Storytime Thread - Legends of the Wulin Magical Girls, the Third

Well, at worst it will be better than fucking Force.

I haven't read it, is it worse than Vivid? What a shame.

I thought ViViD was pretty okay. It's a shonen battle manga that just happens to include Magical Girl-ish characters, but it's fun for what it is.

Force is pretty god damn terrible. It ruins the attempts at themes Nanoha previously did.

They introduce new Totally Badass villains who are immune to magic and require the main characters to swap to Totally Badass Lethal Weapons and go for the kill. See how badass they are after they curbstomp members of the Wolkenritter!

It reads like bad fanfic.

Back on the liner, Tazzari and Anai made use of the ship's holoprojection room to have a little conference with Yvenne and Sephia, the Belkan noblelady and her Knight that have aided us in the past. The reason for this is a suspicion of Tazzari's that she'd had since we fought Orryx ages ago.

The conversation is short, mostly to have mercy on Anai, who is still so unaccustomed to technology that being able to interact with those two "in the flesh" in spite of them being however many gazillion light years away now nearly blows her mind.

Of course, the other three DO accomplish blowing her mind, because through a quiet test they've discovered that Anai is, in fact, ALSO related to Belkan nobility of old. She can, in fact, trace her magical lineage straight back to Lady Merlin, one of the greatest sages ever to live in Belka's history, ageless and immortal and mysterious.

(No, there's not a lot of heavy-handed Arthurian flavoring in this game, why would you say that?)

Anai leaves to process the revelation, and Sephia leaves as well, to continue her testing, leaving Tazzari and Yvenne to chatter, until Atalanta walks in. Yvenne greets the temporary Knight with a smile until Atalanta (Alpha) scowls it up, continuing to badmouth Delta.

Eventually, she and Yvenne get into a shouting match...except Yvenne is clearly directing it. Every barb, every insult is carefully crafted to just make her madder and madder.

Tazzari quails in a corner. Zamiel, the bound spirit that serves Sephia, appears and sits next to her, offering her popcorn to watch the fireworks.

Alpha continues to just take every bit of bait Yvenne throws out, right down to magic sputtering to life around her hands and, when she gets mad enough, leaking from her eyes. But it's not normal stuff, oh no. It's flickery and black. Unhealthy to even look at.

Well, yes, it is alright by itself, but it isn't even similar to the previous series. Cute magical martial artists fighting and doing cute things is a good concept, though.

That sounds pretty terrible, yeah. I guess we can only hope Vivid Strike is somehow good.

Part of the issue is that the writers seem afraid to not have Nanoha be the core of a story.

StrikerS would have been much better with just the new cadets and more time to explore the villians personality. I think they could tell a good story in the universe without having Nanoha as more than a background character.

Vivid and Force are both pretty awful.

Vivid invents a brand new magical martial art, introduces yet another Legendary Warrior King that's trapped in a loli body, and seems like they're trying to run Dragonball in Nanoha land, right down to the Tournament, but lacks the charm of Dragonball and sacrifices the magical girl/boy feel of previous Nanoha series in favor of the focus on shonen attributes.

Force invents brand new anti-magic weapons and introduces another 'family' villain group. This one's darker and edgier, though, since they have to kill people to survive and brag about how much they enjoy doing evil shit. The main character is basically the Subaru to Subaru's Nanohacrush, except she also might want to fuck him.

About the only upside is that they finally just turn Nanoha into a Gundam.

At the least, ViVid Strike is by the same studio that did the first three series and the movies. Don't know anything about the writing, though.

At one point, Yvenne drives the final nail in the coffin by stating that Alpha's words basically establish her as EXACTLY the kind of Belkan that attacked Hyperion a thousand years ago. Alpha swears to end her, and Yvenne does the mocking laugh and says yep, you'd be right at home leading the vanguard of the forces that invaded.

Alpha's so mad she goes incoherent, calling Yvenne a Belkan, like it's some sort of insult. Of course, that's what she IS, so...mission accomplished? I guess?

Zamiel politely interrupts the festivities, stalks over, and grabs Alpha by the collar, hoisting her off the ground with no effort. This alone is a bit of a surprise, but while Zamiel threatens to devour Alpha's soul if she dares harm Zamiel's family, the green-haired girl tries to regain her bravado by saying she's just an illusion so it's so many big words.

