EoR Wine Country - NNWM2k19 - 4
Nov. 4th, 2019 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
atma posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
heroicrecordsWC: 10323/50000
The wind that came down through the Petaluma valley was always sharp, cold, strong, piercing. The Pacific Ocean lay just to its west a bit and her winds, even on the hottest summer days and even in the northern hills and mountains, were never of a warm embrace. The land sat in between two spaces of hills that laid forth a flat area for farming, and the land was known wide as one of the central poultry farming regions of the state, as well as some dairy and grains. But the chickens more so, and the fires that came and razed on down on top of it took out most of the ranches and hatching facilities, leaving it with meager means to produce, but the people left there tried to, despite it all, because otherwise it meant giving up, and after generations of work put into this dirt, the farmers in the area weren’t ready to become one with it themselves quite yet.
Even the once sparse area that had been reserved downtown for bigger companies and offices was barren of its usual traffic. Almost all of it had been turned into various bases and barricades to protect the farmland around it and the adjacent incorporated area of Penngrove. Old, rusted train tracks ran through both towns, a sign of a once robust trade going through this humble area. When Gudako and her lucky few servants arrived at the main base, they found themselves being saluted by a peasant army, a pack of farmers in revolt, armed to the teeth with whatever leathers, tools, and machinery they could trick out into threshing the inhuman bones of the demons sent forth by the PG&E goons instead of grinding grain to make their bread. A faint smell of other familiar crops in the area were in the background midst the mix of fog and soot hanging in the cold morning air, those of marijuana crops and the spilled remnants of what ale remained in stock. Morale had to be kept up otherwise.
A few pulled their weapons back and let them in once they saw that Gudako was with Atma, whom immediately went inside and dove head first for the coffee station.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a spirit or still alive, caffeine is a vital part of combat. I’ve made sure my troops know how to make it, and not that sloppy excuse for motor oil that so many insist on serving.” Atma joked, trying to lift the mood.
> “Two sugars and cream, please”
>>> “I have been known to slam a Dew or ten in my days”
da Vinci and Mash came back online and looked around a bit. “So this is what’s left of the once mighty poultry hub, huh?” da Vinci herself started first. “From what I could gather, this place was also often the host of odd sights through the years like inventing arm wrestling as a sport and apparently judging the world’s ugliest dog every year. It brought in money to an otherwise not noteworthy farming hub. Gotta keep busy somehow.”
“It looks… gray. Very gray.” Mash sighed. “I can’t tell if it’s because of the cold weather you’ve been sent into or if it’s the junk that the fires have kicked up or both. Are you breathing okay out there, senpai?”
Gudako nodded vigorously.
“Don’t worry, if the boss starts sneezing blood chunks out anywhere, I’ll immediately wrap her up and carry her around myself. She ain’t going to go down that easy.” Drake laughed.
Nobu wasn’t much for the coffee, instead making some semblance of instant tea and slapping the bag against Atma, cackling about how she’s teabagged her and she must surrender to the humiliation.
Atma paid no remark to it and threw it back at her, gesturing to the not very much around them, save for a wide table and a couple of chairs. The table contained a map, and on it were the locations of the nearest PG&E stations and any power lines they could find connecting it, trying to pinpoint exactly where their headquarters was by tracing it back from here. There was symbols on towns that had been wiped out by the fires. Those that had people still left and some semblance of humanity and civilization were also uniquely marked. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings about fires, outages, accidents, even gas line explosions from the years past.
“I remember all of them.” she said as she noticed Gudako’s eyes scanning them. “I’ll never forget just how toxic and horrifying everything smelled, tasted, looked like. The amount of ashes from dead people and metal and such will forever be etched into my throat. My breathing is only okay because I’m a servant now. I would get really sick to the point I’d need hardcore rounds of medication to be functioning and was often the only able bodied person anyone knew willing to go out without much to protect myself from the smoke and debris in order to get essentials and do things like chop wood for fire, cook, get people’s batteries charged. My body took a serious beating. It’s a common story among us all, though. There’s not a one who remains who doesn’t remember what their health and happiness were like before this, and were you to return it, we’d not recognize it as such for a while. But that’s what greed does to you; you don’t only just take money, you take people’s lives. Just so long as those last few cents line your own, who cares about the lives of a dozen? Or a million? Or more?”
The room sat quiet for a while.
“That’s awful!” Mash interjected. “How cruel of one group to just hog all these resources and then rain down the embers of their mistakes on you all and turn it into this just because they couldn’t stop taking enough!”
“Unfortunately, it’s not an uncommon plot found through history. I mean, you and the Master probably saw plenty of such greed through your travels, am I right?” da Vinci added. “It’s not like I’m defending it, but history really just loves to repeat itself in various ways, don’t it?”
Atma noticed da Vinci looking at her, studying her like some sort of anomaly. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer. I mean, I’ll pose for it however you want, but you gotta actually take it, babe.”
“Say, Atma...” da Vinci began, curious. “When did you become a servant, anyway? Records indicate you were alive during this period. I know you were one who willed for the power while living, but to be granted this much breadth of purpose and strength already is the first I’ve heard of it as far as any of the other servants we have goes.”
“Eh.” Atma tried to dodge the question. “It’s a long story. I think I’ve just been one longer than before I was aware. You all coming here was just lucky timing, if I had to surmise. I’d rather not bore you with any details, though. It doesn’t seem important to know that much about me right now.”
“Try me! I’m absolutely one for any kind of knowledge.”
“Well, when I was five years old, I was going to grow up to be Godzilla. And then when I was 10, I was going to be an elf, and then...”
“...Okay, point taken.” da Vinci laughed. “Sounds like you had lofty ambitions right out of the gate though, huh? No wonder you came out an Archer. You all seem to be the kind most likely to go off and do your own thing and all. We’ll have to have a long talk sometime, though. There’s not much known about this era yet; after all we’re living in it, so to see another part of time where we didn’t succeed, or part of us didn’t, and so spectacularly violently is something I’ll want to make note of for future missions.”
“Just so long as you serve tea or something.”
“Yeah, I saw a note here saying you don’t drink, and...”
“Oh good fuck, there she goes again!” Nobu sighed. “Hitting on our bosses from a million space miles away are you? Setting up a date without asking me if I wanted something? Are you giving me sloppy seconds? I’m your sis, aren’t I?”
>>> “Two of them!”
> “We already did this joke”
The others smiled, though after a bit they sat down around that map, trying their best to commit it to memory, uploading some backups to the base back at Chaldea. A good portion of everything immediately east of this location was marked as burned, as was some parts to the north. A lot of geysers and forests dotted those mountains, leaving an incredible amount of accelerant around to keep things going for “months on end, even with modern equipment and firefighting techniques” according to Atma.
There was also the spot they landed on as well as the path they took. For the distance, they sure got there quickly, but wasn’t that always the case with these missions? They could last even a couple months of time in the singularity itself but travel barely composed any of it. Nobody had any explanation besides just magic, and given the situation, it was the most likely answer. Either that or some fabric of the meta universe had some serious explaining to do.
“I think once we clear out any surrounding dangers here and fortify the town, our next stop should be the Northern area of Mendocino, which is another area full of both farmlands and foliage. In other words, full of stuff easy to target for burning. It’s been surprisingly unscathed by any major incidents so far, but we should keep it that way and use it as a spot to relocate people for now. There’s plenty of mountains to hide people in, along the old hippie paths that used to grow marijuana in the outskirts, like those in mountains far out east would for alcohol. It’s also rather high up and doesn’t make for easy marching up and down.” Atma put a clear marker along Bodega Bay. “And since Blackbeard wasn’t worth the words to describe how I fought him, no matter what kind of story might benefit from a larger wordcount, I can say that spot is probably safe for now. Just be careful lurking around it, because I caught a couple of the sicklier stragglers from Marin trying to sneeze on us on our way back.”
“A-Atma….” a crackling, gurgling voice from behind them spat up, followed by a scream as they fell to the floor, sliced open, guts and blood staining the basement red, and immediately catching fire just enough to burn the corpse and little else. Behind them was a couple of evil, familiar faces.
“G-Good show, Akechi!” Nobukatsu cheered, pointing over at Atma as if he were a threat. “You! Thank you so much for leaking your plans to us! I’m afraid we’ll be having to take this pitiful farming town from you and all its supplies and everything with it!”
“Enough with the bootlicking.” Akechi snarled. “It’s true, though. To think you and the great Nobunaga would fall for yet another one of my traps in yet another closed room full of stuff that easy to burn! What was it your hologram friend said? Oh yes, history really is enjoying repeating itself right now.”
> “Nobody told me this was a Gudaguda event...”
>>> “Y’all probably should have stayed just non-combat NPCs”
Nobu and Atma just looked at each other and sighed. “These two shits giving you trouble?” Drake grinned before she joined the party. “Hey boss, throw some commands our way and we’ll have these two thrown out of here, and fast. The only thing that’s going to burn here is their dry, bony limbs once we’re done snapping them like the twiggy kindling they are!”
Gudako thumped her chest and grinned, beaming immensely and cheering her three servants on from the sidelines. This was easy. Hopefully this map would drop a quartz at the end; the other pseudo singularity chapters seemed to. Then she could go roll on this chapter’s rate up! Which apparently involves a lot more mysteriously named characters, so she figured there was a lot more women to harass, er, friends to make coming her way soon.
“So you’re that stupid still, huh?” Nobu grinned. “You made one crucial mistake you two.”
Nobu looked at the party readying screen and saw that the only class appearing in the enemy formation this fight was Saber.
Atma drew her sword and pointed it at both their necks, snorting. This was their first boss fight already and she couldn’t take it seriously at all. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to bring a Saber to an Archer fight?”
~ END CHAPTER 2 NODE 4
The wind that came down through the Petaluma valley was always sharp, cold, strong, piercing. The Pacific Ocean lay just to its west a bit and her winds, even on the hottest summer days and even in the northern hills and mountains, were never of a warm embrace. The land sat in between two spaces of hills that laid forth a flat area for farming, and the land was known wide as one of the central poultry farming regions of the state, as well as some dairy and grains. But the chickens more so, and the fires that came and razed on down on top of it took out most of the ranches and hatching facilities, leaving it with meager means to produce, but the people left there tried to, despite it all, because otherwise it meant giving up, and after generations of work put into this dirt, the farmers in the area weren’t ready to become one with it themselves quite yet.
Even the once sparse area that had been reserved downtown for bigger companies and offices was barren of its usual traffic. Almost all of it had been turned into various bases and barricades to protect the farmland around it and the adjacent incorporated area of Penngrove. Old, rusted train tracks ran through both towns, a sign of a once robust trade going through this humble area. When Gudako and her lucky few servants arrived at the main base, they found themselves being saluted by a peasant army, a pack of farmers in revolt, armed to the teeth with whatever leathers, tools, and machinery they could trick out into threshing the inhuman bones of the demons sent forth by the PG&E goons instead of grinding grain to make their bread. A faint smell of other familiar crops in the area were in the background midst the mix of fog and soot hanging in the cold morning air, those of marijuana crops and the spilled remnants of what ale remained in stock. Morale had to be kept up otherwise.
A few pulled their weapons back and let them in once they saw that Gudako was with Atma, whom immediately went inside and dove head first for the coffee station.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a spirit or still alive, caffeine is a vital part of combat. I’ve made sure my troops know how to make it, and not that sloppy excuse for motor oil that so many insist on serving.” Atma joked, trying to lift the mood.
