overbox | Spark in the Gloom

Spark in the Gloom

The Spark in the Gloom
A panfandom Smut Adventure RP Sandbox

Somewhere in the twisting paths between universes is The Archipelago. A world made of the flotsam and jetsam of a thousand different realities. An endless chain of islands, each one made from the seed of a different world. Local culture, weather, and even laws of physics can vary wildly from island to island. Without any kind of guiding will behind its creation, the Archipelago had always been a place of live and let live for the various people who found themselves there.

Until the Gloom arrived. This unnatural force of darkness coveted apathy and depression. Passion, pleasure, and happiness are its anathema. The islands over which it holds its grip aren't necessarily PHYSICALLY dark, but they always have a darkness of the spirit about them. The people it leaves behind are little more than mindless drones, performing the bare minimum to survive but lacking the energy to do anything else.

The Spark is an order of people from this world that have taken a stand, and they have chosen their primary weapon well. It is a weapon that most sentient beings know of. It is a force of passion, of creation, and pleasure.

The Order's weapon is sex. The very act of physical intimacy of any kind repels the Gloom and merely being NEAR anyone who is having sex or who has recently had sex causes the Gloom's agents physical discomfort. As some kinds of undead are to holy ground, the Gloom is to orgasms.

You poor lost souls were somehow lost between the cracks between realities. Maybe a sciece experiment or spell gone wrong. Maybe just a freak fracture in time and space. One minute you were home going about your life, the next you were in the Archipelago, and an agent of The Spark was pulling you out of the ocean. The Spark has the ability to send you home, but the Gloom is currently too strong and would surely block any such attempt. So if you want to get out of here, your best bet is to help The Spark in their fight.

Firebrand Island
The Spark's HQ is set up on a beautiful island deep in the nigh infinit expanse of the Archipelago. On the surface, it appears to be an enormous luxury resort surrounded by a thriving tourist town. A huge sprawling hotel/casino/shopping center forms the main body of resort, but with various smaller beach cabins villas, and other sattelite structures dotting the coast for miles in either direction. If you take the cable car tram going inland, you will find yourself going up the side of a mountain to a secondary resort, which instead of swimming pools and snorkeling tours, offers skiing and hotsprings.

Regardless of where you go on the island, you'll find the locals have very little in the way of a nudity taboo. Public bathing, sometimes of mixed gender, is the norm (In some neighborhoods, the houses don't even have their own showers, with everyone sharing one centrally located bathhouse.). You might get some weird looks if you started going at it in the middle of the street, but in general the people here aren't very judgey and will let you get away with whatever.

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The Order of the Spark
The Order is well known on Firebrand Island. It's something of an open secret that beneath their fabulous resorts are elaborate underground facilities devoted to tracking the spread of The Gloom, training their field agents, supplying them with state of the art equipment, housing planes and ships for traveling across the Archipelago, and other such things. The Order might use non standard weapons, but they are still fighting a war. They have to be READY.

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The Gloom

This supernatural force of darkness and depression has been slowly spreading across the Archipelago for decades. It isn't a physical THING you can fight with conventional weapons. It is, at the most basic level, an psychic aura of depression that drains the joie de vivre from wherever it spreads. Acts of supreme happiness, pleasure, and satisfaction will cause the Gloom to retreat.

The Gloom DOES have physical agents, though. People who live with The Gloom for too long will start to change. Most people end up as like blank faced shuffling zombies, but every once in a while, someone will become an Avatar of the Gloom. They mutate in monstrous ways and become devoted spreading the Gloom. It is unknown if the Gloom itself is sapient, or if it merely uses the sapience of its avatars. Either way, the MOST effective way to free and island of the Gloom is to find and either kill or chase off the avatar upon it.

The other thing the Gloom does is drain the power of others. While in Gloom enshrouded territory, you will rapidly grow weaker and lose and supernatural abilities you might have had. The only thing that can protect you from this effect is Mojo.

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Mojo

Mojo is the name for a kind of power that exists in this world that is the opposite of Gloom, though it is much rarer. You can generate small amounts of Mojo from masturbation, or from acts of creation (art of all kinds, hard but rewarding work, etc), but the best way to get Mojo is through sex with another person. Trying out new kinks has also been shown to produce some bonus Mojo, so it's always worthwhile to experiment with something new. Simply put, the more sex you have, the better protected you'll be from the effects of The Gloom. You can feel it as a sort of pleasant, metaphorical warmth in your stomach. It is the Order's greatest weapon in this war.

