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So, that brings you back to the now. Starbucks Girl and her contracted demon, Decarabia, are hassling you, Dave, the man you saved, is getting his own demon basically so he doesn't get turned into swiss cheese and/or shredded cheese, and you're just kind of along for the ride as moral support. And firepower.

Devil Eraser!
A small swarm of Vodyaniks, with their weird anteater mouths, all swirl around the wooden stairs leading from the boardwalk onto the beach. You can see different demons peeking out from the sand dunes as the sun slowly descends over the greyish-brown, trash-filled ocean, but right now Dave's attention is mostly captured by the three Vodyaniks. Starbucks Girl is keeping watch of your back, occasionally muttering about how she has no idea how she got roped into this, while you occasionally flash your gun whenever one of the other demons gets close to interrupting.

They saw you blow that earlier Vodyanik to bits. They are, evidently, rational enough to fear death, to an extent. You do not let the fact that you are running low on batteries dissuade you.

Dave cranes his head back towards you, reaching back to gingerly poke the wound across his open shirt, running up his back. A gnarly cut, healed up by magic. "Uh... Now what?" He whispers, the trio of Vodyaniks tilting their heads like confused dogs as he convenes with you. "I'll be honest, I didn't think we'd get this far."

>"Whip your dick out. I'm kidding, don't do that. Iunno, man." Leave it to him. He'll never grow as a person if he relies on you for all his answers!
>Ask Decarabia. Decarabia is smart, and has a posh accent, so you can probably trust what it has to say.
>"Here, give em some of this--" Give Dave something to offer the Vodyaniks (Food/Slime Essence)
>"I can handle this. Let me do the talking." Offer something a little more substantial (-1 HP/-1 MP).
>"Why don't you ask them what they want?"
>"Give 'em your best joke. Demons are weird. They like jokes."
>Free Option.

VITAL STATISTICS
HP: 5/5
MP: 1/4

Technique: Basic Offensive Magic
Technique: N/A
Affinity: N/A
Ailment: Paralysis

Devil Eraser:
COMP Upgrade (Demon Scanning, Essence Absorption)
Cell Phone Upgrade (Contact Info, Make Calls)

Zeed Statistics
Health: Good
Branch: N/A
Skills: Dia, Life Drain

---

Read the previous threads!
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=SMT%20Devil%20Eraser

Read the last thread!
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2021/5058462/

>>5107198
>"Here, give em some of this--" Give Dave something to offer the Vodyaniks (Food/Slime Essence)
Food, if we can pick which one to throw out.

>>5107198
>"You should figure that part out, I ain't in charge of your life. If you give up, the only person who stands to lose something is you."

>>5107198
>"Here, give em some of this--" Give Dave something to offer the Vodyaniks (Food/Slime Essence)

>>5107198
>>"Here, give em some of this--" Give Dave something to offer the Vodyaniks (Food/Slime Essence)

>>5107198
>"Here, give em some of this--" Give Dave something to offer the Vodyaniks (Food/Slime Essence)
Demon negotiation requires giving up stuff then having them go "I can't do this, bye" and leaving without giving anything back. The best way is to get one isolated, get them to near death, THEN ask them to join you or die.

>>5107213
>>5107324
>>5107410
>>5107430
"Here, look, it's simple." You say, reaching into your backpack with one hand while keeping your gun haphazardly trained on the Vodyaniks with the other, in blatant disregard for basic gun safety. You pull out a can of Chef Boyardee, and hand it to Dave. "You ever train a dog?"

"I mean, yeah, that's... What I do. For a living." Dave says, laughing sheepishly as he grabs the can from you.

"Imagine they are the biggest, meanest, smartest dogs you have ever met, but they're also still food motivated. And you're trying to play nice." You explain, squatting down into a slav squat, both hands back on your gun.

"A-Alright, I can do that." Dave says, turning back towards the Vodyaniks and taking the most cautious step forward any human has ever taken. "Hey there, uh, fellas... You want some food?"

"Food..." "Food!" The three of them chatter indistinctly among themselves with their frog-like old men voices, before the front one snatches the can out of Dave's hand faster than Dave can react. It cracks it open with its claws and proceeds to dump down all the ravioli into its weird sharp-toothed mouth, nose happily twitching. "That's good stuff, sonny boy," the Vodyanik says, making Dave jump with surprise. "But I'm goin' ta need something a weee bit more... substantial."

"Substantial? W-What does that mean?" Dave asks, nervously, glancing back towards you like you're some kind of mentor figure.

>"Offer some of your blood. Demons like blood, I think. Right, Decarabia?" (Dave will be Injured)
>"Offer some of your, uh... spirit force? Mana? Is that a thing you have without the robot arm? I mean, it can't hurt to try." (Dave will be Exhausted)
>Offer to give the Vodyanik some of your blood. (-1 HP)
>Offer to give the Vodyanik some of your spiritual essence. (-1 MP)
>Offer the Vodyanik your Slime Essence.
>Tell Dave to promise to give it some kind of favor, like a shell polishing or something. Turtles like it when you polish their shell, right?
>Tell Dave to tell it a joke.
>Free Option.

>>5108462
>>Offer to give the Vodyanik some of your blood. (-1 HP)
We're in prime health, Dave is still recovering.

>>5108462
>"Offer some of your, uh... spirit force? Mana? Is that a thing you have without the robot arm? I mean, it can't hurt to try." (Dave will be Exhausted)

>>5108462
>>>Offer to give the Vodyanik some of your blood. (-1 HP)
Not more.

>>5108462
>Offer to give the Vodyanik some of your blood. (-1 HP)

>>5108462
>Offer to give the Vodyanik some of your blood. (-1 HP)
That's all you're gonna get you Eastern European fish gramps

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>>5108470
>>5108644
>>5108654
>>5108674
"You gotta... Here, let me handle this. Decarabia, can we like... split the bill?" You ask, turning your head towards the floating starfish thing. It blinks at you a couple of times, rotates around 360 degrees along its... it does a mid-air barrel roll. That axis. Then, the voice emerges from no particular orifice.

"I don't see why not." He replies. Starbucks Girl sighs quietly, tapping her gun's butt against her knee, finger resting thankfully away from the trigger.

"Great." You say, immediately shaking away the impulse to shoot yourself in the finger. Instead, you use something sharp in your backpack to give yourself a small little cut across the meaty part of your palm, the top part, and present it to the Vodyanik. "Does this fit your bill?"

The Vodyanik reaches out to grab your hand by the sides with his webbed fingers. His weird, long snout sniffs at your blood, and then you're filled with searing pain as the wound suddenly splits open even further, spraying a little bit of pressurized blood onto the Vodyanik's face, which immediately disappears. You feel a little bit weaker as small flecks of black, iron filing-like material flow out from your wound, before jerking it away in surprise. Zeed, sensing that he is needed, returns to your side from his post watching the Ferris wheel and fills the air with the sound of chiming, sealing off the worst of the wound with his healing magic.

Even with Zeed, though, it still hurts.
HP: 4/5
MP: 1/4

"Satisfied, old man?" You ask. The Vodyanik gives you a sharp, smug smile, thin claws emerging from the tips of his fingers, and you aim your gun at it, preparing to fire.

"Satisfied, sonny. David Carpenter, I'm your demon now, 'til death do us part. Keeehehehehehe--" He laughs, the other two Vodyaniks vanishing back into the sand, presumably to harass some other person near the boardwalk and potentially eat them.

"H-how does he know my name?" Dave asks nervously, backing away from the grinning Vodyanik.

"Magic," You, Decarabia, Starbucks Girl, and Vodyanik all say at once. You share a glance with the three of them, eyes flicking back and forth. "Probably. Magic, probably." You say, shrugging your shoulders.

Vodyanik climbs onto the wooden railing on the boardwalk, his nose flicking every which way while his claws dig into the wood.

>"Alright, now that we're equipped to defend ourselves, we should start gathering resources and hunkering down somewhere." (Pick a location: Amusement Park, Abandoned Boardwalk Stores, City Streets, Other).
>"Great, well, that's not on my conscience anymore. Now that you can defend yourself, I'm gonna go and look for more people to help out. Can you guys handle yourselves?"
>Ask what exactly Vodyanik can do besides murderize people.
>Free Option.

>>5109730
>"Yo, Vodyanik, what kind of tricks do you got? My pal knows how to heal, what about ya?" Pat Zeed on the head.

>>5109730
>Great, well, that's not on my conscience anymore.
>We've all introduced ourselves to each other, do you guys wanna stick together? There's gotta be at least 1 driver between the 3 of us, and I'd prefer to have some friends to watch my back.

>>5109730
>>"Great, well, that's not on my conscience anymore. Now that you can defend yourself, I'm gonna go and look for more people to help out. Can you guys handle yourselves?"

The slimes last thread called us a whore for trying to contract with them, even though we already had Zeed on our team. Does that mean we can only contract with one demon at a time/are "routelocked" to Zeed?

>>5109883
yup. I mean, we don't know what happens if our demon dies yet, and the contract might be locked to amount of MAG or souls or something, which could possibly be bypassed if we start stuffing people into the arm.

>>5109736
this
>>5109734
then this

>>5109888
I hope that our contract limit is based off of MAG or total level, because I REALLY don't want to start killing dudes just to expand our team

>>5109898
99% sure we're gonna kill dudes one way or the other. this is an smt game, after all.

>>5109900
>We're most likely going to have to kill people, this is SMT
I understand that, I just hate the idea of killing unaligned humans. Any Chaosnigger or Lawfag that stands in our way is free game though.

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>>5109916
>Any Chaosnigger or Lawfag that stands in our way is free game though.
Agreed

>>5109916
if you had to choose between killing a chaosnigger or a lawfag, who would you pick. been a while since I've had an old time SMT brawl about alignments.

no, you can't kill both.

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>>5109934
You're not saying HOW to kill them, or with what...

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>>5109946
with your bare hands, dipshit. what are you, a ho?

>>5109730
>"Great, well, that's not on my conscience anymore. Now that you can defend yourself, I'm gonna go and look for more people to help out. Can you guys handle yourselves?"

>>5109730
>Ask what exactly Vodyanik can do besides murderize people.

>>5109730
>>Ask what exactly Vodyanik can do besides murderize people.

Apologies, need to take a break for today - been struggling through some covid despite my triple autism injection and I'm too fatigued to update. Will try to get one tomorrow afternoon if my ADHD does not curse my fingers too much.

>>5109730
>Ask what exactly Vodyanik can do besides murderize people.
"Oy what can you do beside killing, penis nose demon ?"

>>5110487
>when triple dose does nothing to stop you getting sick despite what people parrot
man covid is a pain ain't it? so is everybody else for that matter

>>5110832
I crave death and have a severe migraine! This counts as "late afternoon" even though its 8 pm.
>>5109883
:3
>>5110739
>>5110276
>>5110117
>>5109734
>>5109736
>>5109848
>>5109959
"Alright, well, that's not on my conscience anymore. Now that you can defend yourself, I'm gonna go... look for more people to help out, I guess?" You shrug, gesturing to your arm. "I don't think a lot of people have the weird magic arm thing going on."

"Not that I've seen." Starbucks Girl replies, blowing a lock of hair out of her face with a puff of hair. "Just you and that dude on the Ferris wheel."

"Julius." Dave corrects her. "Well, Julian Ferguson. I-I'm not sure where he got the Julius thing from..."

"You know him?" You and Starbucks Girl both ask at the same time, while Decarabia twirls gently in the air and chuckles. Dave turns his head to look at the two of you, laughing nervously.

"Yeah, I was, uh, his subordinate, at, uh, Nakajima. He invited me here personally after, um, this morning." Dave says, waving his hand in front of his face. "I-I was just an intern, though, I didn't know anything about this God stuff. Promise!"

Starbucks Girl points her gun at Dave for a moment, but you pat her hand down with your robot arm. "Chill. I believe him. Anyway, that's fascinating information. Any weaknesses we should be aware of?"

Dave shakes his head. "He was like... My boss's boss's boss. We interacted at team meetings and that was it. He was just some guy, but I recognized his voice."

You raise an eyebrow. "Fascinating. Anyway. Like I said, I'm gonna go look for more people to help - can you two handle yourselves? Actually, wait, Vodyanik--"

"Yes, Sonny?" He croaks, clinging to the wooden railing lining the boardwalk, his nose twitching in the air.

"Can you do anything except murderize people?" You ask.

Vodyanik grins with sharp teeth, baring claws that dig into the wood. His weird tadpole tail flicks back and forth. "No."

You pinch the bridge of your nose. "Fine, whatever."

"I'll go find us some place to hunker down, I guess. Will you be back here when you're done going around playing Spiderman?" Starbucks Girl asks, brushing her hair out of her face. "I think with the four of us we can probably handle most things. Give me an ETA."

>"Man, you're ready to handle business. Uh... I guess I'll be back when I'm back? I'll find you, don't worry about me."
>"I don't think I want to be out in the city when the sun goes down - call me superstitious. I'm not gonna stray far if I can avoid it."
>"No, wait, hold on, tell me more about Julius. I've changed my mind, I'll sit here and help setup if you regale me with stories."
>Get their phone numbers.
>Free Option.

>>5111322
>"I don't think I want to be out in the city when the sun goes down - call me superstitious. I'm not gonna stray far if I can avoid it."
>"If shit gets REALLY bad, call me." Get their phone numbers. "Be here ASAP."

>>5111322

>>5111326
This, pretty much. If they're willing to partner up, I'm game.

Also, good luck getting better soon, OP. I'm going through similar shit, it sucks.

>>5111326
+1, but also
>crack a stupid joke about finally getting a cute girl's number
girls with guns make pp hard
Though she should really learn some firearm safety.

>>5111326
+1

>>5111322
>>5111326 +1

>>5111326
support

>>5111322
support >>5111326

>"Try to pick up some gun safety, don't be too quick to put PTSD on your list of problems."

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>>5111326
+1

>>5111326
>When you start parting ways unholster your gun and spin it a bit, cowboy style, while saying bye
>Holster the gun

>>5111326
>>5111368
>>5111373
>>5111520
>>5111547
>>5111591
>>5111845
>>5111865
>>5113962
A couple of ideas flicker through your head as you prepare your parting words. Most of them don't make it through your brain-sieve, so you get out the most common feeling one. "I don't think I want to be out of the city when the sun goes down. I mean. I mean, out in the city - call me superstitious if you want. I'm--" You start.

"Okay, hi, superstitious! I'm Dave." Dave jokes, slowly waddling his way up from the boardwalk stairs. Starbucks Girl sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. You're not sure how to react so you just kind of give a weak chuckle and continue your sentence.

"Call me superstitious, but I'm not gonna stray too far if I can avoid it. If shit gets REALLY bad, call me." You say, holding your arm out. A little panel slides open, and a cute little fake LED animated icon, sort of like the appearance of an old Game-n-Watch, or a digital clock, depicts simple pictograms of hands tapping a phone to an arm. "I guess... Just sort of... tap your phone?"

Dave shrugs and immediately pulls out his cell phone to tap it against your arm, resulting in a quiet pinging sound, presumably registering his number to you. Starbucks Girl rolls her eyes and does the same. "Be here ASAP. Custard shop. That's our meeting spot. Unless you can't, in which case, uh... figure it out. I trust your judgment."

"You do?" Dave asks, sounding a little incredulous.

"No." You reply, honestly. You give him a supportive pat on the back. "But I do trust your survival instincts. Got you this far."

Dave beams at you. You deliberately neglect to mention that Dave's survival instincts included running into a demon infested beach.

Where to?
>Now that we have some free time, we're reasonably close to the supposed death wall of "everyone past this is dead". We might as well go look and maybe skip some rocks past it to see what happens.
>There's nearby parking lots all over the place and almost certainly a nonzero amount of people holed up in their cars scared shitless. Let's get them to pull up closer to the boardwalk and let them know it's safe, start building our little home base.
>Man... What else can our arm integrate? We should find some upgrades if we can. Make that our first priority, it'll make survival easier in the long run, what should we go look for?
>Just go hunting for demons, my man. If you see a demon, merk it. Not complicated.
>Free Option.

>>5114151
>>There's nearby parking lots all over the place and almost certainly a nonzero amount of people holed up in their cars scared shitless. Let's get them to pull up closer to the boardwalk and let them know it's safe, start building our little home base.
begin the base building quest

>>5114151
>There's nearby parking lots all over the place and almost certainly a nonzero amount of people holed up in their cars scared shitless. Let's get them to pull up closer to the boardwalk and let them know it's safe, start building our little home base.

>>5114151
>Just go hunting for demons, my man. If you see a demon, merk it. Not complicated.
Dehumanize ourselves and face the bloodshed.

>>5114151
>>There's nearby parking lots all over the place and almost certainly a nonzero amount of people holed up in their cars scared shitless. Let's get them to pull up closer to the boardwalk and let them know it's safe, start building our little home base.

>>5114151
>There's nearby parking lots all over the place and almost certainly a nonzero amount of people holed up in their cars scared shitless. Let's get them to pull up closer to the boardwalk and let them know it's safe, start building our little home base.

>>5114185
>misspelled it
faggot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fjpjxXwYp0

>>5114352
guess "face the bloodshed" sounds a lot more natural than "face to bloodshed".

>>5114355
blame old games and their bad grammar

>>5114151
>Man... What else can our arm integrate? We should find some upgrades if we can. Make that our first priority, it'll make survival easier in the long run, what should we go look for?

A taser or stungun

>>5114407
Are we gonna go status memes this quest?

>>5114463
I mean, they're not useless. Didn't we wail on that one green demon like it was nothing thanks to some paralysis magic?

>>5114164
>>5114177
>>5114273
>>5114352
Your brain thinks that the by far most rational option is to stay physically close - there are a ton of nearby parking lots, given that the boardwalk is pretty much the only tourist attraction in this shitty town and parking lots must reign supreme over places to live, and you'd imagine a nonzero amount of people holed up in their cars scared shitless.

You walk through the parking lot, gun kept in your magic arm in case you need to blow something up at a moment's notice. You wave to windows as you pass by, hoping to find the aforementioned nonzero amount of people, but, unfortunately, what you do find are a lot of corpses. The particularly messy ones, you steel yourself and bust the lock open so you can at least make sure some of their supplies don't go to waste, cramming some more assorted junk into your backpack.

Zeed follows along dutifully, keeping watch. His fingers are a little too fat and his bones a little too squishy to be of much help, and you don't really want to saddle him with any "carrying shit" work, so you just tell him to keep an eye out, which he does with hungry aplomb. He looks very dashing in his hat and shirt.

It's maybe the sixth car through this way, an hour into your searching, when you find yourself reaching for a still-on radio. Your senses light up for a moment, and you check your arm to see if it's done anything interesting. Nope! Just an uncomfortable electric tingling in the back of your neck.

>Shoot the radio.
>Ask if anyone's there. Maybe say you're here to help?
>Just back away from the car. This smells like another ambush. Fool me once...
>Ask Zeed if they can sense any danger or demons nearby.
>Shoot the radio really hard. (-1 MP)
>Tune the radio through the channels. What if there's something still on the airwaves that might be important to hear?
>Absorb the radio into your arm.
>Free Option.

>>5115549
>Ask Zeed to Life Drain the general area around the car.
>Tune the radio through the channels. What if there's something still on the airwaves that might be important to hear?

>>5115549
>Tune the radio through the channels. What if there's something still on the airwaves that might be important to hear?
>Absorb the radio into your arm after the fact

>>5115549
A demon here in this car?
>Tune the radio through the channels. What if there's something still on the airwaves that might be important to hear?
>Absorb the radio into your arm after the fact
fuck it let's do it

>>5115549
>Tune the radio through the channels. What if there's something still on the airwaves that might be important to hear?
>Absorb the radio into your arm after the fact

>>5115549
>Tune the radio through the channels. What if there's something still on the airwaves that might be important to hear?
>Absorb the radio into your arm after the fact

>>5115769
>>5115820
+1.
Glad to see youre back OP

>>5115549
>Tune the radio through the channels. What if there's something still on the airwaves that might be important to hear?
>Absorb the radio into your arm.

Should come in handy.

>>5116313
>>5115820
>>5115769
>>5115678
>>5115575
You reach out with your non-mechanical hand to tune the radio, listening to it crackle and hiss. As you imagined, every channel is empty, even as you scroll all the way up and down the FM channels - and even swipe through the AMs, and even the XMs, since this person seems to have that in their car. All dead air. Sighing and rubbing the back of your neck in an attempt to self-soothe, you reach to turn off the radio so it doesn't spook you again.

As soon as your finger gets within a couple of centimeters of the power button, it crackles to life a little louder. "Now don't touch that dial!" Creaks the hissing voice of static electricity, sounding clipped together from a thousand different radio hosts. You nearly jump back and hit your head in surprise, only narrowly missing banging your head on the open car door in response. "What's the matter, Sanders? