Rosalia Rambles

Author: rosaliarambles

  • Marieya’s Friends

    Jump over that log. Roll into the landing. Keep moving.

    “Fuck!” Izumi said, grunting in pain as she tried to put pressure on the bleeding wound on her torso, a series of red puncture marks indicating a vicious bite, “No good bullshit bastarding bears…”

    Having embarked on an assassination mission that went wildly wrong; the shadow fey now desperately tried to flee her pursuers whilst in grave amounts of pain. Darting between twisted trees and through canopy clearings, she only briefly looked behind her to see if she was still being followed, roars and heavy stomps confirming her fears.

    Eventually she broke out of the forest into a large open plain, initially cursing the lack of hiding spots before noticing that someone had set up a camp on the forest outskirts. As she stumbled over she tried to assess if it was going to be friendly or not. The tent was large, and made of deep purple canvas fabric, similar to tents used by shadow fey ranging parties.

    Though this was no temporary encampment, for a makeshift fence had been built around the entrance to the tent, forming a cozy yard where a cooking pot, improvised washing line, and woodcutting station had been set up. As Izumi approached; no one came out of the tent to meet her, but at this point, the pain had become too great and she collapsed against the woodcutting log.

    The two bearfolk who had chased her all this way caught sight of her in this vulnerable position and began approaching slowly with weapons drawn, bearing their teeth in excitement of the kill. Closing her eyes, Izumi braced herself, waiting for the killing blow to come…

    …it then came as a surprise then when she heard the whoosh of an arrow, and a roar of pain coming from one of the two bears, who shortly fell to the ground, dead.

    “Excuse me,” a feminine voice said, sounding rather annoyed upon seeing the uninvited guests at her tent, “I’m sure you have a good reason for wanting that poor girl dead, but two things.” She nocked another arrow into her longbow and drew the bowstring back, “first, I’m not letting you kill a fellow shadow fey. Secondly, and more importantly, you’re trespassing on my house.”

    Letting out a snarl, the remaining bear turned to face the mysterious interloper and brandished their greatsword in a threatening manner. “You don’t need to die today girl,” he said, “but if you keep that bow pointed at me, this is getting ugly.”

    There was a brief pause as both sides stood ready to engage. “It’s already pretty ugly, considering I’m looking at you right now.”

    With that snarky comment pushing their rage to a breaking point; the bearfolk let out an intimidating war cry before charging his opponent. She let loose her arrow at him but quick reflexes allowed him to slash it to the side as he continued his advance, slowing slightly just a small distance from his target to raise the massive blade above his head to deliver a devastating downward slash.

    Fury soon became shock as the weapon bounced back off an intense red-hued magical shield that seemed to materialise instantly against the angle of attack. The girl smirked, “Shouldn’t have gone for the head.” Whilst the bearfolk was disoriented from the failure of their attack; she manifested crackling energy around her right hand and landed a perfect right hook, enhanced through the power of lightning.

    Bloodied and bruised, the aggressor collapsed to the ground, barely maintaining consciousness as they grunted in pain. Wasting no time the girl walked around the back of the bear whilst unsheathing a rapier, driving it through the base of the bear’s skull, killing them instantly.

    Ambling back towards her camp the girl cast two bolts of fire, setting the dead bearfolk alight and making sure they would not be coming back. She leaned down to inspect the semi-conscious Izumi, closely examining her wound, “Can you hear me?”

    The rogue groaned as she opened her eyes. “Yeah…” she said, her voice strained as she looked at her saviour, “who… who are you?” The girl smiled as she quickly dipped into her tent and grabbed medical supplies, “My name’s Marieya Ebontide, yours?”

    “It’s Izumi… first name basis only please.”

    “Sure, no worries,” Marieya said as she sliced off Izumi’s clothes and started patching up the wound, “how the hell did you get a bite like this?”

    “Gah… sent to assassinate a bearfolk commander, got into the encampment fine, and then as I prepared to slash the fucker open I kicked a stool over and they saw me, with the bastard you nailed with an arrow biting down hard.”

    “Ouch, that really must’ve hurt. Surprised you made it all the way to my camp.”

    “What can I say? I’m a stubborn bitch who can surviv-oh shit that stuff burns!”

    “Oh quit complaining, it’s just to clean the bite of any dirt that might’ve got in there.”

    Izumi rolled her eyes back as Marieya continued to tend to the wound, cleaning it out completely before wrapping her torso in bandages. “There we go,” she said, making sure everything was secure, “you’re all patched up, but you’re welcome to stay the night to rest up properly.”

    “Thanks, I guess” Izumi said, following Marieya into her tent, “these are some pretty swanky digs you got here, who you sharing with?”

    Marieya looked slightly forlorn as she sat on a stool, gathering some food up, “Oh, no one…” she said, her voice lowering and sounding slightly upset, “I’m uh… kind of reviled for my powers by most shadow sorcerers… and people generally… so I just live out my days as a hermit.”

    “Shit, sorry for asking,” Izumi said, lying back on a bedroll. “So you got no real friends then?”

    “Not quite,” Marieya said, using another bolt of fire to light her cooking pot outside, raising her voice again to be able to converse properly, “I have a handful of friends, I’m on good terms with the ranging parties, the great ranger Vardal usually makes my camp a rest stop.”

    Shifting on her stool slightly, Izumi adopted a look of unease, “Vardal huh… may have had a few worrying run-ins with the guy.”

    “Good run-ins or bad run-ins?” Marieya said as she dumped some large chunks of onion and quartered mushrooms into the pot, sizzling as they hit the hot cast iron.

    “Both really. We’ve worked together on some ranging missions, where I’ve helped clear out guards from an encampment. But also my employer has a bad habit of asking me to kill folks Vardal needs to bring back alive.” 

    Izumi hobbled close to the tent entrance and took a long, deep, inhale. “Fuck me,” she said loudly, peering over into the cooking pot, “that smells great already!”

    As she added a bit of salt, pepper, and crushed garlic, Marieya giggled as she stirred things round. “Yeah, when you have to become mostly self-sufficient, you learn a few good things about cooking.”

    “Mostly?” Izumi said with curiosity, sitting down on the woodcutting stump as Marieya worked.

    “Yeah, I gather vegetables and go fishing down by the river for freshwater prawns,” and as if on cue, several peeled prawns were added to the pot, “but more luxurious things like seasonings, bread, cheese, and wine I get whenever Vardal comes by or when Ancil comes to visit.”

    “Pardon the fuck?” the rogue said, raising her voice so much a flock of birds flew off, “Ancil? As in, the legendary pit fighter Ancil?”

    “The very same, they were training in the forest as I was gathering one day. We got to chatting and despite being a stoic person, I really got to know them. We’ve been friends ever since, definitely my longest-standing friend too.”

    Izumi looked at Marieya in complete shock, her mouth agape as the meal was finished with a knob of butter and a sprinkling of fresh parsley. “The Marieya special”, she said, handing a plate full of garlicky prawns and vegetables over, “simple, wholesome comfort food.”

    The pair joyfully shared the lovingly prepared food together, Izumi telling more stories of the different jobs she had been sent on and listening intently as Marieya shared as many stories about Ancil as she could recall before they retired back to the tent for a good night’s rest.

    A dusky morning shined over the tent as Marieya gave her new friend a final check on her wounds before sending her on her way, with the promise of good food and shelter if she ever needed it.

    Marieya thought to her herself, “this… is a pleasant memory.”

    *****

    Awakening from her trance, Marieya sighed and looked across her current travelling companions, before smiling to herself. “You guys really are some of the best friends I could ask for.”

    Inspiration

    What’s this? A Marieya story where I end on a positive note? What is this heresy! (Ignore the fact that all other named characters in this story are canonically dead.)

    My main goal with this story was developing the character of Izumi primarily, and going through the process of Marieya making a new friend through sheer serendipity.

    When writing Marieya pre-incident, I lean heavily into a line from the Sorcerer Tweaked homebrew I acquired her origin from. “Such sorcerers are wanderers by necessity … If a fire breaks out in town, a phoenix sorcerer had best flee, whether guilty or not.”

    I’ve tried to strike a balance with Marieya in this makeshift forest camp she makes a home in. From the way she talks about having no one to share with, I wanted to evoke the feeling of being an outcast. When no one comes around to visit; she is truly alone in this world.

    However, she is more than an outcast. She laments the scenario her powers create, but she does not allow herself to fall into despair completely (marking a contrast to her post-incident character). Able to survive, care, and nurture her abilities away from the influence of magical colleges, she is thriving as a solitary individual.

    This is why she hits it off so well with Izumi, because she does not push further onto a sensitive issue once she realises she has hit a nerve. She instead chooses to get to know her mysterious saviour, sharing a meal with her and finding out more about how someone goes about living in this scenario.

    I had initially planned to include meetings with Ancil and Vardal as part of the story, but felt that for showing how someone like Marieya developed a friendship would be more informative to her character. Izumi herself is loosely based off Kainé from NieR:Gestalt/Replicant, specifically taking the brash personality traits and rapid-fire rude mouth.

