Trail 66: Ill Timed Discoveries

  --- Jon Whitaker ---

  “So… where’s the other one?” Miss Edna asked, watching as he and his Ma got ready to head out for the day.

  “Felicia said ‘It’s too early for the weekend,’ before throwing a water bottle at me and rolling over.” He shrugged.

  “Yeah, most teenagers would want to sleep in on the weekend… The fact that you don’t is actually a bit weird.” Miss Edna admitted, sipping at her coffee.

  “Eh, my sleep schedule is screwy.” Even before everything in Blackwell he was prone to staying up later than he should reading until he finished his book. (At the very least I don’t feel it as much with Pix’s healing taking the edge off.)

  It wasn’t exactly comfortable but it was something he could live with.

  “Sleep is for the weak.” His Ma nodded in agreement, making him wonder how she kept running with her own insomnia. “Once you’ve replaced your blood with adrenaline and caffeine you’ll realize that.”

  Miss Edna gave that a huff of amusement. “So what’s today’s agenda then?”

  “Just a morning run, a couple miles, maybe some building climbing, or rooftop jumping, you know.” His Ma answered. “I’ve got to head in later to deal with something at work so we’re just keeping it low key and easy today.”

  “Ugh, you two run way too much.” Miss Edna grimaced, before making her way to the couch. “Have fun with all of that.”

  “We will.” His Ma assured her as they made their way out the door before giving him a satisfied nod as she closed it behind them. “And that is how we get an unsupervised morning of knife fighting each other.”

  “You do know that Felicia might’ve been into this.” He pointed out, remembering their fight a few days prior.

  “But then she might tell my brother and he’s such a stick in the mud about this stuff.” His Ma groaned. “And you know how much of a mother hen Edna is.”

  “True. True.” She really did worry about things too much. (I mean we don’t get up to that much trouble do we?)

  Scene Consequences

  -Gained 1XP to Psych Warfare and 1XP to Throwing.

  --Currently: Psych Warfare Lv. 5 (6/12) and Knives Lv. 4 (8/10)

  ---

  “Okay, so why did you want me to warp us out to the park?” Miss Edna asked as they appeared in one of his Ma’s preferred training spots.

  “Right, so… You know about Confidant Catalyst’s right?” He checked, aware that (of course she does) but still needing a segway for this conversation. “Well I’ve gotten a couple from Miss Edme’s shop over the last couple of months.”

  “A couple?” Miss Edna blinked. “You do know you get the best results if you give those a bit of time in between using them, right?”

  “Yeah.” Admittedly, he’d found out after he’d summoned Noctis and found out something about how if you didn’t give yourself time to ‘change’ your catalysts would spit out very similar summons. Which was good or bad depending on what the caster was going for.

  (Though the fact that Wolf and Noctis are so different might mean there’s a Madness thing in play…) He’d need a third catalyst to know for sure, but wasn’t sure he wanted that on his plate when he was still sorting out the whole Basil situation. (Which, I need to get back on topic.)

  “Anyway that is how I got my contract with Wolf.” He went ahead and summoned said companion into the world with relatively calming feelings.

  Wolf looked around the clearing before noticing Miss Edna and taking a seat with a curious tilt to her head. One that was promptly straightened out as Pix landed on his canine companion’s snout, earning a sneeze.

  Rubbing Wolf’s head as Pix let out a string of annoyed tweets, he went ahead and introduced, “Miss Edna Wolf. Wolf Miss Edna. She’s my mentor and second parent.”

  “Yo.” Miss Edna waved with an amused look, before crouching down and offering her hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Wolf.”

  His canine companion placed a paw in Miss Edna’s hand and shook, getting a huff out of his magical mentor as she shook her head.

  “You know a magic ‘wolf’ is absolutely something you would summon as your companion.” Miss Edna admitted.

  He thought about it and decided. “Fair… but also makes the next bit a bit more… complicated.”

  “Complicated how?” Miss Edna warily asked, aware that when things got complicated for him it was either simple social awkwardness or… things like the current situation.

  “Well, since I figured out how to keep two summons active at once… I may have used that other catalyst I had.” All technically true, but it didn’t keep him from feeling a bit guilty about purposely twisting the truth to Miss Edna.

  “And I’m guessing you got something weird out of it?” Miss Edna nodded, her face twisting a bit when she noticed him pulling out a snack from his bag.

  “I did…” He admitted, because summoning the boogeyman was a bit weird even if it somehow wasn’t as weird as what he’d summoned with the Void Core.

