Squad141
The Purple Soul
Chapter 1
We are first introduced to Matt Burgess, who we first believe to be our first protagonist. He is interested in things like astronomy and insects, and very aware of his surroundings. He loves the outdoors, and we already get a good read on him.
Then we immediately switch over to another character, who we believe to be our second protagonist. Her name is Enid, and she is incredibly sassy towards the narrator and the readers. She is busy when we first meet her, so we move on.
It is here that we meet our true first main character, the fates of the other two cast in mystery. Her name is Adia Prowler, and our first impression gives us her interests, such as planning heists, spying, conspiracy theories and the whole ten cents. Adia also gives us her name for her room: her Secret Base. We now know that she is a dork. She's quite bored at the moment and wants to do something. So, what shall it be?
Why, introduce a fourth character, of course! And now we are met with Richard, who certainly doesn't enjoy being called by his crass nickname. Like that name, however, Rich himself is crass and pretty straight-minded, having a pretty bland room and living above a barber shop. During this time, we also meet Medjed, one of Dicks favorite Egyptian deities and plushies in his abode. He stands there, without an eye hidden by a patch. Now, the plot truly begins, with our alleged four protagonists introduced and a premise introduced.
At this time, an email is sent, popping up on the devices of our four spunky children. The email reads as followed:
Send New Email
New Email Received
Dark Descensions Inc.
You've been chosen!
Congratulations! You have been randomly selected by our poll to receive a free copy of our anticipated game, The Darkness! You should be reciving the game soon in the mail to your location. We hope you enjoy our game!~ Darkness Game Team
Now we are back to Enid, and get a view of the short characters life and interests, such as cheap scares, bad monster flicks, and wartime memorabilia. Enid also responds to the chat in a sassy manner, as per her few character traits introduced. After this, Richard and Enid mention SkaiaNet, establishing it as a piece of the Darkness Multiverse. Matt then joins in, chatting about etymology, woodpeckers, and being oneself, because he's spacey like that. Adia then agrees with Matt about this being overly lucky, and gets suspicious. And after contemplating it, Dick decides to download the game.
Adia begins to worry about the games creators watching them, as they never entered their addresses. Then her brother, Adan, gives her the package holding the game after it arrives spontaneously on her doorstep. Adia also then decides to download Darkness, and begin her side of the story. The download for both Dick and Adia is extremely slow, though they notice their computer screens seems to be getting darker and darker as the progress bar fills up... Meanwhile, Enid begins her search for a computer to download Darkness on, donning a flamberge and a sheath to find her old laptop somewhere in her house.
This is the last we hear of her.
Dick sits in his room disappointed, and begins to idly play with his cracked, old cell phone. Then, the first effects of the game begin, and Dick hears a small bell ringing softly from somewhere nearby. And though he lived above a barbershop, there was no bell on the door. This causes him to get up, and leave his room, entering the hallway. The ringing has turned from a small bell to that of one from a church, and it seems to be coming from downstairs. After contemplating his options, such as he is dreaming or the barber replaced the door, he decides to head downstairs. Getting there, Dick finds the place abandoned, and realizes the noise is coming from outside, Here, he also realizes some thick black tendrils of some kind are attached to the side of the building across the street.
Adia on the other hand is simply annoyed, as the screen won't let her back out from the download and onto other programs. After fiddling with her conspiracy theory board, she decides to do some digging on the company, using her phone to go to their website and check it out. Meanwhile, Dick messages his friends in panic, grabs his Medjed plushie from upstairs, and hides behind a barber chair, fearfully watching the scene outside. After calming down a bit, Dick realizes something else has changed. The church bells have stopped ringing. At this moment, the lock on the glass door clicks, along with every other way to exit the building. Then, a woman screams as the tendrils begin moving outside the shop window, pulling the flower shop across the street underground. Now Dick can clearly see the tendril is in fact a tentacle.
The website opens on Adias phone, with a very My Chemical Romance style background. She also notices that they've already run out of copies of Darkness. Meanwhile, Dick throws up on the floor next to him, the shock getting to him. He then books it upstairs, faintly remembering his missing sister, and slams himself into his room. Adia however begins to suspect something fishy going on. The game is sold out five minutes after it's released? And how can you run out of digital copies of a game? So now, she begins a hunt to find more info on the games makers. Dick, however, has a new sight for sore eyes on his laptop, that being the logo for the game and a measly start button. Adia finally finds the tab for the creators, and finds some weird stuff, such as the creators being the collective conscious and other such fuckery.
