Die.
The screams continue. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you wish they’d shut up; it’s really annoying. But you’re too terrified to care.
DieDieDie.
You hear somebody cry out close to you. Maybe it WAS you, you honestly can’t tell any more. It’s hot, it smells, and –a sharp crack- it’s noisy. But if you care, you’ll die.
Noting remains; Slip into the void.
You hug your knees closely; something wet drips down your face, but you can’t tell it’s your tears or blood. Maybe both; You don’t care at this point.
Just give in. Embrace your death.
“Like hell I’ll die here.” The voice sounds like yours. But it can’t be yours; you’d never speak like that. Like somebody else using your body. You’re not dead though, the firm grip you hold on your knees, the sound and smell of death tell you that much.
“Oi… Wake up…”
To survive; you need something to survive. Suddenly your body feel’s like it’s broken, shattered images and phrases pass through you. But you pay them no mind, everything screams at you to live!
“If you don’t… I’m gonna…”
Return to the nothingness!
No! It doesn’t exist! There’s no nothingness to return to! Reality cracks and then…
---
May 7
-THWAM-
You slowly open your eyes only to be met by the floor. Your body aches all over, so obviously you’ve just had the unfortunate experience of being pushed out of your nightmare and dumped on the floor.
“Wake up, you don’t get to cut class today, you hear me!”
Ah, the sweet morning call of the creature known as Sempai. With a groan, you groggily rise from the tangle of sheets that landed on top of you, half-lidded eyes glaring at the girl who woke you.
“Good morning to you too sempai,” you say simply with a yawn, “next time I’m having a nightmare, can you try not to dump me on the floor?”
She frowns. “I was worried about you, so I thought a shock to the system might…”
You nod curtly. The pain’ll go away with a hot shower, and really the nightmare was worse. Sempai vaguely mumbles something about making breakfast, while you go about your morning routine.
After a quick shower you glance at yourself in the mirror. A pair of ice blue eyes framed by white-blue hair stare back at you, making you look like some kind of ice spirit. You shake your head; you don’t normally use your mirror. Perhaps you’re in a mood for mental exposition today. You hate days like that.
After quickly getting into your uniform, you join Sempai at the table. You’re only vaguely aware of what you’re eating, and you couldn’t really recall it if you were asked. On the news are more reports of strange incidents that have been going on.
Detective Smith speaks to the reporter, mentioning that once again the victims appear to have been hacked to pieces by a blade of some kind. The reporter also prattles on about how information linked these victims to a crime syndicate from American working with a local Yakuza group.
“The times we live in…” You look at sempai, who’s nibbling on a piece of toast with a strange look in her eye. Then something else catches you attention.
“Sempai! Your arm!” She looks at you and blinks. Running along her arm is a rather large looking bruise.
“Ahahahaha! This thing? I was just helping the music club put something up on a high shelf when I fell down! See, nothing to worry about!” She trails off, a nervous twinge to her laughter.
This woman is Chiyoko Tsutsuji, third year in high school, student council president, and your sempai. She spends a lot of time helping around the school and getting involved with random organizations, but her clumsiness leads to getting banged up. A lot.
“Why are you staring at me, Kohai no Baka?” You frown as she stares you down with grey eyes. You hate that name, and really nobody but sempai would get away with calling you by it. After a while she seems satisfied and picks up her bags. You do the same, making sure everything in the small apartment is turned off before locking it up.
---
“Sure is a nice day, huh?” You nod at Sempai’s assessment, taking in the spring air. Looking over at the girl, you once again feel the urge to give an explanation as to how you know her. A little over a year ago, your parents died in a terrorist attack in a subway system. You don’t really remember that time too well, but you moved out of the large house they had bought, and into the small apartment. It seemed too empty otherwise. You’d stopped going to school, holing up in your bed day in and day out.
Until sempai came and dragged you out by force that is. Every morning she’s wake you up and wait for you to go to school. Eventually it evolved into helping make breakfast, and then she stayed to help around the house. Now, to be fairly honest, you don’t know what you’d do without her. At least once you’d offered her the guest room, but she just turned as red as her hair, sharply said something indecipherable, and then ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Weird.
“Ah, right! Almost forgot!” You turn to look at sempai as her face lights up with recognition. “You’ll have to go on without me! There’s something I have to do this morning, so I’ll meet you at school, okay!?”
And without waiting for a reply, Sempai takes off up the long, arduous hill as if it weren’t even there. You sigh, shaking your head at the girl’s enthusiasm.
