[Quest] Lost Singularity - Fimbulwinter

[SleepMode]

​Faceclaim:


Name: Javier Lucero

[zikari8]

Name: Manuel Juan Pablo Fernández Piñera

Notes

Manuel Juan Pablo = Given names

Fernández = Paternal Surname

Piñera = Maternal Surname

P.S. Names are hard

[Daneel Rush]

P.S. Names are hard

Damn it, somebody has discovered my evil plan.

But it's great to see so much input. Looking forward what you vote for. It hasn't even been 24 hours, so there's still plenty of time for either voting or proposing something else.

[Bird of Hermes]

Damn it, somebody has discovered my evil plan.

But it's great to see so much input. Looking forward what you vote for. It hasn't even been 24 hours, so there's still plenty of time for either voting or proposing something else.

I know the feeling, I hit the jackpot when someone suggested ‘Seigi Nomikata’ as a name. The pun was too good to pass up. In the meantime, I second this one:

​Faceclaim:


Name: Javier Lucero

[Rafflesiac]

yes, that was me, praise me more

[Daneel Rush]

yes, that was me, praise me more

Truly, nothing will surpass the unbridled greatness of "Seigi Nomikata". All present and future quests will be diminished by this unsurpassable feat.

On less important matters, one day left and "Javier Lucero" is ahead with an astounding 2 votes. I'll be back tomorrow at around this time for the rundown.

[Draconic]

I’ll vote Lucero, but I’d try to find a different FC… that one just looks a little too intimidating somehow. I think it’s his eyes.
*scurries off to find another character with black hair and larger eyes.*

update:


I pride myself for being able to find excellent FCs. There were others that were okay, but I figured this one was the best.

So, Javier Lucero but with this FC.

[SpoonyViking]

Add my vote to SleepMode's proposed FC (the same one Hermes voted for), but I vote for Matthew Roscuro as the name.

[Daneel Rush]

I'm too tired to work on the Quest at the moment, so I'll just stretch the name/faceclaim voting for at least another 12 or so hours. Good night everyone.

[Bird of Hermes]

I'm too tired to work on the Quest at the moment, so I'll just stretch the name/faceclaim voting for at least another 12 or so hours. Good night everyone.

Dude it's fine, if things didn't get in the way with mine then I would be a lot further than day 4 or 5 after almost a year.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh god it's been over a year

[Draconic]

Javier Lucero original FC is ded.
If it’s not reuploaded, I’m claiming my submitted FC as the name’s official FC.

[SleepMode]

You sure? It’s fine for me on my phone.

[Draconic]

Not on mine… maybe it’s my phone that’s the problem? Can anyone else see it?

[SpoonyViking]

It's dead here too.

[SleepMode]

I see, I look into it when I get back.

[Bird of Hermes]

If ya can’t I’ll go with Draconic’s

[SleepMode]

Finally, recovered this.

---

Hopefully I made it on time.

[Daneel Rush]

I never had any problem looking at the picture.

Anyway, there haven't been any new votes in the past 24 hours, so it seems we'll be going with SleepMode's suggestion. With that, we're pretty much ready to start telling the tale of Javier Lucero and the Valparaiso Singularity. Let's build a good story, everyone.

Look forward to the Prologue.

[Daneel Rush]

Author's Disclaimer

I would like to explain why, after an apparent rush to get the preliminaries done, I took 10 days to start the Prologue. Two reasons:

1. I'm not in a hurry anymore. If anything, going full throttle at the start is the enthusiasm-killing malady that has slain countless fanfics. It's not like I have a due date to complete the quest, so I'm gonna take it slow. Unless F/GO releases content that somehow invalidates my setting, then FUUUUUUUU-

2. It turns out I have to go on a trip next month, so it is unlikely I'll be able to progress the Quest for a good part of May. So, really, no hurry at all. I'll be plenty satisfied if I finish the prologue before I go on my short hiatus.

Anyway, with that said, let's get started with Fimbulwinter.

?????
Day -???
????? Phase – ??

Grandmother was dead.

The girl, alone in her room, clutched the small tin box with fingers bent like talons. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her mind still trapped in the moment her mother received the painfully small urn with the ashes.

Everybody said she died peacefully in her sleep, but the girl knew better: her pitiful grandma never knew peace.

The girl fondly remembered her pitiful, self-tortured grandma, the one the rest of the family treated with kid gloves. Gentle but irascible, quiet and somewhat eccentric. Her parents tolerated her with filial compassion, accepting the ravages of age taking their toll on grandma’s mind. But the girl knew better: there was not a person more lucid than grandmother.

Grandmother was not an eccentric. She was a magus, once a proud denizen of the Moonlit World.

Grandmother was humble. She always insisted she was a nobody, that her magecraft was pitiful, that the true, mighty magecraft was something that should have never fallen in the hands of men.

Grandmother was afraid of magecraft, and she was glad none of her children had inherited the talent. However, the talent was not gone; it merely skipped a generation. The girl discovered magecraft, and it begged her grandmother for instruction. The old, pitiful woman had complied, but her instruction was interspersed with warnings and complaints. All in all, grandmother was a terrible teacher.

Grandmother was gone, leaving only ashes and the small tin box, which her single-page will had granted to her “favorite” granddaughter.

It brought a smile to the girl’s face. If anything, she was the most hated grandchild; the one who wanted to learn all the things poor grandma would have given anything to forget.

The girl opened the box carefully, delicate fingers taking out familiar objects, things she had seen throughout the years of haphazard instruction: a brown notebook, a bundle of letters tied with a single silver ribbon, a Ziploc bag with old photos. Things that grandmother did not show anybody else. Things that nobody else would have wanted to see. Grandmother called it “her most terrible time”, and everybody else would have agreed but, when looking at those pictures, the girl thought her grandmother shone dazzlingly bright.

Setting aside the dog tag-like aluminum plate with cuneiform signs, the girl took into her hands the most valuable item in the box. Her fingers carefully ran over the rough bracelet, woven from the deceased’s very own hair. The girl’s fingers carefully, perhaps even purposefully, circled every single one of the bracelet’s eight knots. She decided right then and there that she would wear it to the grave.

Then, she went back to the photos. Grandmother was a bad teacher, but the girl was, admittedly, a bad granddaughter. Dominated by reckless curiosity, she all but forced the old woman to remember hateful, terrible things. So, her speech became words of caution; warnings against the things she had seen and done.

Swift hands flipped through the photos, all the way to the end. One was missing. The one her grandmother loathed most.

The girl, who would rather be addressed as a woman at her age just past adolescence, was generally considered attractive to the eyes of the world around her. However, the visage of her young grandmother in that photo showed a superior category of beauty: skin without marring, flawlessly white; murky blue eyes, her gaze mysterious, unwelcoming yet possessing of noble warmth; a small nose contrasting with full, alluring lips; fair hair, golden like wheat stalks. Were it not for her perfectly normal-sized ears, she could have passed for an elven princess.

Her grandmother was drop-dead gorgeous, to a degree that it was hard not to feel a measure of smugness at having inherited her genes.

Yet, there were two women in that photo.

It was impossible not to center one's attention on the second woman. It was an inescapable attraction. She was like an embodiment of mystery, her face mostly covered by the shadow of the dark veil cascading from the crown of her head almost to the floor. What could be caught of her face was luscious lips in a straight line, and a single, large eye, utterly lacking in expression.

“Red eyes. She had inhuman red eyes. The eyes of a monster.”

Grandmother trembled at the thought of that woman she refused to call by name. The girl would never forget her teacher’ words.

“That woman was the real thing. I didn’t believe her story for a second. I have no idea where they found her, but she was the real thing. She was no mere woman.”

“Her magecraft; nothing else I’ve ever seen could compare! How could anybody think that woman could be trusted, could be controlled? Our lives and fates were in the palm of her hand!”

By that point, grandmother was not really talking to her anymore. She was a shuddering wreck, bloodshot eyes fixated on the woman. It took the girl a while to figure out why her grandma never destroyed the photo: such was the extent of her terror that she did not dare harm even an image of that woman.

“If I destroy it, there will be retaliation.”

“If I destroy it, she will know.”

“If I destroy it, she will find me.”

The girl remembered asking whatever happened to that woman.

“I don’t know! She disappeared, just like I did. But she is still somewhere out there. She has to be. She’s not done yet.”

As if suddenly aware she was not alone in her bedroom, grandmother’s face jerked up, looking at the girl with murky eyes hollowed by fear. The veiled woman was her boogeyman, lurking in every shadow and in every unfamiliar face. Upon realizing that the person in front of her was in fact her granddaughter and disciple, the aged magus reached for her shoulders with feeble, trembling hands.

“My child, forget that woman. Don’t stand in her way. She’s a monster.”

That was five days earlier. The next day, she had been in the middle of researching the woman when she got the phone call from her mother.

Grandmother was dead.

And the photo was missing.

Everybody said she died peacefully in her sleep, but the girl knew better: her pitiful grandma never knew peace.

