intro ♚ may

[boardmaster]

WELCOME TO Caissa

We’ve all had those dreams: you wake up on a table, to blurry, ominous images and the certainty that you are absolutely buck-naked in a room full of strangers. This is not quite it.

Instead, you come awake to the sun on your face. The soft burble of water nearby. The hustle and bustle of a busy street and the faint, fortifying smell of bread. You open your eyes and there’s no one there at your bedside, but there is what appears to be the end of the world happening just beyond your window.

There’s a crack in the world across the sky, the “sun” is the totally unnatural light spilling from that crack straight into your eyes, and someone’s left a neatly pressed and folded uniform at the foot of the bed that isn’t yours. Somewhere in the room, there’s a strange clatter like beads, the click of claws on the floor.

Something’s in here with you.

Also, you are naked.

WARNING: Contains death and related graphic descriptions.

ONE ♟ P.S. I Love You

It's a perfectly ordinary morning in Caissa. Enprise’s two suns peer over the horizon and smack into your face through the large bay window. At half past six in the morning, the floor nanny’s built-in alarm goes off and plays Prime Minister Teddy’s hit song Love Me Like Your Doughnuts. Once everyone in their rooms is up and awake, this mechanical pigeon announces that letters and small packages have been delivered to every Hero’s personal box in the mailroom. Yes, even you, Naked Newcomer! These letters are from the Heroes’ many fans all over Blanc. No matter who you are, there are small tokens of appreciation attached to the letters: these may include candies shaped like stars, chocolates with a surprise gooey center, or even a can of rainbow beans for those not fond of sweets.

Letters for veteran Heroes are full of praise and gratitude for the success of the naval battle at Graupera. New Heroes receive mail that express support towards their future endeavors as the Blanc military’s most formidable task force. That’s not all the letters contain, however; the citizens also plead for our Heroes’ help with new problems that have arisen in the fields surrounding Caissa. However, the details the letters provide are scant and vague. The fans seem more concerned with recent damage caused by some unknown entity. There is a 15-page narrative of how a man built this beautiful house for his lovely, sweet wife who did nothing wrong, but nothing about why the house is in shambles now. A market on the outskirts of Caissa lost 30,000 colle’s worth of food, but the writer neglects to explain what happened to the food. All you know is that this person stayed up all week taking inventory and now it has gone to waste.

Sharing letters with each other might give you a clue on where to start your investigations and figure out which areas were hit the hardest. Or you can talk about how cute your adoring fans are. One way or another, you’ll have to get tongues wagging to make any progress. Unfortunately, Blanc isn’t going to save itself and from the sound of it, this problem is bigger than expected...

TWO ♟ Distant Howling

After pooling information, the new objective is clear: to investigate the damages. The vast, vibrant fields around Caissa seem a good place to start. They are mostly empty, but here or there you will see some people from nearby smaller villages and farms. The villagers will admit to having seen threatening shadows move over the fields and having heard harsh, high-pitched howling. They are willing to point Heroes toward possible shadow sightings, but are otherwise reluctant to act as guides. They are simple townsfolk who wish to return to their quiet lifestyle.

You may come up with small settlements (e.g. villages, farms, inns, taverns, etc.) as they are considered minor locations.

Heroes will soon discover that some of the smaller villages have been burned down entirely. The smell of ash and charred wood is thick in the air, though some buildings are also smashed as as though by something large and heavy. Nearby trees which haven’t been uprooted or knocked over are scorched and their blackened branches crackle ominously in the breeze. There are large marks dug deep into the ground and—is that a cow? Heroes will find tagged fruit cows scattered everywhere, scared, confused and mooing sadly next to their dead fruit cow friends. Fruit cows are usually found in Gresser, how strange...

A couple of days’ worth of exploration may help you realize that whatever is terrorizing Blanc doesn’t only devour hapless animals. While trying to navigate the numerous backcountry roads and farmlands, Heroes may stumble upon some gruesome clues: a charred limb—or what’s left of it; teeth, half-eaten ribcages, melted jewelry, and other smaller bits; the less fortunate may actually trip over a corpse staring unseeingly into the sky. It has been gutted, half-roasted, and seems to have lain in the sun for some time; and if someone is brave enough to roll the body onto its stomach, they may discover claw marks on its back. The victim must have tried to flee from something.