  Deciding it was best to just rip the bandage off, he reached out not with the magic from his foci like he normally would but with his mind and madness reaching out to the hungering eyes he could feel watching him ever since Basil had returned to the void between.

  Unlike the colorful explosion of light that made up his usual summons, he simply blinked and Basil was there. And a couple seconds later he noticed everyone else jumping at the sight of the grey skinned girl. (Huh, their reaction times are usually faster… Wonder if they only noticed her when they blinked?)

  “Huntsman!” Basil smiled before lunging at him and wrapping him in a hug, wrapping her legs around his waist. “Do you have snacks?”

  “I do.” He awkwardly grinned holding the one he brought up.

  Basil’s tongue shot out, wrapping around the snack before pulling it in and swallowing it in one bite, like a frog and a fly. “Do you have more snacks?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Yes…” He nodded slowly, fully aware that said snacks would not last long before glancing at a nearby tree and remembering what he understood about Basil. “Why don’t you try that?”

  “Is it tasty?” The eldritch eater wondered with a tilt of her head.

  “Why… don’t you find out?” He suggested with a wry grin.

  “Okay!” Basil decided, hopping off of him and making her way towards the tree.

  It was now that he noticed the way everyone else was staring at him.

  Stares that only shifted when Basil proceeded to bite a massive chunk out of the tree. “Mm, crunchy…”

  Miss Edna took a deep breath before letting it out. “Your… your second confidant catalyst summoned a Voidkin?”

  “I summoned a Voidkin.” He answered, blatantly sidestepping which catalyst he’d used.

  The look Miss Edna gave him told him she’d noticed.

  “I should probably remind you that the Cheshire regularly kidnaps me to have tea time whenever I go to sleep.” Again the truth, if mostly irrelevant to the current situation.

  Miss Edna took another deep breath. “Okay… You summoned a Voidkin… Can you not summon her into our reality?”

  He thought about what he knew about Basil, and what he thought she might be capable of. “I think that would result in a Void Tear…”

  “This is why we’re supposed to have safety features…” He heard his second parent mumbled, or at least that’s what he thought she said over the sound of a falling tree as Basil continued to munch away on her snack.

  “Anyway…” He clapped, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “I kind of need to do a threat assessment of her in a fight and…” He gestured to everyone present. “That’s why I gathered everyone here… I would’ve brought Ying too but… Madness.”

  Miss Edna winced. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best at the moment… It’s a lot more contained in your… friend but after everything with void core…”

  “Yeah…” He grimaced himself.

  In the silence they both idly watched as Basil unhinged her jaw, stretching her mouth further than human so that she could better down the severed tree by shoving the entire thing in at once.

  “Well… that’s all different kinds of disturbing…” Miss Edna noted, as Pix began to fly around the tree with her magic to make it keep growing.

  “Eh, I’ve seen worse.” He shrugged, more amused by how morbid fairy began to egg the eldritch horror on.

  “That is not the reassurance you think it is, Jon.”

  Scene Consequences

  -Miss Edna, Wolf, and Pix are now all aware of Basil.

  -Also due to testing everyone’s limits, Jon has gained:

  -1XP to Beast Claws.

  --Currently: Lv. 4 (8/10)

  -1XP to Combat.

  --Currently: Lv 8 (5/18)

  -1XP to Contracting Summons.

  --Currently: Lv. 7 (1/16)

  -1XP to Knives.

  --Currently: Lv. 4 (9/10)

  -1XP to Mobility.

  --Currently: Lv. 7 (10/16)

  And both Pix and Wolf are having their character sheet updated to fit the new summon format over the previous ‘Character Sheet’ for a more streamlined approach.

  ---

  It was halfway through one of his lessons with DeSade that a knock came upon the study door, causing the dark lord to pause his lecture on the difference between the many many hell dimensions in existence. The phrase actually being something of a catch all term for any dimension that leaned more towards a Malice infused existence in contrast to the Anima based one of their own world.

  “Yes?” DeSade called out, an odd mix of annoyance and curiosity at the interruption.

  Sebastian opened one of the double doors and taking half a step inside. “We’ve something of an unexpected guest this evening. And while normally your orders on such things are quite clear, it seems our guest is tracking the young Whitaker.”

  “Me?” He blinked.

  “I see…” DeSade drawled, before waving a hand through the air. “Well then bring them in.”

  “Of course sir.” Sebastian bowed, before promptly throwing the door open and tossing a familiar figure into the room.

  Namely Felicia, her clothes scuffed and faintly torn as she fought against shifting black thorns that wrapped around her form with a faint crimson glow.