You don't HAVE to have sex, of course. The Order of the Spark idolizes freedom and personal expression. There are, as mentioned, other ways to build it up. They just are so much less effective, and sex can be so much fun. And let's be real, if you aren't interested in smut, why are you even looking at this post?

Image References: 1? 2?

SOME PROMPTS
1: Relaxation - It's a hard life, fighting a world devouring supernatural malaise. Fortunately, when you're not doing that, your accomodations are Top Notch. Go to a fancy restaurant. Hang out on the beach. Go skiing. Relax in the hot-springs. Get a job. Paint a picture. Go to the library. Watch a movie.
2: Mojo - To fight the Gloom you need Mojo, and to get Mojo you need SEX. Firebrand island has a million places to slip away for a steamy encounter, if you're away from the privacy of your room. And they say that if you try something you've never done before, you can generate even more.
3: Mission Prep - You've got some Mojo, you've got your mission. You're safe for the moment. As your speedboat/helicopter speeds you towards the next Island determined to house The Gloom, you've got some time to chat with your allies. Any last minute things you want to get off your chest? Want to strategize how you're going to take on the next Avatar? Just want to chat? Now's your chance.
4: Hunting - An island is a big place, and the Avatar isn't always somewhere obvious. The locals are usually too depressed to do much more than stare at you, so you have more or less free reign of the island, but good God is this place a dump. There's a dirtiness of the soul here, that your Mojo is holding at bay for the now, but is still omnipresent and overbearing.
5: Battle - Avatars are strange and terrifying creatures. They could have tentacle arms (not THAT kind of tentacle arms. The Gloom hates that stuff), ripping claws, jaws that can chew through steel, acid spitting glands, or worse. But you're a badass too. Protected from the Gloom by a shield of Mojo, with your friends and lovers at your sides, you are as ready as you're going to get. So go kick some ass!
6: Emergency Recharge - Something went wrong, and one of your friends has run out of Mojo. They're getting weaker by the minute, and it won't take long for them to be reduced to one of the shuffling mindless drones that the Gloom turns most people into. Fortunately, you found them, and there's one sure fire way to restore them to normal.
7: Victory - The Avatar has been defeated, and without it to anchor the Gloom here, the thrill of victory has started to erase the malaise covering the island. As people wake up from their long depression, they start to realize what happened, and BOY are they happy to do so. A grand party is held in your honor. The agents of the Order of the Spark are off on the side, making deals with the island's govnerment, but in the meantime, everyone is celebrating YOU. Enjoy your victory. Go dance. Sign autographs. Pose for selfies. Get drunk. Hook up with an attractive stranger. Tomorrow, it's back to HQ to get ready for the next fight. For now, you have NO responsibilities.
8: Training - Swing that sword, lift those weights, get in that sparring ring. You gotta be ready for the next island. And if your clothes starts to get pulled off or ripped during a sparring match, well, that would just be AWFUL, wouldn't it?
9: Recon report - Before all the cool sword havers can run in and fight the Avatar, you have to know what it looks like and what it can do. That means infiltration and recon, which is a risky business on it's own, but also uses up a lot of Mojo. By the time your extraction came, you were basically a drone. Upon getting home, you have two tasks. 1: Get Mojo'd back up and 2: Tell everyone what you learned about the new Island and its Avatar.
10: A Dirty Job - Fighting the Avatar is all very dramatic and important, but there's a lot else that needs to get done. There's a base camp on the engloomed Island's edge to maintain. There's maintenance to be done on the boat that carried you here. There's locals who can't really take care of themselves right now. Plus, if you end up with some spare time, slipping off somewhere quiet with a friend and generating some Mojo is always helpful to the mission.
11: Wildcard - Between the Slice of Life of living on Firebrand Island, the action/adventure of fighting the Gloom, and the Endless Smut of building up enough Mojo to SURVIVE fighting the Gloom, you have a lot of options. Make something up!