So Tazzari and Yvenne end the holocall.

And Zamiel is still there, still holding Alpha by the collar.

Alpha freaks the FUCK out and runs as soon as Zamiel lets her go. Many giggles are had.

Elsewhere on the ship, Alexa and Atalanta Beta are having a friendly spar...

How overly edgy are the villains in Force?

One's introduced in a church full of nuns he just slaughtered. Not that edgy for a lot of series, but a pretty big drop for Nanoha.

>but while Zamiel threatens to devour Alpha's soul

Clearly she needs to play the greatest song in the world.

Doesn't help that we're supposed to treat them like the cyborgs in StrokerS.

One of the upsides of ViViD is seeing the various Combat Cyborgs get some extra screentime, IMO.

Honestly, I'm not really a fan of them? But I don't hate them.

I can't think of anyone I've met who actually likes the Huckbeins, beyond the writer himself.

>the LotW Nanoha guy is sharing more info

Does it count if I like the mech by the same name?

They ruined the Vanishing Trooper with those terrible wannabe villians.

Nah, the mech's fine.

Because why not, tossing in a bit of related art. The GM got me the art commission for Christmas, and it came out awesome. Yvenne, one of the NPC's and part of a pair of ex-PC's of mine and the GM's, who are mostly background characters. They're fun to play around with, but we intentionally keep them out of the plot most of the time and, if they are around, they're always in a support role. This is the PC's story, not theirs.

Their friendly spar begins with some exploration. They're looking for one of the ship's holo rooms to practice in, and find that of the three rooms, one is reserved by Keira and Alpha. Beta, who is hilariously irreverent toward the chain of command, says she's forbidden from directly going in there, but if she's chasing an enemy who happens to know that the passcode to enter their locked session is 52581 then she'll probably get a pass...

Alexa flees, Beta gives "chase," and they run into the sim room. It's foresty inside, nice and green and sunny, and there's the sound of a couple of people giggling. They spy, and find Keira (the assassin) and Alpha engaged in a romping game of lip-lock that has Beta absolutely flabbergasted. Alexa drags her out quietly and they go into another room to actually spar.

In the fighting, Alexa gets first hit, Beta gets first blood, but Alexa missteps and crunches a control for the fake environment underfoot. Things proceed okay for a while until a storm brews, and lightning strikes everywhere. Their spar continues in spite of the storm, until Beta freaks out. Alexa turns around to see--

--a tornado, of all goddamn things, heading straight for them, spewing lightning. It picks them up and throws them against the room's wall hard, which leads to them calling a truce on their sparring.

Beta scrambles to wirelessly interface with the room's system, her hacking device in hand. Alexa works her own attempt. Piggybacking off each other, they dodge murderously sharp hailstones and flaming acid rain.

Someone or something force-restarts Beta's hacking device.

Alexa finds resistance on her end of things as well, like someone's actively trying to keep them out.

The hail turns flaming as well. And electrified.

Alexa takes a hailstone to the head and falls over, dazed; Beta takes TWO and falls on top of her, barely conscious.

Then the weather stops.

Sounds like every holosuite episode ever.

Barely conscious, struggling to keep her eyes open, Alexa hears footsteps and giggles, and a pair of voices: one that sounds like Delta, and one that's got to be Keira. They discuss killing her, but "Miss M" said not to, so they don't. And as for catching Beta in it too, well, too bad, she needs to learn how to follow orders.

They also mention something about a "Giant's Blade" that they're looking for, as well as raiding the CIVILIAN CRUISE SHIP for more "goodies" to put a hole in Achilles with. Like the hundred-ton graviton bomb they nabbed from that "crazy inventor" back on Mid (Sephia).

And then Alexa passes out.

Two hours later, she wakes up, still underneath Beta in the holo suite. After some discussion she disables Beta by hitting her hard in a vulnerable location (once again provided by Beta herself) and takes her to a med lab, where she, ahem..."borrows" some medical equipment and sends a message to Tazzari to come join her.