We cut to where Enids home used to be. A large hole replaces it, with no sound to be heard. Enid goes offline.
Dick gets worried, overthinks everything, alerts his situation the friends he has remaining, and presses the start button. Adia brushes his comments off though, and gets creeped out enough by the mystery of Dark Descensions to stop her search and equip her grappling gun to hand. Dick continues to tell about his plights, and Adia finally starts to consider his weird tales. After some more light banter, the game has an error, saying a host connection is needed, which is not currently available. The crashing of buildings gets closer to Dicks home. Meanwhile, Adia finds that the e-mail no longer exists, as well as the small notes of what can be described as an almost-silent piano.
A mysterious figure comes forth into the story, but is not introduced yet.
Adia exits her room, convinced the piano noises are her brothers terrible sense in music, until she realizes its the sound of an actual piano. She realizes the noises come from outside her apartment, and the piano noises become the dissonance of a church organ.
And who is this? A fifth protagonist? We are introduced to our new character, Ryou Lanuta, a kid stuck in the late 90s, who likes skateboarding, spray-painting, anything obnoxiously neon, and most importantly old-fashioned tech. Ryou also reveals that she has a radio show known as the Radio Seeker, where she mostly talks about stuff under her alias, Noctiuagas. Ryou is currently confused as to why she got the game, since she doesn't remember signing up for it, wondering if her brother did it. Exhausted, Ryou begins to hunt for a more up-to-date computer to play Darkness on in her dimly lit home. After starting the music fro Radio seeker, Ryou exits her room clumsily.
As Ryou attempts to traverse the sea of wires and cables to get to her kitchen, Adia rejects the idea of confronting the organ playing outside her home. After a few bouts with herself online, Adia gathers up the courage to go look at whats causing the noise. As Ryou enters her respectively messy kitchen, Adia looks up to her window to check for the source of the organ-playing. The only thing she notices is one of the tentacles creeping its way out a sewer grate towards Adias neighbors front door. Ryou, on a run to not miss her opening of her radio show, finds the computer in her pot cabinet, and races to get back to her desk, but not before being enticed by the dangerous contents of the fridge. Ryou finally manages to plug the big lug of a computer in, and open her e-mail.
Meanwhile, while getting annoyed by the error of the supposed miracle game, Dick listens to one of the songs on Ryous radio network, realizing halfway through that she mentioned Darkness. He then scrambles for his phone, and dials the number for the call-in feature of Radio Seeker. Ryous download innocently begins, and she talks again on her show, realizing she has a caller, and putting them on live. Dick then very poorly attempts to explain the dire situation to Ryou and her public audience, making her thinks he's insane. After putting on another song and checking the games status, Ryous does however begin to think about what Dick said, unaware that they know eachother.
Adia rushes into her brothers room, worried about Ryou now as well, to find him gone, only leaving an irresponsibly casual note about seeing her later. She uses her brothers so-called master hacker computer to hack into Radio Seeker, and warn Ryou as well that Dick isn't full of crap. Almost immediately after this, the game finished downloading, and Adias apartment goes on lockdown, as the games logo appears on her computer. Ryou is surprised from the sudden hijacking of the frequency, and starts thinking about the possibility of the monsters and the game being unrelated. Adia on the other hand has the equivalent of a mental breakdown, thinking about her abandonment issues, and wondering about her next course of action. After knowing she can't leave Dick behind, she begins the game.
While Dick begins to get anxious, he contemplates his feelings about spiders and life after death, and proceeds to try and hurry the game along. His hijinks seem to work, displaying a menu after his Host connects, telling him to wait for resources. Meanwhile, Adia has a menu that allow her to Activate a Ghost, or a Dispense a Card. And during these events, the soft noise of a violin being plucked is heard from outside Ryous room. Adia begins playing immediately, and dispenses a card. Dick proceeds to get hit in the back of the head with the Hierophant tarot card, contemplates it, and tries to think about what it could mean. Adia then hesitantly presses Activate Ghost after realizing she's controlling Dicks environment, which releases what appears to be an actual sheet ghost, transparency and all. Meanwhile, Ryou begins to get anxious, having her listeners hear the violin noise as well, after it begins to increase in volume. A rumbling begins outside her home.
