I finished Wysteria for the first time last month, and I do NOT understand the hate AT ALL! Pigswick my pathetic child, they are SLEEPIN ON YOU for real! Wysteria's got some of the funniest dialogue in the game so far, all of the NPCs are very memorable, and I personally feel like the story there is fun and well-paced.
Since it's so unfairly underrated, I decided to make some Wysterian OCs! From left to right, meet Private Ronnie, Officer Milton, and Private Babs, members of the Wysterian town guard.
This is Pigswick, so obviously none of them are actually good at their jobs lol. More about them under the cut!
Milton is the "best" at his job. He got on the force when he was a youngster due to nepotism, and has been aggressively mediocre at it ever since. He is DEEPLY uninvested and apathetic towards his job, and only does the bare minimum required to fly under the radar and get his paycheck. He's got two years left to go before he gets retirement benefits, and he thought they would be smooth sailing. Unfortunately for him, he got put in charge of these two.
Ronnie is a transplant to Pigswick from a different part of Wysteria, and is. . . Culturally unadjusted. He's got sticky fingers and steals things ALL the time, which got him in major trouble in his hometown. He picked up the town guard position because it was the first place that would hire him, but it makes him VERY paranoid that he's gonna be caught stealing and forced to do exorbitant amounts of jail-time (Ronnie, please, this is Pigswick, you're practically a moral paragon).
Babs is a very extroverted and very ANNOYING individual who does not understand the concepts of personal space, invasive questions, minding your own business, shutting up, TMI, or boundaries in general. She has a tendency to talk the ears off every person she meets while asking them disrespectful and nosy questions about their lives instead of listening to any of their problems or recognizing "hey, this is the person I'm supposed to be arresting, maybe now isn't the time to be a chatterbox." This behavior does not get better with time.
In the rare instances that any of the three of them lock in and actually focus on their work, they're actually surprisingly competent, but Pigswick in general lacks the discipline to make that happen. Nobody is even bothering to check if they're doing their jobs, let alone make them do it.
Milton hates both his new recruits with a fiery passion. Babs is always either too oblivious to notice when someone doesn't like her, or pretends she is so that she can continue screwing with them. She likes to tease both Ronnie and Milton and thinks they're entertaining, but doesn't really trust them or consider them friends. Babs and Milton both make Ronnie really nervous, but when he stops paranoia-spiraling for 2 seconds, he decides he secretly likes them.
Unfortunately for ALL these slackers, they're MY OC's which means I get to give them a character arc if I want, and I do in fact want!
These three get fired from the force not for any of the questionable shit they ACTUALLY do, but because they were mis-blamed for a series of vandalisms around the academy. Normally, this would be their cue to go their separate ways, but Milton, who is exceptionally petty and devastated at losing his life of easy retirement when it was SO FUCKING close, is not ready to let the other two off the hook so easily. He (at least a little reasonably), thinks they actually DID do it, and he's determined to make them sign on to whatever new job he gets so his enemies have to suffer with him, and Ronnie and Babs (neither of whom have any particular attachment to Pigswick), just roll with it.
They kinda drift around the Spiral for a little bit, taking a job here, getting fired, taking another one there, moving on, etc. They eventually land themselves out of wizard territory and into pirate territory, where they are *finally* able to achieve some stable employment as mail carriers. They will quickly bump into one "Dead-Eye" Captain Nelson, who will happily threaten them into becoming her favorite errand rabbits.
While I do think the Wysteria trio properly joins The Motley Crew *eventually* I think there was, at the very least, 5 years of extorsion and blackmail involved before Kessie was finally like "Y'know what, ya'll ain't bad in a fight and you basically work for me anyway, time to get on my boat."
Milton's a privateer, Ronnie is a swashbuckler, and Babs is a buccaneer, in case anyone was curious! Thanks for letting me show you My Little Guys! I'm having so much fun with this little series.
Belgrim Blight, the emo mean girl of the Spiral. The Doofus is S O smug- roasted his way to level 38 and is going S T R O N G (while being obsessed with fishing- I NEED TO CATCH THE NINJA FISH IN MOOSHU SAVE ME-)
The Cabal hideout is a complete mess. Bodies litter the halls and chambers; all those that fought back were met with the consequence. Those that stayed their hands were not exempt from the beating, either. The dead and the unconscious are hard to tell apart.
Banners are torn to shreds. Furniture is either overturned or obliterated into many wood and metal fragments. Lights struggle to say on, with some having been killed outright, casting swaths of the hideout in darkness.
The shadows themselves ooze mysterious goo, blacker than any void and colder than the harshest winter. Simply being near but an ounce of it is enough to inflict fear upon even the strongest of wills.
And those four words ring in his head, nearly making him want to go deaf then and there.
The boss sent me.
The figure's stare bores into him as he quivers on the ground, one hand raised protectively in hopes that it'll keep the beast's wrath away from him. Their black robe is formless, covering their body from head to toe. Their face is bathed in thick shadow. Their warbled voice is haunting to hear, carrying with it the thick stench of magic – dread and death.
The boss never "sends" anyone unless something went seriously awry, which is not often since each branch is largely autonomous from the others. But there are times where larger plans hinge on the smaller ones, and it's simply up to chance on whether or not anyone is informed at all.
"P-P-P-P-Please," he stammers, "spare me..."
The figure approaches slowly, their footsteps inaudible, as if they were but a mere ghost. Looming over the poor Cabalist, the figure extends a long purple-blue hand, fingers as long and sharp as claws. They wrap around his green Cabal-issued robe and lifts him up into the air with ease.
"Well," the figure hisses, "since you begged so nicely, I just might. On one condition."
The figure pauses, waiting for the Cabalist to reply or maybe even beg for his life more, only to be met with disappointment. His voice is completely gone, the poor recruit scared speechless.
"You all just stumbled upon a very important plan," the figure continues. "While I'm sure you didn't intend for that Drake to die, some of us were. So I'm here to take charge of your little operation and make sure everything continues to run smoothly. And if anyone has any problems with that, I request for them to be sent directly to my office."
The Cabalist nods furiously, as furiously as he can from hanging in the air by his collar.
"Good." The figure releases the Cabalist from his grasp, letting him fall to the floor like a bag of trash, and quietly glides over his shivering body. The poor recruit doesn't dare to lift his head until the figure is out of sight. The only problem to his plan is that the figure is so quiet that he doesn't know when - if - they're gone.
"Oh, and one more thing," the figure speaks once more, their hooded head appearing directly next to the Cabalist. All the blood in his body runs cold as he becomes perfectly still, petrified by terror. He can't see the figure's face, but he has the strong feeling that they're smiling. Whether or not they're reveling in his great despair or at something else entirely is hard to tell.
"If anyone asks," the figure chuckles, "tell them that they now answer to Deimos."
