For a long, long time, all is silence.

All is dark.

You know nothing. You are nothing. Everything has passed - you are dead.

This is where your story begins.

For the first time in a long time, your heart clicks, gears skipping a tooth, before catching, the clockworks pumping your turbid blood as you awaken, slowly.

You stare, blankly, across the graves for some time before you realise that they've not been cared for.

Forgotten.

All you can bring yourself to feel at this realisation is a vague sorrow - you feel a bit sad, nothing more. You take a long, shuddering breath, your first that you can recall.

You should do something.

Another nameless interval passes, before you lurch forward, your position slumped down against the trunk of a tree preventing you from taking actually walking until you slowly stand, refamiliarising yourself with the motions for what might as well be the first time.

You step forward, lurching and uncertain, to the clicking beat of the clockworks which animate you.

And you begin to tend to the graves.

You're strong, it turns out, as you uproot small trees and bushes, clearing out the plants which have begun to reclaim this land of the dead in the name of life.

You're careful to replant them beyond the bounds of the graveyard, though. There's no need to add to the death.

It takes you...it takes you some nameless, unknown amount of time, as you clean and clear the graves with only your leathery, stiff hands, and refresh the engravings with a thumb, pushed into the stone.

"Rest in Peace"

"May 9 - May 13"

"Dearly Beloved"

Each engraving holding the feelings and hope of those who sent them off, and that satisfies you, somehow.

Eventually, eventually, you finish your task, and glance around. The graveyard is clean, and neat.

Once more, well attended.

You don't need to mourn.

You don't want to mourn.

You're not alive, but you're not dead, either.

Your tin heart clicks away, a soft rhythm, a clockwork zombie'

I am not sure if this is the right place to post this and if it is not, I sincerely apologize. I notice that there are many of you within this website that are quite talented when it comes to writing, especially in relation to Touhou material. With that being said, any of you are more than welcome to join Gensokyo Unlimited, which is the most active Touhou role-playing community on Discord! Use original characters or take control of a canon character as you embark on incidents that are made by yours truly! We are a very welcoming community dedicated to creating wonderful experiences for veterans or newcomers in relation to role-playing alike! The link is below!

https://discord.gg/NyQzdGn

“That’d be nice,” you say. This is where you’d don a pipe and forlornly look to the sky. But you don’t have a pipe, and you’d look silly staring at the roof. You wonder, though, how different it would be if you lived in a world that didn’t hate you—but you don’t dwell on it for long. There’s no use dreaming about what could have been. What can you do anyway? Change yourself? Hah, good one. Gods don’t change. People do.

Hieda’s definitely miffed because she doesn’t like your answer. Real hard to please, that woman. “Don’t make it seem like it’s not your problem,” she says.

“But it’s not?” you reply. “Why should I care about humans think about me?”

“Because you’re a god. Really, is it too difficult for you to stop acting so detached about everything? Don’t you suppose that life would be a lot easier if you stopped trying to alienate every human you come in contact with?”

“Nah. Because that’s how I am. It’s my nature.”

“She’s right, though,” adds Tewi. “Some humans are okay. Especially the kinds that you can sucker into doing something dumb.”

“I especially don’t like those types of humans.”

“You’re implacable,” Hieda says with a sigh, propping herself up with a hand on the desk.

“Then what do you think I should do, Tewi?”

“You’re putting the responsibility on me?” the rabbit says incredulously, taking a step back.

You take a step towards her, not letting her retreat. “Aren’t you my current priestess? You gotta shoulder some difficulties for me.”

“She’s—?” Hieda, in her fit of surprise, lets her hand slip out from below her chin, catching herself just before she loses her balance. “She’s your priestess?”

“Yeah. What did you think she was?”

“I—I don’t know.” She tilts her head slightly, losing herself in thought. “Your moral support?”