The amount of damage grows the more our Heroes travel south. What could be awaiting them?

THREE ♟ Breath of Fire

Let’s put the clues together. Fire? Check. Claw marks? Check. Large shadows seemingly from something flying overhead? Check and check. Congratulations, Blanc, you are suffering from a dragon plague.

It will take several days for the Heroes to locate the source of the rumors. The dragons seem to have taken up residence in the hilly area near Caissa, where the slopes grow steeper and then drop suddenly off into cliffs. The beasts are quite willing to greet guests warmly: there’s nothing like a burst of dragonfire and a deafening screech to brighten your day.

The only warning you’ll get before they launch themselves into the air and at Heroes is the sound of trees bursting beneath their claws. Beware: a single swipe can cause some serious damage and their fire breath, fast, frequent and garnished with the occasional, boiling hot drop of saliva, is nothing you want to stick around for. The dragons cannot be reasoned with, nor can they be tamed. A queen’s Charm magic WILL NOT work. Should someone try and reach out with their senses to see if the dragons are somehow hurting, they will only feel something alien and terrible.

Heroes aren't the only ones suffering under the dragons’ claws, unfortunately. Scattered around the area are a few small and isolated farms, and the animals and the farmers are easy prey and unlikely to flee in time. Heroes will want to intervene before the dragons can devour and destroy. If they are too late, they will need to provide support. Put out fires, heal the injured, catch panicked cows before they become pot roast! The dragons might be coming around for another attack, so it would be a good time to test barriers and other damage control skills.

To make matters worse, Blanc’s weather has decided that now is the perfect time for a hailstorm. It’s barely anything at first, beginning with small kernels the size of corn here and there to wet the grass and ruin your footing. Then it becomes much larger and greater in number. Dragons are not exempt from this hailhole: large enough pieces may rip holes in their wings! Heroes may want to use this to their advantage; additionally, casting ice and wind spells will suddenly become a lot easier, and the dragons will struggle to navigate in the stormy weather, forcing them to land more often. Better get up on that dragon’s back!

In the end, survivors of the dragon horde let out one last, collective shriek before they turn southward. The battle has been won, but the war is just beginning: the dragons have only been chased away. Their nest seems to be elsewhere and that is a worrying prospect. Dragons aren’t native to Blanc, which can only mean one thing…

Meanwhile, a new job opening has appeared at Gresser. At least you finally know what to do with all those fruit cows.

INFO ♟ Welcome!

Welcome to Crosscheck's May intro log! For any further questions, please see the FAQ or reach us at the Contact Us page. Have fun!

Also by request, here are some Player Endorsements that may be of interest!

Heaven's Feel: Looking for something else to do? In the mood for more light-hearted mingling? Check out Heaven’s Feel, Caissa’s first heroic matchmaking service! Opening week is going on now.

Training Notice: This training notice is located on the bulletin board. You might want to take a look.

Comments

sakura haruno | naruto | ota!

[mitotic]

one.

[ Sakura wakes up in a mood, and it's not a good one.

It's the stuff of bad cliché, waking up naked in a bed you don't recognize, something Sakura's never had the misfortune of experiencing before, and the weird squawking mechanical bird nearly pays dearly for it except that she doesn't have anything but a pillow to throw at it, and it manages to fly out of the way in time anyway. It does nothing to improve Sakura's mood, because she now she has nothing to stuff over her ears to ignore the song.

Really, there was no side of the bed to wake up on but the wrong one, given the circumstances. When Sakura makes her way down to the mail room, she's wearing the red undershirt, pants, sandals, and a scowl. Good morning, Caissa.

By some small miracle, the first letter Sakura tears open in her irritation has chocolate. Normally, she wouldn't trust the food in some strange place, but normally she also has easy access to healing chakra to burn off poisons and drugs and she hasn't yet fully comprehended its absence. The crawl through the temple is little more than a dream to her, but her irritation is entirely real, and if there's one sure-fire cure-all for crankiness it's chocolate. So if you catch her after she's finished that off, you'll find her in a marginally better mood.

Expressions of gratitude and adoration when she hasn't actually done anything except apparently gotten lost in some time-space jutsu are easily glanced over. What Sakura's really looking for is information, clues about what's really going on, maybe the seam in reality that reveals this all as some kind of bizarre genjutsu. What she finds instead are seemingly nonsensical complaints. ]

Is he saying he was robbed, or...? [ This letter almost makes it sound like the merchant who wrote it merely misplaced all the wares in his storehouse, but that can't possibly be it, can it? ]

two.