    Once again, I am going to end off with some amazing art from my mate Brett (Bretticus.Llewellyn.art on Instagram – seriously, go follow this beautiful chap. He’s made my stupid ideas come true.)

    With a story focused on friends, few things could be more appropriate than the disaster duo of Honesty and Marieya rocking shades, looking away from an explosion like the badass buddies they are.

  • Personal: Year’s End, Rambles Reborn

    At time of writing there are about seven days left in the year, and I figured I would use this time to evaluate what I have done this year, what I have achieved, and look forward to what may be coming next.

    So, two of the biggest things to happen this year to me were fully accepting that I am definitely more feminine than my assigned gender (I am still trying to figure out the more specific details of how I feel – it has been an up and down journey) and finally graduating from university after three years, coming out with the best possible result of a First class degree.

    Both of those are massive accomplishments, especially in a year living in the shadow of a global pandemic and the looming spectre of repeated lockdowns. There have been a good smattering of smaller successes too, namely setting up this website and trying to collect my various writing works together into one hub.

    However, where success lies, there are bound to be failures that scatter the path towards them. And as alluded to, this year has not been easy for a lot of reasons, and I have definitely had a lot of realisations and challenges that came along the way.

    First off, coming out as gender nonconforming is really difficult. It took a lot of courage to work myself up to telling my major friend groups, to the point I deployed a meme to do most of the initial talking for me. Obviously because I am friends with some amazing people; there was no real question on whether or not I would be accepted but the doubts still creep in from time to time.

    Secondly… mental health troubles. Whilst I have always struggled with mental health issues for a long time, discoveries and potential disasters through the past couple of months have opened my eyes to how bad things got sometimes.

    At some points during the year, there had been a risk of me permanently damaging some of the relationships I shared with people, through a bit of pigheadedness and a lot of despair; I came close to losing touch with one of the closest friends I have nowadays. Things got better over time, and a massive change in their life has made both them and me extremely happy, but I still worry how things could have gone if I did not snap out of that funk.

    Same time, different trajectory was coming to terms with the fact I am almost definitely neurodivergent to some degree, specifically being on the autistic spectrum somewhere and having a form of attention-deficit disorder. The latter of which is why content was so plentiful in the early days of this website and why it dropped like a brick when I got burnt out realising it was very difficult trying to do three 4000 word articles plus research and media in a single week.

    Whilst a positive change in my life (going on SSRI tablets) have helped manage some of the symptoms I experience on a day-to-day basis; there is definitely still more to be done in terms of developing healthy coping mechanisms and potentially acquiring medication to specifically manage the ADD symptoms.

    And generally I have lost a lot of initial direction I had back when I first started university. For various reasons (stresses of final year, stresses outside of final year, and the job economy as a whole) I have lost a lot of my drive towards game development as a career. I know for a fact that programming and academia is a combination I do not wish to return to, but, watch this space all the same for if I relent and go in for a Master’s degree.

    But, other than a single QA role I have an interview coming up for, it is hard to envision myself working professionally within the games industry in the next couple of years. I am trying to ease myself back in with light work on a friend’s arcade flight game (go follow @ClaraDotH on Twitter for more updates – she does great work!) but the next big real step I need to try conquer is using Rambles as a content platform for my portfolio work too.

    In terms of current career trajectory, things are definitely a bit jumbled right now. I know I definitely have a passion for writing and would love to be able to do that full time in some capacity, be it copywriting for a marketing company or games studio, or going off on my own and trying to freelance things.

    But aside from that, my main goal is finding something relatively regular and decently paying enough to get my foot in the door and fund other projects. Council jobs, admin roles, something professional enough to round out my skill set and improve my employability.

    Through all those rough patches though, in the end things have always turned out alright. I have amazing groups of friends to rely on for advice and support when I need it, when the weight of depression relents I know I am able to create beautiful and detailed pieces of writing, and even though things look cloudy now; I know my passion for wanting to create entertaining games will return one day.

    And that is not to mention all the other good that has happened to me this year:

    • Met and befriended quite a few new people, and learnt a lot about the ones I already know
    • Got introduced into the amazing Ace Combat franchise and ended up becoming a huge fan
    • Started to play in two ongoing TTRPG games which are both amazingly fun and spectacular muses for my writing work
    • Considered starting up my own TTRPG game to both experience the thrill of DMing and guide my friends through great stories
    • And started actually filling out my wardrobe with non-cosplay items to achieve a well-rounded (but still very WIP) female outfit selection

    Going forward, I definitely hope to keep creating content for Rambles, but definitely at my own pace for I certainly do not currently have a lack of ideas. I have several pieces planned about Ace Combat 7, needing to review both Ace Combats 5 and Zero, finally getting around to doing MtG based content and even branching out into cosplay posts at some point in the future too.

    Things have not been easy this year, and with the way things are going, it is looking like they may not properly relent for some time either. Regardless, I intend to keep plowing on the best I can, knowing that soon everything can, and will, work out in the end.

  • Marieya’s Grief – Part II

    The…

    The battle was long, a lot of people had come out to join us and try to assist in fighting off Cunning in the crab tank. Fauna… Fauna had taken a torpedo straight to her body and had collapsed, in the panic I forgot all about stabilising her and just focused on running with Honesty.

    You failed once more…

    Even when Honesty went down, I didn’t help him… I was so incensed in the moment that all I did was pray to Seggotan for guidance, beseeching that his power keep us all going… that maybe, just maybe, he could help save Vantar from death.

    Little Marieya, slowly losing all her friends again. One. By. One.

    I thought we had won! I thought that after putting that crab, machine, thing out of action that we’d have been able to get the soul gem back, but somewhere along the way, or even when Cunning was in the machine, it got cracked. Meaning that he was gone. Gone forever.

    And you did noth-

    Get out of my goddamn head! We tried, I tried, all of us tried to be the heroes in this story. Travelling far and wide to work towards a solution, risking life, limb, and all manner of dangerous monsters. We tried our best, and after all this time, our family can never be reunited again.

    Reaching into her bag, Marieya grabs a large tome, gold etched writing on the front displays the title as “A Definitive History of the World: As told by Mharoti Scholars”. The book is the Mharoti Empire’s retelling of history, making things appear more favourable to their causes in the hope of sowing dissent amongst other cities and nations.

    She didn’t care for the book, she had plenty of opportunity to sell it at Prawn’s Pawn whilst she was offloading plenty of other such items. However, for all the pain and misery the dragons had brought her, in the back of the book was some writing

    One paragraph read, “Izumi… Vardal… Ancil… Charax… I miss all of you… I hope one day we can be reunited, and on that day… I can tell you how sorry I am for letting you down.”

    Another, written just below: “Marieya, you have a duty to protect your new friends. Honesty may be anything but, and Vantar seems to be going along with whatever schemes he has cooking. Jorgen is mildly antisocial but seems to be screwed on straight, and Fauna… well Fauna seems okay actually. But you need to know, keeping these people safe and close to you will help you to see how much better life can get.”

    Grabbing a quill and some ink from a nearby nightstand, Marieya scribbled a little bit to make sure she had got the ink on right, before going to write a new paragraph.

    “Vantar… is gone now. For everything we did, we couldn’t save him. I tried to comfort Honesty in the moment, but, he needed to be alone. Goddamnit… I should’ve stuck around anyway, I know what it’s like to feel the loss of friends, I know what it’s like and I failed to help anyway.”

    A tear dropped down onto the page and more soon followed, as Marieya tried to suppress her sobbing to avoid waking up the others before moving onto another paragraph.

    “Is this what the life of an exiled phoenix is? No… I’m not a phoenix. Phoenix’s are majestic, honourable, with the misfortune I’ve brought to everyone around me I’m more like an albatross around their neck.”

    She slammed a gloved hand into her face hard, the sound travelling through the room but not stirring anyone who was asleep.

    “I have to stay with them, when I told Honesty that we’re family, I meant it. Sometimes though, families have those who are not the most welcome and I know I’m on my way towards that. If it comes to it, I’ll sacrifice myself for them. Maybe in death I can earn a smidge of redemption, and finally get a chance to be useful.”

    Clasping her hands around the back of her head; Marieya allowed herself a few brief moments of unrestrained bawling. Keeping the noise to a minimum, she allowed herself the relief that comes with crying, letting all the negative feelings and emotions that had been boiling up through the aftermath of the battle out, before finalising her writings with a short sentence.

    “Even in death, you are still my friend. Goodbye Vantar.”

    Seggotan, lord of the sea and mentor of the waves… please, I beg of you, protect Vantar’s soul as he drifts through the tide, he is not one of yours, but I ask you to guide him to the other side. And please…

    Don’t make me bury anyone else.

    Inspiration – Content Warning

    (Note to my DM, Albert: You handled this session amazingly friendo, the battle was tense, enjoyable, and ended up being a good level of difficulty despite original intentions. The preceding work and proceeding explanation is no bearing on your ability to tell a story… this is something I needed to write for me.)

