Author Topic: Nihil Offertory, or short stories by the hopelessly melodramatic LogosOfJ  (Read 4075 times)

Exactly what it says on the tin.
Let's get this train wreck started
*Note: Some chapters/ stories/ what have you might remain uncompleted at first posting and get edit-completed later. Sorry for the annoyance*

1. Character titles

1.1 Mistress of the Spark (1/?)

To most people, this would be insanity.

To most mages of most magical traditions, this would be laughable.

To a certain resident of Gensokyo, this was a not totally unexpected development that promised great reward and risk.

To a certain resident of the Forest of Magic, this was an idea that, despite its flaws, was quite workable. Not that she would risk it herself.

To a certain youkai walking in a field of flowers, this was a thrown gauntlet.

To a certain magician, this was the inevitable culmination of all of three months of careful research, three months of relearning basic mathematical and scientific notation, and five days of calculation. Naturally, this was also going to be a stepping stone to greater achievements.

To a certain shrine maiden, this was simply another mainly amusing but slightly alarming scheme of her best friend.

"Let me get this straight. You are going to Master Spark yourself."

A year ago, Reimu Hakurei would have at least feigned shock. She wondered what her indifference to this plan said about herself, or for that matter, the girl sitting across the table.

"Pretty much," Marisa Kirisame shot back.

"Of course, I already made proper preparations," she continued. "There's only a 10% chance of failure, and I'm pretty sure things can't go horribly wrong even at that."

"So why are you telling me?" Reimu replied, silently acknowledging Marisa's infectious enthusiasm.

"I'd like you there to cast Evil Sealing Circle in case some Eldritch Abomination springs into existence from the sheer amount of magical energy gathered in one place," Marisa returned with a smile.

"Cut the crap." Reimu didn't understand why Marisa insisted on carrying lies so far. It got to the extent where even Yukari professed second-guessing things that Marisa claimed to be true.

"What? You keep telling me to 'fully consider the consequences of my actions'. Anyhow, that's more likely than you think. A precedent has been set with that weird eyeball-thingy you fought a couple years ago," Marisa stated. 

"Really"

Reimu was silent for a moment. It seemed safe enough to believe. Besides, she wasn't exactly conversant in the finer details of magic theory. Must ask Alice or Patchouli later.

Marisa, noticing Reimu's hesitation, appealed to a witness. "Yeah. According to Alice, it was a leftover of one of Shinki's spell experiments"

After receiving an affirmative grunt, Marisa decided to end the conversation.

"Well, let's get going. At this rate, someone will drop a cow on the shrine just to stir things up again"

===========

The blue sky of a Gensokyo noon stretched over the horizon. Reimu and Marisa found a small hill upon which to practice. They had packed lunch, a few changes of clothes ("personal safety over material safety" cited Marisa) and their respective weapons. As she unpacked her Yin-Yang orb, Reimu broached the question,

"Anyways, why not invite Alice, anyways? She's certainly strong enough to act as perimeter security."

Marisa looked up from some last-minute, back of envelope calculations. She replied,

"You know how you have the longest boundary of life and death?"

Reimu was startled by how naturally her response came to mind.

"You want me to bomb in case anything goes wrong?"

Marisa remained silent for a few moments. She stopped scribbling and replied, beaming,

"Pretty much. Here goes nothing."

Marisa took out her Mini-Hakkero. She double-checked the wards on each of the eight segments, undid the anti-recoil ward, and unleashed its power.

[Inverted Blossom]: Narcissus Spark

The river of magically-charged plasma washed over Marisa, bathing her in a radiant flow. Her skin felt as if it was on fire, but the fact that her dress remained intact was enough to assure her that the pain was simply a result of infrared radiation. (how fascinating. The imported tomes noted that this activity was famously observed in attempts to build an "atomic weapon". Marisa had often wondered before why the outside world developed such firepower so late. After all, despite thousands of modifications, improvements, and retoolings, Master Spark was still part of an ancient branch of magic.)

Refocusing, Marisa felt the spell go through its second phase. The magical energy began to coalesce into a sphere, pulling back the streamers that flowed past her earlier. The surface drew closer and closer to her. Soon, the "body" of the spark had formed a thin layer over Marisa. The usual roar of a traditional Master Spark had dimmed to an ambient buzz.

"Impressive," remarked Reimu, completely unimpressed.

On cue, Marisa shot upwards until she was about three meters above the ground. Two burn marks were left where her feet once touched the ground. Marisa then began to fly, eschewing ordinary curvilinear flight for straight lines and hairpin turns. Surges of lightning crackled across the rainbow trail left by the hurtling Marisa.

"Attack me. Come on," Marisa challenged.