  The demonic butler’s deer skull slammed into the wall, Jon’s hand wrapped around its throat as an inhuman growl tore out of his throat. Fully ready to snap the thing’s neck for daring to lay a hand on his sis-

  “Ah, she’s a friend! My mistake.” The butler admitted nonchalantly, before snapping its fingers and dissolving the thorns into cinders.

  In the brief moment he glanced towards Felicia the butler flicked his chest sending him flying back into his chair across the room. “Now with that settled, let’s get the miss cleaned up.”

  With a wave of the butler’s hand Felicia rose into the air, her clothes quickly fixing themselves just before she landed into a chair, her eyes glowing a wild red as she glared around the room.

  “Ah!” DeSade smiled after a moment of observation. “This must be your dear cousin, Felicia Doe-Whitaker, yes?”

  “Who the fuck are you?!” Felicia snarled.

  “Alexander DeSade.” The Dark Lord introduced, before turning towards Jon. “Tell me is the feral nature, a familial trait perhaps?”

  He forced himself to take a calming breath, forced himself to understand that, (This is all a big misunderstanding.) While still plotting how to kill the butler.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” DeSade smirked.

  Felicia looked between the two of them, before turning towards him and asking, “Jon who the fuck is this guy?”

  He took another deep breath knowing that this was going to be a whole… thing, before trying to explain that, “This is Alexander DeSade, the Dark Lord of Blackwell.”

  “Dark Lord?” Felicia repeated with a twisted face.

  “I can show my certifications if you so wish?” DeSade offered, opening a drawer on his desk.

  “Dark Lords are an Arcane Association thing.” He sighed, pointedly ignoring said Dark Lord. “They’re extremely powerful and influential practitioners usually set to monitor a territory and in exchange for… leniency with certain criminal activities they deal with supernatural threats.”

  Felicia’s eyes darted between Jon and DeSade again. “And why is he here? No, better question:” Silver narrowed at him. “Why are you meeting him?”

  “Why, we’re planning on killing a Demon of course.” DeSade answered cheerfully, clearly enjoying this bit of familial drama.

  Felicia’s face scrunched up. “You’re planning on killing a Demon?”

  “The Demon that hospitalized Ma.” He quickly clarified. “Or rather the boss of the thing that hospitalized her.”

  “Right… That…” Felicia’s eyes turned hellfire red as her nails turned into claws and the room became a bit hotter.

  Unbothered by the heat, he instead turned a glare on DeSade. “And thought we were keeping this ‘discrete’.”

  “Oh, we are, but with your cousin being a Malcontent and what little I know of you Whitakers as a clan. It’s safe to assume that she’s going to want her own pound of flesh. No?” The Devil of Blackwell smiled.

  “Yeah… I do.” Felicia nodded.

  “Is that a good idea with… Basil around?” He couldn’t help but grimace, more than aware that dabbling in Malice and Madness was dangerous before you tried to mix the two.

  “Something for you to test. After all, Malcontent are such a fascinating research topic.” DeSade confessed, eyeing his cousin like he wanted to dissect her.

  He growled, tempted to jump over the desk as Felicia shivered. “She’s not a lab rat.”

  “Oh, of course not.” DeSade chuckled, amused eyes on Felicia. “Though I’m sure there are all sorts of secrets she and her other-self hold. Venues of power that could prove quite useful to both of you, should you choose to take them.”

  DeSade glanced his way. “Though clearly that’s something you two should consider after catching her up on just what you’re up against and the risks involved. I mean if you’re not careful, well we both know you’d blame me for any harm that comes to her regardless of your family’s stubborn streak.”

  (Because it would be your fault for dragging her into this…) He growled.

  Scene Consequences

  -Gained (DeSade's Rank - Jon's Rank + 1 = 5) XP to Demonology.

  --*Skill Level Up* Demonology Lv. 6 (4/14)

  -Felicia is now aware and wary of DeSade.

  --And she wants in on killing the Horror.

  Thank You:

  -Rush99999

  -Kcx1

  -Spheal Lover

  If you want to support these stories or the setting in general, check out the .

  Since we've established I've started leaning more into narrative stuff, I'm going to go ahead and streamline Pix and Wolf here to better fit the new system. (Keeping Jon because adapting him, breaks some things.) Anyway let me know what you think.

  Pix

  Resistances

  -Blunt: Weak, Slash: =, Pierce: =, Mind: Resist, Spirit: =

  -Fire: =, Ice: =, Electric: =, Light: Resist, Curse: Weak

  ---

  Magic Affinities

  -Nature

  --Mending

  -Light

  -Mischief

  ?---

  Personal Passive

  -The Seelie Fairy And Her Unseelie Beast: Whenever Jon Whitaker is nearby, he automatically [Protects] Pix from damage. Pix’s Healing Crit chance is doubled on Jon. Jon and Pix each gain Morale on the other’s Turn.