“You’re not too far off on that one.” Tewi then points to you. “So, if I get to decide, why not try and be a little nicer to humans? I mean, it can’t hurt to at least make an attempt?�

Generations ago, before Gensokyo was sealed away, the patriarch of the Sen family led an expedition into the rolling hills along its southwestern side, where the trees grew so thick that it was pitch-black even at noon, and behind each tree lurked a malicious youkai. The legends say he and his brothers and cousins went out with many amulets adorned upon their necks, and armed with crane-feather arrows and blades made from the precious iron of the Youkai Mountain.

They emerged weeks later, battered and scarred but alive to a person, and announced news of their victory. Such fear did they strike into the malevolent spirits of the forest, they announced, that even the foul winds didn’t dare blow while they were there. The governor was so pleased with the Sen family’s success that he granted their dynasty a great swathe of land in the rolling hills between the two mountain ranges.

Then, the Great Hakurei Barrier went up. It was nice in a way, since it meant getting away from the watchful eye of the centralized imperial government, but it also took away the fear of the Shogun deciding you were a bit too uppity and deciding to kill your entire family. Details get much more fuzzy around there — there were border disputes, suspicious land purchases, what may or may not have been a civil war, and so on.

The point being, that sort of thing doesn’t happen much anymore, thankfully. The humans of Gensokyo have reached a tense but solid peace, and the Human Village has grown into more of a large town, with tiny new villages sprouting up around it. Things are comfortable enough that folks have even started growing luxuries like tea and sugar and silk, and some of the braver humans have even started trading with the various types living on the Youkai Mountain, providing both valuable metals and various exotic knick-knacks.

Which ultimately brings the subject to me, Morozumi Goro. Our family is the head of the small village of Magarimachi in those same rolling hills, with a few hundred people living there. The local elders handle most of the domestic affairs, but it’s up to us to make sure the village and the capital-v Village stay updated on each other and don’t step on each othe

What are dreams? Manifestations of the psyche? Fragments of future possibilities, of unborn worlds and past events alike? Pieces of information, carefully extracted from a piece of biomass that is colloquially referred to as a "brain" that keeps us alive? Or perhaps something more, something much greater? For a brief moment, it feels like the answer is closer than ever before - like it's right at the tip of your tongue. Ah...

You come to, in your single room apartment. It's 3 AM and all lights, save for a pleasant glow of your computer's 20-inch display are out right now. Your neighbors are quiet - a much-welcomed change from what came to be the standard these last few days. The only sound in the room is the noise of a CPU fan. A window in your room shows a beautiful sight of a white crescent moon, surrounded by gray clouds. Relishing the atmosphere, you begin to reminisce.

A simple life, yet a comfortable one. Went to school, just like everyone. Never really liked other people. Got shunned - loners attract attention, not the good kind. At times there was trouble, at times it was peaceful. When there was a need to work, you did and when there wasn't, you slacked off. There's really no regrets about the way you've lived so far. ...Damn it, this sounds too much like a eulogy - or at least an introduction to some kind of terrible midnight flick that you would usually see at an empty cinema somewhere. MAN FEELS PERPETUAL DISGUST AND HATRED WHILE LOOKING AT OTHER HUMAN BEINGS just sounds more correct and to the point.

With that particular internal monologue finished, you open up @chan after grumbling a bit - your prime source of entertainment. It's one of the few places where people are, for some reason, more tolerable than in real life. Immediately, headlines pop into view - "MADMAN SLIPS ON A CAN AND EXECUTES A PIROUETTE OFF A GARAGE ROOF THREE STORY HIGH, ONLY INJURY IS BROKEN TOE", "NEXT %VIDEO GAME% IS ALSO QUITE SHIT", "POLITICIAN EATS OWN SHOE TO ENLIST SUPPORT IN PASSING BILL". Home, sweet home.

After brewing a cup of coffee - the cheap and strangely pleasant stuff that usually gets picked up near

"Staying tuned" edition
Previous thread: >>184073

[X]Try and get a better look, and ask if he has anything else for sale.

Before the door can finish swinging shut, you call out. "Hey, you got anything in the back that's for sale?"

There's a small crash from the other side of the door, and you wince slightly. Hopefully whatever he had wasn't too fragile.

"Uh, I suppose," the man calls back, and you can hear some mild effort in his voice. "Come on-" There's the sound of a box being set on top of another box. "-back, if you'd like to see."