You stand at the bottom of the hill to school (Why does it feel like there’s always a hill?) Thinking about what you should do. Whatever Sempai was rushing off to seemed important; you figure you could go up the hill and help her. Or you could go see what kind of stupid stunt that other idiot has gotten himself into today. You also notice something off to the side. Looks like some girl in the female uniform for your school muttering to herself off to the side; you guess you could go see what’s up, but as she’s some stranger, you don’t know if it’s wise.
What do you decide to do?
:>
-------
(Hello, and welcome to another one of those "Quest Thread" Thingies. I'm your host, MEKristian. Now, before we get into things, here's a quick Q&A:
Q: What is this?
A: The Project I've been spending the past few days working on after being talked into doing it. Hopefully it'll live up to the quality of the other threads. Or at least their shadows.
Q: No, what is this?
A: We, as in You, will be playing the roll of a strapping young man in his second year of high school as his world is turned inside out. Along the way, we'll run into varying characters and go on an epic adventure. A "Quest" if you will.
Q: Hey wait, isn't this-!?
A: YES NO MAYBE. Until the point when things really get going, please keep verse guesses to yourselves. It'll become brazenly obvious in a little bit, but for right now, we're keeping it secret.
Q: Are we there yet...?
A: We'll get there when we get there and not a moment sooner. :T
And for now that's all, hopefully I can fulfill my role, and make this enjoyable. Also, depending on how this goes... well, you'll see.
Also, massive thanks to the people who I bothered to help me iron out this thing. You two are awesome and I hope you can enjoy this too.)
---
SERVANT DATABASE:
Archer:
Class: Archer
Spirit: Signum
Japanese name of spirit: シグナム
Master: Kamina Wakamoto
Alignment: Lawful Good
Strength: B
Mana: C
Endurance: A
N. Phantasm: A
Agility: B
Luck: C
Class skills:
Magic Resistance: E+
-Cannot cancel spells, but magic damage is reduced somewhat. Can further reduce damage when Mana is applied.
Independent Action: A
-It is possible take action even without a Master. However, to use Noble Phantasms of great prana consumption, back up from the Master is necessary.
Personal skills:
Eye of the Mind (True): B
-Capable of calm analysis of battle conditions even when in danger and deduce an appropriate course of action after considering all possibilities to escape from a predicament. So long there is even a 1% chance of a comeback, this ability greatly improves the chances of winning.
Heart of Harmony: B
-Prevents decrease in the effectiveness of a technique, regardless how many times it is used against the same opponent. At this rank, attacks cannot be perceived by the enemy.
Battle Continuation: A
-Capacity to remain fighting even severely wounded. At this rank, Will remain alive as long as does not receive a fatal injury.
Noble Phantasms:
Flying Dragon Flash(Sword of Blazing Flame): C+
-A blazing inferno that surrounds Archer's sword. is capable of attacking at a distance of up to 20 meters.
Laevatein(Phoenix Phantom Bow): A
-By combining Laevatein with it's sheath, Laevatein reveals it's true form. The bow allows arrows to gain a "piercing" ability towards magical defenses.
Rider:
Class: Rider
Spirit:
Japanese name of spirit:
Master:
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Strength: C
Mana: B
Endurance: C
N. Phantasm: A
Agility: A
Luck: E
Class skills:
Riding: A+
-The expertize to ride animals and vehicles. Creatures on the level of Phantasmal Beast and Divine Beast can be used as mounts. However, that does not apply to members of the Dragon Kind.
Magic Resistance: D
-Cancel Single-Action spells. Magic Resistance of the same degree of an amulet that rejects magical energy.
Personal Skills:
Independent Action: C
-The capacity to take action without receiving a supply of prana from the Master. At the higher ranks it is also possible to remain for extended periods of time in this world without a established contract. At this rank, Rider is capable of remaining in this world for one day without a established contract.
Vitrification: B+
-A serene state of mind. A mental protection that nullifies mental interference. By limiting her fighting spirit as a martial artist, one can conceal her presence.
Beserker:
Class: Berseker
Spirit: Uzumaki Naruto
Japanese name of spirit: うずまき ナルト
Master: Kasumi Ashford
Alignment: Chaotic Mad
Strength: B
Mana: A
Endurance: A+
N. Phantasm: B
Agility: A
Luck: A+
Class skills:
Mad Enhancement: B
-Boost up all parameters, but takes away most of sanity.
Personal skills:
Charisma: A+
-Boost of both performance and morale of troops. At this point it can no longer be called just allure, but rather it is a spell (curse) in itself. Berseker cannot use this due to the effects of Mad Enhancement.
