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?

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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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Well...that was new. Ippo had been in his own little section of the gym working with a speed bag when some new noise caught his attention. Normally he would have just taken a look to see who it was before going back to his business, but the sheer fluidity of this woman's motions made him stop and stare. Even more so when she did a literal standing teen foot jump up into the air and came back down to the ground like a snowflake on a gentle breeze. All he could do was...applaud, really.

"That was...amazing!"

He'd seen some amazing feats of athleticism in his life, but that just about took the cake!

Lin ignored him for a moment to finish up the last bit of her form. Then she grinned suddenly, and her face almost seemed to glow. She was a person MADE for smiling. She spun around towards Ippo and gave a theatrical bow.

"Thank you, thank you! The light body technique is a tricky one if you don't practice it every day."

Edited 2018-03-06 13:54 (UTC)

Oh boy, smiles, his one weakness! Ippo couldn't help but smile back in the face of such optimism and right now, combined with what he'd just seen? He felt like everything was really going to be okay.

"It definitely looks hard to do, but...how do you do it, exactly? Is it something anyone can learn to do?"

Maybe it had something to do with Mojo, but she seemed a little to practiced in its use for it to be a recent development. Then again, she could have been here for a really long time, so he was just guessing to the best of his abilities.

“I guess? I don’t know if I could teach it very well though. It took me years to get the hang of it.”

Her face turned a little uncertain as she tried to figure out how to explain it. “It’s...got a lot to do with balance. You’re balancing on a tightrope, but instead of an actual rope you just have the CONCEPT of a rope.”

"Balance..."

The word struck a cord with Ippo. Balance was the core of boxing after all, without balance there was really nothing you could do after all.

"If you're willing to give it a shot, I'm willing to learn! I have to keep improving myself if I'm going to keep up with everyone!"

The last thing he wanted was to be dead weight while everyone else was doing their best...he couldn't stand that thought.

“The Soaring Fist style takes a lot of training before you can get to the actual soaring bits.” She’d try teaching him, but she wanted to make it clear that he shouldn’t expect dramatic results overnight. “You look like you’re already a fighter, at least.”

"I can do that! I know boxing, but I'm not sure how far I can get only knowing one thing. I feel like my best chance at helping everyone is to expand my horizons."

If there was one thing that Ippo was willing to do, it was to commit himself to learning. It was how he'd managed to get into boxing in the first place and it was what had propelled him through all of his fights until now. In this moment of determination, there was a bright fire in his eyes that made them seem almost like they were glowing before he fell into a deep, respectful bow.

"Whatever you can teach me, I'll give my all in learning, no matter how long it takes or how hard it gets, Sensei!"

"Man, after I got kicked out, I didn't think I'd ever be in a position to be a teacher again."

She rubbed the back of her head, slightly nervously. She'd never had a student before. She was almost positive she was going to fuck this up somehow. "Alright, I guess I'll do my best!"

Edited 2018-03-07 00:07 (UTC)

"So...where do we start? Exercise? Sparring?"

It was here that his limited views were becoming more apparent, his brief look into the world of martial arts had only given him a base idea of what it was like to practice them and boxing, for all its subtleties, was still fairly straightforward. This was likely going to be a lot more intensive than anything he'd ever done before...but it was a challenge he was dead set on rising to meet. If his new sensei was going to do her best, then he had to do double his best!

"Breathing."

She was going to start with the VERY basics. Call it a hunch, but Lin kind of felt like Ippo wasn't the type of guy who had a lot of patience. The cool stuff required a strong foundation of meditation and calm.

"Breathing?"

The basics were a very good place to start and as a person who had won fights blind because they had a solid foundation of the basics to stand on, he could appreciate that. He was excitable and eager to learn, but this was a clear enough message that this was a good time to set his understanding meter back to zero.

"Alright, show me how to breath!"

A sentence that...he never thought he'd say in his life and one that sounded...way weirder once he'd actually said it. This was going to be a long, strange road.

And so began Ippo's adventures in learning to meditate. I won't write out all the details, but suffice to say if he hadn't ever done anything like it before, it was probably Very Boring.