You push through the door, and find the man inspecting a stack of crates, particularly the one on top. Judging by his sigh of relief, nothing was actually broken. The back room itself was in a pretty much identical state as the rest of the store, but with a lot more boxes piled up along the walls and in the floor. There wasn't any organization method you could recognize at work, here.

The man adjusts his glasses. "So, what exactly are you looking for?"

You pause. "Not sure, really. What do you recommend?"

He looks you over carefully. Just when you're about to ask why he's studying you so hard, he speaks again. "Perhaps a new suit?"

You look over yourself. Sure, your suit has seen better days, but at this point you find yourself very hesitant to part with it. If only these threads could talk...

Actually, probably best they don't.

"I'll pass, thanks," you answer.

"Hmm..." The man starts pacing around the room, occasionally looking from one box to another. He also starts muttering to himself in Japanese, but you just let him go on. No doubt he's trying to figure out what to get for the mildly disheveled, masked, armed man who entered his shop.

Wait, armed? There's an idea. Still, it's just as likely to backfire and make him refuse to do business with you...

[ ]Ask if he has any weapons in store. Nothing ventured, ri

>>184798

You are a necromancer. As a practitioner of what many in the magical world revile, you have been forced to skulk in the darkness to seek precious knowledge. It is in the shadows of humanity, far away from the any civilized denizens, that you have faced countless horrors. The simplest, the giant half-spiders that could bisect a man with the strength in their legs or the mutated locust swarms that could deafen a town and strip it bear of life in under an hour, would be enough to drive any modern human into a panicked frenzy.

Such mundane worries don’t trouble you. You have seen worse. You have encountered the raving madman looking to resurrect his daughter. The self-proclaimed scientist preyed upon a small village, kidnapping women in the night, dragging them kicking and screaming to his underground lair where he strapped them to a blood-soaked table where he sawed off their limbs, sliced open their bellies, and extracted their throbbing organs. He entrapped their souls with magitechnical devices and slowly picked those women apart, stripping skin and gouging brain matter to see what effects the body and mind had on the soul.

You animated the mutilated corpses that were discarded in the corner and mobbed the madman. Then you cut apart his stitched together doll of a daughter who could only weep blood all night long. She was unreasonably, unfortunately, durable.

You have infiltrated the gibbering cults that worshipped astral nightmares. They had rituals for summoning tentacled monsters that would punch a hole in a man’s chest, chewing through his fleshy innards and tunneling into his chest cavity to nibble at the victim’s heart.

All manner of demons and devils have assailed you, brought forth by powerful Satanists. Some demons were towering in stature, the fiery generals of Hell capable of crushing you underneath a hooved foot. Devils little more than whispered words on the air have attempted to subvert your mind and subsume your thoughts.

You have encountered the abominations of your ‘fellow’ practitioners more than you care to count. You have watched a seemingly nor

You wake up once again to the same somewhat-bright shapelessness in a soft bed. Birds chirp from out the window and you can hear the faint sound of village chatter in the distance, as well as smell the tea that Keine is having for the morning.

You sit up, letting the sheets fall away and groping around the table you know to be beside the bed for your folded shirt. Your fingers brush against the familiar fabric and you pull it towards you, not expecting the weight that you didn’t know was on it give way and topple to the floor.

“FUCK!”

You wince, more because the curse was shouted so loudly than the impact sounded incredibly painful, and tentatively reach down, hoping that what you feared would happen would not happen.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be.

‘CHOMP’

“Jesus!” You withdraw your hand, cradling your now-sore finger as Seki “hmph!”s and floats her way out with a creak of the door.

Putting on your shirt, you can’t help but sigh.

“Not this shite again…”

+++

Neither you nor Akane really knew where you were going, but you didn’t run into your friend anymore after whatever it was that you went through after you asked her why people hated her.

Thankfully, your fruitless wandering paid-off when Rin, the Kasha you met before, nervously called out to you after responding to complaints from the maids-you-never-knew-were-there about a ‘scary shinigami-person’ wandering the halls.

