ring. The haunted-looking merchant has levered himself to his feet, teeth gritted beneath his hollow eyes – A broad-shouldered warrior with a face marked with bruises scrabbles at the corpse for the keys-

But it's the redhead who sees you coming, first. Covenant, blazing in your hand like a shard of the sun. Her green eyes are wide, as she draws the chain taut, holding herself achingly still-

The arcane weapon shears through the black links in a single blurring motion, and she's free.

She scrambles to her feet, barking out orders – Like fragments from a long-ago novel.

“Gospel, Isandro – Get their weapons – Raynault, move-”

A single glance at you – wonder, astonishment, disbelief – and you're past her. Still moving.
Your cloak swirls in your wake, your footfalls pounding on the stone. Confusion is spreading, now – And so is fear. Terror.

(More)

>>3758661

Something with features like melted wax raises a spiked goad to threaten you; You hack it down almost in passing, before it can scream. Covenant lashes out, and the twisted black links of chains fly; captives scramble out of the way, their thanks blurring into the cacophony of noise.

A grey-haired, gaunt man snatches up the goad. He puts it to use a heartbeat later, swinging it with singular force into a goat-headed monster's face, before it can bring the dagger it holds to bear. There's a grim, singular fury in his expression as he leaps on it, seemingly oblivious to all else, ignoring the frantic bleating as his thumbs press down onto it's windpipe, his fingers sinking into stinking flesh as he begins to throttle it to death-

“He's-”

“-kill them, kill-”

“-run-”

The captives scatter. Some hurl themselves onto their tormentors, with a kind of desperate strength who can't fight scramble for cover, or throw themselves flat onto the ground as a savage, point-blank battle rages. But the Twisted are retreating, too – You find yourself face-to-face with something dog-headed, something with blind, cataracted eyes. It wets itself in terror – you can smell the stench, as real as a slap in the face – and turns to flee Covenant's razor edge...

There is the flat whack of a crossbow firing. It lurches two more steps, then pitches down on it's already-hideous face.

“Don't let them get away!” you hear the female officer shouting. “Take them – Take them all!”

(More)

>>3758667

A roar – ragged, bloodthirsty, furious – goes up. It's a singular sound, a sound of wrath. You can see the Twisted being forced down and hacked to pieces by their own weapons, others vanishing beneath fists and stomping feet. The smell would twist your guts into knots, bring nausea to your throat, but-

-But it's as if you can hear a steely voice, a voice that says: Later. Later for that.

There can't be many of the Twisted left. Your blade dismantles another, as it tries to dart past you – Something with clattering mandibles tries for a desperate lunge, and Covenant splits its head in two. It goes down as if poleaxed, twitching in death as a mace thumps down from a unclenching hand. The weapon – the flanged head still clean – is snatched up the redhead, as she flings down the curved sword she'd been using, the blade bent almost at a right angle now...

And then – a scream. A high scream that cuts through the press.

One of the surviving Twisted. Snarling wolf-face, the nubs of horns pushing from the temples. Right hand soaked in blood, gripping a pointed cleaver.

Left hand around the throat of the terrified child it has snatched up as a shield.

It snarls, snapping. It brings the serrated edge of the cleaver against the hostage's throat, drool foaming down it's robes as the Twisted cultist backs against a pillar. There are three men covering it, with knives and lances and swords snatched from the dead – You can see a woman who might be her mother, her stained dress in tatters as she raises a crude crossbow to her cheek.

The look in her eyes is part hatred, part anguish.

“Drop him!” one of the men – Isandro, is it? - booms. He holds his spear like he knows what to do with it, proficient, murderous. “Drop the boy!”

The Twisted growls, in answer. Eyes bright with fear, like a cornered animal. The sound is inarticulate, barely speech at all, but the words impart their meaning directly to your brain:

Harm me. This dies.

“Back!” the redhead snaps out. “Move back!”

“Lady Arisa, we should-”

“I know,” she hisses. “I know.”

There is no good angle. The Twisted has its back against a wall, misshapen limbs bunched with tension. You can smell the sour stench of adrenaline.

You feel eyes turn to you. Imploring, hoping, as the crowd holds its breath like a single entity.

