/a/ - Animu & Mango

What about the crystals (resources) the countries fought for ?

>>847868

The focus isn't on the war anymore, I'm just assuming the wikia's explanation that Gallia pushes Empire out, Empire and the schmucks to the south of Gallia sign the treaty, things calm down. And of course, you can't have Valkyurs without ragnite. Seeing as I got ONE response here that doesn't involve telling me to fuck off to fanfiction.net (can't be assed to make an account there), I'll start pasting my story here.

The main menu:

The view is of a snowy bank over a howling tundra, a desolate field of white in the distance, and the northern Auroras in the dark skies above. The edges of the screen is tinted white with frost. The Fated One (love interest) who stands upon the bank, overlooking the white wastes will be the one from the current playthrough/most recently saved game. Otherwise (on a game without any saves) the tundra will be deserted.

When "Start game" or "Load game" or so on is started, the screen turns whiter, and whiter, overtaken by the blinding frost...

===================================================

*20 years ago...*

The game begins in blinding white, which fades and fragments to reveal whirling snow in a dark, empty land. A single human can be seen, stubbornly pushing forth carving a path through the waist-deep snow, yelling into a portable radio.

“Hello!? Hel… *chrksh* Anyone who can hear me, this is your…questing rescue party! Repeat, all others are dead! Killed by…” He hears snarling and roars in the distance, and throws the radio down and forces himself to run as he pulls his compass out. The view focuses on the radio, rapidly engulfed by the relentless blizzard until the static sounds cease being played.

The prologue teaches basic movement as the player controls the explorer, having him use cover, run from point to point and hide from the black, bestial silhouettes chasing after him through the storm. He reaches close to base camp, but as the man takes shelter in a small rocky outcrop a massive white beast with the bulk of a bear and the speed of a jaguar pounces into him. It attempts to break his neck with a single bite, only for its lunge to drag it and its would-be prey down a sinkhole.

They tumble, bounce from rock to rock as the beast takes pot-swipes at the screaming man, and both land one atop the other at the bottom. The beast pins the man down, and is about to skin him when a blinding blast of light fills the cavern. The man clears his eyes and yelps as he pushes the carcass of the beast off of him: a clean hole burnt straight through it, from head to posterior.

Quietly shocked, the man pushes the smoking carcass off of him, and looks to the source of the light that saved him.

“No… Impossible.” His expression of disbelief changes into a wide grin. “No, possible all along.”

(should I greentext these lines or not?)

Chapter I: Ill Beginnings

*Today...*

The story begins in fanfare as you wave to the crowd and board your ship. You, an idealistic Gallian/Imperial/Federal/whateveryouwant archaeologist passionate about history and exploration, is chosen to join a well-published venture funded by a rich Federation Noble Lord-General. Due to the crew including both Federal and Imperial citizens, the expedition is made to depart from neutral Gallia, in a symbolic gesture of peace that the two superpowers are currently going through (you are nudged and reminded about being placed in charge being part of aforementioned symbolism).

Given your high qualifications in leadership management you are made the head surveyor of the expedition.

On the voyage towards the north, you chat and joke with your crewmates; during a lively exchange one of them will ask you for your opinion: Your image of the unearthly Valkyur; what does the perfect warrior look like in your imagination?

>"Valiant knights who inspire their allies to great heroism"

>"Invincible maidens of unstoppable wills and bodies of steel"

>"Gentle caregivers, protectors and nurturers of precious life"

>"Tireless fighters of peerless stride, fleeter than the winds"

>"Fearsome huntresses, unrelenting in the pursuit of their foes"

>“Peerless warriors, wiping away all opposition from afar”

The dialogue choice you pick determines the romance path you will go through later on in the story. Of course, there will be that “Are you sure this is your right answer?” confirmation dialogue! The banter continues as the crew excitedly expresses what they may see and uncover in the frozen north. If you picked the “Gentle Caregiver” option, the crewmate who asked you laughs and points out that that’s not even a warrior to begin with!

The journey comes to an abrupt halt less than a kilometer from reaching land; the ship gets mired in ice floes that just suddenly ‘rose’ out of the water, and your crewmates slowly begin to freeze amidst an unnatural howling blizzard that descends upon the ship with unnatural swiftness.

