#questbook

[spitblaze]

Pixel art commission for @lightningscribe, for her project over at https://www.deviantart.com/truechickenlord!

[Commission prices | Ko-fi | Play Ghost Hospital]

[lightningscribery]

Chapter 1

You awaken to the gentle burble of your lab, and the soft hum of your home. As you blink yourself awake, you realize you fell asleep at your desk again, your glasses askew and papers stuck to your face. You sit up, a knot in your neck objecting to this strain. Adjusting your glasses, you roll your neck a bit, which for the moment silences the lump. Stretching lazily you rise to your feet and immediately fall on your face. You sit up again, and rub your legs, which feel both stiff and akin to jelly. After your legs return to normal, you wait a second before rising, expecting another malady to cease being inert. With nothing much happening for roughly a minute(exactly 62 seconds to be precise), you rise and deem it important to get some stretching done before anything. While the act of stretching is routine, you add to the exercise by reciting semi dormant information about your surroundings. You are currently standing in your small bedroom, which doubles as your laboratory. You realize that more of your room is taken up by your laboratory, so you restart taking stock. You are currently standing in your small laboratory, which doubles as your bedroom. In the corner is the entirety of the bedroom, a single cot with a dresser next to it, both covered in a thin layer of dust. Turning 45 degrees you see your much cleaner bookcase, where your collection of well-weathered books on the subject of alchemy make their home. Following that with another 45 degree turn, you stare at the door out of your room, which at the moment sits closed, a poster on the anatomy of several races plastered across it. You don’t understand why you need that poster but you have goblin anatomy recessed somewhere in your mind. Spinning a whole 90 degrees, you stare again at your lab station, your desk, your trusty steed upon which you ride into battle against science saying no. as you finish stretching you realize there is something important you forgot. Normally when this happens you think on a constant in your life, and spiral outwards until you remember. you quickly decide to begin with one of the bigger constants in your life, your name.

——– Player Enter Name=====> ——–

[lightningscribe]

Some more Questbook comissions I forgot to post. Superb work by @jackcayless as ever.

[lightningscribery]

Chapter 1( Part 2)

You chuckle for a moment a remember a nickname one of your old rivals gave you.you never understood why because alchemy is one of the furthest thing from witchcraft and the sheer act of likening that act of wanton chaotic “Magic”, if you can even call it such, to the precise and wondrous art of alchemy, why it sickens you! Such an act is akin to breaking into your house, eating your food, de-alphabetizing your reagents, and murdering your apprentice. You would never dare to refer yourself as a witching lady, canine or otherwise. A good insult though. You will have to use it with your rival.

A voice chimes in. A name. A alliteration. A brand. You could never math AA’s skill. She is the top teacher at MDU, one of the finest alchemist in the world. While you are not anywhere near her skill, you do consider yourself atleast skilled, if not Awesome, to alliterate your chosen class. You don’t know why Alanbee popped into your head. They make good soda. You could really go for some.

Puella Virtute Retunsus. This is the name all right. Well, it’s right because it is your name, or the one your parents gave you. Or, well “Parents” would be more apt to say. You mostly go by Ella because most people these days don’t have the time or care enough to say lengthy phrases of latin. Or well, most of them don’t. Even alchemy has phased out latin for the most part since the City was formed. A shame, with how Latin sounds so eloquent, flowing like wine into the goblet of a well of roman senator, a younger man, but one with experience plenty fighting the dastardly Vandals. He has a small scar on his cheek, where a blade narrowly slid across his face. You catch his eye, your dress complemented by silk….

You stop that train of thought because have stuff to do today. Important stuff! Stuff that doesn’t involve your fantasies of Roman smooching. Today you will be meeting some of your friends for the first time ever. You are utterly ecstatic at this idea and are practically about to explode like a Devils hand/Janissary Wort concoction. You, may, or may not be jumping up and down, causing your room to shake a bit. You just can’t help it.

But what if they don’t like you? Or you  freak them out or can’t make eye contact with them, causing them to think you don’t find them interesting?  You do find them very interesting and cherish your friends greatly, but your suddenly overcome with the fear of offending them and becoming not friends. You are suddenly very worried about that. So much so you forgot what you needed to before then.

———— Enter Action========> ————

[lightningscribery]

Prologue: A Distant Past

The Year is 20XX. The original earth is covered in a gigantic, multi-tiered city. The world is united in name only, with many small district states existing. The district states covering anywhere from a entire continent to a single street. History was forever changed as well as the lives of Elves, Dwarves and countless others lived on the planet. In this modern metropolis, the line between magic and technology is blurred. With Dwarven engineering and Elven biology, the city rose from the birthplace of civilization , the Levant.

This city stretched across the globe as if a wild fire had ensued into every crevice and corner, consuming every town,city, and village in the way. The city covers every inch of land in its reach with gigantic spires and countless levels, each filled with the worlds massive population. Upon the completion of the masterpiece, the architects looked elsewhere for inspiration for their next great work.

The Dwarves marched onwards, attempting to travel into the cold vacuum of space to place their great holds there as well.

While the Elves dove inwards, attempting to find room by accessing the other planes of existence.

Neither experiment bore the intended fruit , with technological advances being minimum for space colonization and other dimensions unreachable by us.

The experiments did, however, bear one, strange fruit.

While experimenting with captured elementals, the Elven Biologist infused the Earth itself with strange magic, causing an event known as The Expansion.

With The Expansion, the Earth now exists in a state of endlessness. The frontier growing infinitely, allowing colonization to expand past any length imagination. As the city grows and new relics and curiosities flow in countless of interesting adventures occur.

The story you are about to read is not one of them.

[lightningscribery]

Hey did you know you can find all 7 parties over on deviant art?

Well you can. On deviant art.

