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

[Neo Emolga]

I'll look around (45) The Multok Apartment Complex (ABANDONED)

With the coming of the night, you head out, making your way west toward the Multok Apartment Complex. The air tonight feels still and stale as you make your way into the shadows, and it almost sends the slightest of chills through your dark blue carapace. The clouds seem to hide the moon tonight, so there’s even less light than before.

There isn’t much nightlife activity tonight, as it almost feels like the stale air itself is serving as some eerie and supernatural curfew. Once you arrive at the apartment building, you notice how much of a state of disrepair the three story building is in. From the outside, it’s literally crumbling apart and the brown bricks that were used to construct it seem to be cracking and crumbling faster than usual. Meanwhile, virtually every window is broken completely and the inside seems as dark as the void.

You first search the outside grounds, and it seems odd and unusual that the exterior condition of the building makes it seem like it’s been crumbling for many, many decades when really it has only been a few years. The bushes and shrubs that were supposed to be growing here were overtaken by weeds, and now it seems like even the life has been sucked out of those as well. The stone patio has crumbled apart and the outside furniture has collapsed as if it’s been neglected for over a hundred years. Nothing about the situation seems natural.

Slight traces of Stalker presence can be slightly felt all around. It seems to bear a familiar signature, and judging from what you’ve been told, you believe you have a handle on what’s been going on here.

“Deadpus…” you mutter to yourself.

The Stalker that sucks the life and youth out of anyone. But it seems like even her aura has some effect on the surrounding environment.

You head inside, using an old flashlight to navigate your way around. From what you can see, the interior reveals a very hollow, empty, and cold building that was completely cleaned out. The only things remaining are a few old hallway lamps that no longer work. As you can tell, anything that was nailed or bolted down was left behind, but you see that all of the tenants have left long ago with Multok’s mysterious departure. Unlike some other houses and buildings in the area, at least the tenants had the chance to gather their things before they left. But now, it’s as if the building is completely devoid of life, like it’s nothing more than an empty husk without a soul.

Every apartment you check is essentially empty, leaving only slight traces of rubbish such as scrap papers, empty tin cans, and broken pieces of wood and metal. Meanwhile, it’s eerily quiet in this building, as if it feels like you’re the only one that’s walked these halls for hundreds of years when you know it hasn’t been that long.

And then, in one of the rooms, you find something starkly unusual. Under a discarded old gray tarp, you find a child’s lockbox, one depicting hearts, stars, and rainbows while the rest of it is colored a cheerful pink. And yet, despite its rather playful and cheerful appearance, it seems slathered with Stalker presence…

…Deadpus’s presence…

{Child’s Lockbox: Heart Keyhole OR <Security>} has been noted in the Team Records

Despite having a basic lock, you can’t break or pry it open, but it’s clear this belongs to Betta the Zigzagoon and she placed this lockbox here for a reason. It doesn’t feel like a trap, but it does feel like she put it here to put it out of her mind in this cold, hollow, and forlorn place of emptiness. Perhaps… in a way, it felt like she was casting it into the void without actually doing so.

There’s something in here she doesn’t want anyone to see. It has to be one of her dark secrets…

Without any means of getting it open, you decide to leave it for now, even though you’re pretty convinced Betta won’t be coming back here for it unless she really needs to.

After searching the rest of the building, you don’t find much else besides emptiness, but you do make a note about the lockbox in the hopes someone can use the key or pick the lock to see what exactly Deadpus wants Betta to hide here.

You then head back to Benni’s farmstead, looking over your shoulder. You’re not sure what Betta is up to tonight, but she’s out there… somewhere… perhaps watching you. You look around and you don’t see anyone, but you can’t help but get the feeling she’s watching someone right now.

Scy the Tatsujin Heracross (M: Kūsho)

Health: 20/20 | Sanity: 14/20 | Purity: 19/20 | 10/10 Kurosuōbā | Dodge Rate: 30%
Perk: Repair
Reincarnation Forms: Heracross, Scyther, Centiskorch, Snom, Volcarona
EQUIPMENT:

• Defense Armor: <Empty>
• Jewelry: +|J| Diamond Necklace+ (2S, 2P)