Reimu complied. She started out with waves of standard projectiles. Interestingly enough, instead of deflecting the barrages of needles, the "layer of spark" (Must ask Marisa for the actual name of this stuff, noted Reimu) burned the charms and amulets while melting the needles. She decided to voice her current opinions to Marisa.

"First off, you owe me for the needles. Iron doesn't grow on trees. Second off, isn't this extremely wasteful for a defensive barrier?"

"Try a spell card and you'll see," shot back Marisa.

"What? I thought you requested bombs for safety!" Reimu bellowed, peeved at the deception. A small matter for sure, but this shouldn't become a habbit

"Everyone else's, not mine." quipped Marisa. "If I hadn't figured out how to do this without frying myself earlier, I would have probably asked for Eirin to come along, too. The risk is leaving a smoking hole in the Hakurei barrier long enough for anything nasty to slip through."

"Come on, Marisa, the outside world can't be as bad as the stuff Yukari imports. Anyhow..."

"Exactly!" interjected Marisa. "Whether Kourin's conjecture that only forgotten things can enter Gensokyo is true or false, we can be sure that most things that enter a) have a fictional component and b) are known at least to themselves. Which means that just about any of the outside world's imaginings can get here"

"My point is that I have only so many spellcards," noted Reimu.

"Point taken. Still, try it." Marisa punctuated her sentence by flipping backwards and hurtling towards the ground.

"Sure."

[Fantasy Seal]: Concentrate

Five orbs of light manifested themselves with a flash. They circled Reimu along paths that suggested a sphere before converging on Marisa. They easily swam through the trails of spark still hanging in the air. Just as normal.

When the orbs reached Marisa, the normal ceased to exist. Instead of the usual flash and explosion, the projectiles began to shrink. A few seconds after impact, Reimu could see that her attack had been incorporated into Marisa's layer of magic; splotches of rainbow slowly faded to the washed-out yellow of the rest of the spell.

[Treasure Sign]: Yin-Yang Sanctifier Orb

Reimu's Yin-Yang orb began to glow. With a flick of Reimu's hand, the ball soared towards Marisa.

The magical energy dissipated faster this time, but the orb remained "stuck" for ten seconds until it was ejected with an unceremonious *pop*.

Again, highly unusual. Reimu decided to *politely ask* Yukari about the Yin-Yang orb later. Her thoughts wandered through the realm of that irritatingly cryptic *person* before happening across an idea. A smile emerged.

Marisa almost ended the spell in panic when she felt something grip her right shoulder. However, a cursory check confirmed that the spell was still working properly and that there were not any new sources of magic around, ruling out a summoning. Figuring that the three plausible culprits would have already done whatever they planned, Marisa summoned her courage and looked back....

to get poked in the cheek.

"Gotcha." noted Reimu.

"blasted Gaphax," muttered Marisa. It's my defeat. I need another way to counter that

She raised her arm and pointed to the sky. Lightning surged along her figure.

"This is the last trial. Let me ask you a question," shouted Marisa.

Reimu rolled her eyes. Yep. Now's the perfect time to be dramatic.

"Sure. And there's no need to yell."

"Where am I pointing?"

In order to avoid the potential problems of letting loose a Master Spark in her internal organs, Marisa had arranged for the membrane of "spark plasma" (I need a better name for this, commented Marisa) to remain safely outside her person.

The downside of such an arrangement was that it also left her blind and hearing-impaired.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2011, 02:52:00 PM by LogosOfJ »

Iced Fairy

  • So like if you try to hurt alkaza
  • *
  • I will set you on fire k'?
    • Daisukima Dan Blog
Hm... Looks like an interesting concept.  Especially if the one line near the start is foreshadowing.  But it cuts off a little suddenly, and you've got a mild unattended dialogue problem, but that's easy to fix.  Hope to see more in the future.

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, I cannot focus on any given thread for any significant amount of time, and have a disturbing tendency to make Cannon Sues. I will try to curb the later and vent the former with the following sketch.

2. Slightly Heretical backstories:

2.1 the Hakurei bloodline (1/?)

Do you wish for power?

Sakura Hakurei nodded.

Is that all?

Sakura shook like a leaf at the altar. Her tear-stained face and sobs seemed to sum up her condition and the condition of all the others who had come to this room, expecting either greatness or death, the desperate cling, the final toss of the dice.

However, her voice was imbued with the immovable quality that resounded through the mountain upon which she was born, the timeless room in which she stood.....

....and the exhortation passed down through generations by the priests and priestesses to never  enter the shrine upon the hill one hour's walk from the village.

Sakura didn't care. What did they know? They stood by as her family died. Claiming that it was "natural" for such monstrosities to feast upon humans. As if they would have done the same if their own children were being eaten. Pah. Hypocrites. If the hierarchy denied her, she could take up the case directly to the gods themselves.