    This entire session was not going to be easy, we were up against an enemy we had never encountered before, and even then, we all knew that our efforts were going to be in vain. A lot of this campaign had been dedicated to getting a Gearforged party member revived, when the player decided not to continue with the campaign, it left a dilemma of how to resolve things. Rather than having a character change for the person playing Honesty, it was decided that killing off Vantar would be better.

    Now… that is why it was difficult for the characters and scenario, but, this fight ended up taking a toll on me mentally as well. Admittedly, the fact that Marieya is very much a projection of myself did not make anything better.

    In the lead up to this session, one of my closest friends had gone through some grief, and because of how close I was to the person he was grieving for, I felt a lot of similar feelings as well… and it took a lot to try resolve my “feeling bad about feeling bad”. I had locked into a mindset that because he had way more reason to grieve, I should just shut up and lock everything inside. It took a late night vent, some reassurance from friends, and a lot of virtual explosions to pull me out of that rut.

    However, there was something else as well. About two days before the session, I had my personal issues regarding abandonment triggered by an event within a social circle (since I know these people may also read this blog, this is also nothing on you), which meant that losing Vantar in the session really ended up hitting a nerve hard around my own loneliness.

    I feel I really struggle with making and keeping friends sometime, some of it conscious, some of it blissfully unaware until it is way too late, which is why when I am presented with the possibility of having friends fade from my life things start to go a bit haywire. Tried to portray that with Marieya, especially through the line:

    “Even in death, you are still my friend. Goodbye Vantar.”

    Even when people fade from my life, and for all the memory problems I have, the good times I have with friends will always remain, and I can hold that close as a memory of positivity.

    To try end this off on a more positive note, I am going to showcase some art my friend Brett (and Honesty’s player) did in the lead up to this session, involving the party reacting to the scenario. He absolutely nailed the reference expression for Marieya I gave him along with making her incredibly beautiful even in sadness. His instagram is bretticus.llewellyn.art if you want to check him out.

  • Marieya’s Horror

    A scream.

    A shock.

    A step.

    A sprint.

    Whatever had caused that loud of a noise could not be good news, and Marieya knew that her friends were in danger. She didn’t know what it was or how powerful it could turn out to be, all that mattered to her was grabbing her gear, channeling her innate shadow fey powers to quickly teleport from where she was keeping watch before dashing towards the source.

    It only took under half a minute for her to reach where the combat was taking place. Jørgen was attempting to cast an ice-based spell and having it pass through the ineffable form of the ghost that was assaulting the rest of the party. Honesty and Milo were using their ranged weaponry to try to damage it, and whilst the arrows & bolts were leaving visible trails of web as they exited the spectral opponent; it was not having nearly enough of an effect.

    The same could be said of Fauna’s attacks, with her choosing to adopt her war ostrich form in the hopes of maximising damage to similarly frustrating results as the ranged attacks.

    “Alright,” Marieya thought to herself, “It’s just an undead, you’ve dealt with these before.” She raised her hand and channeled a spell, a skeletal hand forming itself into existence before launching at the ghost and latching onto it. “Right, that’s the spell done, now-”, Marieya’s thoughts were cut off by the ghost turning around and screaming at her and Fauna.


    “…that did nothing except piss it off…”

    In its rage, the ghost chose to ignore the two members of the party at the other side of it and charged straight at Marieya and Fauna. Passing through the former harmlessly apart from some shivers and being slightly freaked out.

    When it came to passing through Marieya however, that is when the situation became a little more complicated. Instead of continuing on its path the ghost pulled itself into the shadow fey’s body, possessing Marieya and locking her into her own mind, this change confirmed by the glowing blue eyes and the piercing scream that was emanating from her.

    “Oh Seggotan. Oh crap. Oh fuck.” Marieya said out loud in her mindscape, able to perceive what is going on through her eyes but completely unable to control herself. “Come on,” she said, panic lacing her voice thoroughly, “I can break free of this, all I’ve got to do is…”

    “There’s no getting out of this one killer,” a similar voice echoed from behind Marieya, and she turned to look at them in horror, “This time, you aren’t stopping me from taking control.”

    Before Marieya stood a mirror of herself, a manifestation of her past mistakes, guilt, trauma, and fears. A self-created image of what could have happened if she let her loathing and hatred get out of control, they wore a long black robe covered in red gemstones, a hood pulled up to shadow the face entirely except for eyes glowing a fierce orange, carrying a red staff emblazoned with fiery imagery and a flame burning at the top that seemed to never need fuel or stoking.

    “No!” Marieya cried, trying to conjure a geyser of water underneath the manifestation standing before her. In response, they waved their hand gently, and the beginnings of the geyser faded into nothing. 

    In a fit of fury Marieya tried another spell, this time hoping to use an intense ribbon of water to throw the manifestation to the ground. With but a stomp of their staff a wall of fire blazed into life in front of them, quickly evaporating the ribbon into nothing. 

    Before even letting their opponent try cast another spell, the manifestation used their quicker reflexes to lunge forward with their staff, tripping the shadow fey onto the ground and pinning her. Outside of this mindscape the others were trying in vain to non-lethally bring down their friend, attempting to grapple with her and similarly knock her prone on the ground, but the ghost was utilising its host’s natural reflexes to dodge out of the way.

    “Would you look at that?” the manifestation said, laughing gently in a mocking tone, “your little friends are trying to save you, aww, that is so cute…”

    “It will make all the sweeter when I kill them.”

    Marieya tried to struggle free from under the staff, attempting to use what little strength she had to break free, as the ghost attempted to use her weaponry against her friends, thankfully failing in this pursuit. Faintly, she heard Jørgen speak to her, “I’m very sorry for what I’m about to do.”

    And in that moment, he placed the tips of his thumbs together and spread his fingers apart, blasting out a cone of red hot fire against his possessed friend, causing a scream of pain and intensifying the sweating Marieya had been experiencing.

    In any other moment, confronted with that much fire directly in her face would have caused her to lose her nerve and consequently lose control over her suppressed powers. But faced with the prospect of the darkness within her hurting her friends, her resolve steeled, and she was able to focus on keeping things in control.

    “Oh that is just too fucking good!” the manifestation said, raising their voice and laughing loudly at its prey still pinned under the staff. “One of your allies is using your worst fears against you, all because you couldn’t hold your nerve against a ghost!”

    Scared, and worried for the safety of her friends Marieya managed to briefly pull the staff off of her and roll away, launching herself to her feet and assuming a combat stance as her real life counterpart dodged Fauna’s snake staff that had attempted to constrict her.

    “There’s no use fighting this you pathetic girl,” the manifestation said, chastising the cleric before them, “you’ve failed in keeping me suppressed, and now, all of them are going to see you for the monster you are, what a sight… seeing little Marieya, all scared and alone, becoming a cold, ruthless, murderer.”

    Rage boiled up inside Marieya, as she felt her dominant hand warming up and the outline of fiery phoenix wings formed around her. A blaze conjured itself around her hand and soon spread across her arm as the wings fully formed and the visage of the phoenix formed around her head. 

    “No. One. Messes. With. My. Family!”

    She lunged forward as the manifestation turned to face her, trying to quickly prepare a counterattack but failing as the flaming punch impacted hard onto their face, knocking them to the ground where they quickly evaporated into black smoke, once again retreating to the recesses of Marieya’s mind as her vision turned black and she fell to the ground both in her mindscape and reality.

    The others had caused enough damage for Marieya to become unconscious, the finishing blow coming from Fauna using a spell to heat the sword within Marieya’s hand to both disarm her and damage her, forcefully expelling the ghost from her body.

    Initially everyone else planned to go over to her and quickly stabilise her condition, but this was cut short by a spark releasing itself from her chest, rapidly forming into a similar phoenix-like form that had appeared in her mindscape and exploding in a ten foot radius around her, hitting the ghost with a burst of magical flame that did moderate damage to it before she fell onto the ground heavily damage, but conscious.

    “Oh no…” Marieya thought to herself as she touched her hand to her chest and flooded her system with healing energy, “I have to explain what the hell just happened to them, Jørgen’s gonna be so angry that I hid this from him, I’m gonna have to leave the others and go back into isolation…”

    Whilst she went through internal panic on the ground; everyone else used this opportunity to launch an all out attack at the ghost to prevent it from either repossessing Marieya, or possessing anyone else. Fauna’s snake staff bit into it, Jørgen bashed it around with his quarterstaff and Honesty snuck up behind it and dealt the fatal blow with a cunning surprise attack.

    With the situation now much calmer, the rest of the party turned to Marieya, looking concerned but in more of an “are you okay?” way than feeling threatened by her. In between sobs of panic, she was able to speak, “So… before I was cleric, I was a sorcerer. A phoenix sorcerer, to be precise. The power of fire literally lives within my veins.”