It occurs to you that you’ve never thought to admit that you’re not really a shinigami to her (you still have no idea what the hell that’s supposed to be). You assumed that Satori would’ve told her.

In any case, she guided you from the lower levels of the palace to the main entrance again, stopping by Satori’s room at your request so that you can say goodbye before you leave.

“I’m terribly sorry that my sister put you through all that,” she said. “Take some time to acclimate yourself with your memories before you come back. It would be unfortunate if you were to suffer a mental breakdown during the next session.”

You would hate for that

PREVIOUS THREAD: >>194077
__________________

“It’s down the hall and to the left. Should be at the end of the corridor.” Tewi gives you a knowing look. “Though, you’re heading elsewhere, aren’t you?”

“What? Who, me?” you say, careful to keep your voice hushed. Don’t want to wake the cute bunny pile. You inch out of all the napping rabbits’ grasps. “Naaaaaw. I’d never. I ain’t one to lie, y’know. I just really need to go. Badly.”

“Then I guess I believe you. Just don’t disappear again, alright?”

“I’ll try.”

Ha. Tewi thinks that you’ll really disappear like that again? Just because you feel like it? Absolutely preposterous. Impossible, even! No way you’d do something like that.

...She knows you too well. But whatever. That won’t stop you from trying. Once you finish your business in the washroom, you head out the nearest window and slip away into the night. Of course, you have no idea where the heck you are and it’s really dark and now you’re suddenly lost, but no big deal. You’ll find your way. You always do, even if it takes a while.

You make it past the mansion, but Tewi’s already outside at the entrance waiting, hands crossed at the chest and foot tapping away arrhythmically.

“Hi,” you say.

“Yeaaaaah, I knew it. At this point, I can’t even say that I didn’t expect this to happen. Trying to sneak away again?”

“I wasn’t aware gods have curfew. Besides, I did have to go to the bathroom, thanks.”

“Gods shouldn’t need to use the bathroom,” says Tewi.

“Touché.”

“So...” Tewi scrunches her face up into a frown, and a serious one at that. She twirls her tacky carrot pendant by its cord, letting its string coil around her finger. It’s a rare sight to see the one and only Tewi Inaba as sober as this. You’ve half a mind to call her face silly but now isn’t the best time.

“So?”

“Are you going to come back after you do… whatever you’re doing?”

“Sure. I’

In honor of the fact that dwarves are the best wizards, and now they're even viable in 5e, I wanted to write a story. I missed you, THP.

--

It started the same way any magical catastrophe always does.

You woke up in the dead of night, startled to full awareness by a flash of lightning, a clap of thunder, and a smell of ozone.

Oh, and it’s raining. You left the window open. Ya daft idjit.

...but last night you went out on a bender. Three bottles of whiskey in, and you didn’t expect to be up before three in the afternoon. Your headache tells you that it’s three in the afternoon and you didn’t hydrate.

It’s three in the bloody afternoon. It’s dark outside. There’s a distinctly unnatural storm outside. These add up to one inescapable conclusion- this is the apprentice’s fault.

You groan as you throw yourself out of your rather comfortable bed, and meet the hard, cold stone floor with your face. Hello, floor. Feckin’ legs just didn’t want to get under the rest of you, no. A good ol’ stone sandwich to the gob improves your mood every time.

No it doesn’t.

You stumble up and towards the single window in your tower- it’s your bloody tower, and you’re feckin’ right that you took the top floor for your bedroom. It’s about prestige, you know? Family back home’s always going on about oh why can’t you sleep underground, it’s what a proper dwarf would do and magic’s for pansies like humans and elves, can’t you get a real job like your brother Fergus and mine like your father and your father’s father and every bloody other dwarf ev-

Okay, you think, this isn’t getting anywhere. But you’ve worked up a good head of rage and it’d be a damn shame to waste it. So you get your short arse over to the window, poke your head out, and there’s your apprentice. Of course. With a bloody feckin’ magical circle. Around the whole feckin’ grounds.

“WHAT IN THE BLOODY BLUE BLAZES ARE YOU DOIN’, BOY? HOW TH