There were breathing exercises that he had to do in boxing, but nothing quite like actual meditation. It was likely fairly boring, but in a way, it was fairly grounding and gave him a new way to calm his nerves outside of his usual methods.

Which was why today, after a particularly grueling mission, he could be found in the gym meditating peacefully after a nice workout, sporting three fresh looking scars across his upper right arm where he'd taken a blow for a teammate. He was making progress in his new studies...but at his core, he was still Ippo after all.

It was okay if Ippo wasn't the best student, since Bai Lin wasn't the best teacher. No one could deny that they were both trying their best, though. To learn the Soaring Fist style required a certain amount of willing detachment, which had come hard to Lin.

The meditating was a good start, though. He was actually USING it now, rather than just practicing it. She was pleased. She entered the room very quietly, as she didn't want to disturb him, and sat down next to him to also meditate for a while, after looking at the new scars with some vague concern.

The wound itself hadn't been too deep, superficial almost...if it weren't for the acidic secretions that came out of the claws. To be fair, he had leveled a right cross into the side of its head in retaliation so hard it had flipped onto its back from a neutral standing position...so fair was fair.

Ippo was so absorbed in the meditation that he almost didn't even noticed Bai Lin enter and sit next to him, but he eventually got the mental memo and opened an eye.

"Oh, hello Sensei. Sorry I haven't been around lately for training, that last mission lasted a lot longer than we were expecting."

"Quite all right. Our job here is important."

She'd seen how drones lived, and it broke her heart. She wanted to help them all! The fact that she got to try out so many things she never had before (Including the sex. So Much Sex.) was a nice bonus, but she was mainly here to help people.

"You're doing better than I expected at the meditations, honestly."

"You're not the only one who was surprised, this is very different from the kind of training I'm used to. I'm happy I learned it though, I feel much more grounded lately compared to when I first came here."

While his usual outlets for stress and anxiety weren't unhealthy by nature, constantly pushing himself physically and then exerting himself against the gloom had been taking a toll on him until he'd started down this path. Now he had something he could do that could actually allow him some real respite when he needed it while still allowing him to progress in some manner.

"Without your patience and guidance though, I'd still be very lost right now. So I got something to really say thank you while I was out on the mission."

He smiled and reached into his pocket, pulling out a small, simple looking wooden box. Inside the box, he revealed as he opened it, was a single Red and Yellow Flower that was seemingly being preserved by something inside the box as it hadn't even begun to wilt.

"I saw it after we'd finished the mission and it reminded me immediately of you...so I got this preservation box from a local on the island and picked one for you as a present."

Lin looked curious when he pulled the little box out, then gasped out loud when he opened it. "Wow! It's so pretty!"

She looked up from the flower to smile at him. "That was really thoughtful of you. I'm touched."

"Well...I mean, after all the time you've spent teaching me how to better myself, it was the least I could do."

He was really thankful for her help in this. At first he didn't know if he could even be a help to anyone as he was, but the more he trained with Bai Lin, the more he realized that all of the potential he'd managed to scratch at the Kamogawa Gym was just the tip of the iceberg. He could be so much better and now he knew that for sure.

"You're the best Sensei I could have asked for, so thank you very much for all your hard work!"

"Well that's very sweet of you." She spent a few more moments looking at the flower, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

"That's for the 'best Sensei' line. I didn't think I was doing that great, honestly."

Even though he wasn't new to being here, certain things still caught him off guard. Namely, getting a kiss on the cheek caused his face to go beet red and while he managed not to hop back in surprise, he definitely looked like he was a bit out of his element now as he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"B-but you really have been doing a good job! You've been building me up from the very basics so that when I'm having trouble, I have a solid foundation to fall back on. Also, when I was fighting that avatar a few days ago, I found my head a whole lot more clear, all because of your meditation exercises! Don't sell yourself short, Sensei."

She was blushing a bit as well. This was somehow MORE embarrassing then all the...you know. The sex. If not with Ippo specifically, then just in general.

"Thank you." she said, simply.

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Spark in the Gloom

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