    She paused, taking a sharp breath before carrying on, “and it’s caused me nothing but grief ever since… an incident, so, I just lock it away, and it only really comes out under stress.” She turned to Jørgen with pleading eyes and began crying properly, “I… understand if you hate me now Jørgen, I know that I’m nothing but a filthy mageblood to you now… I can also understand if you want me to leave…”

    Jørgen adopted a soothing tone, and sought to assuage his friend’s worries. “Marieya”, he said, not a hint of anger in his voice, “when I spoke those words, I was referring to those with uncontrolled wild magic in their veins. You both make an effort to restrain your powers and your innate ability comes from the phoenix, a most noble creature.”

    Fauna concurred, saying, “Yeah, we honestly don’t mind that about you, we’re just glad you’re safe and that you felt comfortable telling us.”

    And finally, Honesty chimed in. “Big fire bird go boom?” he said, having the point well and truly go over his head.

    Marieya laughed, still with a hint of worry in her voice but relieved she hadn’t alienated or harmed another group of friends, pulling herself to her feet as they all went off to resume their sleep for the night.

    As she lay down in trance, it quickly became a very easy rest to get through. No nightmares, no intrusive thoughts, no dwelling on the past, only a single phrase passing through her mind:

    “You’re my family now, and I promise you, so long as I’m around, no one is going to hurt you. Absolutely no one.”

    Inspiration

    It has been far too long since I’ve written a Marieya story and it honestly feels great, especially as the last session I had it was finally time for the full party to uncover part of her backstory, specifically her Phoenix Soul sorcerous origin.

    Though I will admit it was also completely anxiety inducing considering that I essentially had control ripped away from me as this ghost attempted to attack my friends whilst the DM informed me that I was completely aware what was going on in this state.

    Whilst that is terrifying, it gave me a bit more room to expand on Marieya’s Manifestation, previously introduced in one of my backstory articles (Marieya’s Torment if you’re interested).

    Writing for the manifestation is interesting, because I treat them as both a physical and nonphysical entity. Physical in the fact I keep a sideline character sheet for them to inform me of their looks, abilities, and equipment, and nonphysical in the fact that they’re essentially just a figment of Marieya’s psyche.

    Admittedly, the way that I write her is based off my own mental struggles.

    Because what’s a better coping technique than projecting your issues onto your characters right? (This is sarcasm, pay no attention to me, get the help you need if you need it.)

    In seriousness, the manifestation is based off my own problems with intrusive thoughts and how they can be based on things that have happened in the past or paranoia about things that you feel could happen. Marieya has lost quite a few friends for various reasons, either by her own selfish actions, or through inability to take a meaningful action, and this ends up weighing heavily on her with the rest of the party because she feels that these actions are doomed to repeat themselves and she’ll lose the new friends she’s grown incredibly close to.

    This is also why I made it a point to put try put emphasis on Marieya calling her friends “her family”, because this is also an important point to her character and another thing I’ve lifted from myself. Whilst I get on with my family, it’s often my friends I tend to rely on more for support, guidance, and a lot of things generally.

    In general the concept of “found family” is always something I enjoy seeing, as when done right it allows people and characters to find a place where they are comfortable. Home doesn’t have to be four walls and a roof, home can be a hug and a heartbeat.

    Unrelated to anything, I did a lot of dialogue in this story, and was specifically using a worksheet/guide to try help me, as dialogue is one of my weaker areas when it comes to punctuation. Let me know how it turned out, as always I’m very happy to hear whatever feedback you may have.

  • Blaze of Glory

    In life, even in the far future, two things are certain. Whilst death can be circumvented through various arcane means, taxes remain a dominating factor, though as always where there are taxes; there are those that will stop at anything to paying them. Various illicit organisations exist to aid such individuals or groups of individuals, one of the most successful being Midas Touch Security Solutions.

    On the surface, MTSS presents itself as any normal security firm would. Pristine receptions, pristine receptionists, and pristine receipts ready to present to any discerning tax collector, those in the know however all it takes is a password to gain access to all seedy services available.

    From extortion, to racketeering, to blackmail to “competitor disincentivising”, MTSS offers it all with the promise of a discreet golden touch.

    At the galactic headquarters, in an office on the third floor, many peons worked away tirelessly at desks. Fabricating records and finding loopholes in galactic tax codes to ensure all clients were able to hold onto as much of their money as possible. In the corner office, the most successful of these individuals was a Vect, going by the name of Blaze.

    As with all vects, they chose their own name. Though in the many years of service rendered to MTSS everyone had wondered why Blaze had not chosen to adopt a name more suitable to their role in life. Until a fateful day when Midas’s activities caught up with them…

    A smart dressed man and two android police officers walked down the plush carpeted corridors all the way to Blaze’s office, where they were still diligently working away on ensuring taxes were not paid.

    “Mr Blaze, we are here to place you under arrest.” the smart dressed man said, flanked by the android police with their hands on holstered phasers “You have the option to come quietly, or my friends here can deal with you”, smirking at the vect still silently working away.

    It took a while until they finally decided to respond. “If you please,” they said, “in accordance with Planetary Law AJP232P, can you read the charges to the suspect?”. The left android simulated a sigh before taking out an official-looking document.

    “The first charge,” he said, “is for aiding and abetting tax evasion. This is the definition of the crime; however, you are being charged with three-thousand-four-hundred-and-twenty-three counts in this case.”

    “The second charge is for the murder of planetary tax officials. Again, this is the definition of the crime, and you are being charged with four counts.”

    “And the final charge is…” the android paused, flashing a puzzled expression and turning to his colleague, whispering, “Uhh… is this right? Do they have… y’know?” The other officer shrugged before the reading of the charges resumed, “the final charge is for… public indecency… only one count.”

    Grinning, the smart dressed man said, “Oh, what a pity, that all amounts to life in prison… and a ten gold fine for the indecency thing,” he approached the desk slowly, with a menacing gait. “Now, are you coming quietly, or is this going to be difficult?”

    Another pause settled between the parties in the room before Blaze reached down and placed a hand on their desk.

    “Come get me, punks.”

    With that boast Blaze used their hand on the desk to push it over, knocking prone and pinning the smart dressed man beneath it. As the police officers drew their phasers, the hand not on the desk had reached down for an explosive device and threw it as they ducked behind the toppled desk as makeshift cover.

    So focused on drawing weapons the two androids did not notice the explosion device hurtling towards them, detonating mid-air and spreading burning goop all over the office as the shockwave shattered all the windows both out and inward facing. The flaming formula stuck to their uniforms and slowly consumed them, screaming as they tried to pat each other out.

    Seeing an opportunity for eliminating them; Blaze reached for a swarm pistol they had stored in one of the desk’s drawers. Holding the foregrip tight and taking aim, they fired two short bursts, one per officer, to put an end to both their suffering and existence.

    Now the vect’s focus turned to the man still pinned under the desk. “Who is your source?” they asked.

    The man coughed, struggling to try push the desk off himself, saying, “Go to hell you tax dodging bastard!” In response, Blaze fired a quick burst of fire into the man’s right hand, before leaning down closely and asking the question again. “…your boss,” the man said, “Knox Knave.”

    “Thank you for your co-operation.” Blaze said, reaching for another bomb and placing it gently into the breast pocket of the smart dressed man’s suit, ignoring the pleas for mercy as bloodied hands struggled.

    Blaze went over to the safe in the corner of their office, unflinching as a person was turned into chunky salsa behind him, and retrieved its contents. These included an outfit suitable to the seedier side of the universe, a laser claw, and all the tools and reagents they would need to keep on making bombs.

    Up on the forty-fourth floor Knox was relaxing in his office, letting his amoeboid body drape over a plastic-wrapped sofa, and enjoying a cold drink.

    That was until he heard screaming, explosions, and blaster fire ringing through the wide corridors. Instinctively he scurried over to his large ornate desk to press the button for calling security, barely reaching it, and pressing the button before an explosion ripped the double doors off their hinges.

    “Knox, it is time to pay, you slimeball!” Blaze said, striding through the smoking wreckage of the door.

    “Ahh, Blaze, buddy!” Knox said, pressing the security button a few more times, worried no one has turned up yet.

    “They are all dead Knave. Everybody is dead Knave.”

    “All the security guards?”

    “Everybody is dead Knave.”

    “All my elite security too?”

    “Yes Knave. They are dead. Everybody is dead Knave.”

    If amoeboids could sweat; Knox would have turned into a puddle of slime by now, as the vect approached him, swarm pistol in one hand, the other free to reach into a bag filled with dangerous explosives.

    “S-surely we can work something out!” Knox said, surveying the room to see if there was a vent he could try escaping into. “Money? Weapons? A better office? Anything you want!”

    Standing but a few feet away from their boss, Blaze only had one question: “Why did you sell me out?”

    “Eh, well, you see…” Knox said, trying desperately to both find a way out and a good story to cover his, before sighing, and saying, “it’s just the cost of doing business, I had to bribe some bigshot tax admin to ensure MTSS stays afloat, I threw you in as a way of sweetening the deal with them!”

    Blaze stared for a moment, processing this new bit of information, and after a while they said, “Thank you for telling me. You can die now”. With those words they lunged over the desk and grabbed Knox tight, making sure they could not slide out of the grapple.