Tazzari heads down and together, using known blueprints of the Atalanta series, they cut into Beta's neck, finding an odd extra bit attached to her brain stem. Tazzari's electronic investigation indicates that the device physically prevents her from not following orders. Perhaps oddest of all, though? It seems to be an aftermarket add-on, for lack of a better term.

Tazzari streams their findings to Circe, who instantly identifies the module as being part and parcel of the Ajax™ line of myrmidons from Hyperion--the forerunning line to the Atalantas™ and noted for basically being human rights violations for exactly this reason.

They remove the device and patch her up, and Beta, who is grateful for the help but still crazy, goes back as not quite a double agent.

And that is the rest of the setup from the cruise ship. BACK TO THE PLANET'S SURFACE!

The control unit was a big reveal at the time. We knew Hyperion exercised some control over their Cyborgs, and that the Atalanta's were designed to be more independent than the Ajax line, but we hadn't realized it extended to literal mind control and robbing them of free will. Tazzari got pretty fucking mad about the whole thing.

Who is the artist for these? They are pretty good.

You can find his tumblr at lonekakapo.tumblr.com/

He's done a lot of art for the game, the OP picture is one of them. He's also a pretty cool guy, he's very communicative during the commission process and works hard to make sure he gets it right. I'd recommend him as an artist.

Damn I wish I was a part of this campaign (or at the very least knew a GM who wanted to run a Nanoha-themed campaign)

Any suggestions on how to run it?

In one of the players experience, it's all about the characters. The whole interdimensional magic starfleet aspect of the setting can be chopped and changed or reinterpreted as you like, but the core of the style of the game and all is relatable characters who you can come to care for, and this applies equally to allies or enemies. Unless they're some sort of beast or monster, enemies should always be at least somewhat sympathetic and able to be empathized with.

>implying the StrikerS villain was ever sympathetic

Eh, when you find out the background and why he is the way he is, you can at least have some empathy for him. It doesn't stop him being a villain, but it makes him feel like a person rather than a straight up monster.

A's had the best villain imo, though Fate's mom had some relateable parts to her backstory. I guess it's just because the plot of StrikerS was so disjointed

A's is the best of the Nanoha franchise, straight up. It does basically everything better than every other installment, before or since.

So true. Everything about it was just so fantastic and so different from your run-of-the-mill mahou shoujo that honestly not many other shows like it have surpassed yet. Now if only StrikerS had been better. Hopefully Vivid Strike will be good.

How do you deal with the ranking system in Nanoha?

Mostly as a background detail, honestly. Relative linker core strength is something we've discussed IC and defined in our backgrounds, but in terms of character competence we're all on the same level. People with less powerful linker cores make up for it in terms of skill, technology or abilities like elemental affinities, Rare Skills or Inherent Skills.

People with higher ranks and levels of ability do exist, to clarify. But the PC's are all on the same level, somewhere around the low end of C-Rank, at least for the moment. They've still yet to graduate the academy, so they're very talented for students, and we intentionally set things significantly below protagonist level for the shows.

Apology bump. We've been rather distracted by an emotional scene going on in the game, which hopefully OP's story will reach at some point.

OP here. I will try to get some more out tonight, now that session has ended (well, thankfully).

While the rest of us are acclimating to the demands of 1.3G Francisco, Altea heads to the gym to meet up with her old friends from home. There are a couple of them there already, including another girl with her size and strength, and a much shorter, though still muscular, boy.

Altea, her mom, and her friend Nadia here are examples of the Giantblooded, a legacy on Francisco of its giants from the days of yore. The giants were like unto gods, and could cut starships in half with their swords while standing with their feet in the world's mountains...which is how they successfully repulsed all of Belka's attempts at invasion. Unfortunately, it cost the life of all of them in the process. These days, a precious few of the natives exhibit the blood of the giants, marking them as special individuals in their culture. The reverence around the giants also explains why the Saint Church and other staples of "modern" TSAB culture haven't really taken root on Francisco as heavily.

I could go on, but I'll let Altea's player expound on the (fantastic) worldbuilding he and the GM did for it if he wants to.

While they're at the gym, it slips out that over in the nearby mountain range, there's been a lot of excitement, as reportedly a "rockslide" has exposed one of the giant's graves. There a ton of locals going to see, as well as the odd TSAB surveying team or two (as Francisco is an Administered World, the bureau has a presence, even if they don't fully buy in to the culture).

