intro ♚ april

[boardmaster]

WELCOME TO GRAUPERA

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.

ONE ♟ CAPABLANCA & AIRY

As much as Blanc’s capital welcomes its Heroes, new arrivals such as yourself won’t have much time to settle. Get dressed and pick up your weapon and Carrier, because sometime in the afternoon, all floor nannies and Carriers will broadcast an announcement by Commander Lisbrand. She delivers a brief greeting to their new members, but gets straight to the point: they will be headed for Capablanca and the open sea beyond, in order to restore the fortress of Graupera for battle with Noir looming on the horizon. All new Heroes are expected to report to the Airy at the Caissa aeroport on the 8th along with their seniors.

On the morning of the 11th, Airy alights on Graupera, an island about two hours away from Capablanca by ferry. From here, you can either help the navy with Graupera repairs or assist in Verdoni’s investigations and head for Capablanca proper. Heroes will be staying in the (in)famous Hotel Caruana: they say you can check in anytime you like, but you can never truly leave. Nobody will quite meet your eyes or tell you what it means.

Wherever you are, the Airy will remain parked at Graupera.

TWO ♟ GRAUPERA, CAPABLANCA SEA FORT

What was once a heavily fortified island rests a ways off the coast of Capablanca; it looks a little too much like one of the thunderclouds slowly swarming on the horizon. Graupera has seen many battles and withstood the ebb and flow of wars. Formerly the city’s first line of defense until it was abandoned after the Reclamation, its dilapidated condition is the current bane of the Blanc navy. Blanc needs to bring it back to its former glory before it can face a single warship, much less Noir’s fleet of magical cannons. Blanc’s government has no doubt Heroes will do a fine job at returning the fortress to its former glory!

A ♙ The great stone and iron wall facing the wide open ocean has seen better days and is full of holes overgrown with stubborn clinging vines; cannonballs used a lifetime ago litter the grounds. The vines are extremely thick and may tangle the careless beyond hope of escape, not to mention filled with a pungent sap that will seep into your clothes and hair for days. It makes a great adhesive, though? Conveniently, parts of the wall are strewn across the floor, so at least some of the cannon holes can be repaired with enough improvisation, desperation and a bit of spit. The rest need new material provided by our helpful Heroes in Option C. Furthermore, the lingering damage from a previous attack and old age have turned the floorboards weak and unstable. The wood creaks ominously beneath the mass of even a single average-sized person, so watch your step.

B ♟ You might want to get your weapon before you descend into the dank depths beneath the castle. Once you make it down the steep, slippery stairs, you’ll be meeting the gigantic, hostile rats that infest the castle cellar from top to bottom. It looks like magical residue from long-ago battles has seeped into both the foundation and its inhabitants. The cellars have become a huge warren filled with strange mana currents, and sometimes flooded with water. If you're going to start an extermination campaign, you may want to recall the magical residue: chopping off a rat’s head and limbs will barely slow it down. It will keep going for hours unless you either lop off all its limbs or pierce its heart.

If you manage to make it all the way up into the castle’s two intact towers (the other two are half-collapsed), the uppermost levels are utterly covered in bird crap. You’ll be encountering the kings of this castle: the unusually large, grey-feathered sea birds that have taken up residence here. Albatrosses, gulls, pelicans, even sand pipers: they all share nesting and pooping space here. The feathers of each bird seem to have taken on stone-like properties not unlike the castle’s walls. They’re extremely ferocious and protective of their nests, which are filled with all kinds of things: twigs, shiny things, coin money, Option C’s supplies, feathers of all kinds, and some completely ordinary tools that seem too small for human hands, and much older than anything else in the place save for the walls. If you look closely, you might be able to see a few baby rats scattered in amongst the eggs and the peeping chicks. They’re being fed, too.

You’re meant to be moving the birds out of the place, but you might have enough trouble just moving their offal.