To complicate matters, the radio had frozen into uselessness, and attempts to warm it back to usability is made pointless when the ship falls under attack by mysterious assailants hidden in the blizzard; explosions strike at the antennae relay of the ship, blowing it out, while numerous explosions rock the side of the hull and send the ship tilting dangerously into the ice.

In desperation, you are sent on the only reinforced plane carried by the ship, to fly back to the South for help. You are launched out into the air, and while all goes well for a short moment as you fly South, the unnatural cold is so intense that the ragnite generator stops working as well as you scream in bewilderment that that's impossible and not supposed to happen.

All you can do is hide within your cockpit and pray to the Valkyurs for mercy as the roaring winds toy with your suddenly fragile plane, its wings stripped away as if they were little more than snapping twigs, as the winds take you in the opposite direction, deeper and deeper North into the frigid, lifeless snow.

You cry out as the winds veer harshly, throwing your plane down into the snowy tundra, crashing beneath snow, ice and unto the rocky underground below...

When you next awaken, it isn't in pitch darkness. Your vision blurs as you views figures dancing before your bleary eyes. You close them in tiredness, then reopen them to see a lady of pale hair and red eyes inquisitively/worriedly looking you over... as another stands gracefully on the upended tail of the plane*.

The lady who looks you over fits your very description of the fabled Valkyurs. She will be the Fated One that you will come to bond with over the story in heart and soul.

You lose consciousness and close them again, and reopen them to briefly feel yourself dragged across a path lit by glowing motes of light upon the icy ceiling above *(If you picked the “Invincible Maiden” path, you instead witness the wreckage surrounding you being lifted and thrown aside in your blurred vision, blacking out to find yourself carried in a pair of strong arms). Slowly, your consciousness comes back to the world as you wake up in a warm abode in an unearthly, underground kingdom.

Chapter 2: Kingdom of the last Valkyurs

You finds yourself bandaged upon a bed of furs within a warm abode; well, fairly warm for an arctic subterreane. Yet, you also find yourself under high suspicion and guard, with glowing lances pointed straight at you, the one who looked you over demanding to know who you are, who sent you and what your intentions are. Plus, demands to know what all those strange things pulled out of your plane are and what they do.

You rake through your mind quickly for a way to communicate with the suspicious Valkyurs, and thankfully your knowledge of Old Northern saves your ass from being blown to kingdom come. Having somehow explained your situation, the tension is further defused by an elderly Valkyur with numerous burn scars who strides into the room, waves the lances away and sadly welcomes you to what’s left of Valkengard, the birthplace of the Valkyurs.

You spend this chapter convincing the suspicious and curious Valkyurs that you are not here to harm them. As this happens, villagers cry out for help as dire bears break in to eat food supplies and villagers with little discrimination. You hastily put your experience in team organization together to convince the Valkyurs to stop squabbling from pointing fingers at who didn't enforce or watch the perimeters hard enough and join them to repel the beasts. The defense succeeds with no loss of life and supplies while netting the village new meat and furs. While the Valkyurs set their lances away from you for now they rebuke you in exchange for being a male who took up arms, though the Elder comes in once more to explain to the skittish young ones that things must ‘work differently’ where you came from. Here you are introduced to the first skirmish type against the beasts of the frigid wastes; both to hunt them for their vital furs, meat and bones, and to defend the Valkyur’s village against them.

Now that the village is unlocked you are free to visit set locations, though most of them have little to offer at the moment. The Ragnite smithy for improving weapons and armour (although as mentioned they just work crude methods on raw ragnite at the moment), the Elder’s hut for conversation, and then there’s the option to visit the Valkyurs. Here, you are introduced to the six best Valkyurs of the village, each one of them potential candidates for romancing based on the dialogue you selected from earlier (note that their described equipment is shaped from crudely hammered Northern Ragnite and does NOT match what they will be wearing soon enough. What they’re described to be wearing will come pretty soon):