Altea runs into a couple of her other old friends--a pair of twins, Clara and Simon, with her in pants and him in the skirt. He's really bishounen, okay? They congratulate her as well, but unfortunately duty calls; they have to scoot off quickly to go investigate a report of an unauthorized shuttle touchdown out in the middle of nowhere. Need to make sure someone's not trying to set up a smuggling op or whatever.

Then it's off to find Marcus.

I'll do a really brief writeup of the Giants and Franciscan culture before I go to sleep.

Basically, the Giants were from a civilization that peaked around the same time Belka did, and so the two groups clashed for a protracted period of time. Unfortunately, the giants began to lose, and chose to flee their home and settle on the far reaches, where Belka would have no interest and they could rebuild. They chose the planet Francisco because they believed it did not have any sentient life, but missed the tiny groupings of humans that struggled to survive on the planet. They hid away in the mountains, realizing their mistake when a few curious humans intruded on their territory.

The Belkan Jager family, in the mean time, had the world's biggest vendetta/boner for fighting the giants ,and had managed to track them slowly but surely to their new world. The first Belkan ship entered orbit shortly after the people of Francisco decided maybe a few things should be written down for future generations.

The giants repelled the scouts, but realized that the Jagers knew where they were, and wouldn't stop. They began a program of uplifting on the humans, granting them technology to defend themselves and helping them create the first devices for their magically active people. The Belkans came again, and again, and the giants dwindled.

Marcus had bet Altea she couldn't get in to Cerberus and now owes her money. He's another old friend of hers, and for all her neutronium-shaming denseness, the two had been close to being boyfriend and girlfriend back then.

Marcus is also a tremendous slacker, and shirks every duty he can, every way that he can. And yet somehow, he is fantastically well-informed.

Enough so that he tells Altea the rumor is the dig site uncovered is a full giant's body...including his weapons and armor.

This is the equivalent to an earthquake in the Middle East cracking open a cave that spills out gold-plated tablets with all Ten Commandments on it. Like, the cultural and religious significance, should the story get out, would just make the population explode in awe.

Marcus' bat familiar, Jules, is basically the only thing keeping him alive; she is constantly exasperated by his lackadaisical behavior and is slightly jealous that he hangs upside down (thanks to his talent with gravity magic) better than she does.

Anyway, they part ways again. Tazzari and Claire try to hit the gym with Nadia, who works them mercilessly and leaves them both as unmoving, exhausted wrecks. It's all good, though, it's helping them to work against the higher gravity!

The next day, after Altea's mom made a dinner that invoked multiple food comas, and a similarly-sized breakfast, plans are made to maybe go visit the mountain rockslide/giant grave, depending on if Altea's mom (who is also a retired member of the planetary defense force) can pull strings.

Then Tazzari makes a connection--Hadn't...Alpha and Keira said something to each other in that recording Alexa took after that tornado/flaming hail/etc., about a "Giant's Blade?" And then there was that random shuttle touchdown in the middle of nowhere...

When one final Jager ship came, centuries after first contact, the Last Giant came down from the mountains to face him. Volker Jager stepped forward, eager to add another giant's skull to his family's trophy room, and lunged with the ancestral weapon of his family, the Kinslayer Spear (made from Giant Bone to facilitate hunting Giants). He struck a fatal blow after a short exchange, but the Last Giant caught him as he gloated and crushed him to pulp before hurling the cursed spear into the atmosphere. The legend goes that as the people gathered around the dying giant to mourn, he daubed them with his blood and made them his kin, so they could protect the world in his stead. Thus the first Giantblooded arose.

Due to their lack of existing civilization prior to uplifting, the populace tend to view the Giants as a sort of godlike big brother watching out for them (unaware of the actual history as a warrior civilization and the accident that brought them to this world). The people of Francisco value warriors highly, viewing the Giantblooded as living demigods in their own right. They lack most natural resources, since the majority of the planet's water is deep below the surface, rising due to tectonic activity or the occasional cave spring. They view the mountains as akin to tombs, and will only rarely venture into them (and usually with some sort of holy man escort).

Paranoia and worry start to build. Calls are made. Turns out the twins had in fact been to the shuttle, but its only occupant was a blue-haired girl, quiet, but charming "in her own way." Atalanta Gamma.

