The Artifact of Ruin

[angelous]

Chaos, discord, darkness, oblivion. The makings of a world without any true structure, any true form. A home to Heartless, whose thirst and hunger for darkness and hearts was so strong that they themselves would go so far as to devour the hearts of other worlds.

And yet, something other than Heartless has been here once, a few years ago. It left a taint in this impure world, not the normal taint one would expect, a taint of darkness, but rather a taint of light. Over time, this taint would manifest into a physical form, and create ruins, that the Heartless dared not go into. And in this temple, there was an artifact, one that was called the Artifact of Ruin, because of it's name. Nobody knew what it could do, for none had managed to claim it. Someone, or something made sure it would stay there. Perhaps they weren't pure enough to take it, or perhaps they weren't tainted by darkness enough. For some reason they were unable to take this artifact, and none had been able to test it.

But three would try to brave this world, try to get past it's inhabitants, and try to take this artifact. Would they succeed? Would they find the answer to the question that had been asked for the last few years? Or would they too fall prey to whatever kept those who sought this item from returning to their friends and family? Only time would tell.

You start out in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. There are no rocks around, no other sort of structure, but only what appears to be a sea. You can walk on it.

[Dragonor]

Drag had a dream the night before, about a object which looked like a shiny orb of light, as he neared to it, the light pulse started to fade until the moment he touched the item. When he did, the whole place was wrapped in darkness and afterwards, he woke up.

But he didn't woke up in his bed, he had woken up in the middle of the sea. Drag panicked a second thinking that he would never get to land ever again, but he calmed himself after knowing that he could actually walk over the water!

Still, he had to go somewhere if he wanted to go home, so he decided to walk all the way to the north, with high hopes of actually getting somewhere.

In the way, he had a thought on his mind, more than a thought, a memory: he remembered the moment he picked up the item that brought his world to the ruin and his boss in the army he was working in, laughing maniacally as everything was swept away by darkness.

In that moment, he had formulated that the dream he had last night, the strange awakening in the middle of the sea and the destruction of his world, were closely connected to each other as if it were destiny that all of that happened to him. So with more determination than ever, he started running even way more to the north, expecting something fateful to happen.

[Night Sky]

Far off in the distance was what appeared to be something standing alone. As Drag continued heading north the blurry image would soon take form of a person, a man. He was standing there examining his surroundings. Although he knew where he was, this place confused him.

Tenebra: I've never been to this part of the E.O.W, I hate how it always changes after each visit.

Since he was sent here to retrieve an item called the Artifact of Ruin he had no time to stand around and look at the lack of scenery. It wouldn't be long before the Heartless showed up and attack him so he had to start moving. Before he did, Tenebra heard the sound of footsteps splashing in the water. They were faint, but were headed in his direction.

Tenebra: Aw damn they're here already?

He turned around and was just about to summon his Keyblade when he saw that it wasn't a Heartless at all.

Tenebra: Ore? Thats not a Heartless, thats a human.

He put down his guard and waved at the person heading in his direction.

Tenebra: Oy! Over here stranger!

[angelous]

(Seeing as how Ryu has not shown up yet, we are moving on without him.)

Tenebra would regret attracting attention to himself. The moment he called out to the other person, five Heartless popped up around him. One even managed to claw him in the back, well because his guard was down.

Drag would soon find himself in a similar situation, though he was not hurt, yet.

*Defeat the Heartless!

[angelous]

Three days to post or failure of quest! Come on people it shouldn't take a week to get a reply when at least one of you is online!

[Night Sky]

( Sorry for the delay had a little writers block stage this week)

Tenebras body tensed up as the Heartless that came up from behind him drug its claws into his back. He jumped forward and spun around looking straight at the Heartless that clawed him. The attack was enough to cause some light bleeding but luckily it was only some minor damage. Even though the Heartless probably couldn't see his face, there was no hiding the fact that Tenebra was angry. He shook his fist at the Heartless that had appeared.

Tenebra: An eye for an eye now!

Tenebra sprinted forward summoning his Keyblade in his right hand and threw it directly at the Heartless in a Frisbee style throw. As soon as it passed through the Heartless and sliced it in two, Tenebra would call it back and perform a quick spin attack to take care of any that may try to attack him.

He hadn't looked back to see if the other person was in trouble, hopefully they can handle themselves right now while he took care of his little problem.

Continuing his sprint he targeted the next nearby Heartless and threw his Keyblade straight at it like a spear impaling it in its chest.