>The Knight: Chivalrous and honourable to a fault, there is nothing more she desires than a medieval life of tournaments and duels where both winner and loser can walk away from with their heads held high. She radiates the aura of a heroic champion. Her role in the village is a mix of scouting and guarding. She is a fairly good all-rounder, but her specialty lies with rallying her allies, bolstering their morale and protecting it from being lost. If the Fated One, she will open much dialogue with you in a formal tone regarding the lost ceremonies of the Valkyur, later on even pledging her service to rescue your crew (though she will occasionally slip up in her formal demeanour, revealing a more naïve and girly side). She uses a round shield offering a mix of defense and mobility; large enough to deflect most attacks and small enough to offer good mobility. Her ragnite lance appears to be more akin to a sword. The truth is that she uses it in its sealed form; when unleashed two blade halves launch forwards to form an oversized sword, a flat-sheathed lance with a gap in the middle where electricity arcs to and fro. True to her chivalrous nature, she strikes with precision to minimize the loss of enemy life. The more allies that are close to her, the better she fights. Her ragnite plating covers most of her body and offers good protection, while giving her a knightly presence befitting the Valkyur.

>The Shieldmaiden: She is easily the tallest and the strongest of the six. She is a quiet but amicable soul, with a body that matches her indomitable resolve, and a seemingly shy and meek personality that belies her inner strength. She guards the village, and also breaks up any fights that may happen. If the Fated One, it is revealed that she is a sensitive soul beneath her approachable demeanour, and blushes and frets easily in embarrassment when complimented on her tall size. She desires a quiet and peaceful life. In her left hand is a massive tower shield bigger than most men, and hefted effortlessly in her right hand is a ragnite Warhammer that resembles a tank barrel complete with muzzle brake; a hole at the end of the lance is where mighty lances of energy blast out from. She can ram her shield down for 100% damage mitigation from the front, but walks slowly while bearing it as the stamina bar drains with the same speed. She is armoured from head to toe, her ragnite armour almost like slabs of stone.

>The Medic: The gentlest and kindest of the group, the tragedy of losing her family early in her life has led to her swearing to spare no effort in tending to the wounded and the needy that they and their loved ones would avoid such a fate. This extends to enemies as well, for she is more than aware that they too are capable of love and grief themselves. Her desire is for a small place in the world where the weather does not endlessly carve such suffering into her village and family. If the Fated One, she becomes motherlike in her mildly-overbearingness as she repeatedly frets over your own wellbeing. Her smaller lance, more like a rapier deals decent damage in its own right, but it is suited more for launching healing rays at her allies and alleviating them of status effects. Twin ribbons of ragnite encircle the prong in a caduceus-like manner, and it possesses a basket hilt. In addition, her armour may be light, but it belies her inner resilience; she has great protection and recovery against debuffs and has a permanent regeneration aura upon herself. Her armour is thin, and carries a motif of vines and plants.

>The Runner: Active, peppy and a go-getter, the runner is a ball of ceaseless energy. Much to her frustration the ruins of the underground give her little space to vent her endless stamina, making her easily irritated and scrapping for a fight, which usually ends with the Shieldmaiden breaking it up. As a result not only does she have the best speed and stamina of the six, she also possesses a highly aggressive moveset; incorporating many hit-and-run attacks as well as charging straight into the enemy. She also possesses the greatest leap distance, and can clear chasms inaccessible to most of the other Valkyurs. Expect to be dragged everywhere and forced to keep up with her immense speed and stubborn personality if she is the Fated One. Captivated by the tales of old Valkengard, she dreams of living in a land where she can live with the sky as her roof, a land of soft grass that she can run across on her bare feet forever. Her ragnite armour is a little sparser than the knight’s, and concentrates more towards her legs and feet. She uses a strong, sturdy lance, all the better for charging, and a small heater shield. To add to the emphasis of power and speed, her lance’s hilt is large and tubular, resembling a turbine engine.

