[x] Get Mystia to sign a contract.

Remilia scratched her fang. An opportunity like this was begging to be taken advantage of, but she would have to be careful. Fate was monstrously unpredictable. She liked to give the impression that she could bend it to her will, but in actuality she was little more than a secretary, sending it the occasional note that it may or may not pay attention to. When it did, it was under no obligation to work in her benefit, and if there was anything that brought down fate's ire, it was someone trying to game the system to their advantage.

She could do something minor, though. Fate didn't seem to mind minor pokes and nudges, if they were spaced out appropriately.

"Sakuya, my fate-papers and fate-pen."

"Yes, milady."

A hidden pouch in Sakuya's apron held the paper Remilia reserved for fate contracts. There was nothing exceptional about it, but it helped make the whole affair feel more special. Remilia took the papers and walked back towards Mystia.

"Food's up," Mystia chirped, and presented them with two bowls of grilled eels over rice, chopsticks sticking out of them. Remilia thanked her own brilliance that she spent so much time farting around in China and Japan, so she knew how to use these effectively. Sakuya was halfway to scooping up food with her hands when she saw Remilia pinch the chopsticks between her fingers and followed suit.

Remilia took a bite. It wasn't bad at all. There was certainly a unique terroir from the food around here.

>[x] ...I got nothing. Help me, Clover!

I stop mid-sip and rack my brain, coming up empty. Damn it, Applepicker, think.

"...I have no idea," I admit. "But--but why is it my job anyway? I mean--"

"Because you're the man!" Clover insists, thumping the table with her palm. "You're supposed to be all seizing initiative and being bold! In charge and all that!"

"...Clover, that's stupid. Really, really stupid. Have you seen her?" I ask pointedly. "Do you really think I'm in charge of ... anything?"

"Excuses!" Clover shouts, sitting on the edge of the table beside me. "And besides, it's not that you're a man--"

"Not what you said," I grumble.

"--It's that you're her man." She pokes a finger at my chest (right in the geta-shaped bruise, though I'm too drunk to feel). "You don't think a dragon likes being swept off her feet?"

You don't “startle” awake. Instead, your eyes open slowly, as if coming awake from a good dream that you don't want to leave. Your body feels heavy, somehow, even with all the power coursing through it. Your breath is clouding in the air in front of you, which is also odd, since you don't remember the last time you even had breath. Everything else, though, is mostly familiar. Midnight blue robes with gold trim, check, green hair (with bangs dangling in front of your eyes, annoyingly), check, legs that weren't supposed to be there, check. Least surprising of this whole mess is that you're occupying a coffin that's obviously not buried anymore. The lid is embedded in the ground some twenty feet away, and must have been blown off to have gone that far.

The resulting question has an answer, but that answer is just another question. Whoever resurrected you is likely the one who forcibly blew the lid off of your coffin, but who is that? What business do they have resurrecting one of Gensokyo's strongest wizards? Pushing those questions out of your mind for now since you can't answer them yet, you conjure up a mirror and take in your appearance. Your face is a lot younger than you remember, and your hair is similarly shorter than you remember (what used to run down to your upper back now only reaches to the middle of your neck), though at least that is explained by the pile of hair at the foot of the coffin. Your eyes, at least, are still the vivid green you remember.

Once you've gathered yourself, you finally step out of the coffin, using magic to brace yourself until you get used to walking again. You're missing your hat and your staff, but that's easy to fix. You don't remember exactly when (only that it was at least a hundred years ago), but you'd enchanted your staff so that you could conjure it whenever you wanted. So, you do just that. Fifteen seconds and one outstretched hand later, you have your staff. You admire the golden crescent moon that adorns the tip before finally turning to address the last anomaly: it should be the middle of summer right now, so why is the area arou

It was a terrible way of waking up.

I was shaken about, feeling like I was being battered from all directions. Even that summer storm that had caught us in the straits had been a gentle rocking in comparison. I kept my nerve and tried to get my bearings. The light was opalescent and blinded me as soon as I opened my eyes. I cringed but felt my breath coming back to me. In all the excitement I had barely noticed I wasn’t breathing. Luckily, the chaos died down quickly. The shaking stopped and the bright rainbow began growing duller and duller until I could begin to make out shadows and shapes in the distance.