[ She'd had her suspicions, but when Sakura comes across the first newly blackened ruins of what was once a small farm town she knows this is a good deal more serious than the letters made this situation out to be. It must have been at least a day or so since the fire was set, because it's torn through all the fuel it could find and died down by the time she finds it, little more than the epilogue of smoke remains of what caused it in the first place. Without looking away, she addresses whoever it is that happened to have stumbled upon this too. ]

We should look for survivors.

[ By the set of her mouth, she knows how futile it will be, but if there's even the slightest chance she can't turn away.

Or maybe you find her later, crouched over a mangled body. If any other hero is too squeamish to approach it, she's not: it's hard to imagine much more gruesome images than this, but Sakura's seen it, and as a medic it's been her duty to perform more autopsies than she cares to keep track of. Still, this definitely ranks up there in some of the worst conditions she's ever seen a corpse in. ]

She's been dead for days.

two

[showsnopiety]

[The air stinks of smoke and decay. It's a great time to be around, really; it made her glad that she was wearing boots, instead of her usual slip on shoes for battle. Otherwise she wouldn't get the smell out of them for days.

Nonetheless, Caren is not squeamish. Instead her gaze is distant, her gaze going over the body. She steps closer, before she squats to get more details.]

Yes. The decomposition seems to be well along. But the way that the body is...

[She frowns, looking it over the ribs-or what's left of them.]

Bitten, then burnt?

[mitotic]

[ By this point, Sakura's already turning over the body — and her frown deepens. ]

And clawed at, apparently.

[ Indicating the corpse's back as she speaks. Those sure look like claw marks to her, at least. ]

I don't think any human did this.

[ Although it certainly isn't out of the realm of possibility, Sakura knows. ]

[showsnopiety]

[She nods, taking a moment to put her hand against the ground as she studies the bodily signs. Claw marks...

Yes, she would have to say so. With a frown though, she tried to get a better look at the markings, tempted to touch it with her fingers. But no. It would mean that she would get blood all over her fingers. That simply wouldn't do.]

Not unless there's a human of shape shifting capabilities. I'm mostly ignorant on the matter. If it was with coating with earth or another element, I think it would have made its mark.

[She thinks. She has a good eye for detail, familiar with medicine and bodies, but she's not a specialist.]

one!

[houndumb]

'Tch, I'd be surprised if he knew what he was saying! These letter writers keep gettin' stupider the more I read!

[The displeased grumble comes from..... by her feet?! Hopefully Sakura's been watching her step if she's been moving, because there's a slovenly and entirely traffic-impeding sprawl of teenage boy taking up space somewhere under the bulletin board. Every side of the bed is the wrong side in Nora's case, so this is a fairly normal mood for him.

(He may also be crunching on something of his own, or maybe not his own, it's not like all of the letters are neatly labeled and really, he just follows his nose to whichever one smells the best.)

The misplaced boy-rug waves a sheaf of papers of his own with a disgruntled expression. Some of it flutters away onto the floor, but he doesn't seem to care.]

There's nothing but pages and pages and pages of whining about some stupid garden or whatever! Who even cares, the food is the only good part of this.

[mitotic]

[ It's mostly a force of habit that Sakura makes herself aware of her surroundings, but she paid the boy little mind at first. When he responds to her rhetorical question, though, Sakura finally looks down at him. ]

You're going to get stepped on if you stay there.

[ Just. You know. Pointing it out, before getting back to the topic at hand: ] Is this kind of thing normal? All this property damage?

[houndumb]

I got tired of jellies falling on my head while I was reading! If somebody steps on me I'll bite 'em.

[... said as though it's a completely normal response to someone scolding him for being on the floor in the middle of a major hallway in the middle of the day. Granted, if Sakura happens to look up at this point, she might spot multiple strange, quivering blue blobs on the ceiling.

They don't look like they'll stay up there for very long.

And also Nora is very deliberately holding the papers above his head. Like a shield.]

An' what property damage? All I got's some dumbass who thinks somebody's stealing the fairies out of his garden or whatever!

two

[facultative]

[Some might mistakenly think that because the Separatists employed a droid army those that fought for the Republic were unused to seeing such carnage. Anakin's seen plenty of death and has caused more himself, he isn't going to baulk at the sight.]