    Knox tried to struggle and began grovelling harder than before. “Please! Stop!”, he said, “I told you why, we can just start afresh somewhere, you can be my second in command!”

    This time, there was no pause in what Blaze needed to say. “I will not do business with someone who is a proven snitch.”

    Reaching into the bag of bombs Blaze grabbed and primed a shrapnel-based device, shoving it right inside Knox’s gelatinous body before throwing him across the room, watching as the force of the initial detonation and the fragments that came after it tore him asunder, splattering purple ooze all across the opulent office.

    Knowing better than to leave an amoeboid unattended; Blaze bided their time until they saw the chunks of their former boss tried to reform, taking the opportunity to use their swarm pistol to permanently end any last vestige of life.

    “Add one more count of murdering a tax official, and eleven more counts of homicide.”

    Inspiration

    First off: I’M BACK BITCHES!

    Okay, that is a bit crass, but this is my first original work in over a month. I’m still dealing with burnout, demotivation, and a laptop keyboard with several malfunctioning keys which doesn’t really help anything, but hopefully over the coming weeks I can inspire myself back into action.

    This story is a bit off the wall I’ll admit, it’s supposed to serve as a backstory/inciting incident for my character in a Dark Matter game. During character conceptualization I was definitely leaning towards the robotic Vect race, for some of their racial feats and how they interact with the graft system.

    After that, I looked at the Dark Matter included backgrounds and found “Exile”, which seemed quite interesting. On the list of crimes included is “tax exile”, leading to the very silly idea of a robot using themselves to aid in committing tax fraud.

    Then came deciding on a class, which is where I got hung up for a while. I initially had wanted to go barbarian, as I play a dexterity/wisdom based character in Marieya and wanted to see what the more aggressive side of things would look like (plus, I could’ve beaten people over the head with a giant wrench).

    Upon suggestion from some of the other party members, I decided to go with a class also made by the people who make Dark Matter: Mage Hand Press, and the Alchemist class.

    Alchemists seem really cool, this is going to be my first time playing an intelligence based character and there seems to be a lot of creative potential in the bomb formulae sections and the potential discoveries to take. Combining this with some of the Vect racial feats, I have the potential to make a really fun character.

    Now, the story itself, which, as I’m typing, dawns on me has some similarities to Marieya’s inciting incident: both Blaze and Marieya start their major arc/journey based on murdering a lot of people and using fire/explosions to do so.

    The main difference here is that Blaze is going through this more like an action hero, rather than enduring terrible trauma. Action film tropes definitely inspired a lot of this story, from the tactical moves pulled off by Blaze to the cheesy one liners they say upon doing things. And yes, that is a poor attempt at a Red Dwarf reference near the end, thank you.

    One final thing to note, I’ve been using they/them pronouns for Blaze throughout the story, and will be using them if I decide to write any future stories. There is some inner conflict there, as I feel I’m falling into the mainstream trope of “nonbinary character is robot/shapeshifter/fey” a little bit.

    At this point in time I haven’t really decided what kind of gender identity Blaze has, I’m not even sure if I want to say “pronouns are they/them” and instead just use those for writing convenience and run on the assumption that Blaze just accepts all pronouns.

    Either way, I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this short story, and I hope to be back to making the content I love properly soon enough.

  • Update: Changing things up

    So, if you follow my blog regularly; you’ll have noticed that I didn’t do a post yesterday. I do normally adhere to a schedule of Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday for posting content but recently, things have been a little difficult for me.

    A lot of what I write tends to be long form content with an average word count of about 3000 words per piece of fiction or review. I frequently exceed these numbers as well, and whilst I do consider myself an okay writer, approximately 10,000 words a week is not sustainable especially when taking into account the amount of research I do per piece.

    You may have noticed some grammar issues, spelling errors/word order errors, and that is because I was often up late trying to finish work in time for self-imposed deadlines. This almost always lead to me cutting corners and proofreading time, leading to the overall quality of my work to suffer and to burning out incredibly quickly.

    Going forward, things will be different. I’m not going to adhere to a strict schedule at all, whilst I did initially going back to my Wednesday/Sunday schedule; I think for the time being having no set schedule at all will allow my creativity to flourish a bit more.

    I’ll try my best to do short update posts every so often to let people know what I’m working on and what sort of content can be expected in the near future. I definitely want to do more music reviews, talk more about some of my favourite older games, and finally start doing the Magic: the Gathering content I’ve always wanted to write.

    If you want to stick around through this uncertain time, you will have my eternal gratitude. Watch this space to see the next stage of Rosalia’s Rambles.

  • Rosie’s Music Room: Ace Combat 4

    Welcome to the first of what will hopefully be a series on this site, Rosie’s Music Room. In these articles I am going to be looking at songs from all kinds of different media, from video games to film to TV, to potentially just doing an album review every so often.

    For this inaugural edition, it is going to be an extension of my Ace Combat 4 review where picking three songs to fit into the Music section left me with a lot that I wanted to cover in much greater detail, though because of this, I will also be going into detail on some later missions so there is going to be a spoiler warning in effect for the entire article so if you don’t want to be spoiled, click away now.

    If you are still with me, let us dive right into a track I mentioned during the review, but never went into detail on.

    Comona

    The mission which this track plays, “Shattered Skies”, was described to me by my friend Clara as one of the best missions in the game, and in her opinion, when the game really starts to pick up the pace. Comona Bay is solely a dogfight mission, no ground targets to worry about, just high stakes aerial action as you defend a crucial rocket launch facility from Erusean fighters and later, B2 stealth bombers coming to destroy the base.

    And the song provides plenty of energy to keep you going throughout the mission, even a slightly subdued intro keeps pace with synth layered over an electric guitar jamming out an incredibly memorable riff. The mission itself is not that long so the backing music needed to make an impact and it certainly turns any tense tailing moments into euphoric victory when “DESTROYED” pops up on your screen.

    Farbanti

    Mission 17, “Siege of Farbanti” is the penultimate mission of the game which acts as a last stand for your enemy, as the war is now at their capital city with defences and tanks placed all throughout the streets with the remnants of the air force taking to the skies. One of the things I love about the Ace Combat soundtrack is that it can perfectly capture the atmosphere of a mission within a song.

    And Farbanti is no exception, whilst previous ground assault missions will get your heart pumping with an aura of caution about yourself, the sweeping orchestra paired with Ace Combat’s signature guitar playing alongside it exudes the feeling of this being the final major battle of this war (bar one after this) and that ISAF is going to win, no matter what.

    This is further exemplified when the mission update comes in, with AWACS telling you that five aircraft have been spotted on radar, the remaining true members of Yellow Squadron. Rather than the music changing to show that the scary Yellows have arrived, the triumphant tones of Farbanti keep playing as you engage your game-long rivals in aerial combat, proving once and for all why Erusean troops fear the ribbon in the sky.

    Breaking Arrows (#1)

    One of the less conventional missions in the game is called “Breaking Arrows” and the first piece of background music that plays during this level matches the atmosphere perfectly. Mobius 1 is alone in pursuing long range cruise missiles that are incoming to ISAF troop landings, performing this mission in the pitch black of night across a monolithic glacier, the only light coming from the stars and the aurora above the terrain.

    With the plucking of a violin, the mission begins, and those few notes alone are able to instil fear into even the most experienced of AC veterans. Whilst AWACS told you what was coming from the darkness, the music still has the potential to create a feeling of unease about what else the Eruseans may be about to throw at you.

    The second part of this mission still has good music, but that part of the track is more about giving the impression that failing to stop the final escorted cruise missile incoming would spell certain doom for the ISAF offensive.

    Megalith Agnus Dei

    I discussed Megalith at length during my review, but whilst I gave the name of the backing track to the level, I never explained what I like about it.

    During the mission to destroy Megalith, the radio chatter that fills the top of the screen is supplied in part by a ground infiltration team who are waiting on Mobius 1 to destroy the generators powering the superweapon, and will sweep in during the ensuing blackout to open the central heat vent.

    As you destroy each generator, the radio chatter becomes more dire as the team are unable to hold their position against the remaining Erusean officers, the ominous chanting of the music fully nailing it into the player that this mission is going to have a high casualty rate, but in completion, the war shall be over.

    Part way through the song the instrumental lowers in volume to give way to the chorus taking centre stage, adding the ideal amount of solemnity to the situation at hand. Whilst you now lead the newly formed Mobius Squadron to victory, none of this would need to be happening if the rogue Erusean officers had surrendered along with the rest of the military.

    There is honestly so much more I could say about this mission; everything about it combines to form a moving finale, the JRPG-esque final boss music only serving to propel it further into greatness.

    Invincible Fleet

    Mission 6, “Unsinkable Fleet”, features your first major ground assault against Erusean Forces, taking on the Aegir Fleet which boasts the mission name as its primary quality. Your job is to show them how much that claim holds up to reality.

    Despite this, the mission is not presented as a glorious show of force against the Erusean navy, and the music reflects this wonderfully. Whilst you are strafing by fuel tanks and AA guns, taking out named destroyers and battleships with your LASMs, the backing track crafts an atmosphere of something about to go very wrong with deep, bass-heavy synths underlaying very light percussion.