C ♙ Don’t feel like dealing with pest control? No problem! Blanc will need materials for rebuilding and other supplies for the coming battle! Everyone knows how important it is for the fortress to remain standing, so Heroes will be provided with gadgets and weaponry that should make it difficult for enemies to penetrate the walls yet again. Word has spread that the Heroes are transporting valuable goods, though, so you might have to fend off the occasional hopeful man or annoying mouse (rat) who wishes to borrow much-needed material.

Of course, all this rebuilding will be for naught if you are not prepared to defend the stronghold! Ammunition such as cannonballs, bullets and arrows needs to be transported to Graupera en masse, pronto. Equally important essentials include first aid supplies and enough non-perishable food and water to last a small army (you) a month or two. You wouldn’t want to have to scavenge for rat meat.

No one knows just how long this battle is going to last.

THREE ♟ Training

It’s time for you landlubbers to learn how to swim! Commander Lisbrand won’t be tolerating any sinking stones on her task force. The upcoming battle will be fought on the sea so your instructor, one of Blanc’s many fine captains (when she isn’t intoxicated), will make every single individual who hesitates at the sight of the open ocean walk the plank. She’ll even give you a helpful kick if necessary! Once that’s over, she will show you how to steer a ship. However, wandering eyes that land anywhere on the inebriated captain’s assets will be swiftly and spectacularly dealt a large bottle of the harbor’s best swill right where it hurts.

Blanc has also provided training dummies dressed suspiciously like prominent figures of the Othellian underworld. Now might be a good time to branch out and learn about your affinities. Heroes who have recently been promoted in Rank might want to set some time aside for getting used to their new abilities, too. Power and responsibility come hand in hand, after all!

INFO ♟ Welcome!

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

Comments

[babbylon]

[Lightly teasing:]

Just Gilgamesh will do. Truth be told, I am not much of an Archer any longer.

[Despite the bow on his back they'd given him, which he was just learning how to use again. The class name carried a certain weight with it he could no longer carry, not with the seemingly permanent loss of his Gate. If anything, it reminded him of what he would never be again, and that stung more than she intended.

At her suggestion, he goes to fish his sword out of the now stilled corpse. As if reading her mind, he explains further.]

I am, as of now, at a higher "rank" than you. This affords me greater strength and more powerful spells.

[With a disgusting shlick, Gilgamesh draws the blade out of the bird's heart, then sheaths it back at his side.]

Befriend those ranked individuals, if you can. Not even the King of Knights can do all that much with just a goblet in her hands.

[armorial]

[ Is he lecturing her? She doesn't like how this is going, but she listens. Gilgamesh does have experience in this world, being that of a higher rank and also wielding two weapons along with an arsenal of spells. While she doesn't mind power gaps of any kind, the reminder is starting to annoy her. She doesn't say anything... Cause he's right. About everything. Her eyes follow him as she pulls his sword out of the fat bird.

It's a little hard for her to say his true name, he has always been Archer to her, but she respects his wishes. Though he asks of her such a thing, she doesn't consider being called anything aside from Saber. It kind of grew on her. She moves her chalice in her hand, making the water swerve inside it.

All she has is this goblet. ] I will heed your advice.

Let us head back... Gilgamesh. There is much to do. [ She did it!! She'll start their descent down the tower, leading first. In the front is where she always belongs. ]

[babbylon]

[Indeed it is. Since he's carrying the bulk of the cargo, it makes sense of him to tag along in back anyway. Maybe he would've raised more of a fuss earlier in his stay here and maybe at that point they'd be halfway to killing each other by over their differences and their disagreements, but he's since found companions and, absent of any means to do any real wrongdoing, has thus found a sense of peace. Gilgamesh could act questionably, but never blindly, without due cause.

However, it is in fact so jarring a contrast between what he expected might happen and what's actually happening right now that he feels the need to comment. Because if nothing else, that enormously obnoxious mouth of his hasn't changed one bit.]

