Stalkers RPG Main Action and Team Status [SEASON 5]

[Neo Emolga]

I will learn to use Clairvoyance for today, and test it out on the punch card key.

You decide to seek out Syrax’s help and learn how to use Clairvoyance, taking the punch card key with you to see if he can help with finding out its purpose, or if he can help you discover it on your own. The walk to the cathedral is a bit of a challenge this morning with all of the dust and sand being blown everywhere, but you feel the trek through it all could be valuable and would be worth it.

After going to the cathedral, you find Syrax the Espeon meditating in the chapel, though it seems he’s already aware of your arrival and on top of that, exactly why you’re here. Still, he smiles and welcomes you in and you already feel it was a good move to reach out to him for advice and training.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” Syrax tells you with a reassuring smile that makes you feel you made a good choice. “While I have trained other psychic Pokémon before, you’re the first Pokémon I’ll be training that I hasn’t been a psychic themselves. But I’m confident we can do this together.”

You nod with a smile of confidence. Having this mysterious and quite useful power will surely come in handy.

Syrax shows you the ancient and runic texts that he used and studied to master this power, but he decides to give you the “express” version of the training, leaving out the origins, the lore, and the history behind the power and focusing purely on the essentials rather than their deeper, inmate meaning.

First, it’s required that you take the object you seek to discover its purpose and place it in your paws. The next step is to take a very comfortable, meditative stance. What’s required next of you is to completely clear your mind of all thoughts, wiping the slate clean. It seems easy at first, but then Syrax tells you the next step is challenging and requires astral projection. While the texts explain the purpose and basis for this in great detail, Syrax focuses the training not so much on the why and the history behind this practice, but mainly the way it’s done and how to do it yourself.

Once the training begins, he uses his telepathy to communicate to you rather than speak to you with words. You find it’s surprisingly more helpful this way as it allows you to focus more on the use of your mind rather than using your ears. By focusing this way, he gently guides you on how to temporarily sever the binding link between body and spirit. With your eyes shut, you follow his guidance, and allow your spirit to float outside of your mortal body. Where before you felt anchored in, now it’s as if you easily float and swim in the astral plane as if in light, breathable water.

But Syrax tells you not to open your eyes quite yet. Instead, you’re directed to go further and further, fearlessly making distance between yourself and your body. At first, you feel a bit anxious that you have gone so far away from your body that you feel you may have trouble finding your way back and will simply become a lost soul if you forever lose your way. Syrax senses this and assures you not to worry about that.

”Just keep going further…”

You then realize that Syrax needs you to go so far away from your body that you won’t be able to see it when you open your spiritual eyes. You realize that this is necessary, else the sudden shock of seeing your own body from outside often causes a sudden ping of anxiety and causes the spirit to be yanked right back into the body, forcing the whole process to have to restart.

You perform exactly as Syrax requests, heading high up into the sky while still keeping your spiritual eyes closed. Syrax informs you that as a beginner, it’s necessary to keep one’s eyes closed as the anxiety and fear of this unknown journey into the astral plane can be unnerving to the point where those attempting it just go back into their bodies to return to the safety of the known living world. But you place your trust in Syrax and go many thousands of feet high, past the roof of the cathedral and up into the cloudy skies above Exacta City.

”Now. Now you can open your eyes. But do it slowly…”

And slowly and carefully, you open your spiritual eyes in the astral plane. What you see is almost a bit shocking, but you focus your spiritual mind and accept this as normal. Before you, under you, is all of Exacta City. You see the refuge area, the Reach, and the OMEN crater, as if you were a bird Pokémon simply looking down upon the world from high above.

But the world of the astral plane is different, also. You see spiritual, ethereal mists and fog around you, and hear spiritual whispers in the winds around you. When you look up, the sky above is churning vortex of white, and for a moment, you see exactly what every good Pokémon soul sees upon death. A seemingly welcoming white light.

”Don’t look at that for too long. You’ll want to go toward it. And if you do and stray away too far, you won’t be able to return and your body here will go braindead.”

You heed his warning and focus back on the city below. It’s not nearly as captivating as the white light, but you know Syrax’s words are truthful.

”Now, look at what’s in your hands.”

You look down at your yellow Pikachu paws, which are now transparent. But what you also see is the punch card key.

”What you see is not the actual key itself, but it’s place in the universe. Its purpose, its making, its story, represented before you as this ethereal form. Even physical objects have a story starting from the very creation of the universe and the raw materials they began as. And it connects them to how they were made, who handled them, what they were made for, and what they’re connected to in the universe. There are so many connections to all things spanning over trillions of years, but it would take endless lifetimes to map all these connections even for just one physical object. Instead, focus on purpose at the very moment. Where does this device belong, and what was it used for? In the living plane, there are only questions and assumptions. In the astral plane, there is a connection to purpose at endless times, past, present, and future across endless dimensions and possible universes. Focus only on the present within this universe.”

Show me…

The astral insight then shows you, guides you, and pulls you toward Exacta City itself, but mainly one building in particular. At the very southern edge of the Southern Reach, you drift past the OMEN crater and are directed toward one dark and heavily damaged factory. You see from the sign by the front entrance that it’s the (80) Boyle Factory. As your spirit swims through the air and through the roof, you are guided toward the exact link to where this key card is used. On a badly damaged manufacturing floor, you see an old punch card reader, and its entry port matches the exact size and shape of the punch card key you’re holding.

Purpose. This is where and how the key is used…

And yet for this dark moment, this is all you can see. Even trying to look at other things in the factory reveals just dark, ethereal shadow.

{Ruined Manufacturing Floor Punch Card Reader: Punch Card Access} has been noted in the Team Records.

”Now then, allow yourself to come back to your body. It’s a simple form of recall focusing, reuniting your spirit with your body.”

You allow yourself to go back to your body, like returning home the same way a kite flying through the air is drawn back. Your body is still biologically alive, and is still your anchor with in the living world. You feel yourself being drawn toward it once again, rapidly moving and swimming through the city’s astral plane variation toward your body. When you see it, you see you’re still at rest, very deep in a trance-like meditation.

When you make contact, you suddenly wake up with a bit of a shock, realizing you need to breathe again.

Lita has learned the Clairvoyance ability!

For that moment, everything seems to have returned to normal, but having gone through that experience, it felt far more eye-opening than you could have ever imagined…

Lita the Pikachu (S: Electric)

Health: 16/16 | Sanity: 20/20 | Purity: 24/24
Battle Stance: Tactical
Perk: Security | Abilities: Clairvoyance
EQUIPMENT:
Attack Weapon: [|AW| Steel Bow] (Adds 1d4 damage to successful attack rolls)
Defense Armor: [|DA| Bronze Guard] (Reduces incoming Health damage by 1 point each time Health damage is taken)
Jewelry: <Empty>
Utopian Aspect: <Empty>
MERCENARIES:
#1: <Empty>
#2: <Empty>
PACK:

• $105 Sochas$
• [|AW| Combat Longbow] (Adds 1d6 damage to successful attack rolls)
• [|AW| Razor Composite Bow] (Adds 2 damage to successful attack rolls)