Stalkers RPG: Dustwoken - Main Action and Team Status [SEASON 1]

[Neo Emolga]

[ Spent almost 4 hours putting the Vacant Apparatus Cube together. Lyric is going to see about that cube shaped hole in the Jade Acres Park altar. ]

"Okay. Maybe this goes here.... And this here.... And, no that goes here..." Lyric has been focused on fixing the Vacant Apparatus Cube for the entire morning all the way into early noon, only stopping briefly to eat their food. Thankfully, once they get the general skeleton of the cube repaired, they go ever so slightly faster than a Slowpoke moving up a mountain in the middle of January.

"Aha, finally!" the Water-type shouted, holding up the cube in victory as they slot the last piece into place. "I finally fixed it!" After letting out the rush of energy they had from their success. Remembering that Scy had mentioned something about a cube shaped hole in an altar in Jade Acres Park. Instinctively, they thought back to their last visit, where they had gotten some closure for one of their previous lives, and effectively became a walking light show.

Wrapping the cube in their cape and tying it around their shoulder, they head out for Jade Acres Park once more.

You spent nearly 4 HOURS ON THAT!?

Owwwww, my apologies, I didn’t mean to make it that hard, but very nice job, you got it!

[=Broken Vacant Apparatus Cube=] has become the [Vacant Apparatus Cube].

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

After spending the night and early morning piecing together the fragments of the Apparatus Cube, you finally slide the last sliver into place, and the completed hellish-looking cube lays before you. While it is safe albeit unpleasant to touch, there’s no doubt that a hideous aura of Stalker presence radiates from it like a psychic stench that irritates your mind and spirit.

After eating breakfast and preparing to head out, you take the cube with you and make your way south toward the Jade Acres park, not sure what to expect when you come across the altar and you plug this hideous cube into it.

Once you step outside, it’s unusually dark for being this late in the morning, and it almost seems like the sun seems muffled and suppressed behind dusty gray clouds that almost seem supernatural. Still, there’s plenty of light to make your way toward the continuously-shrinking park, but it does make the trip seem quite gloomy.

When you arrive, even during the day, the park seems pale, barely showing any kind of color as it seems the green of the trees now seems gray instead. Still, you press forward as you use your fins to push your body along, making your way past the dying trees and more toward the area where the forest is still alive, but now clinging onto life.

Finding the Altar of Vacancy isn’t a difficult task as there’s not much forest here for the altar to hide in now. It appears to be a small stone table that’s easy to mistake for a park bench. As Scy reported earlier during a dinner conversation, you’ve been told the altar is rigged with a trap, triggered by looking into the square hole. You decide to make sure you don’t make the same mistake, looking away as you attempt to slide the flesh-colored Vacant Apparatus Cube into the square-shaped hole.

@Void Rapture – GHOST (5 Sanity Damage)# Trap 80% Disarm Trap Test: 100 out of 100: Failed!

Unfortunately, as you discover, the trap itself isn’t triggered by looking into the hole. Simply being in close proximity is all it needs and you suddenly open your eyes to see a disturbing black and violet wisp trail playfully and sadistically make its way into your nostrils and f̞͇͙̳or̦͓̳͎̫c̬̬̣͓̲e̪̣ͅ it̳s͍̥̗̖̦̩̘ w̫̯̫̙̮̹a̭̱ͅͅy̰ ̟͇̼̻i͔̞̤͓n̬̺͍t͇̳̖̲o ̭͖y̺͔o̭̼͍͍̘͓̱u̠͚̯͍r b̘͍͎̼̤r̲ai͚̟̼̫̦̹n̯̜̻̭͖̰͇…

LyrIc ha͍͎̩ͥ̽̽s sufFerEd 2 DamAg̦͇͉E to SaNitY.

Hot, foamy saliva rolls out of your mouth and down your chin as your head t͚͚̩̖wi̠̭t̬̯͔̙̞ͅch̝̪̙͚̙es̳ anḓ̖͙̗ ̳͍ͅs̪̟h̻̟̤a̭̪kes̜͉͚ v̗̭̮i̦̼̭o͖̥̩̩le̟͔̳̣ntl̳̼̟̰̗̥̙y̝̮͖̹̳̰͇, and all you can do is utter a hideous s͚̭̪̥͓̞̤̄̍ͪ͑ͧ̏̒c̝̲͇͓̳̭r̦ͩė͎̪̺͂͗e̝̬̬̋ͮ̏ch͈͔̀̚in̍ͦ͑ ̲̪̯̥͌g͌ as you feel like you might forcefully snap your own head off and send it rolling across the forest floor.

For a moment, your cognitive functions go ẖ̦͎̞̇̓̿̆ay̯̋w̟̠̬͙͓̔ͤͦ̏̚iͥr̻ͦe̗̰, and it leaves your body performing a hideous and deranged dance of nightmares that thankfully no living soul had to behold save for these already dying trees that cannot communicate the abomination they had witnessed.

LyrIc has͍̾ SuffeRed 3 DamA͚̥̜͔͓̋̾̃̌̚ge to SaNIty.

You wake up nearly in a seizure-like state, twitching and turning like flaming Durants were all over your body gnawing generous portions of your flesh away. You suddenly realize it was some hideous vision, but engrams of it still persist as if the nightmare only partially ended.

Lyric has used the [Vacant Apparatus Cube].
@{The Altar of Vacancy: Cube-Shaped Hole} Void Rapture GHOST – (5 Sanity Damage)@

The altar opens as the dark energy for the cube makes the two stone halves slide open. You carefully look inside to see what seems to be a black bowl-shaped object. You swear you’ve never seen anything in your life as black as this thing.