[ ] Free

GUARD: 1/3
HEALTH: 4/4
EMOTIONAL SCALE: 0

> What now, adventurer?

File: TQ.jv7XE0iR.jpg (388 KB, 900x1280)

388 KB JPG

>>3758672
OP, what does the redhead look like? Like this?

>>3758672
To be clear, our 'bypass guard' attack would not allow us to select only the Twisted as our target, right?

In which case I only see the option of talking it down:
>"Say you kill him. Then what? Without your shield, what stops me killing you right after? You have no easy way out, save on my say so. But let the boy go, leave in peace, and I give you my word I won't plant my blade in your fleeing back."

>>3758672
Can we use our Ultimate to 'defeat' a 'blockage' by cutting through the kid without harming him?

>>3758722
(I think that particular attack is meant to represent a single terrible blow i.e. a deathstroke that can be used in conventional combat.)

>>3758729
(Sure, that would work for Creative Violence, though you'd need a 2 on the Emotional Scale to accomplish that.)

>>3758729
>>3758738
Simply asking "Boy. Do you trust me?" would be cinematic as fuck though it really shouldn't work in any system that's actually balanced mechanically

>>3758749
(Mechanically speaking, he has 1 Willpower to your 4 Charisma. If you use your Emotion Drain power on him, you only need to roll 4+ on 1 die to succeed.

That is, if you're going to use your Emotion Drain on him.)

>>3758781
I'd guessed we'd have an ability that lets us do something like that, which is why I was considering options that required a 1 on the Scale, but can that actually give us more than 1 point per use? Or in other words, would we be able to gain the 2 points needed to pull off >>3758729's suggestion?

>>3758811
(I would say yes. As this is a life-and-death situation, this probably counts for 3 Trust.)

EMOTION DRAINING:

Emotion Knights can siphon their Sacred Emotion from a target character. If the character resists, this requires a Charisma roll with a target's Wisdom as a difficulty level. If the character does not resist, the difficulty is zero. For a success, and each success above it, a level of emotion is transferred from the target to the Knight.

Note: If a character is not experiencing that emotion, an Emotion Knight cannot siphon it.

A Critical Failure (No successes, at least one 1 on the dice) means that the target can never feel emotion towards that source ever again. For example, a peasant is petrified of a dragon. A Fear Knight tries to drain the peasant's fear, but critically fails. The peasant will never be scared of dragons again.

However, the Knight gets all the emotion the target feels.

>>3758831
Given the risk associated with failure here, I'm sticking with my vote for talking the Twisted down; assuming we don't crit fail hard enough for the Twisted to immediately kill the boy, we can still use this as a fall-back option.

>>3758873
It doesn't matter if the kid never trusts us again in the future. If we don't rescue him now, he won't HAVE a future. I vote we go for the drain.

>>3758831
Thats good to know
Im down for just thowing our sword powerd with emotions like a light spear and pining/cuting off the arm holding the dagger

>>3758881
Not crit failure, just regular failure. If we set ourself up to attack, but don't have the juice to pull it off, the boy dies.

If we regular fail the negotiation, we can still attack afterwards.

>>3758722
>>3758729
>>3758749
>>3758881
>>3758873
>>3758882

> "Say you kill him. Then what? Without your shield, what stops me killing you right after? You have no easy way out, save on my say so. But let the boy go, leave in peace, and I give you my word I won't plant my blade in your fleeing back."

At your side, the redhead starts. There's a flash in her green eyes, something hooded, something hidden.

“You can't let him go,” she murmurs, just at the edge of audibility. “There's a whole camp of them, out there-”

But you sense there's something more to it. Some secret, cradled close to herself. Something she can't speak.

“Lady Arisa, it's a child-”

The boy's mother grips the stock of her crossbow tighter. The point wavers. You can see her gaze, bright with hatred. “My son,” she says, her voice cracking. “Let him go-”

The Twisted mutters something, something guttural and sharp. Stained teeth flash, each time it speaks.

“Others go away. Go away now. You no need sword. Put sword down.”

The child squirms in it's grasp. It snarls, fist bunch – the dark hair on the backs of its hands are thick, like fur. The sight of that knife in it's hands is like a blade being gripped in a predator's maw.

There's a rapt silence. There are many ways this can play out. All terrible.