    Even when the string section kicks in there are no exuberant leitmotifs to be found, to the point where I reckon this music could have been used in an escape sequence and still fit perfectly.

    Speaking of which…

    Aquila

    This track plays when things go very wrong at the end of Mission 5, where for the first time Mobius 1 is introduced to their main aerial rivals for the game: Yellow Squadron. Almost immediately AWACS tells you to not engage and return to base as fast as you can hold down the throttle.

    It starts off quiet, with the first 15 seconds or so being comprised of bass synths and ominous bongos (Rosalia’s note: this is probably the most unintentionally funny thing I’ve written), after which harsh strings come in to properly tell you that if you do not make it back to the return line before Yellow Squadron catch up to you, you are almost certainly getting taken out of the sky.

    The reason this has impact is the fact that up until now, Mission Update has not been used for anything terrifying. Its first usage is to tell you about the existence of the return line and how to return to base; in this instance it puts your knowledge of this mechanic to the test as you are faced with something you are very clearly outclassed by.

    End of show

    Thanks for reading. It has been incredibly fun to talk about some of the songs I didn’t get a chance to and to put my writing skills to the test by reviewing something completely out of my comfort zone, and hopefully I’ll get better at it over time.

    Once again, credit and my thanks to Zaptroxix for these extended OST videos, they both helped me properly formulate my opinions on the tracks and listen out for the finer details in them.

  • My Ace Combat 4 Trial by Fire

    Ace Combat: Distant Thunder is a-

    << Hard enemy radar spike. >>

    Oh, alright, just let me dodge that. Ace Comb-

    << Mobius 1, missile! Missile! >>

    Really not letting me finish my intro I see. Ace-

    << Yellow Squadron inbound. >>

    Game will you give me a goddamn break to actually finish speaking?!

    << Incoming from Stonehenge on radar. All aircraft drop below 2000ft. >>

    …I guess not.

    Introduction

    Ace Combat: Distant Thunder (known as Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies everywhere else except Europe) is a combat-oriented flight simulator game developed by Namco released in 2001 and was the first game in the franchise to release on the PS2.

    Being honest, these sort of games never appeared on my radar (heh) up until very recently. My friend Clara is currently developing her own flight simulator game as a love letter to the Ace Combat franchise, and as part of my assistance on it; it was considered “research” to play through an Ace Combat game. I played a few missions on AC7: Skies Unknown before borrowing her copy of Distant Thunder.

    And well, it is an understatement to say I’m hooked right now, the tense arcade-style gameplay, the tight flight controls and the downright epic soundtrack all combined into a heart-pumping, blood-pressure-raising, bandit-tailing experience.

    Plot

    The lead up to the game’s main story is an asteroid colliding with Earth causing massive damage. The nations on the fictional continent of Usea had developed a defence platform called “Stonehenge”, an array of anti-asteroid railguns to destroy fragments of falling asteroid but it was not enough to stop Erusea, one of the largest nations on Usea, to suffer massive economic damage.

    This was highlighted when Erusea refused to accept their quota of civilian refugees from the disaster, leading to a boycott of Erusean exports from other nations, further damaging the economy.

    And when you have a struggling economy, you go the route of the US government, and go to war to solve your problems!       

    Erusea launches a surprise invasion of the neutral town of San Salvacion and then worked to modify Stonehenge from “anti-asteroid defence system” to “what happens if you put AA guns on unreasonable amounts of steroids”. War broke out between Erusea and the other nations, the latter forming the Independent State Allied Forces (ISAF) to work collaboratively against the Erusean threat.

    For some real numbers, Stonehenge has a range of approximately 1.3 UKs

    However, the modifications to Stonehenge proved to be a deadly asset against ISAF, because anti-air guns with a range of 1200km (or, as shown in the picture, most of the Usean mainland) tend to provide a certain measure of air superiority.

    Where the game begins is almost a first-and-last line of defence from ISAF who have retreated to the island of North Point to co-ordinate the counter offensive against the nigh-unstoppable Erusean campaign. You are placed into the cockpit of Mobius 1, who in addition to your fellow pilots, work to repel attacks on the base and then work to turn the tide of the war.

    Story is presented in one of three ways:

    • Mission briefing screens which explain the scenario and what resistance is expected, along with showing a map of the continent which updates each mission with how the war is going
    • Mid-mission radio chatter and events, which can range from bombers incoming to your location or Stonehenge getting a lock on your position
    • Cutscenes told through watercolour painted scenes, following a young boy in the town of San Salvacion as he interacts with the Erusean occupiers

    What I particularly enjoy about the plot in Distant Thunder is how it invoked various emotions which could change on a per mission basis, and sometimes even changing the tone and atmosphere of a mission with just a simple update.

    One of the best early examples of this, and what forms a great prologue to one of the most intense missions of the game, is Mission 7: “Deep Strike”.

    The initial objective is a straightforward mission type that the player will have already seen a few times before, taking out a set of targets with additional optional targets to up your score for a better rank. Then, you hear the ominous “bleeps” of mission update, two missions after the game had trained you to respond to this sound with “oh no” due to the incoming Yellow Squadron.

    As a quick informer, Yellow Squadron form your sort of rivals through some missions. The first mission they turn up you are told not to engage because it would be too dangerous, and as the game progresses onwards, you slowly become more able to engage with the Squadron until finally taking on over ten fighters in a single mission.

    With the bleeps in Deep Strike though, the game wrenches the “oh no” meter up to eleven with the information that Stonehenge is now targeting your location, and you need to get the hell out of there ASAP. The rest of the mission is accompanied by tense escape music as AWACS tells you to drop into the ravine to avoid getting hit.

    And as someone who got hit by a railgun round on their escape, the game does not pull any punches. Going above 2000ft in altitude when a Stonehenge impact is incoming is a death sentence as it will instantly destroy your plane, forcing a mission restart.

    Afterwards, comes Mission 8: Shattered Skies. And I will just let the background music for that stage set the scene.

    Comona Bay is the first full-scale dogfight of the game, with the main objective being to destroy as many enemies as possible and is also the first time the player can engage with Yellow Squadron in the game. Loadout is key here as standard issue missiles usually will not be fast enough to nail a Yellow even with the most perfect of alignments (and I am bad at aiming, it took until Mission 12 to finally nail a Yellow).

    Gameplay

    Distant Thunder presents you with a campaign of eighteen missions to play through with a variety of objectives to make your way through. Quite a few missions of the game take the form of a open area with the objective of “Destroy as much as possible within the time limit”, ranging from destroying grounded aircraft on the runway so they can’t launch an attack on your base, to sinking a “unsinkable” fleet whilst it rests at harbour.

    A few missions will mix things up with special objectives or special conditions to consider whilst playing through. This can include having to work without radar either temporarily or throughout the entire mission, having a civilian flight to escort or being the lone fighter to take down quick moving cruise missiles.

    During each mission, usually to the south of the player’s position, there is a dotted line on the map referred to as the “Return Line”. Turning back and flying towards this line allows you to return to an airbase/carrier to refuel, repair, and restock your weapon loadout. Sometimes a tactical retreat can be beneficial to ensure victory in battle.

    The game offers four difficultly levels initially: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, and Hard, with a fifth option of “Expert” being unlocked on completion of a Hard campaign, and a sixth option of “Ace” being unlocked on completion of an Expert campaign. I initially started my playthrough on Easy due to being a newcomer to the series, but after a few missions I felt comfortable enough to be able make a new save on Normal and play from there.

    Your plane has three main armaments:

    • A rapid-fire main cannon with high ammunition, useful for strafing low durability targets and softening up enemy bandits if you get a good angle
    • A set of locking, homing missiles that are predominantly used for taking out bandits in two hits or demolishing high value ground targets
    • A special weapon, with each plane having a selection of specials to choose from depending on their role

    Special weapons are useful for determining your strategy during a mission, as they will either work on only ground or air targets. They range from (but are not limited to) unguided bombs of multiple variants (cluster and napalm included), multi-locking sets of missiles useful for “fire and forget” tactics or longer range missiles useful for taking out potential AA threats from a safe distance.

    In the beginning of the game though, you only have one plane and one special weapon unlocked, an F-4 with a set of unguided bombs. As you play through missions and earn credits you can add new aircraft to your arsenal along with acquiring new armaments for them. Personal favourites of mine for each include the following:

    Why is this a screenshot from Word? Blame the table block.
    • LASM
    • XAGM

    Throughout the game you can sell aircraft or weapons you have obtained to be able to afford new ones, and this can be a tactically sound decision if it offers you a distinct advantage in upcoming missions. It is impossible to purchase all aircraft and weapons on a first run through, even with destroying all potential targets and getting S-ranks on missions.

    This is where the New Game Plus feature comes into play, allowing you to return to the first mission of the game with your credits, aircraft and special weapons all carrying over. As you start a carried-over save you gain the ability to adjust the difficulty, so if you want the challenge of harder difficulties with some cushioning from having your top-of-the-range gear, the option is there.