"......Justice......"

Excellent. Unseal me, and you and your descendants shall be blessed forever.

Her hands moved with unnatural certainty, exhibiting the divine grace of those without hesitation. A quick flick of her right hand opened the veins on her left. The blood flowed over a pair of spheres which appeared to be pearls of half-meter diameter, washing away centuries of spells and staining half of each a deep crimson.

At once, cracks began to appear in the air above the altar. A bright light flashed momentarily before breaking, before fading again.

"I THANK YOU"

Sakura looked at the apparent source of the voice. A silhouette of a person appeared sitting upon the cracked altar.

"Who are you?", she asked.

"I AM", replied the figure. "THE GOD ENSHRINED HERE. STATE YOUR NAME"

"Sakura of Hakurei. Do you have a name?" Sakura continued her query.

"MY NAME HAS BEEN LOST TO ETERNITY. AS GRATITUDE DIRECTS ME, FROM THIS DAY FORTH, I SHALL BE THE GOD OF HAKUREI. SO LONG AS YOUR DESCENDANTS PRAISE ME, I SHALL GRANT THEM MY MIGHT."

=======
The town was abuzz with chatter. Just a few short weeks ago, an entire tract of farmland had been annihilated. All the buildings from the hovels of the poorest to the houses of the magistrates were burned down to the foundation. Not a single survivor was found. "Youkai", whispered the wise old men of the village.

Even stranger was the young girl who walked into the town square, clothed in rags but bedecked with countless charms of archaic origin. She had demanded to know where to find the closest nest of Youkai and set off without so much as buying food.

Later that day, she had returned with a brace of fresh corpses.

Among them were two kappa, a tengu, and a Yuki-Onna. The rest were pulverized so thoroughly that only the most experienced of the priestesses risked an identification.

"Is that... a three-tailed kitsune?"

"This... is an oni! How did she manage to defeat one through physical force?"

Three others remained unidentified. One had ears that could have been a wolf's or a cat's, but the lack of a tail made it impossible to determine.

The others were more troubling. They were suffused with incredible amounts of magic, but there were no identifying features. Moreover, one of them had a charm around its neck that resembled those of a nearby shrine.

The oldest, a crone of sixty summers, glanced at her chosen successor, who was already beginning to examine the completely unmarked body. Their eyes met, and, though no words were exchanged, one thought rippled through the crowd.

We have a monster on our hands.
========
Rumors spread faster than deeds. By the end of the day, there were whispered conferences among even the recent visitors of the extraordinary new hunter.

"I hear that she is a magician who wields a forgotten school of magic."

"Really? Auntie thinks that she's the heir to Izanami's power over death"

"She's an Oni!  That's the only way she could have beat them up so badly!"

"But she just walked into the shrine grounds! She can't be a Youkai!"

The watching crowd quieted down as the girl, with the help of a few of the shrine maidens, dragged the corpses to the shrine gate.

BEING FEARED IS GREAT, IS IT NOT?

Yes, thought Sakura.

YOUR VENGEANCE STILL HAS A LONG ROAD TO TRAVEL. WILL YOU CONTINUE WITH THESE HIEROPHANTS?

No.

WHY NOT?

I cooled my head while killing those youkai and the maiden who stood by without doing anything. It would not be justice to simply hunt those in shrines for the flaws of a few.

YOU WISHED FOR THE BURNING OF ALL SHRINES AND THE SLAUGHTER OF THEM ALL NOT SO LONG AGO. HOW FICKLE YOUR JUSTICE IS.

Justice is more than just vengeance. There is also the restorative aspect as well. I discovered this in the eyes of that maiden.

AND YET YOU STILL KILLED HER?

.....I do not know why.....

PERHAPS IT WAS THE ECSTATIC RUSH OF POWER? FEAR AND VENGEANCE ARE GREAT FORCES.

.....

VERY WELL. HOWEVER YOU CHOOSE, I SHALL STAND BY YOU.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2011, 10:01:00 AM by LogosOfJ »

3. Spell card ideas
(Backstories offered on request)
(will post if ever made real in Danmakufu)

3.1 [Schwartzwelt]  (Rumia/Koishi fusion)

[Schwartzwelt]: Heart of Darkness
When beings are not illuminated, they do not gaze upon themselves.
When they step into darkness, they try to drown their own shadows in other shadows.
As this heart of ebony beats, it pumps drowned desires left behind in the blood.
In short, a very Gothic piece.

Basic idea for shot pattern:
a central "danger area" (giant projectile/wall of projectiles") that rhythmically expands and contracts while dispersing "theme" projectiles.

Straight "spears" and wide sprays (random dispersion of a few predictable "templates") (rage)
Homing projectiles and lasers (obsession)
Circles of projectiles that "pop in" around the player and then disperse (sadism, helplessness, etc)

[Schwartzwelt]: Mystery-Worship
Humans in their folly sanctify what they do not comprehend,
Glorifying their own ignorance and calling that wisdom.
Youkai have no such attachments, and hence refuse to be sure of the world,
Laughing at attempts to understand, so sure of futility.
I wonder who is the greater fool?

Basic idea for shot pattern:
Semirandom, procedurally-generated (so memorization doesn't work)
Basically, a pattern is traced on the screen. The trail fills with medium projectiles, each of which "decays" into smaller bullets. Decay is random, but the shot pattern is adjusted to fire in arc of lowest bullet density.

[Schwartzwelt]: Double-blind
The observer puts a thumb on the scales when trying to steady it for reading.
Test subjects do as they are told.
"Get better", they are commanded,
and so they do.
Neither must know.

Shot pattern:
100% gimmick. Have a "sight range" for caster and an illuminated area, rest in darkness. You can only be hurt in the illuminated area or in the boss's "sight range." Bullets stop existing in the dark area; you can't see where you are but are safe. The trick is to exit and enter the illuminated area so that you are in it when the boss is looking at it to dodge, and slipping out when the boss is not.

Since I can't do characters, how about settings?

Scenario a) Gensokyo is couched in the actual Shin Megami Tensei multiverse (complete with Gameplay Mechanic fusion)

Gensokyo is basically a mix of refuge and prison for unique demons, including the Concept of Nature (more on this later)

For example, spells in SMT are mainly standardized (Pyro Jack, Sumerian deities, Hindu Deities, Chinese Deities, Greek deities etc. use the same spell system (For elemental spells, the root (agi, bufu, garu, zan, etc.) plus pre-/post- fixes for strength, AoE, etc).
Unique spells tend to be rare and powerful (Die for Me, Morning Star, Black Viper, etc.) or human-only (Freikugel and Freishutz, if I am not mistaken). Perhaps, like with the adoption of single "modern" languages in places once populated with hundreds or thousands of dialects, this was a push to greater ability to communicate (After all, there is no small amount of interaction among gods that can be classified as hostile. Just as sharing a language helps facilitate barrages of witty banter/ verbal abuse/ HAM TO HAM combat, sharing a spell system helps facilitate "artistic" fighting (for example, so whatever pun you make based on the elemental system/attack priority etc. will be understood everywhere)) as well as providing a quick recourse to the no-nonsense demonic equivalent to bare-knuckle brawling
 (A punch is a punch. An elbow is an elbow. A guard is a guard. No, I do not care that Firaga flares above its target while Fireball creates a circular flare while Din's fire must be manually targeted. Just give me a fire spell that connects.).
In a way, the standardization is a move to the practical, with big-names preserving a couple of their favorites. (Perhaps a maximum of one unique ability per Demon, with special provisions for certain factions and individuals). Moreover, the addition and changing of spells throughout the series can be seen as a sort of "updating" of the official language.

Gensokyo can be seen as a museum or historical reserve for the equivalent of otherwise "dead" and/or forbidden languages. (An expression of Gensokyo as a "refuge of the forgotten" and a possible explanation for the relative importance of history in Gensokyo: both human and Youkai authorities have invested much in recording and controlling history (Hidea family and Hakutaku/Bai Zhe respectively in order to either please external authorities or gain power over other residents)

Yakumo and Hakurei, which maintain the barrier, might be powerful entities imprisoned in the area.

A similar result can be achieved by considering the naming of spells as a "reductionist" approach; battles are actually very fast and the action of a spell/physical action that is named is part of an ongoing "combo". For example, some divine fireworks put up by Zeus and Thor can be decomposed into a number of "components" of different intensity, radius, and elemental properties (For the sake of the analogy with physics, let's call this Ele-Charge). Uniques are more important in this case, as they represent elements that are irreducible. Danmaku spell-cards (or even basic shot) is not the equivalent of one cast of a spell; they consist of alternating/simultaneous expulsion of magic of a given Ele-Charge.

The abundance and varieties of faeries in Gensokyo derives from the sealing of the Concept of Nature. In order to weaken Mem Aleph (the archetypal mother goddess), YHVH ordered the separation and capture of this aspect, sealing it in Hell so that His rivals could not use its power. This later came to bite YHVH in the rear end when Lucifer stole that power to prevent His use of it; somewhere along the line, it falls under the control of Yukari Yakumo, who imprisons it in what would later become Gensokyo and uses its power to fend of intrusions.

WMG FTW. Will complete this rant over time
« Last Edit: June 06, 2011, 02:06:39 PM by LogosOfJ »