> “Two sugars and cream, please”
>>> “I have been known to slam a Dew or ten in my days”
da Vinci and Mash came back online and looked around a bit. “So this is what’s left of the once mighty poultry hub, huh?” da Vinci herself started first. “From what I could gather, this place was also often the host of odd sights through the years like inventing arm wrestling as a sport and apparently judging the world’s ugliest dog every year. It brought in money to an otherwise not noteworthy farming hub. Gotta keep busy somehow.”
“It looks… gray. Very gray.” Mash sighed. “I can’t tell if it’s because of the cold weather you’ve been sent into or if it’s the junk that the fires have kicked up or both. Are you breathing okay out there, senpai?”
Gudako nodded vigorously.
“Don’t worry, if the boss starts sneezing blood chunks out anywhere, I’ll immediately wrap her up and carry her around myself. She ain’t going to go down that easy.” Drake laughed.
Nobu wasn’t much for the coffee, instead making some semblance of instant tea and slapping the bag against Atma, cackling about how she’s teabagged her and she must surrender to the humiliation.
Atma paid no remark to it and threw it back at her, gesturing to the not very much around them, save for a wide table and a couple of chairs. The table contained a map, and on it were the locations of the nearest PG&E stations and any power lines they could find connecting it, trying to pinpoint exactly where their headquarters was by tracing it back from here. There was symbols on towns that had been wiped out by the fires. Those that had people still left and some semblance of humanity and civilization were also uniquely marked. The walls were covered in newspaper clippings about fires, outages, accidents, even gas line explosions from the years past.
“I remember all of them.” she said as she noticed Gudako’s eyes scanning them. “I’ll never forget just how toxic and horrifying everything smelled, tasted, looked like. The amount of ashes from dead people and metal and such will forever be etched into my throat. My breathing is only okay because I’m a servant now. I would get really sick to the point I’d need hardcore rounds of medication to be functioning and was often the only able bodied person anyone knew willing to go out without much to protect myself from the smoke and debris in order to get essentials and do things like chop wood for fire, cook, get people’s batteries charged. My body took a serious beating. It’s a common story among us all, though. There’s not a one who remains who doesn’t remember what their health and happiness were like before this, and were you to return it, we’d not recognize it as such for a while. But that’s what greed does to you; you don’t only just take money, you take people’s lives. Just so long as those last few cents line your own, who cares about the lives of a dozen? Or a million? Or more?”
The room sat quiet for a while.
“That’s awful!” Mash interjected. “How cruel of one group to just hog all these resources and then rain down the embers of their mistakes on you all and turn it into this just because they couldn’t stop taking enough!”
“Unfortunately, it’s not an uncommon plot found through history. I mean, you and the Master probably saw plenty of such greed through your travels, am I right?” da Vinci added. “It’s not like I’m defending it, but history really just loves to repeat itself in various ways, don’t it?”
Atma noticed da Vinci looking at her, studying her like some sort of anomaly. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer. I mean, I’ll pose for it however you want, but you gotta actually take it, babe.”
“Say, Atma...” da Vinci began, curious. “When did you become a servant, anyway? Records indicate you were alive during this period. I know you were one who willed for the power while living, but to be granted this much breadth of purpose and strength already is the first I’ve heard of it as far as any of the other servants we have goes.”
“Eh.” Atma tried to dodge the question. “It’s a long story. I think I’ve just been one longer than before I was aware. You all coming here was just lucky timing, if I had to surmise. I’d rather not bore you with any details, though. It doesn’t seem important to know that much about me right now.”
“Try me! I’m absolutely one for any kind of knowledge.”
“Well, when I was five years old, I was going to grow up to be Godzilla. And then when I was 10, I was going to be an elf, and then...”
“...Okay, point taken.” da Vinci laughed. “Sounds like you had lofty ambitions right out of the gate though, huh? No wonder you came out an Archer. You all seem to be the kind most likely to go off and do your own thing and all. We’ll have to have a long talk sometime, though. There’s not much known about this era yet; after all we’re living in it, so to see another part of time where we didn’t succeed, or part of us didn’t, and so spectacularly violently is something I’ll want to make note of for future missions.”