After some consternation, Altea managed to contact a friend whose dad offered to take the group of us to the mountains. On our way to her friend's house, we run into Achilles again (yay!), who at least displays enough awareness to beg off actually going to the mountain; he's sure they'll see it as an invasion.

So up we go, meeting the guy at the entrance. He explains the TSAB kind of had to pull rank here because there WAS an unclassified, unknown magical response from the gravesite, and they needed to rule out Lost Logia or other troublesome things. Along the way through the tunnel, which is very long, the rock goes from rough to smooth-cut to "so polished, this *had* to have been done by magic," until finally the chamber itself: a massive, empty cavern, stretching higher than the hastily erected lighting reaches, occupied only by a single, stone bed, upon which lies a figure.

An ENORMOUS figure. Clad in form-hiding plates of armor and clutching an enormous sword in its hands, the giant is a regal figure even lying there dead.

Altea feels a call, her heritage speaking. She steps forward and reaches for the sword, touching it, and a bright white light flashes--

--And Altea suddenly finds herself on top of the world. Lasers carve chunks of the planet from under her. People are dying...because of her. She can feel the attacks, the sting of arrows and lances, but they don't *hurt* unless she allows them to. A battleship in the sky unleashes blast after blast, but she pays them no mind.

And then she realizes...if she dies, it will end. The lives of many outweigh the life of one, no matter how mighty. Her grip on the sword slackens, and she goes to her knees--this is no choice. It is an obligation, a duty, and hers alone.

A bright white light flashes--

--And Altea flops on her back in the cavern. There's blood on her hands, but no cut, and the rest of us are staring or blinking away the flash. We try to have Altea explain what she saw...

>"I was fighting. There were ships and lasers, and explosions, and I...I died..."
>"CRAP AM I DEAD?!"

After calming her down, we checked with the rest of us there--Atalantas Delta and Epsilon--to make sure no one else was hallucinating. Nope, all good. Epsilon even described it for us, in her usual manner:

>"Oh, yeah! She touched the sleeping giant's sword and there was runes and a flash and BOOM!"

Tazzari fastened onto the "sleeping" in that sentence like a shark scenting blood. After all, this is a grave. The giant's dead.

>"Oh yeah. I saw it breathe!"

WHAT.

...

And now OP must take a break for weak physical needs like sleep. I'll be back tomorrow with more. In the meantime, any questions or comments about setting, plot, rules, etc. are welcomed and encouraged.

>Tazzari fastened onto the "sleeping" in that sentence like a shark scenting blood. After all, this is a grave. The giant's dead.
That is not dead which can eternal lie...

GM here, if anyone has questions about the game.

muh clay more when?

...

needs moar tubes

...

Yeah, it's kinda hilarious how they are Sonic OC levels of edgy.

...

OP arises from sleep!

I care not about the story or the investment in it by those here in this thread. I am only here for faps.

Later at night, after everyone is shuffled away from the grave site by the TSAB and local teams while they all try to figure out what the light show was about, Altea has a conversation with Reiko, where the latter confesses that she's crushing hard on Altea, and poor Altea has to let her down, being straight and all. Reiko takes it like a champ, though, and in fact Altea invites her to dinner, along with the twins and whomever Simon happens to be making out with at the moment of her call.

They arrive at dinner, and Clara, Reiko, and Altea get to meet his girlfriend--Atalanta Gamma. The blue-haired Atalanta model is still quiet and reserved, but she actually seems to be enjoying Simon's company, actually showing emotion around him. Simon says (hah) that Gamma told him all her sisters were here, and Altea asks who they are. He replies with "Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Epsilon," and Altea lights up. She knows some of those names! She calls them to invite them to the dinner as well, before anyone can object!

Delta answers first, and Epsilon a second later--the tiny blonde has found a candy shop. This is bad news. Altea explains that she's found Gamma, and Delta instantly goes into boss mode (as she, like Alpha, is intended to be a Command model; the series was designed to fight in 3-part units, so every third would have been a command model...until it was discontinued during Epsilon's development). She requests Altea ask Gamma a question:

>"Ask her, expressly from me, if the nature of the interest in Giants is related to a Chalkaspis, Eirènè or Harpagè mission."

