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Cloud is Dead (Final Fantasy VII CYOA)
- Thread starter Random
- Start date
F
Jester
Arbiter
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2013
- Messages
- 1,493
Gondolin
Arcane
Is it Thursday yet?
Elfberserker
Liturgist
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2013
- Messages
- 1,540
Don't worry guys!
Thursday is coming!
Thursday is coming!
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2012
- Messages
- 29,892
On a Saturday, perhaps.Don't worry guys!
Thursday is coming!
Jester
Arbiter
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2013
- Messages
- 1,493
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,812
The Bs have it.
Chapter 1: The Hero Returns, Part VII
Although still very ticked off about your well-deserved vacation being stolen right from under your feet, you knew full well what you were signing up for when you joined the Shinra private army. Rather than sulking about it, you choose to work out your frustration, deliberately setting up an outrageous workout schedule that would have been rough even if you were at 100%. Remembering how exhausted you were after climbing the stairs all the way up to fight the AVALANCHE terrorists, you resolve to rectify your lack of stamina before anything else, and you do so by running your ass up those goddamn emergency stairs as many floors as you can, and when you think you've hit your absolute limit and can't lift your legs one more step, you force your ass up one more goddamn flight, and only then do you let yourself collapse on a landing to catch your breath and spray water into your mouth from the bottle you brought with you. Everything hurts. Your heart feels like it's about to pound itself into shreds against your ribcage. Your body was not prepared for exercise this extreme, not even on a good day.
But then, you think, that's exactly why you need to do this right now, and there's no time for excuses like "I'm still tired and sore." Whatever's waiting for you on this 'mission' Heidegger is volunteering you for, you have to be ready. You were way too soft in your cushy job as a security guard in Shinra HQ. You knew AVALANCHE was out there, and yet you believed no one could possibly assault the place. You thought you were above the common grunts who earned a spot in a security platoon there through nepotism and connections with the company's executives. You thought you scored your job because you deserved it. Clearly, you thought wrong. Once upon a time, you had the drive and motivation to apply for the SOLDIER program thrice. You wanted to be the best. But then you failed to even get into the program no matter how hard you worked, and a part of you died each time the pencil pushers in charge of the preliminary tests shook their heads and stamped your application form with a big, fat, red "DENIED."
And since then, you contented yourself with managing to earn one of the best posts in the world by sheer merit. You settled for less than the best, and from that moment you became weak. Lazy. How many days did you only go for the basic requirements for Shinra troops, and not push yourself to surpass your own limitations as a man? What a waste, an absolute waste of time. You had forgotten your will as a human being, become a robot. That's why the vacation meant so much to you. You decided out of sheer disappointment that the only time you could enjoy life was when you weren't faced with your own incompetence and weakness on a daily basis.
So you push yourself harder now to make up for your own foolishness in the past, the blindness to your own decadence as a human being. You have to atone. Your men died because of you. Your soul has wasted away, and you're trying to remember who you really are. And every step you stomp up, boots crisp against the tiles, you feel like you start to remember why you wanted to be a soldier in the first place. The uniform, the prestige? No. The guns, the power? No. The duty, the sense of purpose? No. The chance to fight, be it monsters or terrorists or another war like Wutai, to fight and prove yourself, to not rot in some office somewhere as a lifeless drone earning a meager paycheck day in, day out? Yes. Yes. Yes. That is exactly why. In this world so full of shallow entertainment, meaningless pleasures that leave you feeling more depressed than before you engaged in them, heartless people who pretend to care about you and your shit, you chose to be a soldier because the only value that remains is in the heart of battle, when your life is on the line, when your men's lives are on the line, when every decision you make may kill you or may save you. Does that make you insane? Does breaking your legs running up and down 60 flights of stairs accomplish nothing but exhausting your body well past its natural limits? Maybe. If that's the case, then your decision to take the Shinra HQ post and not a post in a place that actually saw fighting, even if just the occasional monster, could only be called a mistake. At the time, you thought you were setting your sights as high as you could reach. But in reality, you were just giving up on becoming anything but a clock-in, clock-out glorified security guard.
You feel like absolute dogshit by the end of the third day because all the hours you spent tearing up your own muscles that were still healing did not really improve your physical situation much. But on the other hand, you feel like you've remembered something vital. You feel some of the drive you once had as a young man to excel and exceed revived in your heart. In the end, you might just be more prepared for what is to come than if you had taken it easy and let yourself recover.