You are more amenable than anticipated.

[Translation: you haven't spat on me, glared at me, or so much as tried to kill me, what gives?]]

[armorial]

[ There's a stop in her pace. She stays on one step of the staircase for maybe a two seconds, thinking over what he said. Jokes, there has been glares all over, just not as strong as before. Either way, there's a pretty fierce look. Luckily, she's facing ahead. ]

I'm not savage; we are fellow Heroes. [ Yes, she's slightly offended. She starts walking again when she has pieces together her scattered thoughts on this matter. All of this definitely feels unfamiliar and it makes her stomach twist at times. Gilgamesh's presence and attention are still creepy and generally unwanted. Here comes the rhetorical, passive-aggressive question: ] Is it that surprising?

[ She personally thinks it's just the man being weird (compliant, really) that's making her act the same. With obvious concerns and disdain, but she's one to compromise if it's necessary. If anything, she learned that Gilgamesh is rather ridiculous. There's some still silence as she takes several more steps down the spiral. ]

I wasn't prepared.

[babbylon]

Yes, actually.

[Step, step, step. Indeed, everything's a bit off. He's a little too calm. She's a little too accepting. This was a little too... pleasant, almost, with the concern she's shown to him thus far, if only begrudging, and how he's somehow refrained from marriage proposals up until this point. Maybe the magic of this world worked even greater wonders than they thought. Maybe it had, however subtly, encouraged them to work past their disagreements towards a common goal.

Or maybe it came down to one single, sharp difference.]

The last I remember of our world... you were about to make claim of my head, or else try, before the stage of the Grail.

[And there it is. Gilgamesh has figured it out first: they absolutely could not have been from the same time.]

[armorial]

[ It hasn't occurred to her yet that these realms may play the same weird spin-off time anomaly shit that plagues their own. "How naive of me," she thinks to herself. Unlike before where she took a pause to reply to him, she continues down the stairs with her tiny steps. Her grip on her chalice tightens with ever second. Luckily, it doesn't snap or anything. ]

I see. [ What is she supposed to say? Gilgamesh made quite a mess during the war she remembers last. She's not fond of the Golden King. He's still ever grating, but she does know that the two, the one here and the one home, had different aims. It explains a lot of things, yet at the same time brings about more questions. To be honest, she has never thought about Gilgamesh this much in her life before. Well, it's more about what possible consequences may come with ~knowledge~.

How much should she disclose? She's not sure yet. Looking down at her golden cup, it's as if she's looking for answers in the water. ]

Then we are of different times. [ There's so many things that can set off a horrible reaction, so this shall suffice. She has to think this topic over. They finally reach the bottom of the tower. Their rat and bird escapade is coming to an end. ] Perhaps we can talk about this in the future... Once the fort is completely restored and the upcoming battle is won.

[babbylon]

[Different times, different goals, different ambitions. Before Gilgamesh fell into the Grail, and shrugged off All the Evils of the World; before he spent so many miserable years beside Kirei, hating humanity more with each passing day; before he came to hate it so much, he drank from his own potion of youth to forget everything. Before he came to realize that the world he was so charged to look after needed to be purged entirely of human sin.

Before everything that would come to drive them against one another in that doomed future. Gilgamesh does not know of it, could not even foresee it now. He only remembers wishing for their wedding, more than anything else, to drown her in sorrow and suffering so that he might witness the beauty of her tragedy firsthand...

But all that melodrama seemed very far away from bird poop and rat extermination. And losing everything tended to force a change of perspective, for good or for ill.]

I will take the rest of the supplies back, and see that you are properly compensated for your efforts.

[Fair was fair. Even as a weak Pawn, he couldn't have done it without her.]

Until that time, may fortune favor us both.

[A peaceful farewell? Or almost something like it. Gilgamesh, being the melodramatic clod he is, jumps the rest of the way down, straight off the edge. ...he's fine, really.]