My heart raced at my throat. I wasn’t in pain but it felt like I ought to take a moment to gather my wits. I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath. A nip of brandy would be the perfect thing to steady myself. Yes, my throat was rather parched. I believed that I still had a bottle hidden away in my kit somewhere.

The problem was, of course, my kit was nowhere to be found. In fact, I was nowhere to be found. Best I could recall I had been out for a ride. The memory of hacking on a country trail seemed both fresh but also strangely foreign. Cold stone and the dark of night should not follow from that.

When I finally got around to getting a good look at my surroundings, I found that I lay on a simple wooden table with little more than a large tunic protecting my modesty. I sat up. Moonlight crept in from a nearby window and the smell of perfumed oils and tinctures hung heavily in the air. Save for another small table whereupon a lamp, various flasks and colored stones rested, the room was otherwise barren.

Perhaps I’d had an accident, I reasoned. I had been found and taken in while unconscious. An traveler’s lodge must have been closer than the estate. I had seen plenty of such places in my travels. They often sported quaint rooms and construction made from usually a mixture of wood and stone. I felt satisfied with my conclusion and was glad I did not seem to be injured.

More importantly, I realized that I wasn’t alone. Off in a corner, half-hidden by shadow, a

"And so class, we must call back onto the principal understanding that an orbital is not an actual place, but an area of electron density. In fact, an orbital, like an electron or anything in the universe, is a wave function, psi..." the professor lectured with each syllable more ponderous than the last. He's important, you understand this. There are few men in education so highly revered as the department head of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. It's all good knowledge that you'll need for the final exams, and more importantly, the MCAT. Heck, you find organic chemistry to be an amazing subject.

You just really are not in the mood right now, so to speak.

Was it the minimal hours of sleep you got last night? Probably? Would that have made a difference? Three hours or four, the latter above the average. You're used to this though. You had to be to even be attending this lecture. High school was hell, but for the sake of the sacrifices made by your family, you worked beyond what you ever thought possible. You went from plump to sickly, only aided by the fact that you got ill extremely often due to your overwork.

Does that really matter though? You got every accolade you could, minus your rank in the school which you never bring up. Yeah, you've sacrificed some morals here and there, but you're here. That's what matters. And soon you'll take that blasted MCAT and prove yourself as the best of the best, on track to become a physician-scientist at the tender age of 28 when most would finish at 32. Maybe then it'll all be worth it, and the sleepless nights can stop.

You feel yourself shuffling out of the hall, the notebook that had mechanically been filled with notes that you didn't understand returning to the backpack. You still wear one of those, when most have sleek little binders and whatnot. Whatever.

Is there a moral event horizon after which you become a "bad doctor" that is shown so often in fiction? What does that even constitute? Maybe you understand why patients always outlive their doctors: they've gone

You are Patchouli Knowledge, a physically frail and sickly magician of profound aptitude and power. You live in the Voile Archives of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, though you have constructed an attached tower elsewhere, without internal fixtures as yet, which you may or may not inhabit much. You are Friends with Remilia, the vampire who owns the mansion, who considers it entirely too much effort to try to feed off you. Your Magical Potency varies somewhat from day to day, depending on how long of an incantation you can manage before breaking off into a fit of coughs, and how much strain your body can handle in addition to the rigors of illness. You currently have a box of ninety two vials of Medication stored in the library to offset the worst of the days, however, though it will later exact a toll, and your new Magical Focus eases use of magic to a significant degree. It seems that Luck can play a reasonable part in keeping yourself healthy, though effects may vary, as can the Hakurei Hot Spring.

Your magic is based on Elementalism primarily, though you are also skilled in Diabolism and Other Summonings, which can be surprisingly versatile, particularly in combination with Golems. You can also create Homunculi, if you have the materials to hand. You do not have any suitable samples of the key ingredient, however.

The date is Sep. 1, first of a hundred-day term. It is Thursday, day of Jupiter, Wood, and natural growth. Through dint of long and methodical practice, you find the use of Wood-natured elemental magics to come a touch easier on this day.