Upon careful observation, you see that it looks like it was sliced violently down the middle and was once a dark globe at one point. You can’t even begin to guess what might be powerful enough to slice through a void orb like this, but you can imagine it couldn’t be anything within the mortal realm of this world.

@Dread Contagion – DARK (4 Sanity Damage, 2 Purity Damage)# Trap 80% Disarm Trap Test: 30 out of 100: Success!
The Dread Contagion Trap has been disarmed.

You decide not to go even near the orb half until you wrap your flippers with massive cooking gloves, but even then, you still feel dread and darkness radiating from the orb itself. However, it can’t make direct contact with you and it’s enough to protect you from its ill intent.

[1st Half of the Void Orb] has been added to the Team Inventory.

Carefully, you make your way back to Benni’s farmstead with the orb half, not sure where the other half is and where it might belong, but there’s no doubt it’s some hellish contraption devised by the Stalkers…

Lyric Winterheart the Tatsujin Brionne (M: Kūsho)

Health: 20/20 | Sanity: 15/20 | Purity: 20/20 | 10/10 Kurosuōbā | Dodge Rate: 30%
Perk: Diplomacy, Repair, Security
Reincarnation Forms: Brionne, Mega Ampharos, Hisuian Goodra, Latios, Amaura
EQUIPMENT:

• Defense Armor: <Empty>
• Jewelry: <Empty>

[Chakramaster]

Better keep the search up while we still can! Need to keep things going and find every little piece.

Search: (43) Oceanwatch Citizen Ships

[Lychee]

That's it, we can look into Kabi some other less urgent time, but for now I need to follow up on some old leads. Some of these stalkers, we aren't even sure where to start!

Chichi is going to go diplomatically talk to Junlus the accelgor.

[Neo Emolga]

Okay, Sanity is dipping a bit. Let's not go over the top, and instead just focus on an area I'm surprised we haven't poked yet: right here.

Search (1): Beachwood Farmstead

With the arrival of the new day, you join the others over breakfast and share your findings and thoughts about the investigations at hand. For a short while, it puts your mind at ease to be with pleasant company and comradery and when you and the others head out, you decide to stay behind, wondering if perhaps there’s something here at the very farmstead itself. While it has always felt calm and safe while other places in town have unspeakable horrors, you want to make sure those terrors aren’t closer than you think they might be.

Not that you suspect Benni, but you think maybe there might be something around this very location in town that wasn’t uncovered simply because you and the other Savants have been here for over a week now. You start by searching the inside, but most of the interior seems the same as you’ve seen it every day you’ve been here. Homey country furniture, placid paintings of sunny countryside, and colorful knick-knacks line the shelves. Sights of peace and calmness remind you exactly what you’re fighting for here.

But then you search around the exterior, and suddenly you realize something. Every day you and the others have stepped outside to begin your investigations, you didn’t stop to focus your attention here, you’ve always headed toward some other destination in town and concentrated on the directions to get there, not on sensing Stalker presence.

Once you step onto the old country porch like you’ve done every day, you instead stop and focus here and now, wondering if there was always something here that was overlooked and never detected…

…and you find out you were right.

There was something here the entire time and everyone walked right by it every day and night without suspecting a thing. It almost disturbs you as you realize just how hard it is to detect the dark work of the Stalkers without concentrating while normal Pokémon can’t even sense the dark presences at all. And if a Savant isn’t focusing, you too can easily let it slip past your senses.

You close your eyes, carefully lettings your Savant senses guide you. As before, your spirit can feel the foul ethereal stench, and you recognize the grotesque signature as Languished. It seems unsettling that there’s something that belongs to Languished so close by, but you tell yourself it’s better to be found later and taken care of now rather than be never found at all. As you carefully walk with your eyes closed to continue focusing, you get closer and closer to the source and it takes you to a small crawl space beneath the wooden porch.

Unless you used your senses, you very likely wouldn’t have found this otherwise. You likely would have walked by it even if you did yardwork here on a daily basis. Half-buried in the dirt under the porch deck, you find what looks like a plate-sized medallion, depicting cheerful young children Pokémon at play, including a Pichu, an Eevee, and a Minccino. It almost looks like a simple art piece that you might hang on the wall of a kitchen or family room as decoration and would be right at home with Benni’s other country decorations, but it still carries the Stalker’s taint. On the back of it, there’s a filthy, oil-black ichor smeared around it.

And upon looking at it more, suddenly something about it starts to connect. Chakra mentioned something about a mural at City Hall that had ichor like this and was an art piece that depicted scenes of community, time, and belonging. He mentioned several metallic medallions were there depicting various age groups and Pokémon demographics, but the one that should have had young Pokémon was ripped out of the wall and some black oily residue was left behind.

You believe you’ve come across the missing piece.

[Medallion of Youth] was added to the Team Inventory.

You’re not quite sure why Languished ripped this out of the mural only to place it here. Were they hoping to hide it here only to use it for later? You decide it’s probably a better idea to put it back as maybe there’s something strange going on here and there’s something beyond what can be perceived.

You’re also aware Languished might come back here looking for it. While it doesn’t look like it has been moved for a while, you decide you can’t leave it here even if it might suggest to Languished that you’re onto them if they come back and find the medallion has gone missing.

Just in case, you make one more check around the house, but thankfully it seems nothing is out of the ordinary in this place that has been your home away from home for the past few days now. After having made sure the coast is clear, you find it will be easier to sleep at night, now.

Colored the Snivy (S: Grass)

Health: 16/16 | Sanity: 12/20 | Purity: 24/24 | 6/10 Kurosuōbā | Dodge Rate: 40%
Perk: Diplomacy, Repair, Security
Reincarnation Forms: Morelull, Palpitoad, Mega Audino, Pidgeot, Cinccino
EQUIPMENT:

• Defense Armor: <Empty>
• Jewelry: <Empty>