    It is also an incredibly cathartic feeling to go through the early missions of the game with your endgame loadouts. Smashing through the early mission dogfights with superior firepower is a power trip and a half and I love it.

    Controls

    As the focus of the game is being a flight simulator, the controls are set up accordingly. You can turn using L2 and R2 but due to these being yaw movements; they are not exactly idea for turning quickly and instead should be used for minor course correction.

    To get true freedom of movement in the skies, your best bet is to pitch and roll across the clouds, as mastering these manoeuvres on the left analog stick will allow for all sorts of advanced moves such as quick turning to quickly pursue enemy aircraft or being able to expertly evade incoming missiles.

    R1 and L1 control your throttle and brake, respectively. Knowing how and when to use your brake is a massive boon to getting the plane to move in the direction you want it to, as it is easier to turn in the air when you’re slowing you. There are some missions as well when braking will stop you from crashing into the scenery when flying through tight corridors.

    Once you have control over the plane refined though, there is not a massive amount of complexity in the game’s control scheme. Press X to fire your main cannon, Circle to fire either your missiles or special weapon, Triangle to change current target (essential for locking onto targets in quick succession) and Square to change how much your minimap is showing.

    Select allows you to swap between missiles or special weapons, and the right analog stick rotates the camera around so you can evaluate your surrounding to determine your next move or look below you to see when you need to drop your bombs.

    Finally, with down on the D-Pad, you can switch from a first-person perspective in the cockpit to playing in third-person. I admittedly never played a mission in first-person mode, instead preferring the freedom and special awareness that comes with knowing your surroundings. Though I suspect once Clara has her way with showing me Ace Combat VR, I will probably gain a finer appreciation for this viewpoint.

    Music

    (Foreword: I have to give a shout out to Zaptroxix here. They’re a Youtuber who posts extended versions of the Ace Combat soundtracks, which you are enjoying here. Give his channel a look for other songs and for Ace Combat gameplay.)

    Alright, going to say this now, from the start of this section onwards until you see a large image of some Labrador Retriever puppies, there is a spoiler warning in effect as I will be reviewing later sections of the game as my talking points here.

    Spoilers now in effect

    Still with me? Awesome.

    This allows me to gush about how this is now one of my favourite video game soundtracks ever and is contention for being my favourite soundtrack of the PS2.

    Being a Namco game there is no surprise that the soundtrack would not be out of place in a JRPG, combining:

    • Orchestral scores
    • Hard rock guitars
    • Synthesiser beats
    • And even Latin choral chanting

    Background tracks in levels are perfectly matched to the scenario that is going on at the time, accentuating the existing atmosphere perfectly. I have already shown off the high energy of the high stakes Comona Bay dogfight but a lot of my favourite tracks (unsurprisingly) are found past the halfway point of the game.

    “Stonehenge” is the theme of the eponymous superweapon, what was once an asteroid defence platform has now been repurposed into an anti-air platform without rival. Your first proper introduction to this weapon is at the end of mission 7, where this theme kicks in and perfectly conveys the fact that if you do not get the hell out of there, you are going to die.

    Close to the end of the game you conduct a night raid on the town of San Salvacion, the one that was occupied by Erusean forces in the beginning of the game, accompanied by a song which shares the name of the mission: “Emancipation”. Whilst there are many songs of the soundtrack that evoke the feeling of “cautious triumph” in me, this is the song that does it the most for me.

    As you fly above the city, tearing into Erusean forces as your comms pick up a radio broadcast from the city detailing the battle raging ahead, the music perfectly compliments the feeling of victory being marred by the fact that this is you truly taking the fight to the enemy by reclaiming both a tactical and symbolic area of importance.

    Finally, it’d be remiss to discuss an Ace Combat game without talking about the song that every player will hear, and the majority will remember for a long time, just waiting to awaken the nostalgia neurons when it is heard for the first time in a long time… the briefing music.

    A funky synthesised beat accompanying the screen outlining what is required of you for the next mission which continues to play as you organise your aircraft and weapons ready for your sortie.

    And being completely honest; it was incredibly difficult picking just these tracks to highlight and focus on. There is so many I want to discuss that in all likelihood there is going to be an “Ace Combat: Distant Thunder Soundtrack Review” article on this website at some point in the future.

    However, I have one track left that I want to discuss, but its magnitude deserves its own segment.

    Megalith

    Close to the end of the game, ISAF receives information about a new superweapon being developed by the Eruseans under the codename of “Megalith”, and up until the final mission of the game where you actually go to fight it, there is no hints about what it may be, you’re kept in the dark entirely until the cutscene introducing it at the start of the mission plays.

    The track that plays throughout this mission is called “Megalith -Agnus Dei-“ (Lamb of God). It is a sweeping orchestral piece accompanied by Latin chanting that signals that this is the final mission, both the last stand of a now eradicated Erusean military and the chance for Mobius 1 to cement his name in history forever.

    Megalith is a massive bunker built into a small island, the facility itself encompassing several hundred square kilometres of the land mass, ICBM silos lining access tunnels to the insides of the facility as red targeting lasers painted asteroid fragments to be shot down.

    These fragments help make for an almost apocalyptic backdrop to the mission as they rain down through the dark clouds as Mobius Squadron works to take down the last gasp of what Yellow Squadron has to offer.

    Before, all your targets were clearly visible, with only minor difficulties in reaching them. In these final moments however, all your skill and nerve is required as you must fly through Megalith’s access tunnels to be able to destroy the generators that power the facility, giving ISAF ground forces enough time to open one of Megalith’s main doors to allow Mobius 1 to fly into the facility and destroy the largest ICBM it has to offer, pulling up through the silo hatch as explosions wreck what remains of the superweapon.

    This is easily the mission I struggled on the most, I died a few times to getting flustered at Yellow Squadron, I died a few times struggling to get my flight paths into the access tunnels. But the setting of the level was immaculate, and I felt a burning drive in my heart to see this fight through to the end.

    It was worth it, because I can now comfortably say that Megalith is quite possibly my favourite final boss on the PS2.

    Spoilers Ended – Have some puppies!

    Photo by Chevanon Photography, pexels.com

    Conclusion

    Through one playthrough alone, I am now hooked on Ace Combat 4 and am incredibly enthusiastic to continue playing other entries in the franchise. The fast-paced gameplay gave me chills and feelings that have only ever surfaced whilst playing the most intense of roguelike games, with my drive to improve my skills not dying down yet.

    If you have a PS2 knocking around, I seriously recommend picking this game up, you can probably find a copy online cheap. And then you will get to experience the sheer panic, exhilaration, and relief of going through this experience.

    Clara, thank you again for showing me this franchise and letting me borrow the game. It has honestly been kind of life changing.

  • Details about Marieya Ebontide

    For my first outing with Dungeons and Dragons as a nerdy adult, my campaign in the Midgard setting by Kobold Press has been unbelievable amounts of fun. I started out extremely nervous and not really knowing if I’d get along with different concepts, which, honestly did inspire some of my writing behind Marieya, hoping I’d be able to use my anxiety of starting out to give her a more fleshed out background.

    In hindsight, I really do not know what I had to be worried about.

    I am in a party with great friends of mine and my Dungeon Master is incredibly descriptive and accommodating of what I may not be familiar with. (And since I know they read this blog: I don’t express my love for you all enough, thank you for welcoming me into the fold. This game has been a muse for my writing and roleplay skills, and I will always appreciate that.)

    So, I figured I would make a sort of master post to talk about Marieya’s mannerisms, appearance, and a little bit about her goals in this world.

    Appearance and Equipment

    Marieya is a Shadow Fey, a race from the Midgard Heroes Handbook. Shadow fey are a subrace of elves so share some qualities of their appearance, where shadow fey differ are skin colour, ranging from alabaster white to ebon black, and horns, with some having nub like horns, some having small goat-like horns, and some even having full demonic protrusions.

    She sort of has a “middle ground” appearance when it comes to her race, having a pallid grey skin tone and about five inch long horns on the top of her head, with ashen white hair providing a somewhat stark contrast to her. Standing at five foot two and weighing one-hundred-and-two pounds (157cm and 50kg in real numbers), she is quite a small framed individual, even more so considering her resting posture is hunched slightly.

    Underneath the thick mass of clothes she tends to wear her skin is covered in dark, weirdly shaped burn marks, being found everywhere except her hands, feet, and face.

    Being a Cleric means her equipment is not going to make waves during combat encounters, but she carries what she must to hold her own. Equipped with short sword and shield (bearing the emblem of her god, Seggotan) for anything that gets too close and a shortbow for picking off enemies from afar; she is not left helpless as battle rages.

    She also has a trident. Which has 1d6 – 2 damage because I had not fully learnt how the system worked yet and just wanted it because she had proficiency in it. I am most definitely still learning on the road here.

    Mannerisms and Behaviours

    Marieya Ebontide is a socially well-adjusted person with no flaws whatsoever.

    Ahh… nope, she is a walking disaster in several ways.