>The Huntress: The most ferocious of the group, with exotic bearings and several faded scars from severe wounds caused by ferocious beasts. A lone wolf (even if a well-meaning one), she tends to set off to the frozen surface on her own, always coming back with enough food to keep the village supported for another few days. Surprisingly for a loner she can be very talkative; something she alludes to as “pent up thoughts” with her time alone giving her much to think on. If she is the Fated One she’ll (metaphorically) sink her claws into you, like that of a curious alpha predator who has found a prospective mate, while ensuring no threat dares draw close to you. She has nearly as much stamina as the Runner, though she runs nowhere as fast; her real versatility lies in her ability to climb and scale up rock formations and cliff walls (by running her straight into them), and gaining a massive evasion boost against enemies she is elevated against. When flanking or behind enemy lines she becomes outright invisible, and from there can wreak havoc ranging from ambushes, flushing out the enemy and exposing them from cover, setting traps, exerting dominating skills to damage their morale and debuffing them. Her weapon is a ragnite harpoon, and instead of a shield she uses a finned, splayed gauntlet with chambers that she can fire her traps and energy mines out of. The scraps of ragnite armour that she wears possesses a bestial, fanged motif, featuring three strips of ragnite that mimics a claw mark. A harsh, lonely life and a realistic outlook has given her little time to bear dreams of her own; as long as everyone is kept well-fed, well-rested and well-protected, she is satisfied.

>The Sniper: The coldest and most distant of the group, and the most willing to use lethal force. She is farsighted and must don an old pair of spectacles to read the ancient runes and scrolls who command her passion. If she is the Fated One, she regularly requests stories and tales of your home culture and hangs before you as you repeat them before her, captivating her from her inner loneliness. She would also be furiously deciphering your books, hungry for the information they possess. Her dream is to one day gain access to a vast repository of stories and knowledge that she could spend her days quietly secluded within (in other words, a library). She is a sentry who lives separately from the others in a secluded, overlooked corner; all the better to hide within as she eradicates intruders from afar. She possesses a lesser version of the Huntress’ ability to scale slopes, but this is for her to setup her telescoping lance with its needle-thin tip to shoot down hapless enemies from afar. The higher her vantage point and the farther her distance, the higher her accuracy and chance to crit enemies in a bodyshot. She can even spend a round to charge up her sniper blast for an unstoppable attack that pierces through cover, though she may require someone behind enemy lines to help her spot their position. Her buckler contains many spiked points, vaguely resembling a spider’s web. Her thin lance is encircled by four floating strips of ragnite that encircle around the shaft in the pattern of a quadruple helix.

(I REALLY hope at least one person's interested enough to read this, I just wanted to get my story out instead of letting it stagnate forevermore in my hard disk.)

You learn from the patient Elder, who trusts you more readily than the younger ones that Valkyrian culture is a highly matriarchal one; the female Valkyurs set off to fight and defend their homes while the flameless males work vital roles such as smithing, mining, fishing, hunting and farming wherever they may find soil, and exploring for new abodes to settle within. In turn, they are assisted by the Flameless; former Valkyurs who had expended too much of their energies either fighting too many battles, or somehow “spared by the gods” after using the suicidal, devastating and outright forbidden move known as the Final Flame. This makes you exclaim in surprise.

“But… What if that means she survived…?” The elder asks you who ‘she’ is, but you don’t feel it’s worth mentioning.

Valkengard wasn’t always what it once was. It was once a peaceful land of lush pine forests, snow-capped mountains and babbling fjords where fish was plenty. Yet strife too was plentiful amidst the Valkyur even though they had everything, and they warred with each other regularly even as they built grand kingdoms. In their hubris, the warlike Valkyurs triggered a doomsday weapon that tore Valkengard isle away from the mainland continent and flung it further north, as snow fell and their home collapsed under an eternal winter, a frigid waste cursed to never thaw forevermore.

So there were half the Valkyurs who left Valkengard to the South to escape the cold; you realize that these must have been the very same ones who subjugated the Darcsen race, then slowly faded away into obscurity. The Elder responds with surprise at the last line:

“Is that so? Funny that the Long War ended for them, it never did for us.” Your questioning on what she meant ends with her parroting your line that it’s not worth mentioning.