The hot blonde nurse hands you your daily-recommended vitamins in a small plastic cup as you sit on your bed, preparing to turn in for the night. She shoots you a smile and sits down beside you as you knock back all the pills in one gulp, putting her hand on your thigh. "You're sooo cool, you know?" she whispers into your ear. "Working out all the time even though you're still beat up. And you took out those terrorists. That's hot."
Three days ago, you might have fucked her without a second thought. But now, it's hard not to see her as just another symptom of your own depravity, your weakness, your corruption, sponsored by Shinra, of course. You briefly wonder how much they're paying her and just how long the charade could continue. Girlfriend? Wife? You stare into her striking blue eyes. They're beautiful, certainly, and yet a bit lifeless. She's not looking at you. She's looking through you. Your very active mind ticks at rapid velocity. How many other men has she done this with? How many more will she go on to do it with?
The tempation is still there. It doesn't just go away on its own. You know full well that she must be a tiger in the sack. Some women just have that aura. Besides, what else would you spend the night doing, anyways? Is it really that bad to have a good time just once before you have to ship out on some ridiculous new job? A good lay might even do you a world of good.
What do you do?
A) Politely let her down and try to get some rest
B) Reject her with righteous indignation and try to get some rest
C) Go out for a nightly stroll just to think about your life some more
D) Invite her for a jog, try to talk to her about what you've been thinking about, maybe she could use some exercise and someone to talk to; it worked wonders for you
E) Screw her all night long
F) Try to sneak out of the HQ and go to a bar just to drink away your troubles
G) Any combination of the above, or alternative ways to spend the night
Roll Results
Congratulations, through grit and determination to succeed, you have increased your Tenacity and Discipline by 1! Your time spent exercising and learning more about your own body has also increased your Athletics by 1!
Character Sheet
Chapter 1: The Hero Returns, Part VII
Although still very ticked off about your well-deserved vacation being stolen right from under your feet, you knew full well what you were signing up for when you joined the Shinra private army. Rather than sulking about it, you choose to work out your frustration, deliberately setting up an outrageous workout schedule that would have been rough even if you were at 100%. Remembering how exhausted you were after climbing the stairs all the way up to fight the AVALANCHE terrorists, you resolve to rectify your lack of stamina before anything else, and you do so by running your ass up those goddamn emergency stairs as many floors as you can, and when you think you've hit your absolute limit and can't lift your legs one more step, you force your ass up one more goddamn flight, and only then do you let yourself collapse on a landing to catch your breath and spray water into your mouth from the bottle you brought with you. Everything hurts. Your heart feels like it's about to pound itself into shreds against your ribcage. Your body was not prepared for exercise this extreme, not even on a good day.
But then, you think, that's exactly why you need to do this right now, and there's no time for excuses like "I'm still tired and sore." Whatever's waiting for you on this 'mission' Heidegger is volunteering you for, you have to be ready. You were way too soft in your cushy job as a security guard in Shinra HQ. You knew AVALANCHE was out there, and yet you believed no one could possibly assault the place. You thought you were above the common grunts who earned a spot in a security platoon there through nepotism and connections with the company's executives. You thought you scored your job because you deserved it. Clearly, you thought wrong. Once upon a time, you had the drive and motivation to apply for the SOLDIER program thrice. You wanted to be the best. But then you failed to even get into the program no matter how hard you worked, and a part of you died each time the pencil pushers in charge of the preliminary tests shook their heads and stamped your application form with a big, fat, red "DENIED."
And since then, you contented yourself with managing to earn one of the best posts in the world by sheer merit. You settled for less than the best, and from that moment you became weak. Lazy. How many days did you only go for the basic requirements for Shinra troops, and not push yourself to surpass your own limitations as a man? What a waste, an absolute waste of time. You had forgotten your will as a human being, become a robot. That's why the vacation meant so much to you. You decided out of sheer disappointment that the only time you could enjoy life was when you weren't faced with your own incompetence and weakness on a daily basis.