“Put sword down!” the snarl becomes a toothy smile, all the worse on that distorted face. “No hurt flesh. Kal Vidar want talk you.”

Kal Vidar? An ogre's name. You vaguely recall something like that. Familiar, somehow.

A murmur circles the crowd. They've heard that name before. And – You can tell they loathe it. If you were a Hatred Knight, there'd be a rich vein of emotion to draw from.

But as you are now...

“You're dead, you shit-” One of the men spits, a hooked blade in his hands. “-I'll gut you like-”

“Others come. Others.”

They're not going to let it go. And you're aware of time ticking away, one second at a time.

You turn your gaze to the boy instead. He's small – Maybe ten – with blue eyes that are wide with terror. It's a wonder he hasn't gone catatonic yet, his gaze following the tip of the blade that presses into his flesh, the claws that press bruises into his skin.

(More)

>>3759005

And you say-

> "Boy. Do you trust me?”

His eyes flick to you. They are unfocused, almost dazed by slow strangulation. For a moment, everything hangs on a precipice.

And then – He nods.

You take it. You take it all. Covenant blazes to life in your hand, brighter than before – tendrils of crimson lightning snapping and crackling like fronds of electricity-

The Twisted snarls, flinches away from the light. It pulls the knife back, raises it either defensively or for the deep, rending cut to follow...

Two long strides take you forward. You raise Covenant, and swing.

The mother screams, just once. The crimson blade sears across the distance. It intersects the Twisted, the boy it holds like a shield, in a bloody-red blaze.

But only one is cut.

Gore splatters the wall. The Twisted stays locked in place, unmoving – that distorted face freezing up, in a rictus.

And then the thing's upper half – Cut away diagonally – simple shears off and slides to the side, like two halves of a landslip. The thing's other arm is rigid, still clinging to the boy, as the cultist's head and most of it's torso falls away, legs still standing for a grotesque moment before they buckle-

You didn't just cut the cultist. You also sliced a deep gouge through the pillar, die-straight and without slowing.

But the child is unharmed. He has a moment to realize he's not dead, that he's still alive-

That's when he starts screaming in pure, unalloyed, belated terror.

[ ] Free

> What now, adventurer?

>>3759010
"Thank you, for trusting me. You were so very brave."

Pat him on the head. He's had a rough time. Once his mother arrives, let her console him instead - she'd no doubt be far more effective at it than us - and go consult with Arisa. There are clearly goings-on that we should be aware of.

>>3759023
+1

>>3759023
Sure.

>>3759010
Oh come on,buddy you didnt get cut, you got be brave now as theres more fighting to be had, you want to lead one day?

Guse go talk with the amy chick about where we are and how to get out?

>>3759010
Wrap the boy up in a gentle hug, tell him that he's safe, commend him for being brave. He's a good kid, we're very proud of him.

>>3759023
>>3759496
>>3759739

You catch the boy as the Twisted's remaining arm spasms open, the cultist's corpse sliding down in a slick of blood. For a moment, he struggles – the wild struggle of an animal caught in a trap – before he subsidies, clutching at you in blank relief.

>>3759496
> "Thank you for trusting me. You were so very brave."

The boy sniffles, nods solemnly. He's calming, now, though still beyond words – On all sides, you can hear the murmurs of wonder as weapons are lowered at last, the tension draining away like a spring unwinding.

“Elias!” the boy's mother – worn, new streaks of grey in her hair – lets her crossbow clatter to the ground, rushing forward. When you hand him over to her – when her trembling arms close around him, reassuring herself that he's still alive, as safe as anyone here could be, she bursts into tears.

Relief or terror – You can't tell.

“Thank you, Sir Knight – Thank you,” she's saying over and over again, hugging him close – Looking up at you with something like awe, stroking his hair as she clutches him close. Another man guides them both away, back towards the others – But not without a murmured but heartfelt thanks of his own, his hand pressed over his heart.

It takes you a moment to clean Covenant, by rushing it through the air – And then the blade is sheathed at your hip, a gesture as fluid as it is automatic.

And all around-

In the blank aftermath of violence, there's a kind of confusion – the crowd milling, tending to the wounded, gathered in ragged knots. They give you a wide berth, but not from fear; It's more that they don't know what to make of you. There's something in it that's almost reverent, somethin that cuts through the reek of blood, the stench of smoke.