Instinct: B
-Refined sixth sense is now close to true precognition. Bonus effect of reducing by half the penalties caused by obstructed vision and hearing. Has been reduced a rank due to Mad Enhancement.
Eternal Arms Mastership: A+
-Prevents degradation of fighting skills when under the effect of mental hindrance. Mastership of combat arts has reached the point of being said to be unrivaled in one's era. By complete merging of mind, body and technique, it is possible to make use of full fighting skills even when under the influence of any sort of mental hindrance.
Libarian of Stored Knowledge: C
-Memory processing distributed among many different personalities. With a successful Luck check, it is possible for a clear recall of knowledge from memory, even if the information perceived in the past was not consciously acknowledged at the time.
Noble Phantasms:
Lancer:
Class: Lancer
Spirit:
Japanese name of spirit:
Master: Amber Griffith
Alignment: Lawful Good N. Phantasm: ?
Strength: B Agility: A
Mana: C Luck: B
Endurance: C
Class skills:
Magical Resistance: C
-Cancel spells with a chant bellow two verses. Cannot defend against Magecraft on the level of High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals.
Mad Enhancement: E
-Temporarily raises strength and endurance by 1 level, while removing Lancer's ability to think and speak properly.
Personal Skills:
Eye of the Mind (Fake): A
-A sixth sense for avoiding danger. Bonus effect of offering resistance against penalties caused by visual obstructions.
Prana Burst: A
-Increase of performance by impregnating one's weapons and body with magical energy and instantly expelling it. Simply put, recreating the effect of jet burst by expending large amounts of prana. A normal weapon that is not on the level of a divine mystery can be destroyed in one blow. Raises defense in several times.
Caster
Class: Caster
Spirit:
Japanese name of spirit:
Master: Midori Airin
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Strength: B
Mana: A+
Endurance: B
N. Phantasm: C
Agility: D
Luck: D
Class skills:
Territory Creation: EX
-The skill to build a special terrain that increases one's capacities as a magus. At this rank, it becomes possible to temporarily change reality within a certain area to best suit the magus.
Item Construction: D
-The skill to manufacture magical items. At this rank, it is only possible to repair magical items to their original states.
Personal Skills:
Clairvoyance: A
-Superior visual perception. Supplement long-range aiming and increases dynamic vision. Furthermore, at higher ranks it is possible to acquire precognition ("see into the future") and other forms of perception that are beyond normal eyesight (X-ray vision and the sorts).
High-Speed Divine Words: EX
-The power to activate thaumaturgy without the use of Magic Circuits. The language of the Age of Gods, back when words played a heavy role in spellcasting. As such, it is power long lost by modern magi. At this rank, all spells can be cast at the speed of Single-Action spells.
Protection from Wind: A
-A charm (spell) originated from the Middle East, used mainly for protection against sandstorms and Jinns.
Noble Phantasms:
Saber:
Class: Saber
Spirit:
Japanese name of spirit:
Master:
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Strength: B++
Mana: B
Endurance: B
N. Phantasm: A+
Agility: A++
Luck: D
Class skills:
Magic Resistance: A
-Cancel spells bellow A-Rank. In practice, the Servant is untouchable to modern magi.
Riding: B
-Most creatures can be rode with above average skill. However, cannot ride those of Demoniac Beast and Holy Beast-rank.
Personal Skills:
Bravery: A+
-Capacity to resist mental interference such as pressure, confusion and fascination. Bonus effect of increasing melee damage.
Monstrous Strength: B
-An ability possessed by monsters and beasts, temporary boost of the Strength parameter by one rank for a time limit determined by the ranking of this skill.
Eternal Arms Mastership: A+
-Prevents degradation of fighting skills when under the effect of mental hindrance. Mastership of combat arts has reached the point of being said to be unrivaled in one's era. By complete merging of mind, body and technique, it is possible to make use of full fighting skills even when under the influence of any sort of mental hindrance.
Noble Phantasms:
Assassin
Class: Assassin
Spirit:
Japanese name of spirit:
Master: Akira Tsutsuji
Alignment: Lawful Neutral N. Phantasm: A
Strength: C Agility: B
Mana: B Luck: B
Endurance: C
Class skills:
Presence Concealment: B
-The capacity to hide one's presence as a Servant. Allows one to become almost impossible to detect with preparation time.
Personal skills:
Disengage: C
-The ability to break away from combat. Bonus effect of returning battle conditions to what they were at the beginning of the match.
Expert of Many Specailizations: B
-Access to and use of many expert skills. The user has many combat related skills and tactics at his disposal.
Noble Phantasms:
