In Seagem City’s power plant, a man with an eyepatch was up to no good. Sixty very large Soul Pearls were socketed into the massive cylindrical generator at the center of the room, each about fifty centimeters across and glowing blue with power. The man with the eyepatch looked at them for a moment, before thinking aloud “Arrr… Now 'ow be I supposed t’ plunder all these pearls without settin' off the alarm?”
There were a few moments of beard-stroking as the man looked over the controls for Seagem City’s power plant. There were levers for regulating power to every single system that Seagem used the Grand Soul Pearls to run, but the saboteur got lost in all the extremely technical panels and could only sigh “Looks like I won't be able to do this here quietly. The Cap'n be upset, but I can't make 'ead nor tail o' these controls.”
A few minutes of wrangling later, the pirate had managed to haul a maintenance cart into the generator room, the rabbit ears poking through his tricorn hat twitching this way and that as he listened for any sign that someone was on to him. Sighing, he said “If they don't know I be 'ere already, the sure will soon!”
With that he started yanking Pearls right out of their sockets and dumping them right into the massive cart as he quickly worked his way around the generator core, alarm klaxons blaring as he did so. It took less than a minute to grab all sixty Pearls, and with that the man booked it straight out of the generator room at top speed. As he shoved the heavily laden cart down the hallway and onto the cobblestone streets, he called out “Gangway, the pearls be goin' critical!”
No-one bought his lie for even a second. Especially not Jump Bunny, who had been on lunch break when she heard the magic coming off the Grand Soul Pearls in the power plant suddenly start moving at the same time as the alarm klaxons went off. Immediately, she chased after the pirate, shouting “Put those back!”, her long brown hair flowing behind her even as her semi-floppy ears bounced around.
They didn’t get very far before an old man with a cane interjected “Whippersnapper, you gotta use the left trigger to jump!”
Jump Bunny momentarily stopped to shout “Grandpa, what!?” before she performed a flawless set of wall kicks in the alley she was dashing through to get onto the rooftops for an easier time pursuing. Sure enough a few seconds later Jump Bunny came into view of the fleeing pirate, drawing her wand from its holster in the lining of her leather jacket.
That’s when the old man from before somehow popped up again, saying “Use the A, B, X, and X buttons to select a wand setting, the right control stick to aim, and the right trigger to shoot! A is always the default beam attack.”
As it turns out, this distraction was enough for Jump Bunny to trip and stumble as she fired, resulting in her beam’s aim being significantly off from her intended target and setting the wheel of the cart on fire. The pirate subsequently lost control as he tried to maneuver the cart around a corner and the burning wheel snapped off, sending the whole load of Grand Soul Pearls careening through a shop window.
Jump Bunny hopped down from the rooftops and started advancing on the incredibly irate pirate. Then she looked through the window and saw the overturned vat of glowing, bubbling yellow goop the Grand Soul Pearls had landed in. Then she read the sign saying “Alchemist” and put two and two together just in time for her swearing to be conveniently censored by what came next.
The goop erupted in a massive skywards geyser, carrying all sixty pearls skywards as they crashed through the roof of the alchemist’s shop. In the confusion, the pirate tried to flee only to run right into the Seagem City Guards, who subsequently held him at wandpoint.
The guard captain growled out “You’ll hang for this, I hope you know.”
The pirate just chuckled, saying “I wouldn't count on that there 'appenin'.”
To this, the guard couldn’t help but ask “Oh? And why is that?”
The pirate of course answered “Because with yer fancy defense grid out o' power, me mates be comin' to get me right about now!” as the sound of cannonfire echoed throughout Seagem City.
Immediately, the Guard slapped shackles on the pirate even as the General Siege alarm rang out and the city’s P.A. system called “All Mages to the power plant, I repeat, all Mages to the power plant!”
A half-hour later the situation had stabilized somewhat. Seagem City was still under siege, but with a jury-rigged solution of having the entire mage corps pour their personal power output into the city’s defense grid they’d managed to get it sufficiently functional that no further pirates were able to get in, nor was the constant bombardment destroying any buildings yet.
On her part, Jump Bunny had been not-exactly-interrogating the deranged old man who’d screwed up her jump, asking “What was that about buttons and triggers!? I know how to get around and I know how to use my wand, and nowhere in any of that was aiming using a control stick or using a trigger to jump!”
For his part, the old man had waved his cane around as he said “Sure you know, but I bet the player doesn’t!”
Jump Bunny facepalmed and groaned “Grandfather, I’m done talking to you. Permanently. Please don’t get in my way again.”
A few seconds later one of the guards showed up and said “Er, Jump Bunny? General Brass wants to talk to you. We need your help.”
At this, Jump spun on her heel and asked “Oh really, why?”
The guard just shrugged and said “Follow me.”
A few minutes later, Jump Bunny arrived in General Brass’ office, a very stressed man with his ears pointing straight up greeting her with “Hello, Jump Bunny. To put things bluntly, we need you specifically to go track down the Grand Soul Pearls, or we are all going to die.”
Bouncing up in the air in surprise, Jump Bunny asked “Why me? I’m not even capable of casting without external equipment like my wand.”