[angelous]

OOC: it's just down to you N.S. and I can honestly say it's going to be very difficult to go alone. To be nice I will allow you to bring in another member at any time before I say too late. It can only be one member, and I require they pm me with some sort of proof that you asked them to join. I will then ask you if that is who you are certain you want to quest with you. If you say yes, that person can start posting in the quest, and will be wherever you are. If you say no, for whatever reason I will give you three days MAX to find someone else. Whether or not you take on a partner is up to you, but if you do, try and make sure they'll be active.

As for the Heartless, you don't decide whether or not you hit them, let alone defeat them. That's my job. And as such I'm going to penalize you for it. But to save time, you still bested the two.

IC: He'd managed to defeat one, but the others had melded into the ground, well at least most of them did. One wasn't so lucky. Unfortunately for Tenebra though, the three that remained all hit him. And as for Drag, well, he was dead. Since he didn't fight back, the Heartless attacked and attacked and attacked until he no longer breathed.

Tenebra
Drag

OOC: Just in case you don't know how the health system works, you go from green-> yellow-> orange-> red-> navy. Navy is dead. If I get lazy and instead of typing out each Heartless' health separately and do them as a group, a certain number of characters (letters, numbers, things like that) will be each Heartless or other enemy.

[Night Sky]

[Partner has been chosen! ;D]
Tenebra was hit once again by the Heartless, but since they were low class types even their combined attacks weren't very effective. But with them all attacking at once they were now close together making them easier to pick off all at once.

Tenebra threw his Night Sky in a curved angle making the Keyblade spin in the air like a boomerang. The Keyblade would spin straight across in the direction where the Heartless were positioned and luckily cut through them all at once. Once the remaining Heartless were destroyed, Tenebra could concentrate on the Heartless that killed that unknown stranger. He didn't feel much sympathy for whoever that person was. They must have been overwhelmed by the Heartless and weren't strong enough to fight them. Now they would just end up becoming a Heartless as well, such a sad fate it was.

The Keyblade flew back into Tenebras hands and disappeared. He put his hands in his pockets and stared over in the direction where the Heartless were.

[Heroic Bilby]

BOOM!

Out of the sky fell a flaming missile that smashed right into the spot where the group of Heartless had stolen another victim's heart. Out of the impact flew chunks so colourful and bouncy they could only be Gummi Blocks, leaving little imagination required to figure out what had landed. Whether the Heartless noticed in time to get away from harm or not wasn't much on the occupant's mind though.

Or rather, the former occupant's mind. One of the pieces that flew out of the front was also colourful in its bright blue coat but not quite as bouncy. instead it rolled and flopped to the water-like solid surface and came to a stop flat on its back.

"Thomas needs to build better shield designs." the body mumbled as it forced itself into a sitting position, holding its forehead to check for bleeding. None. Clearly it was his lucky day... aside from the crash and all. The person, a fairly short man with black pants, brown boots, a small red scarf-like tie around his neck and an eye-patch, slowly made it to his feet and looked around for danger. he wasn't much over five feet tall it seemed and had brown, semi-lengthy hair. The patch on his right eye seemed to be made of glass rather than an opaque material, which led to the question of why have it if you're looking out of it anyway?

Captain Kristoph had arrived. He also hoped that he didn't draw any heartless to himself just yet because he was still a bit off-balance from the bumpy ride. Having been turned in the opposite direction he hadn't become aware of the 0other man's presence yet.


( Just did it for flashy entrance purposes and not to wipe out the enemies unfairly, Ang. You can just say the Heartless saw it coming and sunk into the ground rather than getting hit if you want. )

[angelous]

(I figured that from your post Bilby)

Fortunately for Kristoph, the Heartless were not focused on him, though defeated they were not. They began slithering toward Tenebra. Tenebra's attacks had bested all but one. It would hit him twice as he neared it, for he had let his guard down.

Tenebra
Kristoph

What would happen now?

[Night Sky]

What would happen next was a series of brutal beatings on the Heartless that had attacked him. Even though he was staring right in the direction where they had been gathered, the sudden appearance of the unknown falling object or "U.F.O", must have given the Heartless a quick chance to sneak away and attack from behind or something. While the sudden crash landing was unexpected and would freak anyone else out, it didn't really affect Tenebra at all. He just shrugged his shoulders and carried on.

Either way now that the Heartless was done attacking and right there within reach, Tenebra grabbed the dark creature by its neck squeezing it and slammed it face first into the dark puddle. Tenebra did this several more times before he finally pulled its head out of the water and flung it up over him and sent it falling to the ground. Since it takes a little bit more than that to end these things Tenebra summoned his Keyblade once more and ran to the Heartless dragging the Keyblade on the ground.

Once he was about halfway he threw the Keyblade over his head sending it spinning right in the direction of where the Heartless was at. If the Heartless had been unable to move then the Keyblade would cut through it right down the middle. If not then Tenebra had another tactic waiting for it.

[Heroic Bilby]

He wasn't being attacked and killed by Heartless after crash-landing on a WORLD OF HEARTLESS. That's right, some guys just have all the luck and Kristoph was definitely some guy.

'Whew. OK. The cowards all decided a suicide run into the barricade of Heartless ships was a bad idea. Maybe there was some merit to that. Either way I managed to get in, didn't I? Now to go treasure-hunting.' the pirate though with a grin as his equilibrium properly returned to him. Reaching up to the glass eye-patch with his right index finger Isaac pressed a small, invisible button as a red disc popped into being on the far end of it. The wearer closed his left eye and let his right read in all the data that his Scan/mG was collecting around himself.

Then he stopped smiling deviously and turned his neck around. Some guy with a weird weapon was swarmed by Shadows. It was decision time, the moment a man has to be a man!

Was he a potential flunky or a rival treasure-hunter? Help him or leave him to die? Such was the matter of uncertainty that arose around the Port Royal native. After all, he couldn't have someone else plundering this dark world of its loot, but he was also completely devoid of his back-up right now. Ultimately it was probably the fact that he now had no way off of this dump that clinched it. Maybe he could stea- er... "borrow" this guy's ride after the plundering was done. Besides, he seemed hardy. Best to have that on your side rather than against. With that in mind he started running to the scene.

Two hand-held devices popped into the pirate's waiting grasp once he was in decent range. Bambambam! came the noise of small blaster shots immediately afterward. Kristoph's two Comet/mGs weren't pointed anywhere near enough to the stranger to risk hitting him unless he started darting right into them for some reason, but he could at least pick off any of the runts that got separated from him and thus give the potential ally a small load off of his brawl.

[angelous]

Tenebra had bested the last Heartless he originally faced. And well, Kristoph had bested one as well. This would mean war. The darkness that inhabited this world now knew that they were no longer alone. After losing a handful of Heartless to these two, the remaining ones vanished. At their disappearance, a black pillar of light shot up in the distance. Just what was there, or what it would mean only time could tell.

*Make your way to the pillar of darkness!

The Darkness was stirring. It would not allow this world to be tainted by anything not darkness itself. Creatures took form, and would follow the two from a distance. Just what exactly these things were was unknown to almost everyone. The few who knew either never lived to tell the tale, or died soon afterward. But one thing was for certain, they weren't Heartless.

[Night Sky]

Tenebra looked over where he heard the sounds of gunshots. Sure enough they came from the newcomer. Lucky for him they guy wasn't aiming for him and managed to take down a Heartless. Tenebras attack was successful as well, which must have frightened the other Heartless because they all retreated which was something that had never happened before. Tenebra beated his chest and laughed victoriously.

Tenebra: Yeah thats right. Don't mess with the best!

He turned back to the other guy and gave him a thumbs up for the assist. He turned back around and saw a pillar of darkness erupt from the ground. It was pretty far but not any trouble for Tenebra to make the trip. He suspected that the pillar was where the special item must be. And since there wasn't anything else here, might as well go to the suspicious looking pillar of darkness.

Tenebra turned back to the one who had helped him before and shrugged.

Tenebra: Well, thanks for the help, good luck...and laters I guess.

And with that he set off to the direction of the dark pillar, unaware of the dangers that pursued him and the other person.

[Heroic Bilby]

Kristoph waved back after his hand weapons popped back out of perceived existence as easily as they had appeared. The other man didn't seem to be too interested in him though and started off right away for the anomaly in the distance.

'You meet all kinds in the Sea of Stars, the pirate muttered in his head... then made mental note to try not to say anything too "piratey"(As some folk on other worlds had called his speech, the polite ones at least) while he was here. No sense gathering mistrust from a potential human resource.

"Ava- er, hold on!" the brunet yelled, giving chase. Actually, running was one of the things Isaac felt very proud of when it came to his own abilities, so catching up to the stranger wasn't too difficult.

"You might have noticed I'm a spot of trouble here!" he said almost sarcastically. he'd just been launched out of a crashing Gummi Ship, after all. He was lucky(An understatement) to even be alive, let alone well enough to walk and talk. "I don't expect that my vessel is going to be up for a getaway any time soon. You want to abandon a man in a place like this?"