Resurrection Sickness

"Hallowed be the Humans; remember their names, cherish their memories, and pray to their perfect forms, for without them, all the air would be Violet! The Gates of Vo lie closed; the world-killers and their steeds of steel are now shadows; our ancestral home is now a tomb. But we are alive! Our children, new and old, are saved! Alois! Bianca! Fraser! Today we celebrate those fallen Humans, first and last of their kind, and their latest gift to us: our sixth century in Vantage. Today we celebrate the Peak and the Plate; today we celebrate our lives in the light of the sun or the shadow of our betters! Today, we celebrate!"
-- Yuukatosh the Belligerent, Governor of the Sixth Disk

Location: Somewhere Real and Static
Time: 29:78
Date: 90th Day of Careful Steps of AH604

Object Gamer#9445 passed values from [NULL].

Object Gamer#9445 restoring values from previous state...

ERROR. GamerArray[9445] contains "John Newman#59259o2" but "John Newman#59259o2" is not a valid "Gamer ID" value!

Object.toGamer("JohnNewman#59259o2") is an invalid operation. Diagnostics activated. Registry corrupted. Unknown entit-

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Debug notification log wiped. This notification will self-terminate in 3... 2... 1...

Welcome back, John Newman! You have been offline for: 1 day, 21 hours, 3 minutes, and 49 seconds.

Last combat data lost. Achievements notifications lost. Restoring character sheet...

DING! You're now level 29!
+100HP
+100MP
+10 stat points
+1 paragon point

Map updated.

New Kingdom found! “Vantage, the Fallen Crossroads”

The Kingdom Map in the Summoner's Temple has been updated.

Refresh in 3... 2... 1...

Bedsheets of mud, a vague scent of the softener used—something between clay and black soil—and eventually the man realized he was not lying in his bed. He blinked through the muck, squirmed in it, and slowly found purchase in the wet, compressed slip beneath himself. He looked about and saw the same, squirming pikes rising up from the land in all directions: thin stems of green, scaled plants that shuddered as though a wind blew through them. The man felt one of the roots press against his bared genitals briefly for a coarse, unwelcome alarm.

John quickly rolled up with a start as he tried to get his bearings, but the green followed him. He looked up beyond the ten-foot-tall plants—he could not fathom, or accept, that they were plants—and found the source of dim light hanging from a ceiling of rough stone. He was in a cavern, it first appeared, one with a ceiling so high as to nearly fade into the air above. A globe of light, its size too hard to discern from where John stood, burned fiercely while a massive and perforated half-globe of copper slowly rotated about it. The small holes caused light beams to dance over the dark field in simulated, broken nightfall until, with the crack of a sunrise, the half-globe’s brightened edge lit the world.

John looked around... and watched as the plants began to rattle and shake.

“Lady help-!” came one strangled, male voice from the forest of green. Slowly, a chorus of this rose from the bushes all around John. He was naked and unarmed; so was the middle-aged man who nearly stumbled into John through the shivering crops.

His wide eyes took on a familiar spark of resentment, though John struggled to remember this face. “This... this is your fault-!” His arms reached out to John's neck... and he was **** before the second serpent's lunge had landed.

Whatever had happened, the Order had apparently come along. John began opening tunnels over his eye to scour the area. His vision cleared the blades of overgrown, quivering grass to take in some dozens of acres of the same in every direction. The globe hung high over vibrating green waves, one half shaking more visible than the other... and crawling and struggling about in their passive clutches were more squirming, terrified, and naked humans caked in gray mud. He struggled to get good glimpses of those in the muck but quickly noted that he saw no such flesh or struggles too far from his own position. Overall, everyone seemed to be in the same acre, and their acre appeared to be near a clearing of dead, dry land at the center of the field, just underneath the artificial sun. Beyond the fields, in every direction, waited tall walls of unpainted stone that nearly touched the ceiling. There was no wind, John now realized; the plants simply waved as one in the semi-dark and rattled fiercely in the "sunlight." The naked humans were terrified and stumbling to find one another... and John realized one more had found him.

The female Knight growled as she saw the collapsed Knight at John’s feet. “None of this makes sense-!”

John jumped to the clearing underneath the monstrous lamp. His feet found it to be the dead patch of ill-lit land... and his mind, still recoiling, ignored the jittering interface of the Game. For now came the startled, panic-stricken effort to remember how the Hell he had gotten here. His nostrils filled with the odd, thin air of this place--the scent of clay remained in the air, or else it rose from the mud that caked his body--but still he could recall the smell of burned air and the blood of Lord Brighton.

He was about to face his last real threat: Laksha Singh, the Warden of the Spear. She had been tricked twice, but John saw a dangerous intellect there in those foreboding eyes. He might not have managed to trick her again. He was about to try… when he had felt a sudden, soft pain at the back of his head. A message had come up… and then, he was falling.

There were bodies... there was Tricia, and others, but he needed to reach Tricia first. He had shaken her awake. She had... reprimanded him. They cried. They fucked. They made love in a manner too close to his time with Wentworth to ignore, but yet so divorced from his memory, so dream-like... and then he was pulled into the black, enshrouded in something familiar, and he felt the strangest sense of triumph and design, yet not of his-

... and then mud. Now.

Where was Tricia? Who else was here? Where was here and why did the Order follow? Why or how did the Brighton Manor get replaced by such a huge, bizarre barrier? He finally glanced at his interface as old notifications vanished, leaving him with just his sheet... and a minimap title that only further confounded the Gamer.

Vantage, the Fallen Crossroads
The Plate
The Popot Field

The minimap was relatively new, so he couldn’t be sure if other barriers would change the room description of his location. But it didn’t in Juniluny’s maze, permanent as that one seemed. Where the Hell is...? A new button appeared on John’s minimap... a simple, Western crown icon. His finger drifted near it… and the map zoomed out into a multi-colored sea with a single, glowing yellow dot labeled “VANTAGE” at the center.

A frail and terrified-looking teenager, her small breasts coated in mud, stumbled from the scaled brush only to freeze upon seeing John. Her sudden presence had brought John back to the odd world they now inhabited; he looked to her as she stood there, unsure of what to do with the Order goons as they appeared.

Danielle Parker
<The Order of the Golden Rose>
Level 7 Hospitaler
HP: 140/140
MP: 201/201
Stats: Str 11, Agi 10, End 13, Int 14, Wis 19, Cha 13, Lib 11
Status Effects: Resurrection Sickness (3 days)
Qualities: None
Relationship: -13
Danielle joined the Order two years ago after being saved by her classmate, Moira Brighton, awakened her innate magical talent. She is not yet a proper Hospitaler but was studying medicine under the tutelage of her betters when the Brighton Manor was attacked. She came out with the last, **** local forces the Order could muster and was consumed by the First Truth. She was recently reconstructed by her original, complete soul being dumped into Vantage without a realized vessel.

The First Truth...? That's the quality Tricia's had... so what the Hell does it mean by "consumed"?

"Where are we?" John called out.

The Hospitaler blinked back at him before looking all about in matching confusion. She said nothing.

"God damn- alright, let's get this sorted." John opened his **tunnel over the field and bellowed into it. "Hey! All of you! Head towards the light; there's a clearing there!"

Slowly they came, perhaps to hunt their target Warlock, perhaps just to be clear of the grasping green. The unfamiliar faces came first: nine young Knights including a sturdy woman carrying the man John had already knocked out, three Hospitalers if John included the novice, and a single Confessor whose age well-hid his utter lack of ability. All of them, unarmed and knowingly outmatched, glanced about the foreign place as their hands continued to awkwardly cover their privates.

John continued to scour the brush for more familiar faces or hiding bodies... and he found one perhaps solely by the grace of her wild hair. John opened a tunnel just over the floor to his right, the other end just under the sleeping ally... and with one hand and a move, John slowly eased an ****, naked Rave onto the ground.

Jane Hollmey
Level 34 Chosen
<Collide>
HP 2,190/2,190
MP 2,098/2,098
Stats: Str 50 Agi 49 End 42 Int 49 Wis 54 Cha 39 Lib 30
Status Effects: Resurrection Sickness (23 minutes), ****
Qualities: Chosen Soul (Light), Dreambreath, Lightbearer
Relationship: +38
Member of Collide with family ties to the Abyss Auction. She comes from a line of those chosen to wield the Innate Light, a potent and malleable energy **** that she is able to enhance and cast. As such a wielder, she is also gifted with the ability to rapidly regenerate mana simply by breathing. Normally resolved to just live and let live while having fun, she's currently eager to step up Collide's game and finally make a name for herself. Her body of light has been reconstructed following her release from The First Truth and being dumped into Vantage without a realized vessel.

John finally tapped the status effect that afflicted everyone so far and, for everyone but Rave, for several days.

Resurrection Sickness
Divine Status Effect. This person was effectively dead or destroyed and, somehow, has been reconstructed and brought back to life. The gap in existence is jarring for any soul, and so the person suffers a number of penalties for a short time period based on their level, body type, and means of resurrection. These penalties include: double damage from all sources, double cost for all abilities, and a greater chance of failure in all tasks.

John checked his own character sheet again; if he had the status, it wasn't appearing or affecting his spell costs. What the Hell happened...?!

John tried a heal to wake Rave and was almost surprised when her eyes fluttered open. The pink-haired punk groped and squirmed as she felt the mud that had caked all of her back and right sides... and froze once she noticed John's shockingly complete head.

"Well... you are one tough fucker to kill, huh?" Rave rubbed her head as she sat up, leaving John to wonder at what she meant. His confusion was apparently too obvious since she added, "You got shot in the head."

"Bullets don't mean much these days," John replied as he continued to scan the bushes.

"No, I mean... the last one. It blew your head apart. You..." Rave's eyes fluttered as she tried to recall what came next... and memories danced and merged and shattered as she tried to pick them up. She wanted to say Tricia was probably... upset... but what happened? Her head hurt as she tried to recall... and then reality gave her a welcome distraction. Rave cocked her head as she glanced at the closing circle of naked Order folk... each one with wary eyes set on John. "Right, later then. So where are we, and why is the Order's creepy mud sex cult closing in?"

They had already threatened John... now they were threatening what might be a very **** Rave. In time, perhaps even a **** Tricia- Anger bubbled inside John, and he ceased his tunnels to address the faithful. "I'm a Warlock; I get it. Nothing I say can be trusted, right?"

The nearing crowd froze.

"That's fucking great, really, it is. Well here's the rub: I could kill you all without even really trying. I'm not doing that. I didn't do it back then, either. So maybe--and hear me out here--just maybe I'm not such a fucking bad guy, and- you know what,” he continued, his frustration building, “I'm being wildly nice about you guys continuing to threaten me while you're naked and unarmed, so could you please just lay off with the goddamn prosecution until we've figured out where the Hell we even-"

"We're not threatening you," one Knight suddenly spoke up. John, still flaring with anger, set his burning green Eye upon the man... and was met with tears.

John blinked as he looked at the faces... and almost all of them were now crying, sniffling, or sobbing outright. He saw grown men, some twice his age, with trembling lips like children caught in sin; he saw one woman fall to her knees and cover her face as she was finally overcome. The younger among them seemed grim-faced but still could not manage their emotions; the older among them were the most broken. John knew these looks. John checked through their statuses and qualities...

... and confirmed that none of those present had the Lady's Blessing anymore.

A few incoherent prayers to god, to some god other than the Lady, filled the air. The old Confessor said nothing but simply let tears drip freely from tired, haunted eyes as he stared at the mud. The Knight that had spoken to John, an Italian man with shock-black hair, continued, "I'm... I guess we're... we're just not sure what to do, now. There's..." He looked to his fellow Knights and Hospitalers again and struggled to find words to encompass them all.

John shook his head as he tried to process it... until he noticed a bit of movement to the left.

A naked, young Asian woman had left the brush and was now stalking up alongside the procession John had gathered... and based on her wide-eyed and fairly unreserved, loping stroll, she appeared to think she was invisible while she studied them. John realized she indeed was to any who were not immune to illusions.

Yui Decker
Level 14 Arcane Trickster
HP: 510/510
MP: 34/323
Stats: Str 12, Agi 18, End 15, Int 27, Wis 14, Cha 12, Lib 24
Status Effects: Invisible, Resurrection Sickness (3 days)
Qualities: None
Relationship: +19
A 22-year-old sleuth and battlefield reporter for the Abyssal Audit, Yui Decker has the rare (and dangerous) preference for reporting on the Order of the Golden Rose. Born to a poor family in the Bronx, Yui Decker has traveled far from her New York roots to cover the Order's growing presence in the Americas, much to the chagrin of the Order's security forces who know of the paper for which she ghost-writes. Yui is an expert of illusory magic who is careful to leave no trace and makes sure to keep a safe distance... most of the time. She avoids contact work, however, due to her crippling stutter and anxiety. She has recently picked up the lead on John Newman, a Warlock said to have attacked the Order, and had barely gotten settled in before her scoop grew complicated. Those complications eventually led to her being consumed by the First Truth, though she's newly reformed after having her restored soul dumped into Vantage without a realized vessel.

John followed her as she quietly stepped sideways while observing the crying Knights with rapt attention. She was oddly busty for how bone-thin she appeared; he might’ve thought they were implants except that they drooped too naturally to doubt, and moreover it seemed unlikely that implants would have come when no other gear or clothing did. Her hair, streaked in mud, ran just past her shoulders; her notably large brown eyes were the only features on her head that didn't seem oddly petite and small. John decided that, if "mousey" made any literary sense without referring to actual mice, this young woman had to be it. She took in every face present... until she noticed John’s.

The two joined their gazes for the five beats it took for Yui to question, then doubt, then confirm that she had been spotted.

John opened his mouth to question the girl when she broke her own invisibility spell by shouting another, "Mistisia Obscuris!" Her hands slammed upon the ground as most of her remaining mana was spent...

Yui Decker tried to cast Obscuring Fog but failed!

The squatting, dramatic young woman stared at the ground in stunned silence. The Order folk who were not falling into their own, private Hells now stared at the previously invisible woman. John thought to comfort her before asking some very obvious questions...