You are L2S Trollslayer Fiona Jarnafeldt, and you have taken a trip across the seedy underbelly of Helsinki. What you saw down there couldn't be more different than the city up here. Humans and aberrations living together. The ruins of the old city, hidden by the construction of the stormdrains and the new city above, dinky and rustic but far more human than this sterile white alloy jungle. Children, running around. You don't see many children in Helsinki at all. So few people even have the right to have one, you haven't a clue where a school is in Helsinki, but the undercity has so many. You weren't in your right mind for most of your adventure, having pulled an extreme measure of consuming an entire package of pervitin to avoid a highly dangerous target and seek a new exit. Of course, you lost focus and consciousness, losing control and wandering confused trying to stay undercover and getting into fights. The drugs and the fighting took a physical and mental toll on you, but you're alive. You had to take a week long break to properly recover, consuming nothing but liquid food for the past few days. Now you have to get ready for the giant mutant man-eating birds that are taxonomically called the Swans of White Death that are migrating from the north.But you're not thinking about the giant man eating swans or how your drugs made you think your sword was talking to you right now.Your eyes are wide open staring at this eight foot tall nipponese lady that might just be an aberration.
>>6356433Previous threads: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Solarpunk%20Cleanup%20Agent%20QuestGoogle doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jhZljN9y7A8w6qFcD8wX_xYaKZP65ZH8EGrmgKQ-nIU/edit?usp=sharing And I'm back! Sorry about the rather extended holiday. I wish it were shorter. Fiona, weakened from her recent venture, has to prepare for conflict on the streets of Helsinki. Hellishly large birds are coming south from the Lapplands for the first time in decades! Between the arcane secrets the north holds and the surreptitious secrets held right behind her back, which will our heroine beware?_____https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc46smttbH4Nonoka Sumika is an unusually tall trollslayer from Nippon, where she fought gangs that suffused their ranks with their local aberrations, given a promotion and transferred "for her safety" after killing a yakuza boss' child. Her unique proportions made her an interesting choice for a suit of powered armor. Nobody else should be able to use it. But after it was stolen, it has been used. You've seen it with your own two eyes. The monster in it has a glare that fascinates and chills. It's hard to peel away from.The yakuza have sent thugs after Sumika before, she says. It's been mostly humans. But this time, she says, they sent something else. To hunt Sumika, an an eight foot tall child-killing woman, they sent a "hasshaku," an eight foot tall child-killing oni woman. With an aberration from the east running around in armor made specifically for her, the yakuza thug doesn't even have to raise a finger. After being confronted with the reality of an aberration in Sumika's suit, Stormwatch Manhunters who are doing digging into the case are beginning to question Sumika's humanity and loyalty. Sumika had wanted to catch the orphanage director herself, but complications in your plan have pruned her chance for now.Now, this slender woman from the rural mountains of Nippon sits across the table from you in her lavish home paid for by the blood of underdwellers, sipping on sake and sighing with a worryingly familiar pop of her lips."Fiona, am I an aberration?"You might not be any real standing authority on this, but you should still choose one.>"I think you might be.">"No, you're human.">"There's a gradient to these things, and you might fall in the middle somewhere.">"It's about perspective. You don't think you're an aberration, do you?"
>>6356437Welcome back, QM>>"There's a gradient to these things, and you might fall in the middle somewhere."I think this one first the most, aberration seems to be thing that don't match the natural world, and more align with the world of mythbe it in appearance, abilities, or historybut, if you had, for example, an irish man with dwarfism, that doesn't make him a leprechaun by default, there has to be something moreto some degree, it can be argued that anyone exhibiting abilities that are more than human would count as an aberration, by physical or mental excellence, but pushing the human limit seems to be a constant thing in every era, classifying aberrations based on that is shaky, at least, if it's not at a clearly impossible point, such as natural flight (if there even is such a point as "impossible" in this world, that is another matter)you also have the history, human history is full of stories and myths, if someone exemplifies them, well, that doesn't mean that they're not human, for example, you could make parallels of Odysseus and our mom, but that alone doesn't mean muchbasically, my point is, that for the "low end" (in the obviousness), aberrations seem to be a grey area, in terms of Sumika, I don't remember the hasshaku myth being a swordmaster in any retelling, or getting drunk, or hunting criminals, and her child killing wasn't because it was a child, but because of the yakuza connectionSumika does fit parts of the myth though, she is 8 feet tall, she is weirdly quiet (which is skill, but still), she did kill at least one kid over her career (not abducting the kid, and not doing so via mimicry, nor wearing the stereotypical clothes), her skin is while as a sheet, her eyes seem to be quite dark and deep, and, most specifically, she does have "Po" as a verbal tickso yeah, it seems to be somewhere in the middle, but nowhere near a clear matchI do have to wonder if the "universe" has some sort of autocorrection, or magnetism applied, if a person fits certain criteria, the are passively drawn to fit others, becoming more and more like the myth, but that's just a theory, a gay theory
>>6356437I'l reiterate from last thread:>"I think you might be."Well she isn't a water-sprite, but... Yeah, since "aberration" appears to mean "mutant that reminds people of mythology"... Yes. She's probably not a true human.But also:>So what?
>>6356437>>"It's about perspective. You don't think you're an aberration, do you?"
>>6356561+1 but I wonder if it'd be nice to take from this too >>6356451I'll say it again: there's bound to be people out there so sick of other humans that humanoid aberrations like Sumika are more human and real than other people. I guarantee there's guys out there who would be into her irregardless of inhumanity perceived or otherwise
>>6356617I'm not sure she's as worried about perceived as hot as being perceived as fundamentally monstrous.
Tallied, and writing.
>>6356451Oh, and I appreciate the depth of this response. I'll try to do it justice.
>>6356451This quest and this post in particular are how I red the original short horror story.