I'm testing the setting concept out. If people seem interested then who knows, maybe this will grow into something bigger!

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[1A - the "just arrived recently" version]

So, how about that culture shock thing? Patchouli is definitely suffering from that a little. After arriving through, um, a star fissure or something, Patchouli found herself in a strange city -- probably more advanced than anything she knew back when she was on Earth, even. It was interesting and all, but with no way home, and the prospect behind what she'd be doing during her stay... that didn't sit terribly well with her. She needed to acclimate to this a little, and yet this world was giving her no opportunity for such. She'd holed herself up in a library, but she seems to have at least taken to trying to create things to keep up her end of things. So, alongside all the books you might find a lot of drawings.

Well, she seems to be acquiring talent, anyway. Does assembling new spell cards count as an act of creation? Maybe she'd have to do some more of that. That also sounds like it might be useful, since actual fighting is involved.

Go complain at her for taking up so much space, I guess.

[1B - the "been here for months" version]

It took her a while to be interested in much else. She'd finally gotten a bit of help being steered in a more open-minded direction. She wasn't about to go walking around in public naked, but she'd definitely traded her figure-disguising pajamas away for something more revealing. Someone looking to see even more of her body could probably see her by the pool at one of the more impressive resorts, where she'd be demonstrating that her swimming skill was entirely simulated through, effectively, using her flight magic in water.

Even at this point, though, she's still not focusing a whole lot on other people unless they happen to look particularly interesting; you're better off talking to her. Maybe all the purple has attracted your attention or something.

[3]

It didn't take long for Patchouli to take up a strategist role. She could fight, but not so much physically; she was extremely fragile, but very magically-adept, especially when it came to blowing things up. So, not exactly suited to being on the front lines -- but also, she tended to be better with planning things out and analysis anyway. Right now, they were flying out to the next island in a helicopter.

Well, this was unusual for her. But that wasn't important right now.

"I wish we had more information on our target," Patchouli said with a shake of her head.

[8]

Physical training was not exactly going to be something that happened a lot for Patchouli. She lacked physical strength, to say the least. However, she was very magically-talented. Whoever set up the training facilities hopefully had something in mind so she could exercise that a little, or test out newly-assembled spells.

Alternately, if you need help with something, she'll try to do that for you. Or she can just explain her magic if you enjoy massive amounts of exposition. Or maybe even if you don't. Even with how long she's been here, sometimes her social skills are not the best the world has ever seen.

[wildcard]

[Or, come up with something on your own to do with the purple lady.]

"It's an attempt to undo, rewrite, or supercede the laws of reality, when it comes down to it." Iri leans forward earnestly, as eager to explain her own style of magic as she is to find out more about Patchouli's. "The methods vary so widely as to be almost completely unrecognizable from one another, but from alchemy to necromancy, essentially it always boils down to that. If it works against what most would consider the 'natural order', it can probably be considered magecraft. Actual magic is a different thing entirely, of course..."

Sitting at a table, babbling about breaking the laws of nature probably wouldn't ordinarily be considered "training" of any sort, but when two practitioners of magic come together, a discussion is pretty much inevitable.

Well, that or a fight. Already Iri's learned that Patchouli's world is apparently as prone to that as her own.

Well, research was always of use, right? They could work together to find new uses for their magic, for healing or for fighting or for generating mojo or something.

Maybe they'd figure that out later.

"Everything I've researched so far suggests that most magic in my world is accomplished through various different methods. Most of it manifests in the same manner, though, so we don't kill each other. A lot of our magic would probably be quite lethal if it weren't for that." Probably a good thing those rules don't really apply here, at least when it comes to fighting. Or maybe for some less explosive purposes.

"Maybe our worlds' magic is reasonably similar. I hadn't really given any consideration to what magic would be like in other worlds."

The funny thing about generating mojo was that in Iri's style of magic, that was a method she was already familiar with. Though it was more a transfer than the creation of energy.

She hadn't brought that up yet though. Even here it didn't tend to come up in casual conversation unless things were already trending that way.

"I haven't either, though there is actually a form of magic that allows travel between other worlds in mine... it's practically godlike in terms of power, though." Indeed, it was one of the five "true sorceries" that so many magi in Iri's world pursued relentlessly.