General Brass’ eyes narrowed slightly as he said “Exactly. You’re a rare person able to hear magic but with negligible internal output. That means you are capable of tracking down the Grand Soul Pearls, and also means that sending you won’t negatively impact the efforts to keep the pirates out of Seagem City. I’m sorry for putting this level of responsibility on you, but you’re our only option.”
Sighing, Jump Bunny muttered under her breath “Figured as much.” before she spoke aloud “I get extra Savior Pills right? I can hear the Pearls, and most of them are outside the city limits in places crawling with pirates. Some more extra lives would be really reassuring.”
General Brass nodded, saying “I can get you a few Savior Pills and a good stock of power-ups right now.” Then something connected and he asked “I’m sorry, but did you say that you can hear some Grand Soul Pearls inside city limits?”
Jump Bunny nodded hesitantly, before she said “Yeah, I can hear ten Grand Soul Pearls that are loud enough to be here in Seagem. Most of them sound kind of distorted, though.”
General Brass blinked, before saying “Right. Get the ones inside the city first. Chances are they’ll be easier to retrieve, and getting them will give me more time to scrounge up gear for you. Quick question, what mods do you have for that wand of yours?”
Immediately Jump Bunny pulled it out, showing off the four sockets on its length, two of which had crystals slotted in, and one holding a much more reasonably sized Soul Pearl. As she passed it to General Brass, she said “It’s got the standard heat ray mode as its default. For mods it’s got Telekinesis and Levitation installed.”
The general nodded, “Right, sounds like a good pair of mainstay options. That plus some power ups should hold you over until I can scrounge up some additional wand mods.” before he quickly set up his typewriter and pounded out a form. Withdrawing the sheet of paper, General Brass said “Take this to the armory. It’s authorization for some Savior Pills and dispensers for the standard power ups.”
At this, Jump Bunny accepted the paperwork and quickly made her way out of General Brass’ office. As soon as she was out on the street, she spotted an awning over a ground floor window. A jump and a bounce on the awning later, Jump Bunny was on top of the housing block near the admin building. Idly setting her wand to levitate, Jump leapt off the building she was on and floated across the street at roof level. More bouncing and floating allowed Jump Bunny to skip over three streets this way, and then she arrived at the armory as she bounced down to ground level.
The armory was a vaguely U-shaped building wrapped around a courtyard. The courtyard had various heavy equipment including a crane, massive stacks of crates, and a few pieces of scrap that looked to be from earlier eras of war altogether. Entering the armory, Jump idly noted that she could hear a Grand Soul Pearl somewhere in the building, but first she needed to be issued some equipment. The clerk looked up from her desk and asked “Who are you supposed to be? With how crazy things are I don’t have time for random civilians messing around here.” as her ears flopped.
Jump Bunny answered “I’m Jump Bunny. I’m a new recruit here to be issued some gear.” as she presented the authorization form from General Brass.
Jump almost heard as the clerk muttered under her breath “Who names their kid Jump Bunny?” before she responded after looking over the form “Yes, this all looks to be in order. I can get you five Savior Pills without impacting logistics too much, and we’ve got the other power-ups in spades. Wait right here for a few minutes.”
And so Jump Bunny waited, before sure enough the clerk came back with a box containing three devices that looked an awful lot like a military grade pez dispenser and a small glass bottle containing five spherical pills all glowing a gentle gold color. The three dispensers were labeled “Windstep” “Accelerator” and “Restorer”, while the glass bottle had a paper label reading “Savior Pills (5)”.
Jump Bunny read the clerk’s nametag and remarked “Thanks Reese.” as she accepted the box full of gear. She quickly slotted the pill dispensers into the belt loops she normally used for tools and tightened them up, before uncorking the bottle of Savior Pills and taking them one by one.
Jump Bunny x 8
As soon as that was done, Jump Bunny commented “Anyway, I can hear a Grand Soul Pearl around here. I’m going to go looking for it.” and exited the office of the armory. Listening carefully, Jump Bunny looked around for where the Pearl was, and soon found it lodged in the corner of the roof, caught on the gutter. Rolling her eyes, Jump Bunny set her wand to telekinesis to try and pull it to her. However, as soon as the tentacle of magic reached the Grand Soul Pearl, a massive shockwave of magic blasted down it and blew Jump Bunny backwards into one of the crate stacks.
Groaning, Jump Bunny looked up at where the Grand Soul Pearl remained firmly lodged despite her efforts, even as she downed a Restorer pill and her wounds recovered near instantly. Thinking aloud “Alright, guess I’ll need to try a different approach.”, Jump Bunny looked around the crate stacks, plotting out a route that would let her onto the armory’s roof. No, she couldn’t just move the crates; they were way too heavy for her wand to handle.
After a few moments, Jump Bunny hopped up onto a two-tall crate stack. This was followed by a charge jump that bounced her high enough for her wand in levitation mode to float her over to a three high stack on the opposite side of the courtyard. Then Jump Bunny did a wall kick followed by more levitation to get on top of the massive five high pile of crates in the center, jumped up tot he six high level, and from there getting to the Grand Soul Pearl was easy.
YOU GOT A PEARL!