You can also see all the art using the just the art tag.

https://truechickenlord.deviantart.com

[lightningscribery]

You are shaking now. You decide you should probably hydrate yourself a bit to keep your internal alchemy running smoothly. You look around for something to drink. Looking around, you find a bottle of Alanbee Amazing: Avocado Avarice and Angel Hair soda. It was hiding behind some bottled eye of newt extract and virgin blood substitute. Not quite your favorite flavor, but it will do in a pinch.

Suddenly, you remember the first rule of alchemy: try hard enough and you can make anything work. Screwing the cap off, you take a big gulp. As you down this sugary drink, you question why alchemists named so many plants like that. Instead of the naming something after themselves or a color, they named it stuff like Angel Hair. Godshand. Orcsteeth. There are countless anatomical plants, including so many that are just improper to talk about. You don't find this habit very proper for a field as esteemed as alchemy.

You are now shaking a bit more. Not so much because ancient alchemists were gross, but because how much sugar is in the Alanbee soda. Checking the label, you note that this bottle contains 200% daily sugar. Wondering how you used to drink 5 of these a day, your body vibrates at a rate almost fast enough to phase through existence into another plane. You probably shouldn’t have done that. You are now starting to freak out even more.

You are full-on panicking now. Okay, that is quite an understatement. You are currently ready to explode from this marriage of sugar and anxiety. This marriage seems to be extremely passionate, despite having been together for years now.

You begin to remember what one of your friends told you to do in this case.

You begin taking deep, if rather shaky breaths. You feel your body start to calm, along with your heart slowing. You are still rather jittery and could really use a gosh darn hug right now, but you also don’t want to leave your room and potentially run into someone else that might be a butt to you.  

Not just any butt, but like the butt of something really smelly. Like a trash-dragons butt. A trash-dragon that hasn’t eaten anything but smelly wet cardboard and Greasy King leftovers, so it’s….

You decided to quickly stop this outrageous train of thought.

Granted, there are only 326 people you could potentially run into, most of which are rather decent. However,  you don’t want to risk running into the ones that aren’t. Despite the odds being at 72% that you would run into one of the people that “like” you.

As you look over your math of how many people here have a problem with you (94), you realize that your heart rate is only slightly faster than normal. This is most likely due to the sugar from that God-forsaken soda. You are now at a nominal (for you at least) 56 beats a second. It drops down to 54 after all the math you have just completed.

You really are lucky you didn’t run out into the hall before starting your math binge. Since you are certain whoever would find you, would make jokes about your love of the subject. You feel bad for math teachers, because math is truly the most disliked subjects and a hard one to make fun for students. You start feeling a bit anxious again because your heart goes out for those poor teachers.

You got to nip this problem in the metaphorical bud before you have a full-blown panic attack. Again.

You look around your room to ensure that no one is there, and afterwards begin singing one of your favorite <a href= "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3NOQnsQM"> songs.</a>

It’s a fine piece of classical music, and while dated due to its age, you remember you mother singing it to you…...

As the thought of her crosses your mind, a bitter reminder hits you. You got science to do! There was also something else, but first, SCIENCE! Specifically, the science of alchemy because that’s what you do. You start, like any good alchemist, by taking stock of what you have available.

Whipping out your trusty notepad and pen, you begin performing the Alchemical Substance Census.

It is revealed that you currently have:

-  6 Liters worth of Catalyst fluid.

- 1 Gram of Ground Bone Meal (Synthetic)

- 2.66 kilograms of Mint leaves

- 1 Liter of Virgin Blood

In addition, you also have several alchemical potions already in the works, with their ingredients set aside for them. You frown a bit as you realize that your lab is incredibly poorly stocked, falling second rate to even some of the poorest drug labs in the city.

You begin wondering where all your spare reagents went. You look under your bed, behind your bookshelf, around your desk, and you can’t find it anywhere. You start racking your brain a bunch and quickly remember that you lent your pouch to your friend down the hall.  Having at the time forgotten that you keep your stuff in there. You would chastise yourself for such a  careless act, but it is completely like you to do something like that.

You take another deep breath, as you realize you can still make something with what you have. You pick up the carton of virgin’s blood to start the sciencing. However, before you begin, the label on the top catches your eye, revealing that this virgin blood is horrifically expired.

You perform one of Alchemies rookie mistakes, and take a sniff to see if it’s just a misprint on the carton. As the scent of rancid blood hits your nose you feel yourself incredibly compelled to get rid of it. Like right now.

Quickly opening  your door, you run down the hall to the open porthole. You throw the carton out in frustration. It’s someone else’s problem now.

Hopefully, they won’t see the falling blood as a sign of the beginning of the end times and start a cult. With that now done,  you realize you have left your cabin. You would panic if this part of the ship wasn't completely deserted.

As you return to your room, you try to remember what you were doing. You are usually rather forgetful, but as of late it has gotten much worse.

As you re-enter your room, you decide to check your HUD to see if you remembered to leave a reminder. The moment the system boots up, you are bombarded by virtual sticky notes floating in your face.

These are all reminding you of all the stuff you had to do………before you forgot. Again. You sort through them, finding one that isn’t expired. Well, one of a dozen copies of it.

You remember now.

You promised your friends you would meet up with them today for the first time! You’re super excited for it, and you really need to get ready soon for landfall! You still need to shower and get gifts and get your bag and probably should eat and oh my gosh your meeting them today and you're just so excited!

As you bounce around your room in a excited manner, you think on what you should get done first...

Enter action=====>

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Thank you for writing in everyone. Sorry about delays been a little busy.

@lowlyanon

[lightningscribery]

SWEET BANNER!

We have a banner now! Thank you @ze-pie for the amazing comission.

Also been working on the next update. Should be out tomorrow. Thanks for readin questbook :)