So you push yourself harder now to make up for your own foolishness in the past, the blindness to your own decadence as a human being. You have to atone. Your men died because of you. Your soul has wasted away, and you're trying to remember who you really are. And every step you stomp up, boots crisp against the tiles, you feel like you start to remember why you wanted to be a soldier in the first place. The uniform, the prestige? No. The guns, the power? No. The duty, the sense of purpose? No. The chance to fight, be it monsters or terrorists or another war like Wutai, to fight and prove yourself, to not rot in some office somewhere as a lifeless drone earning a meager paycheck day in, day out? Yes. Yes. Yes. That is exactly why. In this world so full of shallow entertainment, meaningless pleasures that leave you feeling more depressed than before you engaged in them, heartless people who pretend to care about you and your shit, you chose to be a soldier because the only value that remains is in the heart of battle, when your life is on the line, when your men's lives are on the line, when every decision you make may kill you or may save you. Does that make you insane? Does breaking your legs running up and down 60 flights of stairs accomplish nothing but exhausting your body well past its natural limits? Maybe. If that's the case, then your decision to take the Shinra HQ post and not a post in a place that actually saw fighting, even if just the occasional monster, could only be called a mistake. At the time, you thought you were setting your sights as high as you could reach. But in reality, you were just giving up on becoming anything but a clock-in, clock-out glorified security guard.
You feel like absolute dogshit by the end of the third day because all the hours you spent tearing up your own muscles that were still healing did not really improve your physical situation much. But on the other hand, you feel like you've remembered something vital. You feel some of the drive you once had as a young man to excel and exceed revived in your heart. In the end, you might just be more prepared for what is to come than if you had taken it easy and let yourself recover.
The hot blonde nurse hands you your daily-recommended vitamins in a small plastic cup as you sit on your bed, preparing to turn in for the night. She shoots you a smile and sits down beside you as you knock back all the pills in one gulp, putting her hand on your thigh. "You're sooo cool, you know?" she whispers into your ear. "Working out all the time even though you're still beat up. And you took out those terrorists. That's hot."
Three days ago, you might have fucked her without a second thought. But now, it's hard not to see her as just another symptom of your own depravity, your weakness, your corruption, sponsored by Shinra, of course. You briefly wonder how much they're paying her and just how long the charade could continue. Girlfriend? Wife? You stare into her striking blue eyes. They're beautiful, certainly, and yet a bit lifeless. She's not looking at you. She's looking through you. Your very active mind ticks at rapid velocity. How many other men has she done this with? How many more will she go on to do it with?
The tempation is still there. It doesn't just go away on its own. You know full well that she must be a tiger in the sack. Some women just have that aura. Besides, what else would you spend the night doing, anyways? Is it really that bad to have a good time just once before you have to ship out on some ridiculous new job? A good lay might even do you a world of good.
What do you do?
A) Politely let her down and try to get some rest
B) Reject her with righteous indignation and try to get some rest
C) Go out for a nightly stroll just to think about your life some more
D) Invite her for a jog, try to talk to her about what you've been thinking about, maybe she could use some exercise and someone to talk to; it worked wonders for you
E) Screw her all night long
F) Try to sneak out of the HQ and go to a bar just to drink away your troubles
G) Any combination of the above, or alternative ways to spend the night
Roll Results
Exercise:
Discipline Roll: 1d20 + Tenacity 5 + Discipline Rank 2 = 17 + 5 + 4
TN for success: 10
Final Result: 26
GREAT SUCCESS!
Athletics Roll: 1d20 + Strength 4 + Athletics Rank 1 = 20 + 4 + 2
TN for success: 14
Final Result: 26
CRITICAL SUCCESS!
Examination of the Nurse and her motives:
Observation Roll: 1d20 + Intelligence 7 + Observation Rank 1 = 18 + 7 + 1
TN for success: 12
Final Result: 26
GREAT SUCCESS!
Discipline Roll: 1d20 + Tenacity 5 + Discipline Rank 2 = 17 + 5 + 4
TN for success: 10
Final Result: 26
GREAT SUCCESS!
Athletics Roll: 1d20 + Strength 4 + Athletics Rank 1 = 20 + 4 + 2
TN for success: 14
Final Result: 26
CRITICAL SUCCESS!
Examination of the Nurse and her motives:
Observation Roll: 1d20 + Intelligence 7 + Observation Rank 1 = 18 + 7 + 1
TN for success: 12
Final Result: 26
GREAT SUCCESS!
Congratulations, through grit and determination to succeed, you have increased your Tenacity and Discipline by 1! Your time spent exercising and learning more about your own body has also increased your Athletics by 1!
Character Sheet
Name: Marcus "Maverick" Westford
Class: Ranger
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Status: Fine
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Bluff Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: civilian casual clothes
Class: Ranger
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Status: Fine
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Bluff Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: civilian casual clothes
Last edited:
a bear named spigot
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2012
- Messages
- 784
you absolute sick cunt
time to read it all over again before voting
time to read it all over again before voting
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2012
- Messages
- 29,892
D
Nah, it'll come back. Eventually.
Dayyālu
Arcane
FFS, from beyond the grave.
Insane sexual frustration is an essential part of any truly great soldier's background.
G) Waste the night at the firing range (Marksmanship).
Failing that, C. We don't need mercenary women in our life.
Insane sexual frustration is an essential part of any truly great soldier's background.
G) Waste the night at the firing range (Marksmanship).
Failing that, C. We don't need mercenary women in our life.
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,812
I believe you mean, "Fuck her."
Currently leading option is D, the friendly jog, with E being runner-up. Remember that sometimes the secondary choice might be incorporated into the update as well, for better or worse, depending on how much support there is for it. I will update in around 4 hours.
Last edited:
a bear named spigot
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2012
- Messages
- 784
G. sneak out to the batting cages and hit some dingers. use the time to strengthen our newfound mental conviction.
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2008
- Messages
- 2,812
Chapter 1: The Hero Returns, Part VIII
It takes some of your newfound fortitude of will to resist the temptation to just grab her stocking-clad legs, spread them wide, and pounce on the hot nurse, but eventually you make your decision. You've come this far, you don't want to risk falling back into that lazy complacency that got you in this mess to begin with. No, you have better things to do than get laid. Probably.
You grasp her wrist and pull her hand off of your leg gently, but firmly. "I appreciate the offer, but I doubt that would do either of us much good right now."
The cute blonde sighs. You think you're pretty good at reading people, but even so it's hard to tell whether she's sighing with relief or disappointment. "Oh well! Just seems like a shame to let a hero like you slip out of my fingers!" she says with a broad smile, standing up and trotting over to the door. You get the feeling her pride as a woman might be a bit wounded. You guess that, even if she's paid to do this, it doesn't make it any more pleasant to be rejected.
[Lover Boy] "Wait," you say suddenly and awkwardly. "Would you like to jog a bit? I mean, I've got nothing better to do, and stuff." Smooth. Real smooth.
The nurse stops, turning back to peer at you with a funny look. After a good while of awkward silence, she just smiles and shakes her head. "I have to get back to my rounds. But thank you for the offer. Since you're being discharged tomorrow, I guess I should say goodbye. It's been fun."
You watch her flick her wide hips a little as she strolls out of the room, and you get the distinct impression you missed out on a great opportunity. It feels real bad, like indigestion of the soul. You doubt you'll ever see her again. The way she said the goodbye seemed almost too aware of the fact you were going to get some wacky assignment, so that just makes you even more certain that she was a plant put there by Shinra, not an ordinary nurse. You would tell yourself that at least you have your pride as a man and a soldier, but the more animal side of you considers it a load of crap.
Still, you can't change the past, and the night isn't getting any younger. You go ahead and suit up for a jog regardless and put the evening hallways of Shinra HQ to work, finding them nearly deserted. Unlike your mad sprints up the emergency stairwell, this is just you passing the time with a light jog to keep your body moving. As you jog, you pass by one of the entertainment centers for the building and see that it's a batting cage, the kind with the mechanical pitchers. Since you have nothing better to do and you can't sleep because of all the thinking you're doing, you step inside for a spell to knock some balls around. You're pretty good at the hand-eye coordination part of the equation, but on the flip side, no matter how hard you swing at the ball, the sensors just seem to think you're hitting it too weak to get a home run. As annoying as that is, it is still fun, and you have plenty of time to think some more about your life.
Eventually the batting cages close for the night and an employee ushers you out, clearly not paid enough for his job. Still restless, you venture on up to the shooting range on the upper floors, and find that it's still all taped off and deserted from the massacre only a few nights ago. Still, it's not like there are any automated defenses to worry about, so you climb under the tape and go to the range itself, finding that all the dead bodies have been carted off, only bloodstains remaining. It's a bit grim. You check the kiosk, and all the practice guns are gone. Someone probably confiscated them until the range got up and running again. Disappointed and not looking forward to spending the rest of the night in bed, you turn around and head back down to the 14th floor, unable to shake the feeling that you're being watched the whole way.
When you finally get back to your room, you find a note left on your bedside table that wasn't there before.
"My name is Janice. 22-340-1934-84"
It's a phone number.
Below, there's an imprint of some lipstick. Same lusty red as the kind she always wore.
It's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. Still, given the fact that she was most likely paid to hit on you, you can't exactly be sure that this was the product of charming her or if this is a part of her contract with Shinra. You feel a little better about what happened, anyways.
With nothing left to do that you can really think of, you climb into bed. You only have a few hours before dawn, going by the clock. Still, you can try to rest a little bit, right?
Your dreams are more like nightmares incestuously breeding with other nightmares.
You're back on the floor where the gun range is. But this time, it's full of people. Soldiers. Shinra. They're from the 84th Light Infantry Division, the one they brought in to sweep and clear the HQ after the AVALANCHE attack. You watch people murdered left and right by a silver-haired man with a sword that only a SOLDIER could wield - Sephiroth. It's like the AVALANCHE assault, but a thousand times worse. AVALANCHE might have had an ex-SOLDIER, but he was nothing like this. Sephiroth was too fast, too powerful, too skilled. He could cross a hallway faster than someone could blink, and decapitate four soldiers in an instant. When he swung his sword, it wasn't stopped by the walls even though it was so long. No, he just slashed right through them as if they were paper. It's difficult to describe what it looks like to see someone move faster than bullets. It is, for lack of a better word, terrifying.
Inevitably, he turns on you. You raise your rifle and flick it to full auto. You pull the trigger. Or at least you try to. The next thing you know, your arms are splatting on the ground, cleanly sliced right through along with your rifle. The edge of his sword, the Masamune, presses to your throat. He stares into your eyes and coldly forces the blade right through your neck. You don't die immediately. The pain of having your entire body severed away is inexplicable, the terror of knowing you are already dead and only conscious for a few more precious seconds pounding through what little blood remains in your brain. As your head flies, you are given a slow-motion view of the entire hallway. When you see your own body crumble and collapse, blood spurting out from your neck, you realize that you are just one of the dozens of bloodstains you stepped over to get to the shooting range.
You wake up in a start, covered in sweat. Sometimes nightmares just feel so real that it takes you a few minutes to return to reality even after waking up, and this is one of those times. You got barely two hours of sleep, and it's not even dawn yet. What a waste. You feel like shit inside and out, exhausted, and you doubt you'll feel better any time soon. And yet you just can't sleep. You climb off the bed and go to get a warm shower. Maybe that'll help.
You at least feel more awake after just standing under the water for a few minutes, and a few cups of coffee stolen from the doctor's lounge coffee machine gets you moving like a living being again. By the time you get back to your room, you find that someone left a PHS, the latest of the Shinra brand of personal phone, on your bedside table. It immediately starts ringing the second you get there. As if you needed any more proof that you were being observed at all times by Shinra.
With nothing better to do, you answer it.
"Hello?"
"Westmore. Do you prefer to be called 'Maverick' or Marcus?" the voice on the other end asks, not as gruff as you're used to. Whoever it was didn't sound like a career soldier.
"Westmore," you grunt. "They don't call me Maverick as a compliment. More of a bad joke from boot."
"You mean boot camp? Ah. Noted. Well, listen. Heidegger told me to brief you on your new mission."
"The one to save the world?"
"Hahahaha. Nah. He was just ribbing you. You're gonna be on TV, Westmore. Interviews lined up for days!"
Suddenly, it all makes sense. No wonder nobody seemed to care about you recovering from the attack. Your mission wasn't going to be of a military nature to begin with.
"Do I have to?"
"It's all in your contract!" the voice explained cheerfully. "I can text you the specific pages if you want."
"No, thanks. So am I gonna be on every network?"
"That's right. All four of them. Your name's already in the papers, you know. People wanna see the hero who took down AVALANCHE!"
You pause for a little while. "Actually, AVALANCHE isn't completely done yet. The woman escaped, right?"
"Oh, who cares? We got their leader in cuffs and the ex-SOLDIER they hired is dead. Both thanks to you! AVALANCHE is done for. That chick's just gonna be on the Most Wanted list for a while."