    I will start with her phobias, whilst a lot of things have the potential to spook her or make her jump, two things will always be a point of fear for her:

    • Fire
    • Dragons

    Fire specifically comes from her origin story, where her inability to control her fire-based magic after an ego trip caused the death of her close friends and lead to her banishment from the Shadow Realm. Now she prefers to keep her distance from open flames where possible and will fidget incessantly whenever in proximity for prolonged periods of time.

    Dragons come from her time with the Mharoti Empire, a brutalist society where tribute and fealty are the price for being spared a death of claw and flame. Whilst training as a cleric of Seggotan and emissary of the empire she was subject to daily threats, intimidations, and reminders of her place in the world she was “recruited” into.

    Relating to this, Marieya’s eyes constantly dart around, as if she is on the lookout for a potential ambush or if the dragons are about to finally make good on what they have said to her in the past. The risk of being offed by dragons is increased by the fact that she isn’t exactly the most enthusiastic of Mharoti emissaries, instead choosing to offer the pamphlets on impulse and then sighing with relief whenever she “doesn’t have to explain the bullshit written in them”.

    Survival is the name of the game for the young shadow fey, starting with when she was banished. Alone in a strange world with no one to depend on but herself, she honed her skills and senses to ensure she could keep surviving. Her main impetus in the world right now is keeping moving as far away from the dragons as possible and stay alive.

    Whilst she isn’t really able to properly navigates some social situations due to lingering awkwardness from a lack of interactions with well meaning people, she holds the party close to her as friends, and believes that if she can help them out in whatever ways they need; she’ll be able to keep them around as friends.

    Spellcasting Details

    As a cleric, Marieya has access to a mixture of support spells, healing spells, and, in the case of some supplemental homebrew matching her domain, some absolutely insane offensive spells.

    Her spells as of Level 3

    One bit of inspiration I took from my DM describing a healing spell once is that all her spells have water aesthetics, regarding of what they are. So, her healing spells are manifestations of soothing water that work to heal wounds, any spells that work off of divine energy have a cyan aesthetic to them, and spells later on down the line I envision them sharing the water aesthetic.

    Examples of this could include Banishment manifesting in the form of a whirlpool to take the target away or Create Undead having the revived corpses being driven by torrents of water within them.

    How she works with verbal and somatic components also changes on the type of the spell. For a water-based spell I always picture her having forceful gestures accompanying powerful words, such as an uppercut for summoning a geyser or swiftly pulling back her hand when summoning a ribbon of water to pull her enemies towards her.

    This becomes much more subdued whenever she needs to cast a healing spell, her gestures are more deliberate, intricate, focused. Her eyes go from nervous yet determined to being wide with fear, manifesting magic as she fumbles over her words:

    “Please… don’t die…”

    “I can’t afford to lose anyone else…”

    “If I can’t save you, I can’t save anyone”

    Goals

    “He will pay for his brutality, and I will take his head as penance.”

    “The fires inside must be extinguished, lest they consume those around me.”

    “Lay to rest the ghosts that haunt my lasting dreams.”

    Finishing Off

    There is definitely more of a story to tell with Marieya, and more behaviours that will become apparent as her character develops throughout the sessions and the full juicy details are revealed.

    In the meantime, I hope you have enjoyed this short post about some of her more intricate details. If you want to read more, there is a full category on my site dedicated to Marieya stories.

  • Why I Love Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

    (NB: Originally posted to https://geekoutuk.com/2019/08/12/why-i-love-pokemon-mystery-dungeon-explorers-of-sky/)

    Throughout its 20+ year history, the Pokémon franchise has enjoyed several spinoff games with each new generation. Ranging from photography in Pokémon Snap, to Tactical RPG gameplay in Pokémon Conquest, even letting you battle Pokémon in 3D – long before the main series games made the jump – in Pokémon Stadium and Battle Revolution.

    One section of their spinoff games made their mark on me: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.

    Named and inspired by the Mystery Dungeon series, the games follow a turn-based structure where player characters and enemies move on a grid, a style seen in several roguelike games throughout history. Each “Mystery Dungeon” has a set number of floors, but each of these floors will be procedurally generated for both layout and hazards, meaning multiple runs of the same dungeon won’t get stale.

    The game in focus today will be the “Explorers of Sky” title for the Nintendo DS, being my favourite entry in the series for several reasons.

    A brief plot synopsis follows normal series conventions, you are a human who has been mysteriously turned into a Pokémon (chosen by the nature determined by a pre-opening personality test). You’re washed up on a beach where you’re found by your soon-to-be partner Pokémon, in search of a relic which is important to them.

    After finding this relic, your partner suggests joining the local explorer’s guild. This begins your journey in the Pokémon world, as you try to uncover how you came to be in this situation and soon discover a plot that could bring about the end of the world.

    Gameplay basics have already been covered, and the game follows standard Pokémon conventions. You have a level, you have Hit Points (HP), you have moves with a limited number of Power Points (PP), you gain experience by defeating other Pokémon.

    What differs is being able to gather and use items yourself in these dungeons, ranging from Berries to heal you and your partner Pokémon; various throwing objects to deal with enemies; “orbs” which can have potent effects for the dungeon floor you’re currently on; and food.

    In one of the game’s more dividing mechanics, the player has a belly meter, and the lower the belly meter is, the less efficient your self-healing is. If it depletes completely, you start to take damage until you eat a food item. Whilst this can cause annoyance in the larger dungeons, it’s not a massive undertaking to manage, especially if you come in prepared and plan item usage.

    The amount of content on offer in the game is monumental. Throughout the game you can take on side missions from a bounty board within the guildhall, these are all within dungeons you have already cleared the story section for and can include delivering an item to someone in the dungeon, rescuing a lost Pokémon, or escorting someone through the dungeon to a specific floor.

    This also extends to an extremely well designed postgame. Not only do you have a substantial bit of plot to finish up; more dungeons are unlocked as you go, some of these carrying a pre-entry condition to make the experience harder.

    All of these combine to form an extremely well-rounded dungeon crawling RPG, one that you can sink countless hours into on the go due to the portable nature of the DS.

    However, this article is twofold, because I’ve covered what makes me so excited about the gameplay, and in my time with it, I sunk about 300 hours into the game, it really did keep me playing.

    For the next section I’m going add a huge Spoilers Ahead to whatever I say, as I’m going to be covering a good section of the end of the main story…

    Spoilers Ahead (you’ve had two warnings now)

    Relax looking at the ocean before continuing on

    Still here? Awesome.

    As the plot progresses, you go through several twists and a villain change, until you discover that the way to avert an apocalyptic scenario is to replace the Time Gears (plot important items) at Temporal Tower, where the legendary Pokemon Dialga has reverted to his Primal state due to the destabilisation of time.

    One companion sacrifices themselves to ensure you can complete your quest, leaving just you and your partner. As it goes with the series near the end, you, as both player and Pokemon discover that once the world is saved, you are to disappear from this world having fulfilled your purpose. The player character decides to keep this from the partner, focusing instead on the impending dungeon.

    An imposing structure and a storm of unknown energy swirling above are what greets the pair. This is the point of no-return, and the dungeon music reflects this. A foreboding piece with a mix of light and heavy percussion, but with slight undertones of solemnity as the track progresses.

    After several floors, you reach Temporal Pinnacle. A small shrine with carved indentations for the Time Gears await you, but lightning knocks you back as you are confronted by Primal Dialga. Enraged and beyond reasoning; he’ll only back down once you defeat him.

    Following a beautifully scored fight, you rush back to the shrine and place the time gears in. It seems as if you were both too late as the storm continues to rage, knocking you unconscious.

    You come to and see that your partner is safe as you are approached by Dialga, showing you images of the now-saved world with the assurance that the world will slowly return to how it was.

    Leaving the now saved tower, your player character acknowledges that their body feels heavy, and realises that this is the lead up to their disappearance. As the yellow lights begin to circle, you finally open up to your partner about your fate. Knowing your time is limited, you focus on thanking them for going on adventures with you, telling them they must live their life, tell the story of what happened and that even as you disappear; you will never forget the memories forged together.

    Your partner goes off, and tells the story of what happened, whenever they can. Eventually they return to the beach where they first met you, reminiscing on past adventures, to the point where the emotions become too much and they break down crying.

    Such an intense sorrow is felt even by Dialga, who, as thanks for preventing the world’s demise, grants the partner one gift.

    You.

    Partner and player get to continue their adventures once more.

    This ending hits me particularly hard, even on subsequent playthroughs. Which you’d think is strange, I know it’s coming, so why do I always shed a few tears when it arrives?

    Well, there’s a lot of myself I see in the interactions between player and partner. The partner frequently says that the player makes them stronger, gives them the ability to feel brave, let’s them achieve things that they didn’t think possible.

    And its bonds as strong as those that hurt the most to lose. Sometimes you don’t get a final goodbye like in the game, a lot of the time, they’ll just fade.

    But the memories will remain. The good, the bad, the painful.

    And you carry them with you, to nurture the bonds you have today.