You look around. The redhead is tending to a grey-faced man propped against the wall – a rough bandage over a chest wound, clutching the stump of his wrist just above a wad of stained cloth that serves him for a tourniquet – the merchant in his stained vest and once-fine clothes hovering close. Her green eyes are closed, her lips moving in something like a prayer; you sense more than see the beginnings of a radiance around her hands, like flecks of gold leaf borne on the breeze.

(More)

>>3765678

The merchant hesitates, then reaches for his belt buckle – there's a faint click, as the hidden compartment opens. He palms something (no larger than a coin) that gleams with a golden luster, so intensely tessellated it reminds you of a bismuth crystal's geometric forms, holding it out to her.

“Gold of the Fair,” he says - “All I have left, but if it might help-”

“It's enough. My thanks, Galliard.” Her slim fingers cradle the glowing shard, as the radiance drains from it – the same light spreading across the other man's wounds. His breathing eases – Some of the pallor leaves his face, his chin slumping to his chest as he sinks into coma or sleep.

Galliard turns, at your approach – His eyes widen, the back of his hand smearing a streak of mud below his nose. “S, Sir Knight!” he says - the bruises on his face have gone purple-black, and he sways slightly at the effort of speech. “Our savior-”

The redhead – Lady Arisa, was it? - lowers her hand, at last. Her eyes come fully open, and you can see the new weariness that's blossomed in them before the gentle pressure of her gaze turns to you. There's something strange about her, something uncanny – It takes you a moment to notice the pointed tips of her ears beneath her red bangs, the odd grace to her motions. Something about that kindles a memory, something-

...A half-elf?

(More)

>>3765683

It could be. She doesn't look any older than you – Any older than you are now – but it's hard to place her age, exactly. A heavy mace hangs at her hip, the flanged head smeared with blood and brains, leaving a darkly viscous smear against the cavalry leggings she wears.

She salutes – fist-to-chest – coming to attention with an effort of will.

“Knight-Captain Arisa Ortensia, of the Vigilant Order,” she says. Her eyes meet yours, and that flicker of admiration you've sensed before is kindled higher. “I – thank you for coming to our aid.”

It's strange to hear her speak. It's like all of them have an odd accent with softer r's and an emphasis on the i's, something that isn't quite English-

...But why would it be English that you're hearing now?

“If not for you...I doubt any of us would have survived. The Twisted meant to sacrifice us, in the name of their dark gods-”

“Madness,” Galliard mutters. He makes a quick gesture – Palm forward, thumb extended, fingers parted between the middle and ring finger - “...Unholy madness, no less.”

She glances at him – Brief, searching – before her attention returns to you.

“-if you hadn't arrived.” Arisa makes herself smile, and you can hear the gratitude in her voice – but you can sense the worry in it, too, beneath the surface. “I've...never seen anyone fight like that. Ever. That was...incredible.”

“But-” she cants her head to the side - “...Forgive me, but – How did you come to be here? Those symbols – they're not the mark of any Order I've ever seen...”

Arisa's gaze drops to your Die, her brow furrowing slightly - as if she's struggling to remember something, something she might only have heard of once before...

[ ] Free

> What now, adventurer?

>>3765688
>What now, adventurer?
>"I am the last of my order that I know of."
>"I have lost bearings of where I am."
>"I was fighting the Grandmaster of the Twisted at the battle of Iranthemar, but now I am here."

>>3765688
"It is a long story. Suffice it to say I was brought here by chance, or perhaps good fortune on your parts. Frankly, I had no idea of the danger you were in until I came across you.

"As for my Order, myself and memories are all that remain, so it's no wonder you don't recognize it. Though, until a short while ago, I had thought it would only be memories; I hadn't expected to survive after charging the G-

"Wait. That Twisted said something earlier: 'The Grandmaster returns'. Forgive me if this seems like a foolish question, but how long ago did the Grandmaster, ah, depart?"

This whole quest is throwing me off, and badly. It's isekai, but the grimdark narration, the midlife crisis and the ultraviolence makes it weird as hell.

>>3765688
Backing
>>3766534