“Just so long as you serve tea or something.”
“Yeah, I saw a note here saying you don’t drink, and...”
“Oh good fuck, there she goes again!” Nobu sighed. “Hitting on our bosses from a million space miles away are you? Setting up a date without asking me if I wanted something? Are you giving me sloppy seconds? I’m your sis, aren’t I?”
>>> “Two of them!”
> “We already did this joke”
The others smiled, though after a bit they sat down around that map, trying their best to commit it to memory, uploading some backups to the base back at Chaldea. A good portion of everything immediately east of this location was marked as burned, as was some parts to the north. A lot of geysers and forests dotted those mountains, leaving an incredible amount of accelerant around to keep things going for “months on end, even with modern equipment and firefighting techniques” according to Atma.
There was also the spot they landed on as well as the path they took. For the distance, they sure got there quickly, but wasn’t that always the case with these missions? They could last even a couple months of time in the singularity itself but travel barely composed any of it. Nobody had any explanation besides just magic, and given the situation, it was the most likely answer. Either that or some fabric of the meta universe had some serious explaining to do.
“I think once we clear out any surrounding dangers here and fortify the town, our next stop should be the Northern area of Mendocino, which is another area full of both farmlands and foliage. In other words, full of stuff easy to target for burning. It’s been surprisingly unscathed by any major incidents so far, but we should keep it that way and use it as a spot to relocate people for now. There’s plenty of mountains to hide people in, along the old hippie paths that used to grow marijuana in the outskirts, like those in mountains far out east would for alcohol. It’s also rather high up and doesn’t make for easy marching up and down.” Atma put a clear marker along Bodega Bay. “And since Blackbeard wasn’t worth the words to describe how I fought him, no matter what kind of story might benefit from a larger wordcount, I can say that spot is probably safe for now. Just be careful lurking around it, because I caught a couple of the sicklier stragglers from Marin trying to sneeze on us on our way back.”
“A-Atma….” a crackling, gurgling voice from behind them spat up, followed by a scream as they fell to the floor, sliced open, guts and blood staining the basement red, and immediately catching fire just enough to burn the corpse and little else. Behind them was a couple of evil, familiar faces.
“G-Good show, Akechi!” Nobukatsu cheered, pointing over at Atma as if he were a threat. “You! Thank you so much for leaking your plans to us! I’m afraid we’ll be having to take this pitiful farming town from you and all its supplies and everything with it!”
“Enough with the bootlicking.” Akechi snarled. “It’s true, though. To think you and the great Nobunaga would fall for yet another one of my traps in yet another closed room full of stuff that easy to burn! What was it your hologram friend said? Oh yes, history really is enjoying repeating itself right now.”
> “Nobody told me this was a Gudaguda event...”
>>> “Y’all probably should have stayed just non-combat NPCs”
Nobu and Atma just looked at each other and sighed. “These two shits giving you trouble?” Drake grinned before she joined the party. “Hey boss, throw some commands our way and we’ll have these two thrown out of here, and fast. The only thing that’s going to burn here is their dry, bony limbs once we’re done snapping them like the twiggy kindling they are!”
Gudako thumped her chest and grinned, beaming immensely and cheering her three servants on from the sidelines. This was easy. Hopefully this map would drop a quartz at the end; the other pseudo singularity chapters seemed to. Then she could go roll on this chapter’s rate up! Which apparently involves a lot more mysteriously named characters, so she figured there was a lot more women to harass, er, friends to make coming her way soon.
“So you’re that stupid still, huh?” Nobu grinned. “You made one crucial mistake you two.”
Nobu looked at the party readying screen and saw that the only class appearing in the enemy formation this fight was Saber.
Atma drew her sword and pointed it at both their necks, snorting. This was their first boss fight already and she couldn’t take it seriously at all. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to bring a Saber to an Archer fight?”
~ END CHAPTER 2 NODE 4