"It's interesting that your magic has such a widely-used non-lethal setting, though. Perhaps magi in my world are more bloodthirsty..." Not a pleasant thought, but then again, there was a reason her husband was so unfond of magi in general.

"I've seen only one person who can do it," she explained. "She seems quite strong, perhaps because it is better defined as 'changing boundaries,' which is already something with a quite wide range of effects." Well, she didn't know that much about Yukari, she suspected. Not that many encounters with her.

"Originally I lived on Earth with some of my fans, but we had our mansion transported to Gensokyo about ten to fifteen years ago. Living in the world of humans did not seem like such a good idea." Let's just assume she explained Gensokyo earlier.

"I guess it just means we just like to get into fights that much and don't want to stop, I guess. Also, it means we don't have to rebuild anything too often if any of us uses anything too destructive." Patchouli was not bound by the spell card rules here, so maybe Iri got to see her blow some things up already and just generally show off some of her spells with a larger area of effect.

"Given what I've seen you do before, I can see how that would be necessary." Honestly, Iri was a little surprised that some of those avatars had even managed to stand up after one attack from Patchouli, and she didn't usually stop at one. If she was throwing that kind of firepower around typically at her own world, by all rights Gensokyo should be a crater by this point unless she, and whoever else was there, was holding themselves back.

"And yes, living in the human world doesn't sound ideal for you. Magi in my world need to hide ourselves away as it is, and most of us can't do anything so spectacular."

To think, she wasn't the most powerful mage in Gensokyo. It's just that her magic tended to be very loud and explosive. Others had more targeted effects, although some also could do things not unlike what she could.

"When I discovered what I was capable of when I was younger... er, I should note I couldn't do everything I can do as an adult when I was younger... I liked the idea of showing it to people, but I didn't do that and decided later in life that it would be a very bad idea."

"It's a very good thing you didn't elect to show off before you came to the conclusion that it would be a bad idea. I don't know if your world would have been as unpleasant to you as mine would, but..." She grimaced. There were many, many reasons magi tended to hide away, and none were remotely pleasant.

"Still, there's nothing to be worried about here, it seems. After all, the people here are counting on our powers to help them." Something to be said for being needed, she supposed.

Even just assuming they wouldn't take kindly to it and might kill her over it didn't seem like it was a strong enough descriptor judging by the face Iri made.

"Certainly. Nobody here seems to mind. Some of the other... guests, I guess... seem quite interested in it, if they're unfamiliar with it in general."

"They certainly do! On the other hand, I've run into a lot of people who have their own ideas about how magic should work, even if they don't have a magic system in their own world. At least no one's been asking me where my broomstick is."

She did get a couple questions about magic wands, though. Not that no one in her world's ever created such a thing, but they're really more of a focusing item than anything else.

Patchouli let out a slight chuckle. Well, Iri didn't describe herself as a 'witch' yet, but she supposed people would jump to conclusions.

"Well, I suppose they're somewhat less unimaginative, I guess. Perhaps just being in such close contact with a new world will do that."

"Once one impossible thing has happened, I think people are a lot more willing to accept more of them. And eventually they get to understand the idea that things work differently on other worlds, and open-mindedness is just inevitable after that."

Now, that might be a slight bit overoptimistic, given how difficult some people could find it to widen their views of what was possible, but really, in a place like this, you more or less ended up having to adapt or die.

"Personally, though, I'm most interested in learning about all these new magical paradigms. I wonder how many we'll be able to find."

"Likewise," Patchouli said with a nod. "I'm always interested in seeing what I can do with my magic. I'd be interested to see if I can find new avenues based on how others practice their magic. I enjoy research in general, but magic is of particularly great interest to me." And why not, considering her abilities.

"Exactly. Admittedly, it may turn out that many variations aren't compatible with people from other worlds, but the knowledge itself could prove very useful." Not to mention kind of fun to gather, anyway. That, after all, was why they started this very conversation anyway.

With a sudden and satisfying 'thwip,' a handful of photos are tossed right onto a desk near Patchouli. They're shots of the setup of where the gloom seemed to be coming from, as well as a few shots of the Avatar, complete with notes in pen about the sorts of things she'd observed about its magical aura and any powers she'd seen--shadow tendrils, an energy blast when provoked... It was far from complete, but it was something.