So Altea does. Or tries, at least. She slaughters the first word so bad she turns the call over to Gamma, who panics--the first non-Simon-related emotion anyone at the table has seen out of her. Delta pulls rank AND an override code, Gamma reveals "Harpagè" and flees as Delta nods and cuts the call.

Simon is upset at his date leaving, naturally, but Altea laughs it off, saying Gamma'll be back, she's a nice girl, and besides, siblings are like that, you're twins, you should know.

Then she introduces the twins to Reiko, who shows off Orryx, bound inside a ring. Altea waves to him and says hi, and he makes a rude gesture at her from within his jeweled prison, but the sealing process means none can hear him. Mwahaha.

Later on, we gather and discuss what the word Harpagè might mean. Epsilon flat out tells us it means "steal" or "loot," but exactly what might be the target of that is still up in the air. Altea tells us about her vision, too, and Tazzari mentions that her vision sounds almost entirely like the story we've been told of the Last Giant...except that can't be him in the cave, because he's buried in the middle of the planet's largest city. So ???

Alexa uses her magic orb to check on some communication methods that Alpha and her cronies might not be able to crack, and finds a bit of a "present" from Beta, from the night before:

It's a video, Alpha and Gamma, looking out over one of Francisco's deserts, the former absolutely furious. She can't believe that somehow Gamma didn't realize that Delta was no longer in the command structure, that her traitorous nature meant she couldn't give override commands anymore.

And meanwhile she is beating the shit out of Gamma, domestic abuse-style. The passive Gamma can only stand there and take the backhands across her face, until finally Alpha sighs and orders her to get lost.

We know it's from Beta because the video looks like it came from a sniper scope, and Epsilon didn't take credit.

Once everyone spends their fury at the video, Altea remembers one other thing: Oh yeah, yesterday someone came to visit her house, a regal-looking chick in black and gold, with blue hair and a long white stripe in it.

Lady Sara Jaeger.

To step back to the prior threads, her brother Hugo Jaeger had fought Alexa in the tournament and been humiliated. Sara seemed much more level-headed, but still with an infuriating superiority complex...just she seemed to honestly believe it, as opposed to Hugo's lording it over everybody. Not quite a sense of noblesse oblige, but still not as annoying.

Anyway, Sara had come to extend an invitation to tea aboard her ship to Alexa, who wasn't at Altea's home. They had initially been at least cordial to each other, until Sara brought up how the Jaegers hunted the giants...for the "protection" of the common folk.

Uh huh sure.

So Altea got about as rude as she ever gets, and told Sara she'd deliver the invitation to Alexa but I think it's about time you get out of my house.

Sara...doesn't understand the hostility, but leaves anyway.

So now we plan and plot to abuse the invitation and have EVERYBODY pile onto the transport up to Sara's ship. Except Altea doesn't want to be around her, and Tazzari decides to stay on-planet too, just in case.

Alexa, Ivory, Claire, Epsilon, and Ainlinn head on up to the ship, and Sara meets us there. Alexa requests a tour, which gets a brilliant smile from Sara that is quickly snuffed out.

...Odd.

We get to see her show off her summoning technique, involving a holographic pentagram, slicing her palm, and some seriously creepy denizens of Below reaching up for us before she waves a hand and dispels the summon. Alexa asks if she was showing off for our benefit, and with the tiniest of blushes she demurs.

The tour goes on. Meanwhile, planetside, Tazzari and Circe take a walk and discuss Circe's problem she's been working on--that of TSAB-Hyperion cooperation. There are three problems she lays out:

-Hyperion will not accept any magical authority over itself.

-TSAB will not accept a magical power rising that does not obey their laws.

-Without experience on the matter, Hyperion's opinion won't change.

Tazzari offers an idea of a sort of exchange program, but while it might be a good plan in theory, only two of the four heads of Hyperion were even remotely in favor of cooperation--and one, Strategos Plouton, is sleeping off a coma.His subordinate is more or less a war hawk, in favor of actively punishing the Bureau; only the Pterarchos, the commander of their air forces, holds them back from committing to a hot war.