Dick sends Adia a picture of the ghost, both calming them down a bit, while Adia has an identity crisis and begins to read books on being cool. Meanwhile, Ryous violin has turned into a loud and deep cello noise right outside her bedroom door, and her wi-fi is slowly going out. Dick attempts to touch his ghost, and it seems to notice, starting to panic, showing him mysterious images on his computer, when the tentacles begin to wrap themselves around his house. Dick immediately panics. He thinks maybe he has to break something, but is still confused, reaching out to Adia for help. She responds back in a too-casual tone, and returns to her reading. Dicks ghost on the other hand, seems to be getting irritated, trying to convey some kind of message. Then it begins to explore the range of humanoid figurines Dick owns. Dick decides to smack the card with his cane in desperation, unknowingly activating his entrance artifact. A marble throne, man, and headgear appear, as the tentacles grab onto Dicks roof. Through the ghosts commands, Dick gets on his knees before the marble Hierophant, animating the marble man, who places his golden headpiece onto Dicks palms, and steps off of his throne, all while Dicks home is shaking uncontrollably. At this time, a timer appears on Adias screen, and begins to count down. Adia barely acknowledges this, but hopes Dick is doing something correctly. In his best manners, Dick sits on the throne, telling the marble man he will 'do his best', and places the golden headgear onto his head.
Outside his home, Dicks neighborhood is in flames. The holy crown upon his head begins to glow brightly, as a timer ticks down across the country. The interior of Dicks home gives off a similar glow, slowly becoming brighter as his crown does, enveloping even the bricks and mortar eventually. This light grows and grows, until it swallows the whole house. The ground cracks beneath the house slightly, as the light fades, and the barber shop and apartment are gone, a wisp of smoke replacing it.
Richard opens his eyes.
It's dark outside.
END OF CHAPTER ONE.
Chapter 2
The progress bar and timer of Adias screen stop all of a sudden, a message appears telling her that her 'visitant', being Dick, has entered The Darkness. She also has a new option, this being to Release a Table. Dick on the other hand, stands up, and communicates his current happenings with Adia. Ryou meanwhile finally gets up, and opens her bedroom door to see what the noise is that's bothering her show and herself. Adia gives her two cents on Dicks situation, telling him that he's most likely not on Earth anymore, and returns to her readings. In Dicks room, his ghost guide is examining anything remotely humanoid in his room, while a table appears out of thin air. Ryou opens her door to realize the noise isn't anywhere near her room, when her front door locks from the outside, and her radio signal is almost completely gone. Dick examines the table, very confused by its apparent antique appearance. He attempts to write (and fails) something in the book. Ryou doesn't panic, and remains the calmest out of all of our characters from the game locking her in so far. She ends her radio program, and checks on the game. While Dick is checking out the table, he looks over, not realizing that the ghost had merged with his Medjed plushie while he wasn't looking, now staring at a life-sized version of the Egyptian god.Chapter 2
Ryous menu pops up, informing her that she is now part of Dick and Adias connection. Dick takes some pictures of his new accessories, and asks Adia about them, still confused by the new developments. He also asks his new Medjed ghost pal about the mysterious magical table, but is faced with strange hieroglyphics. After more confusion, Medjed then floats out of Dicks room and leaves the barber shop, urging Dick to follow. Ryou meanwhile decides to release the card for her visitant, still unaware of who that is, and plays some chill tunes on her new show that she just made up, called Retro Seeker. This releases Adias tarot card which lands in her lap, that being the Devil. Dick decides to go with his new friend, and goes downstairs, while Adia examines her card in mild suspense. Dick looks up to realize that he's entered some kind of abandoned desert town. At this time, Adias home has begun to be wrapped up by the tentacles as well, while the activate ghost option and timer have begun to flash on Ryous screen. Adia panics. Ryou follows suit, and pushes the ghost button.
Instead of a Charlie-brown sheet ghost, a spirit-orb appears inside of Adias room. Adia urges the wisp to will itself faster, and give her some advice on how to survive. Following Dick and the wisps vague intentions, Adia throws the card against the wall, which breaks it conveniently, beginning her entrance puzzle. A devil appears on her wall, and she is prompted to draw something above his head in chalk. Adia pets the wisp, deciding to name is 'Luci', and decides to draw a cool-ass symbol above the devils head. After the wall apparently says 'no', she draws a pentagram like the tarot card instructs, which animates the picture and chains Adia to the wall by her neck. After reveling in her loneliness, she lashes out in anger, and finds her way out. Adia, after many head-banging movements, cracks the chain from the wall, and falls onto the floor, as her house begins to sink into the ground. The same process of the artifacts glowing begins for Adia, with a red light engulfing her home, before whisking it away to an unknown land. Adia looks to her window, and sees that it's dark outside.