----

That's the problem with golems and similar things, you suppose. Unless they're given an end parameter and told to stop when they reach it they keep on following their instruct

Camp Misty Lake.

The first and only Summer Camp in all of Gensokyo.

Every year, for three years, this Summer Camp invited many members of the community in Themed Camp Events for an entire month of play.

This year, the theme is...

... Birds.

The camp is so popular that even tales of girls going missing every summer will stop people from coming to these events.

[ ] Aya

received her invitation in the mail. How could she pass up the Reporting Adventure of a life time! Aya prepared her finest bathing suit...

Iz quick story, because this board is slow and I felt like it. It should be a quick little adventure, then back to my other stories.

-----

You are a Maid Fairy (one of the tough Red Uniforms). You are Blonde, Blue eyed and, though flat as a pancake, your hips are to die for.

Why? Because the author likes 'em like that.

You, being a Red Uniform, are of High enough rank to serve Tea directly to the Residents of the Mansion.

You have been tasked with serving Mistress Flan her Favorite Mango Tea.

She lives down the hall and to the right, through the library and through the dungeon.

---

Thread 1: >>61559
__________

I cannot, in good conscience, sentence one of my subordinates to certain doom. Nor can I let a... friend of mine be diced up by friendly fire, no matter how much she may freak me out at times.

This only leaves one option, cramped though we'll be.

I grab Nia's wrist, dragging her along even as I fling myself at Koa. The specifics are lost on me, but our corkscrew dive leaves us all on a lower bunk, Koa on her side below me (oh god all of her she's so soft), me flat on my stomach atop her, and Nia completing the pile on my back.

“Scrunch up!” I order, trying to draw my legs up so they're not dangling over the foot of the bed; unfortunately, with the fairy/devil sandwich I've placed myself in and how I'm on my stomach, I can't quite manage to get both my legs underneath the top bunk's protective barrier. Koa has a bit less trouble with that despite being taller than me, by virtue of being on her side, which lends itself well to letting her curl up.

I'm stuck listening to the bladestorm falling on our heads, knives thudding dully against wood and bedding and fairies too, if the pops of them being annihilated is anything to go off of.

“Oh shit oh piss oh gods oh hell,” Nia squeaks, latching so tightly onto me that it feels like she's trying to glue her body to mine. “Don't you roll over I swear I'll kill you if you roll over don't throw me out of this bed.”

You move before thinking, the whip twisting in your hands even before you can see its arc in your mind's eye, reactions trained by years of fighting. The whip wraps around the demon's throat, no small feat on a creature of that shape.
"Get over here!" You yell, yanking on the whip as the demon's eyes register slow shock. Marisa finally notices the hulking thing bearing down on her, shrieking and hopping out of the way just in time as the demon blunders sideways, crashing to its knees, stubby fingers trying to pry the whip from its neck. The grey flesh smoulders and wrinkles under the whip's touch. You tighten your grip.

"Hold it there for a moment!" Marisa shouts as the demon tries to get to its feet, trying to launch itself at you. A smaller foe would simply meet your knuckles, but you doubt a mere blow to the face would slow down a titan of this size, even from your practised fists.
"Whatever you're doing, hurry it up!" You shout back as the demon lumbers forward, roaring with what little breath it can draw through its constricted airways. You leap out of the way, dropping the torch and wrapping the slack of the whip around your fist, tugging harder and bringing the demon to its knees again.
"Here!" Marisa hurls something through the air, a glass vial shattering against the demon's head, spilling a tiny amount of thick red liquid over its bald, grey skull. The demon sniffs once, then frantically claws at its face, mewling and shrieking. You release the pressure on the whip and slip it back to yourself as the demon starts frothing at the mouth. It pitches head-first into the dirt, twitching and spasming, death throes lit by the flames of your torch next to it on the ground.

Marisa bounds over to your side, eyes still unfocused, pupils dilated.
"Cool huh? Agla-"
"Later, Marisa." You assure her. You're curious about why a witch should be carrying such potent demonological chemicals and potions, but now is not the time to ask. Your gaze snaps back to Youmu and the remains of the demon-pack. She has felled or crippled most of them in mere moments, her sword-work second to none, but s