Tazzari and Circe (and Anai) then end up on a date of sorts, embarrassing themselves horribly by making out repeatedly in public, because that's the kind of shenanigans they get up to when left alone. And yes, I do mean all three get into it.

Back up on the Jaeger ship, our tour continues. Sara leads us to a frankly massive library, easily a hundred meters or more long and several stories tall--an impressive, ostentatious waste of space on board what's supposed to be a warship. On one wall is a massive family tree, though Alexa notices there are a few blank spots in every generation--including one in Sara and Hugo's.

She points it out, but Sara looks unconcerned, parroting a family line.

>"Those who cannot keep up with the hunt will be left behind."

Except our adorable little sniper has eagle eyes and sends us a discreet message saying Sara flinched, ever so slightly...and bit her lip.

...Odder.

Claire engages her in conversation while the others check out the library. She tries to talk Sara into extracting the Belkan Noble stick from her butt, and actually manages to coax the ghost of a smile when she brings up Hugo and Sara says she knows EXACTLY how much to expect from her brother.

Then a maid knocks on the library door and enters bearing tea. The maid--

--is practically a physical copy of Sara.

>--is practically a physical copy of Sara.

oh. oh my.

Much of the conflict is this campaign goes back to "The Jager family are dicks".

Epsilon (tactlessly, naturally) asks if they're from the same production line. Claire has to correct her...but to her it's pretty obvious what happened here.

Sara thanks the maid, named Elise, for the tea, rubbing her temples in...quiet frustration, or something. Elise answers Epsilon that their looks are simply coincidence; that Mama Jaeger had found her with amnesia, and graciously took her in to be Sara's lady's-maid. Sara bites her lip again, and that all but cements Claire's certainty. When Elise is dismissed (and Sara discretely wipes away a tear) she grabs Sara in a hug, all prior thoughts of "this girl is a bitch" erased, and whispers to her, "I'm sorry."

Sara claims to have no idea what she's talking about...but her behavior doesn't match her words. It's obvious to us that Elise is her sister--a twin, even--but did something to warrant being erased from the family tree, and apparently somehow upstairs too.

After offering what comfort we can up here--this kind of goes a way to explaining why Sara is chilly, but seems so desperate for human contact behind her facade--Sara lets slip that the family has business with the planet below.

And that it might be best for us if we happened to, maybe, cut our vacation short.

On our way out, she hesitates, then gives Alexa a hug--and surreptitiously slips something into Alexa's dress. A yellow-white flash of teleportation magic later and we're back on the planet's surface, where Ivory says we need to have a chat.

Alexa produces the tidbit that Sara gave her--a little datastick, with a map on it: the mountain, the nearby town, and a few other marked points. One of those is marked PTX Insertion, the other with G-B.

Ivory confirms that PTX is related to what she found while snooping around the Jaeger's computers--a designation. PTX-003C-SP1. An object massing a full hundred tons, just like the gravity bomb.

A decent amount of it. As though will all families, they have their own share of internal problems and reasons why things are so messed up.

The Jaegers are dicks; but one of my (Alexa's Player's) favorite parts involving them comes up between this arc and the next.

Alexa very nearly panics. She knows that designation. It's an *ancient,* unused, disabled, etc. etc. Belkan heavy assault war golem. There can't be more than 2 or 3 left in all of existence and even those shouldn't be operational.

And yet...

Planning moves along. One other thing that was discovered on the ship was the Jaegers' practice of, basically, damnatio memorii. If someone doesn't live up to the ridiculous and, frankly, evil requirements of the head of the house, they get erased. Every mention of the family member is erased, so that they never existed. And then someone in the family works their literal magic and erases their minds.

Remember why Hyperion was so deathly afraid of magic? The Jaegers were at the forefront of their invasion. They were called the Mindtakers. Hugo Jaeger apparently could control people, as demonstrated at the tournament. Someone in the family does the mind-wiping (and programming) bit.

All in all, pretty disgusting. And Sara is forbidden from acknowledging Elise as her sister, or she joins the club.

>Planning moves along. One other thing that was discovered on the ship was the Jaegers' practice of, basically, damnatio memorii. If someone doesn't live up to the ridiculous and, frankly, evil requirements of the head of the house, they get erased. Every mention of the family member is erased, so that they never existed. And then someone in the family works their literal magic and erases their minds.