That leaves the remaining half, the Valkyurs who stubbornly chose to stay behind in their doomed homeland, using forgotten technologies to sink their grand cities into the ground and away from the cold. Yet, things did not fare well for them as parts of their grand kingdom shuddered, broke away and collapsed down sinkholes, never to see the light of day again. Decreed that the gods are angry with them, the kingdom fragmented in internal strife as Valkyur pit lance against Valkyur, and now all that is left after a cultural regression are disparate remnants fighting for bitter survival, the memory of their past glory little more than faded fairytales as they fight for bitter survival with crudely shaped ragnite weapons and armour.

By the time these trapped Valkyurs entertained the thought of joining their brethren down South it was too late; the land had frozen to a barren waste that would chill any to death within short moments of stepping outside, and the seas around Valkengard were now filled with ice floes that would smash apart any who made it far enough to take a boat to leave. If they had a boat that wasn’t frozen in place at their shipyards, that is. This is why you have captured the curiosity of the tribe so much; you are literally the first outsider that they have ever seen.

This introduces you to the second basic skirmish; exploring the forbidden depths to look for pristine relics; weapons and technology lost in the collapsed portions of the city. Not only is it pitch black, the Valkyurs will not aid you for they are convinced that those with inner flame will be punished by the gods if they so much as step into the darkness. In exchange, you are assisted by what few brave male Valkyurs and Flameless who are armed with rudimentary spears and firearms.

In this skirmish time is the real enemy; after each round that passes the light around your ragnite lamps slowly retracts more and more as the inky darkness moves closer to your character. You must race into lost, beautiful ruins, tilted in their collapse and tarnished in the darkness, scoop up whatever you can find, and head back to the exit before the darkness envelopes you completely. There is no time to admire the beautiful frescoes of forgotten ages; shapes constantly swim in the murky darkness, seemingly promising to devour your character should the light on your lamp go out.

For this first skirmish into the abyss, the terror of the oppressive darkness is blunted by conversation and close proximity with a male tribesman who works at the ragnite smithy. He is a literal worshipper of the Valkyurs (reminding you of the Valkyur-worshipping cults back home), or “flame-bearers” as he alludes them to. After some insight on your own part, he admits that he sees them as divine vessels for the forgotten gods’ powers first, and as women second. To your consternation, he stresses his belief that they are all placed on this world for a singular purpose as an instrument of the Gods’ will, despite the less-than-benevolent stance of the gods in the merciless centuries that have passed.

You stumble upon a massive haul of artifacts; a long-dead smith’s massive trunk filled with scrolls containing the Valkyrian’s forgotten forging methods, tools and finely-wrought equipment for the great Valkyurs of old. At the same time, a sudden collapse of rubble seals your closest exit. Your closest hope for salvation lies in a long-abandoned Valkyrian armoured vehicle that the male Valkyur frantically works on, saying he has never seen such a thing but he somehow ‘remembers’ how to fix it. As it revs to life, its drill-treads spinning once more, you spare a split moment to chain the trunk to the vehicle as its ragnite core surges with strength after a long period of dormancy. It steadily drags the trunk back to the upper underground as its spotlights fend off the drowning dark.

After your successful haul, the villagers cheer in wonder as you help translate weathered portions of Old Northern script, supplemented with your knowledge of ancient Valkyrian tech found back in Gallia/the Empire. You personally hand the most fitting equipment to the Fated One as the others block her and hog all the access to the cache:

(damn it, this thing just won't tell me if I'm over the limit until I try to post the post. I'm starting to think trying to paste my story on an imageboard wasn't the best idea. Any suggestions other than fanfiction.net?)

I'm pretty sure this isn't /a/ - Videogame Fanfiction.

>>847897

So would you like to continue readong or what? I'm kinda getting mixed messages from your comment, sorry. I'm thinking to just stuff it all into a word file and upload it to mega or something.

All I want to know is when the obligatory killing of the token tittymonster happens.

>>847924

Pah, I didn't like it when that happened to Selvaria, and I began to notice the "the one with the big boobs always dies" recurring theme among the sequels, though it got averted for VC3 for Riela at least. Not a fan of it but there's a technical loophole in this thing that allows for the possibility if you're so insistent on it.

https://mega.nz/#!tMRhDIYB!INuETlL0mg9OCy8YJ_0Mrc_XWFiYfuacVBoZLOjhzII

There we go, took quite a few hours to work everything in just right.