"Granted. Fresh off the printers." Meliora asked, digital camera still hanging by a strap around her neck. She seemed a little tired, but hanging out in the gloom would do that to a person.

"I'd have gotten more, but my eye started shorting out and I figured that was a sign that I needed to get the hell out of dodge." Truth be told, it still hadn't come back on yet... but that was her problem.

The new print-outs could not have come sooner. Actually, yes they could have, but they might not have been more appreciated.

"Thank you, Meliora," Patchouli said with a smile and a nod. "You've done very well." She wasn't sure what she could do about her eye or anything, but for now she was concerning herself more with processing the data she'd gotten.

"Hm... I think we're under-equipped for something very direct. We'll have to attack at a range, I think."

"Thank you." She tried her best not to look smug, and failed miserably. Of course she did well, she was the best. Trying to give what help she could, she tapped on her chin as she thought over what she'd figure out as well.

"I think you're right. Shame I left my stuff back home..." She'd love to have some lasers right now. "I wonder... I never saw it use the tendrils and the blast at the same time. If it's engaged in close, it might not be able to defend from long range attacks as well."

"That's an option," Patchouli noted. "We might have to split up our resources, or call in backup."

Mind, weren't they kind of spread a little thin to begin with?

"Let me check through these in a bit more detail..."

"Got it. I'll just..." Suddenly, Meliora's expression changed from looking tired to one of shock. She considered falling over and having a nap right there. Being that near to the gloom was terrible, and sleeping and not doing anything felt like a [i]great[/i] idea right now. Naturally, that would be the worst possible choice here, right? She'd almost fallen right into the trap.

"Help." She took a seat across from Patchouli. Creativity was supposed to help with mojo--maybe thinking up a plan counted?

"I don't suppose you've got personnel files around here, do you? Might be able to figure out a plan of attack."

So say you're a man who's spent more than ten years studying theoretical physics. You know the laws of the universe like the back of your crowbar. You go through some dimensional shenanigans but nothing you can't explain with enough reasoning and cold, hard conjecture. You go out to practice some sprints on the track one day, you look over in the sparring rings, and you see a woman in purple casting a magic spell against a target.

I think anyone in Gordon's situation would have tripped and faceplanted. Furthermore he kind of doesn't care, any athletics have been cast aside under the force of sheer fascination. The man gets up and dusts himself off, puts his glasses back on, and lopes over to watch her for a long moment...

"Hey, uh... excuse me." The bespectacled man in awkward orange shorts says, trying two colloquialisms at once to make sure he gets her attention. "What. What is that you're using on that target?" It can't be magic, right? It's some kind of hard light bullet, or hidden laser focus apparatus...

Patchouli turned around from whatever it was she was probably hitting with a rain of death beams. Good thing whatever these training facilities had things that repaired themselves or something. Her movements were a bit too quick and smooth for her to just be turning around on her feet -- but at this point, her using magic was perhaps not unusual.

"It's magic.

"...you don't seem like the sort who's used to that kind of thing, are you," she continued. "It seems like magic and harder science aren't given room to coexist in most worlds, from what I've picked up." And, you know, all the other stigmas associated with magic long before high technology levels were achieved which meant that actual magicians were rare on Earth, for example. But hey, that's a very long story.

OKAY YEAH SO IT'S MAGIC. Or at least, what she calls magic, anyway.

"Is it that obvious?" The groundling nerd replies. Yes, he can see your sound doing that... gliding thing. So that's something for his paradigm to chew on too. "You're right. I was actually a scientist back home, but that was a hell of a long time ago."

"It tends to stand out," she said. Just her experience. She can't blame anyone for flaunting their science, though! She likes to show off the fruits of her research.

"Is that so... Do you mean you've just been here a very long time, or... did something happen in your home world?"

He raises his arms over his head in that way runners do when cooling down, and he motion draws attention to his shoulders... and a surprising amount of scars that weren't immediately noticeable on his pale skin.

"Something...yeah, you could say that. Something happened in my homeworld. Put very simply, the boundary between that world and the next collapsed. I was kind of forced to change jobs after that."

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Spark in the Gloom

Patchouli Knowledge | Touhou Project | OTA

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