Jesus fuck that is dark.

Yeaaaaah. Both OOC and IC that was a pretty major 'Oh fuck' moment in the game. The Nanoha setting isn't without its very dark moments, but this was one of the first really big ones in the game. But it also caused a strong resolution amongst all the PC's- We were going to befriend the fuck out of Sara and save her sister, somehow. The TSAB existed to help people in fucked up situations, and this was exactly the kind of thing that needed fixing.

So, a question for the thread:

In your opinion, who is Best Girl (TM)?

The GM.

I'm seriously jealous that I haven't been able to get a game this good in years.

In Nanoha in general, or the story of the game so far?

For the former, obviously Subaru.

For the latter, Altea is

Wait, what did Zamiel do? Teleport?

Yes, yes she did. Zamiel has a nearly infinite amount of mana storage, and the throughput to use it as she needs--her main limitation is that, as a familiar, she regenerates mana slowly---especially as Sephia's familiar, who already, IIRC (player, not a GM here) has a rather slow recharge rate.

It does mean she can pull some pretty crazy stunts if she doesn't mind burning away a few months or years worth of charging up.,

And, in her own words--doing so then was entirely worth it.

GM Here: Yeah, despite being one of the more powerful NPCs they know Sephia's linker core is painfully average. She makes up for it with precision and skill. It does, however, mean that Zamiel has very limited power per-day to work with.

After Alpha hightailed it from the holoroom, Zamiel and Tazzari shared a giggle, and then Yvenne reestablished the call to get the lowdown on what happened. Zamiel remarked in passing that the trick caused her about *six months' worth* of accumulation, but, yes, as said, SO worth it.

...

We've seen these three bits of main character art before. Is there art of Claire?

Unfortunately, OP is currently unemployed and can't afford to commission the guy who did the rest of these. I'm on track to change both of those circumstances soon, but only time will tell.

I should say, I do have this that an user did for me in a drawthread last year.

Best of luck with all that.

Claire is a cute. Cute!

She's a slut. Slut!

Alexa's girlfriend is not a slut! They are pure maidens!

Plural?

Alexa is a slut!

Probably; one of the other storytimes had her asking out three of the other girls at once, yeah?

Yes, though even now, several months later in-game, that's still all that's happened. It's earned her a reputation, though, such that every girl who she tries to make friends with is quick to point out they don't want to be in the harem.

So Alexa's a slut, then.

(Btw, in , pic related is the PTX-003C-SP1)

After the lot of us exhaust our collective anger on the thought of basically "erasing" people from existence, thoughts turn toward future planning. We have a map, we have their objectives, the only thing we lack is a timetable...so Tazzari puts her toaster-half to use and starts going into strategic overtime.

We bring in Marcus, because he is highly placed enough in the system to get credible responses from the local forces in position. A new potential wrinkle comes up--there's the Giant's Sword to consider, but his bones? Those...might actually be usable to create a completely indestructible war golem, or at least to heavily enhance an existing magitech construct--so says Anai's knowledge of golem creation.

Our little briefing/planning session is interrupted by a knock at the door. A loud one. One that almost shakes the foundations. Again. It's...

Achilles again! He's heard from Circe that there might be trouble brewing, so he offers himself to help.

Tazzari worries over his ability to handle the giant war mech thing, going toe to toe with a machine designed to devastate cities. Achilles, naturally, laughs it off.

>"A mere mech? I was designed to trade blows with the saint king themself!" He pauses "Then I found out she was ten and it started to sound like bullying."

Brief moment of levity aside, planning begins in earnest. There are mana cannons in the city for defense, wired to the city's power grid, in turn attached to a Precia-model mana reactor buried under the local university. Defensible enough, but a potential target for a diversionary or disruptive strike. One team goes there, consisting of Delta and Ainlinn.

Circe, Ivory, and Anai will work as coordination central.

Epsilon is to be recon and fire support.

This leaves Alexa, Altea, Marcus, Achilles, and anyone else the locals can throw together, to split up and cover between the uncovered grave, and the Cairns--the other known gravesite.

Tazzari and Claire, meanwhile, have their own job--to be in the air and intercept the gravity bomb while it falls, and disarm it before it hits the ground.