You glance out the window of your room at the lights of the city blazing in the night. "So what kind of interviews are we talking about here?"
"Just regular interviews with some reporters! They just take a few hours each, you can do them all one after another and get through in a single day. Shinra will provide a list of questions they are allowed to ask, of course. You'll get to see them all beforehand! And I'll coach you on them too. Besides, this stuff is all canned, we can just edit stuff out if you stammer or something, don't worry about it, my man!"
Typical. Even the TV interviews are manufactured by committee. "And I get paid for these? I was told I get paid for these. A lot."
"Sure thing! Six figures per appearance!"
You whistle loudly. It becomes pretty hard to complain. But you don't really feel like being whored out by the company for a news cycle, either. Then again, hundreds of thousands of gil. But you were just starting to get your life back on track. But then again, they've got you by the balls with a contract. It seems like you're standing between fame and fortune, and pride and poverty. You hate to say it, but one of these options sounds wayyyy better than the other.
What do you do?
A) Just accept the interviews and get this shit over with; the money's great, you become famous, and it doesn't really impact your convictions much. If anything, you might be able to use the newfound star power to great advantage in the future for achieving your aims.
B) Say no. Screw the money, screw the fame, screw your future. None of it matters. You just want to be a soldier. You're not going to sell your new-found soul for worldly desires.
C) Ask him to text you the specific pages of the contract. You should try to be informed before you make any decisions.
D) Smash the phone and call it an accident.
E) Ask specifically how much money you're going to make off of this, then ask for more
F) Any combination of the above, or any alternative choice you can think of
Roll Results
[Lover Boy] Inner nature unlocked. Gained experience towards Charm lvl. 1. Gained experience towards Athletics lvl. 3. Gained PHS.
Character Sheet
It takes some of your newfound fortitude of will to resist the temptation to just grab her stocking-clad legs, spread them wide, and pounce on the hot nurse, but eventually you make your decision. You've come this far, you don't want to risk falling back into that lazy complacency that got you in this mess to begin with. No, you have better things to do than get laid. Probably.
You grasp her wrist and pull her hand off of your leg gently, but firmly. "I appreciate the offer, but I doubt that would do either of us much good right now."
The cute blonde sighs. You think you're pretty good at reading people, but even so it's hard to tell whether she's sighing with relief or disappointment. "Oh well! Just seems like a shame to let a hero like you slip out of my fingers!" she says with a broad smile, standing up and trotting over to the door. You get the feeling her pride as a woman might be a bit wounded. You guess that, even if she's paid to do this, it doesn't make it any more pleasant to be rejected.
[Lover Boy] "Wait," you say suddenly and awkwardly. "Would you like to jog a bit? I mean, I've got nothing better to do, and stuff." Smooth. Real smooth.
The nurse stops, turning back to peer at you with a funny look. After a good while of awkward silence, she just smiles and shakes her head. "I have to get back to my rounds. But thank you for the offer. Since you're being discharged tomorrow, I guess I should say goodbye. It's been fun."
You watch her flick her wide hips a little as she strolls out of the room, and you get the distinct impression you missed out on a great opportunity. It feels real bad, like indigestion of the soul. You doubt you'll ever see her again. The way she said the goodbye seemed almost too aware of the fact you were going to get some wacky assignment, so that just makes you even more certain that she was a plant put there by Shinra, not an ordinary nurse. You would tell yourself that at least you have your pride as a man and a soldier, but the more animal side of you considers it a load of crap.
Still, you can't change the past, and the night isn't getting any younger. You go ahead and suit up for a jog regardless and put the evening hallways of Shinra HQ to work, finding them nearly deserted. Unlike your mad sprints up the emergency stairwell, this is just you passing the time with a light jog to keep your body moving. As you jog, you pass by one of the entertainment centers for the building and see that it's a batting cage, the kind with the mechanical pitchers. Since you have nothing better to do and you can't sleep because of all the thinking you're doing, you step inside for a spell to knock some balls around. You're pretty good at the hand-eye coordination part of the equation, but on the flip side, no matter how hard you swing at the ball, the sensors just seem to think you're hitting it too weak to get a home run. As annoying as that is, it is still fun, and you have plenty of time to think some more about your life.
Eventually the batting cages close for the night and an employee ushers you out, clearly not paid enough for his job. Still restless, you venture on up to the shooting range on the upper floors, and find that it's still all taped off and deserted from the massacre only a few nights ago. Still, it's not like there are any automated defenses to worry about, so you climb under the tape and go to the range itself, finding that all the dead bodies have been carted off, only bloodstains remaining. It's a bit grim. You check the kiosk, and all the practice guns are gone. Someone probably confiscated them until the range got up and running again. Disappointed and not looking forward to spending the rest of the night in bed, you turn around and head back down to the 14th floor, unable to shake the feeling that you're being watched the whole way.
When you finally get back to your room, you find a note left on your bedside table that wasn't there before.
"My name is Janice. 22-340-1934-84"
It's a phone number.
Below, there's an imprint of some lipstick. Same lusty red as the kind she always wore.
It's a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. Still, given the fact that she was most likely paid to hit on you, you can't exactly be sure that this was the product of charming her or if this is a part of her contract with Shinra. You feel a little better about what happened, anyways.
With nothing left to do that you can really think of, you climb into bed. You only have a few hours before dawn, going by the clock. Still, you can try to rest a little bit, right?
Your dreams are more like nightmares incestuously breeding with other nightmares.
You're back on the floor where the gun range is. But this time, it's full of people. Soldiers. Shinra. They're from the 84th Light Infantry Division, the one they brought in to sweep and clear the HQ after the AVALANCHE attack. You watch people murdered left and right by a silver-haired man with a sword that only a SOLDIER could wield - Sephiroth. It's like the AVALANCHE assault, but a thousand times worse. AVALANCHE might have had an ex-SOLDIER, but he was nothing like this. Sephiroth was too fast, too powerful, too skilled. He could cross a hallway faster than someone could blink, and decapitate four soldiers in an instant. When he swung his sword, it wasn't stopped by the walls even though it was so long. No, he just slashed right through them as if they were paper. It's difficult to describe what it looks like to see someone move faster than bullets. It is, for lack of a better word, terrifying.
Inevitably, he turns on you. You raise your rifle and flick it to full auto. You pull the trigger. Or at least you try to. The next thing you know, your arms are splatting on the ground, cleanly sliced right through along with your rifle. The edge of his sword, the Masamune, presses to your throat. He stares into your eyes and coldly forces the blade right through your neck. You don't die immediately. The pain of having your entire body severed away is inexplicable, the terror of knowing you are already dead and only conscious for a few more precious seconds pounding through what little blood remains in your brain. As your head flies, you are given a slow-motion view of the entire hallway. When you see your own body crumble and collapse, blood spurting out from your neck, you realize that you are just one of the dozens of bloodstains you stepped over to get to the shooting range.
You wake up in a start, covered in sweat. Sometimes nightmares just feel so real that it takes you a few minutes to return to reality even after waking up, and this is one of those times. You got barely two hours of sleep, and it's not even dawn yet. What a waste. You feel like shit inside and out, exhausted, and you doubt you'll feel better any time soon. And yet you just can't sleep. You climb off the bed and go to get a warm shower. Maybe that'll help.
You at least feel more awake after just standing under the water for a few minutes, and a few cups of coffee stolen from the doctor's lounge coffee machine gets you moving like a living being again. By the time you get back to your room, you find that someone left a PHS, the latest of the Shinra brand of personal phone, on your bedside table. It immediately starts ringing the second you get there. As if you needed any more proof that you were being observed at all times by Shinra.
With nothing better to do, you answer it.
"Hello?"
"Westmore. Do you prefer to be called 'Maverick' or Marcus?" the voice on the other end asks, not as gruff as you're used to. Whoever it was didn't sound like a career soldier.
"Westmore," you grunt. "They don't call me Maverick as a compliment. More of a bad joke from boot."
"You mean boot camp? Ah. Noted. Well, listen. Heidegger told me to brief you on your new mission."
"The one to save the world?"
"Hahahaha. Nah. He was just ribbing you. You're gonna be on TV, Westmore. Interviews lined up for days!"
Suddenly, it all makes sense. No wonder nobody seemed to care about you recovering from the attack. Your mission wasn't going to be of a military nature to begin with.
"Do I have to?"
"It's all in your contract!" the voice explained cheerfully. "I can text you the specific pages if you want."
"No, thanks. So am I gonna be on every network?"
"That's right. All four of them. Your name's already in the papers, you know. People wanna see the hero who took down AVALANCHE!"
You pause for a little while. "Actually, AVALANCHE isn't completely done yet. The woman escaped, right?"
"Oh, who cares? We got their leader in cuffs and the ex-SOLDIER they hired is dead. Both thanks to you! AVALANCHE is done for. That chick's just gonna be on the Most Wanted list for a while."
You glance out the window of your room at the lights of the city blazing in the night. "So what kind of interviews are we talking about here?"
"Just regular interviews with some reporters! They just take a few hours each, you can do them all one after another and get through in a single day. Shinra will provide a list of questions they are allowed to ask, of course. You'll get to see them all beforehand! And I'll coach you on them too. Besides, this stuff is all canned, we can just edit stuff out if you stammer or something, don't worry about it, my man!"
Typical. Even the TV interviews are manufactured by committee. "And I get paid for these? I was told I get paid for these. A lot."
"Sure thing! Six figures per appearance!"
You whistle loudly. It becomes pretty hard to complain. But you don't really feel like being whored out by the company for a news cycle, either. Then again, hundreds of thousands of gil. But you were just starting to get your life back on track. But then again, they've got you by the balls with a contract. It seems like you're standing between fame and fortune, and pride and poverty. You hate to say it, but one of these options sounds wayyyy better than the other.
What do you do?
A) Just accept the interviews and get this shit over with; the money's great, you become famous, and it doesn't really impact your convictions much. If anything, you might be able to use the newfound star power to great advantage in the future for achieving your aims.
B) Say no. Screw the money, screw the fame, screw your future. None of it matters. You just want to be a soldier. You're not going to sell your new-found soul for worldly desires.
C) Ask him to text you the specific pages of the contract. You should try to be informed before you make any decisions.
D) Smash the phone and call it an accident.
E) Ask specifically how much money you're going to make off of this, then ask for more
F) Any combination of the above, or any alternative choice you can think of
Roll Results
[Lover Boy]Charm the nurse to go on a jog with you:
Charm Roll: 1d20 + Intelligence 7 + Charm Rank 0 = 10 + 7 - 2
TN for success: 16
Final Result: 15
Edge Failure!
To Bat at the Cages:
Athletics Roll: 1d20 + Strength 4 + Athletics Rank 2 = 8 + 4 + 4
TN for success: 14
Final Result: 16
Slight Success!
Charm Roll: 1d20 + Intelligence 7 + Charm Rank 0 = 10 + 7 - 2
TN for success: 16
Final Result: 15
Edge Failure!
To Bat at the Cages:
Athletics Roll: 1d20 + Strength 4 + Athletics Rank 2 = 8 + 4 + 4
TN for success: 14
Final Result: 16
Slight Success!
[Lover Boy] Inner nature unlocked. Gained experience towards Charm lvl. 1. Gained experience towards Athletics lvl. 3. Gained PHS.
Character Sheet
Name: Marcus "Maverick" Westford
Class: Ranger
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Health: Fine
Status: Exhausted
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Bluff Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: civilian casual clothes, PHS
Class: Ranger
Profession: Major of the Shinra Co. Peacekeeping Corps, Department of Public Safety, Military Police Division
Age: 23
Inner Nature: X
Dominant Inner Nature: None
Health: Fine
Status: Exhausted
Characteristics:
Strength 4 Agility 7
Tenacity 6 Intelligence 7
Skills:
Discipline Lvl. 3
Marksmanship Lvl. 2, Athletics Lvl. 2
Hand-to-Hand Lvl. 1, Fieldcraft Lvl. 1, Bluff Lvl. 1, Stealth Lvl. 1, Academics Lvl. 1, Observation Lvl. 1, Electronics Lvl. 1, Computer Use Lvl. 1
Inventory: civilian casual clothes, PHS
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The Brazilian Slaughter
Arcane
C)
What?
We need money, let's get some!
Also, being famous will help in our campaign of world domination.
I mean, we want to take over the world, right? Its always like that with Codex CYOAs - its either taking over the world, getting laid, eating people, trolling them or a variation of the three.
What?
We need money, let's get some!
Also, being famous will help in our campaign of world domination.
I mean, we want to take over the world, right? Its always like that with Codex CYOAs - its either taking over the world, getting laid, eating people, trolling them or a variation of the three.
Last edited:
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