  Summon Passive

  -Fairy Partner: Pix grants Jon a bonus whenever she assists him with an action. The more experience she has with the action the bigger the bonus.

  Combat Class (A)

  -Medic: Healing abilities can Crit.

  Combat Class (B)

  -Blaster: Blaster abilities apply 2 Damage Debuffs on Crit.

  Defensive Maneuvers

  -Small Target: Dodge Chance is doubled.

  Mobility

  -Flier: This unit is immune to snare and can move an additional space.

  ?---

  Skill Cards

  -Zap!

  --Ranged, Quick, Light

  --Distracting: Knock a target back a bit on the Turn Order.

  -Mend!

  --Ranged, Continuous, Heal

  --Repair And Relieve: Remove a random Physical Debuff each ‘hit’.

  -Nature Roots

  --Ranged, Charge, Blunt

  --Snaring Roots: Apply stacks of Snare based on Charge.

  -Mischievous Illusions

  --Ranged, Charge, Mind-Debuff

  --Long Action: Choose a known Mischief effect and cast it.

  --Overcharge: If overcharged ability affects units adjacent to the target.

  --Variation (Illusionary Traps): Can be cast as a Standard Action, but the effect will be applied next Turn instead of this.

  (Known Effects: Dazzle (Charm), Frighten (Fear), Forget (Seal))

  -Light Scripts

  --Ranged, Continuous, Light

  --Long Action: Choose a known Spell Script and cast its effect.

  (Known Effects: See Jon’s Spell Scripts.)

  ---

  Equipment:

  -Offensive: None

  -Defensive: Doll Clothes.

  -Accessory: None

  Wolf

  Resistances

  -Blunt: Resist, Slash: =, Pierce: =, Mind: =, Spirit: =

  -Fire: Weak, Ice: =, Electric: =, Light: =, Curse: =

  ---

  Magic Affinities

  -Moon

  -Wolf

  -Wind

  ---

  Personal Passive

  -Personal Wolf Pack: Whenever an ally -including Wolf- attacks within Wolf’s Range, consume a stack of [Wolf Pack] and perform a Follow-Up attack.

  *Wolf Pack: At the start of each Turn perform a Quick Attack on an enemy for each stack of Wolf Pack [Wolf Pack].

  Summon Passive

  -Summon Pack: Can be summoned with stacks of [Wolf Pack] by increasing base Summon Cost per stack.

  Combat Class (A)

  -Infiltrator: Gain increased Backstab/Sneak Attack damage.

  Combat Class (B)

  -Blaster: Blaster abilities apply 2 Damage Debuff Stacks on Crit.

  Combat Class (B-2)

  -Puppeteer: Summons gain Crit power based on this unit’s Morale.

  Defensive Maneuvers

  -Decoy Dodge: When Wolf should be hit, consume a stack of [Wolf Pack] to prevent damage.

  Mobility

  -Mobile Threat: Increase Crit power based on the number of spaces moved this Turn.

  Takedown

  -Immediately gain stacks of [Wolf Pack].

  Overclock

  -Unknown.

  ---

  Skill Cards

  -Blade And Fang

  =-Melee, Multi-hit, Slash

  --If you perform a [Wolf Pack] follow up attack to this ability, do not consume stack.

  -Wolf Lunge

  --Melee, Charge, Slash

  --Lunge: This ability has an increased Melee range.

  --Pinning Finish: If this is the last ability of a Combo, apply [Snare] to the target.

  -Wind Blade

  --Ranged, Charge, Slash

  --Overcharge Blast: If this ability is Overcharged it also hits the unit directly behind the Target.

  -Wind Rush

  --Melee, Charge, Blunt

  --Knockback Rush: If you move before using this ability, it gains Knockback. (Pushes target.)

  --Juggernaut Set-Up: If the previous ability was a Move Action this ability hits every unit passed when moving this turn.

  -Pack Howl

  --Summon, Charge

  --Wolf gains stacks of [Wolf Pack] based on Charge.

  --After Attack: Gain Morale based on total ally units.

  ---

  Equipment:

  -Offensive: Survivor’s Knife. An odd knife Wolf carries around. (All Slash attacks gain Desperation, increasing Crit Chance while Health is Poor.)

  -Defensive: None

  -Accessory: None

  Next chapter will be a path to power event but to save some time I'm just going to go ahead and ask, which Cut do you want to work on?