Murmuring apologies amidst a torrent of tears, the girl mourned her beloved teacher in the solitude of her bedroom. That day, she would lament.

There will be much to do afterwards.

*** ***

Puerto de Valparaíso
Day 0
Morning Phase – 01
Temperate (14 °C/57 °F)

Character Status

Health: Optimal
?????: Stable
?????: Good
?????: Stable

Puerto de Valparaíso

Source: Photo by Mauricio Córdova for Radio Valparaíso

I leave behind my home for the past few months, the cargo ship “Elysium”. I guess I am smiling—it feels good to settle on solid ground after months at sea.

“See you around, flacucho!”

I let my middle finger over my shoulder speak for itself as I leave the laughing seamen behind. Friends? Not really; even after months of living together in that steel can, I barely know those people, and they know me even less.

Javier Lucero

So, I’m back home. Well, not quite; my family’s residence, the place where I grew up, is further south in Concepción. But Valparaíso is a major port, so I am well acquainted with its narrow, sloped streets.

City of Hills

Source: Image from a DJI Phantom 4 drone, by ThinLineMedia

Valparaíso, the city of hills. That’s really the first impression I always get when arriving via cargo ship. A carpet of manmade constructions spreading over more than twenty hills, Valparaíso has by this point all but merged with neighboring Viña del Mar. It seems not even the Great Fire of last year put a dent on the city’s seemingly incessant expansion. Its districts are like tentacles, growing ever uphill. I make it sound unsettling, but there is at least the effort to beautify Valparaíso…well, that is, if you like seeing graffiti every-fucking-where.

From vandalization, to visual pollution, to finally becoming an artform of its own. You’ve gotten far, graffiti.

The locals themselves divide the city into El Plano (The Flat) and Los Cerros (The Hills). It’s kind of an unnecessary division if you ask me; I mean, “The Flat” is just two or so blocks from the sea; it’s all uphill from there.

Alright, I might be exaggerating a little; some hills are a little further off the coast than others. Not by much, though. In any case, with the port behind me and a well-earned paycheck in my pocket, I stand in front of Errázuriz Avenue: the major thoroughfare running parallel to the coastline.

Of course, of all things, the first building welcoming those arriving from the sea…is a Subway. Thank you, but no thank you.

My attention thus returns to the weight other than my backpack. A thick stack of papers sealed in a Manila envelope. I was on my way out, so the captain asked me to run an errand for him. Might as well get that done and over with. The naval store is just a few blocks away, anyway.

*** ***

Naval Store

Source: Google Street View.

Cochrane is not a pretty street. At least, not once you leave behind the big square, it’s just a narrow passage walled between rows of old buildings and aged paint. Block after block of doors and walls marred by graffiti. Not the cool graffiti, mind you; just the worthless scribbles of people with a can of spray paint and nothing better to do.

As for my errand, it was just a matter of delivering the envelope and signing a piece of paper. I’m done. As of this moment, I am officially unattached to the Elysium. On one hand, it means I am officially jobless (again). On the other hand, it also means I am officially on indefinite holiday.

So, what now?

The three great human needs are sustenance, clothing, and a ceiling over one’s head. Clothing is not an issue; the weather is perfect, aside the from the occasional chilly breeze.

Next comes food, then. I’ve got enough cash in my wallet to go straight to the supermarket and buy food for today and tomorrow, but I’ll have to go to the bank to cash in my paycheck at some point.

As for lodging…well, I still don’t know how long I’ll end up staying in Valparaíso this time, so something like renting an apartment might be a decent idea. Hostels are always an option, though, and I already know a few great ones. But let’s be honest: I’m the kind of guy who can pretty much sleep anywhere. Dropping on one of the city’s parks and just sleeping there doesn’t sound half bad. Hell, if it gets to that point, there’s always the church. Is Father Scissors still in charge?

Warning! Choices!

The matter of lodging:

1. Find an apartment available for rent. (Time-consuming)
2. Pay a bed at a nearby youth hostel. (Quick-and-easy)
3. Walk the proud path of the hobo. (Free, but might get you in trouble)
4. Ask for sanctuary at the church.
5. Write-in?

The matter of sustenance (Warning! No write-ins allowed!):

1. Go get food at the supermarket straight away. Now that I think about it, I haven’t had breakfast yet.
2. Let’s go to the bank first. I don’t like standing around here with most of my money in a single piece of paper.

[You]

I like how you use real pictures of the locations
kind of like tsukihime but without the filters

- - - Updated - - -

Church
Bank