Adia cuddles her spirit orb, before getting up and realizing her apartment has materialized into a very large room inside of a house. Dick decides to check the church first, while Ryou exits her room and walks down the hall. Medjed finally begins to speak, agreeing to answer any questions Dick has, while Ryou enters her respectively messy living room. Dick gets his phone out and records his questions that he asks his ghosty friend so he can send them to Adia, while she opens her front door to whatever the room outside her apartment consists of. Medjed explains to Dick that it isn't actually the Egyptian god, but simply an imprint of him onto the games abstraction, that it can't give him too much information, that every player gets a guide like Medjed, and that Dick is currently in the realm of Dicks 'first challenge'.
Adia opens her front door to find herself in a somewhat-nice living room that's bigger than her entire apartment. Luci seems to be distressed. Dick decides to check out the Church, but it seems to be locked, and it doesn't have any iconography indicating what religion it's built for. Ryou decides to contact a friend, and tries to get in contact with Adia. Meanwhile, Adia attempts to go through the channels of a television in the living room she currently is in to see where she might be culture-wise, and asks Luci what's wrong. Luci drifts back into Adias home, and into her room, starting to rummage through her things. Dick, thinking that maybe some locals reside in the pub, heads there next. Adia sassily responds to Ryou, asking about her entrance puzzle, before texting Dick about Lucis panic attack. Dick explains how to integrate a ghost with an item, before opening the decrepit pubs door, and hearing a skittering noise. He won't go in without a light. Medjed then, in pity, decides to explain Alchemy to Dick, and does so. A player must place two objects on the table, then flip one page onto another, or push them together in the middle, to mix the items in three different ways. Ryou then gives a too-casual greeting to the two, after getting in a group chat with the two players who are currently in the Darkness. Dick decides to head home and try Alchemy, as it seems pretty simple to him in hindsight. Adia finds a plushie in her closet of the Mirrors Edge protagonist Faith Connors, and offers it to Luci, who accepts it, becoming a floating version of the character but without eyes and with brightly glowing skin.
Dick arrives back at his home, and equips some things, namely a dusty Top Hat, a golden Scarab Pin, and a pretty dirty black cape. Adia inquires into why Luci seems so off-put immediately, who responds about her feeling a bit unsecure about being a guide for a player. Adia comforts her, drawing from her own experiences, and sends a picture of the newly formed ghost guide to Dick. Meanwhile, Ryou presses the table button her screen, and alerts the other two. Dick then gets an idea, and attempts alchemy with The Hierophant tarot card and his cape. He uses the dominance of the cape onto the card, and creates the Holy Cloak, a golden and white cape with small fanciful decals, all while an identical table flashes into Adias room. Dick equips his Holy Cloak, and attempted to alchemize his Flaming Symbol 7 figurine and his Plain Cane. After making a copy of the figurine holding the plain cane, Dick reverses the process, and creates the Flame Cane, a wooden cane with a glass core that can be activated with magic. After showing it to Medjed, the unimpressed ghost guides Dick over to a decrepit shack sitting by the church to introduce him to combat. Dick has been hindered from alchemy currently, because he doesn't have enough E.P, or Emotion Points, from completing tasks or fighting monsters. After a few unseen skittering creatures are heard, a spider appears, and skitters towards Dick. The fight begins.
Dick, in a gigantic fit of rage, violently kills the spider and a few more surrounding it. He gains a few E.P, including Rage and Empathy. Adia is suggested to by Luci to start on her path, whatever that may be. Meanwhile, Ryou falls asleep, awakening in some kind of stone cold room in different clothing, and appears to be in some kind of tower while a storm thunders outside. Ryou discovers a small device not unlike a phone, and contacts her friends from it, confused on what has happened. Adia acknowledges Lucis attempts at bravery, sends that photo of Luci to Dick like she promised, and agrees to begin her main journey. Ryou gets off the stone slab in the strange room, and opens the emerald door of said room. She hears footsteps coming from down a long winding staircase. Luci allows Adia to begin asking questions about the game, while the sweating Dick ends his rampage in the dark. Adias asks Luci about the end-goal of the game, and gets the answer, that being that the game was created to help those surviving the tentacle-pockalypse on their Path, and create a new world full of humans to thrive on after theirs was destroyed.
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