Was it the fire or something else?

[Burning the place was a simple way to try and get rid of evidence, but he doesn't have the expertise to tell.]

[mitotic]

[ Sakura shakes her head. ]

There's no way to tell whether being gutted or burned killed her. I think she fell, too.

[ It's been long enough that the corpse is no longer in rigor mortis, the muscles all lax, but even that doesn't account for the odd angle of her spine and limbs. Sakura doesn't need chakra to tell she's probably got broken bones all over. Either she was beaten before or after she died, or...

Sakura straightens up, one hand on her hip, gears turning steadily and silently in her head. They found the unfortunate woman's body in the middle of a farmer's field just outside town. The farmhouse is cinders and the yard around it scorched, but where they stand there isn't as much fire damage, not nearly enough for her to have been burned here. It's almost as if she dropped out of the sky. ]

[facultative]

[If this was back in his galaxy they could have scanned the body and gotten an autopsy report and recreate the scene to how it was before the fire to see what might have happened. But Anakin's stuck here with his carrier droid being the most technologically advanced item he's seen yet so they have to do this the old fashioned way.]

Unless there was a reason for them to get spooked I don't think wild animals would have left the body out here. But I also can't see any tracks so how did she get here?

[It looks like the farmhouse suffered the worst of it which suggested that it was the origin point, but there was a dirt track between it and the yard so it had to have jumped the distance somehow. Sabotage?]

two;

[hymnals]

[ As a combat medic himself, Adra has little issue kneeling down beside Sakura to examine the wreck of a body. Scorch marks, claw marks ... he frowns, noticing the way her arms and legs are akimbo. ]

That's quite a few broken bones.

[mitotic]

Yeah, I noticed that too.

[ Sakura lifts her eyes directly above them, then around, looking for anywhere she could conceivably have fallen from. Nowhere really looks likely. ]

Where do you think she came from?

[hymnals]

[ He makes vague, irritated gestures at the sky. ]

Something took her. Something dropped her.

[ He brushes his fingers over the woman's face. There's nothing more he can do for her now, but he says a prayer, anyway, whispering in Thalassian.

May the Light find you, and keep you. May your spirit know peace. ]

two

[yaoihand]

[ Kija's lived his life in a pampered little bubble, facing few hardships, but that didn't mean he was naive to such things. In his travels with Yona he's seen many wrecked up villages - people plagued with diseases, people chased out of their homes, and people forced into labour - and the state of this small town reminded him of them.

So awful ... Kija walks through the ruins, careful not to step on the charred debris scattered all over the ground. ]

Who could have done this ...? [ They don't have many clues at the moment, other than the fact that the culprit wielded fire. But yes, survivors. Even if the situation looked grim, just finding one would make the effort worthwhile. Kija starts to move, overturning the heavier pieces of debris with his dragon's claw.

So far, there's no signs of life, but ...

One of the fallen pieces of concrete sports a large, angry claw mark. It actually looks awfully familiar ... Almost like something he could have inflicted himself. ]

[mitotic]

I don't know.

[ It might have been a rhetorical question, but she answers anyway. Any of her theories would be founded on assumptions from her own world, but that's not where she is. It's difficult to juggle figuring out what the hell sort of place you're in and investigate grisly deaths, but she manages, absorbing as much as she can. ]

I only just got here, though, so if you have any theories I'm all ears.

[ Maybe she caught him looking at the gauges in the rubble like he recognized it, maybe she didn't. (She probably did.) Either way, she hasn't stopped combing the wreckage of one house so badly damaged that it collapsed under its own weight. ]

i give up on being fast ....... just ignore this if its been too long

[yaoihand]

[ He does have a hunch. Especially since he had that conversation with Asuna a while ago about there being dragons in this world. The thought pains him, though. He doesn't want to believe it could be true ... that a creature the people in his world revered for so long could be the cause of such destruction.

Kija looks down at his inhuman hand, its sharp nails gleaming even in the dreary weather. That claw mark really did look like it could have come from him. ]

Do you know of dragons ...?

one

[penitents]

[ Sasuke is an early riser, as such, by the time he bumps into his wife he has the look of someone remarkably put together for waking unexpectedly in a foreign land. Though it may be a new experience for Sakura, Sasuke has had the unfortunate history of waking up in places utterly different from where he passed out before. Nothing quite this drastic, of course, but upon recognizing he lacked any immediate injuries, took to gathering intel without pause.

He is wearing the full uniform, though the jacket hangs open around his torso. On his hip dangles the mask, and on his shoulder rides a sizable and fierce looking hawk. ]

I don't think it's so simple. [ He looks down at her as he stops at he rside, and lifts his hand to offer her something. It looks like a bulging hankerchief, tied at the top. ]

[mitotic]

[ For all that Sakura's raw annoyance has abated somewhat, Sasuke's the first person she actually smiles at when he approaches. She vaguely remembers a dream about the dust of the road, but it's nice to see even one familiar face in this waking unfamiliar world; her husband's is more than welcome.

(Even if he is more of a morning person than she is. Being a morning person ought to be a crime.) ]

I don't think it is either.

[ Turning towards him, Sakura takes the offered handkerchief, eyebrows raised in question. ] What's this?

[penitents]

[ The makeshift bag sinks into her waiting palm, and Sasuke drops his arm back to his side. His gaze flicks to the cloth before going back to her face. ]

You know how I feel about sweets.

[ Its barely an explanation, but given what she undoubtedly got in her packages, should be enough. It wasn't like he was going to eat them, and he wasn't going to feed them to his hawk, no matter how hard she stared at the gifts.

Said hawk ruffles her feathers and eyes Sakura suspiciously. ]

wildcard even though that isn't an option

[sediments]

[ There are a lot of bodies around. It's dulled Bolin's usually bright eyes, but there's no stopping the look of determination set in his features. He's feeling less disheartened that he had when he'd first entered the village, all because of the little girl in his arms: banged up, and burnt around her legs and feet, but alive! She's alive, even though Bolin has no idea if she'll have a home or family after this, but she's still breathing.

Unfortunately, Bolin has no healing abilities of his own, and he's on the hunt for a healer when he happens across Sakura—the woman appearing vaguely familiar to him, and incredibly capable looking.

She'll find Bolin approaching her soon enough, eyebrows furrowed in concern. ]

Hey, you wouldn't happen to be a healer, would you?

you're a rebel

[mitotic]

[ She was before she came here. Sakura had the ability to heal an army at the age of 17, and now it's a struggle to do the most basic of medical spells. It's incredibly frustrating.

But that's a defeatist line of thought and she ain't about that shit, especially when the other hero brings her the first survivor they've found here so far. Dropping whatever it was she was doing immediately, she nods. ]

Here, set her down.

[sediments]

[ This is great, Bolin can actually feel the relief. The first person that he'd found told him to get moving, and that there wasn't enough time, so he's pretty glad that Sakura is more cooperative. ]

Okay.

[ When he kneels down to place the girl on the ground however, she wakes up. And on one hand, Bolin's glad to see that she's conscious, and hopefully they can talk to her and figure out if there's somewhere safe she can go. On the other hand, she starts screaming.

Loudly. ]

Wh—hey!

one

[herplaceinthesun]

None of these letters make any sense. Are we just supposed to be the first responders for everything?

[That fact that she recognizes Sakura even though she shouldn't doesn't bother her as much, considering the whole thing with Hinata. The main thing she's curious about is why they're needed, and official words on the matter didn't tend to be all that helpful.

Aisha shrugs, holding up her stack of letters.]

Hero is such a weird job title.

[mitotic]

Yeah... it's a bit vague.

[ She's smiling slightly, because she's being facetious. It's not a bit vague, it's extremely vague.

It disturbs Sakura a little, that she remembers Aisha. Who wouldn't, with those ears? But Sakura's never had prophetic dreams or anything like them before, so it's a little disconcerting to see the characters in them come up to her and talk to her. ]

Some of the missions we had back home were like this.

[herplaceinthesun]

If I never hear about this guy and his wife again, it'll be too soon.

[Sakura's smile makes Aisha's lips quirk. This whole place was more than a little silly, but if she could help she wanted to. Still, she hopes it's not like this for everything.

At least it wasn't boring?

(Her life's been a lot of things, but boring hasn't been one of them for a long time.)]

Really? I guess not having enough intel sometimes is universal.

[And a pain.]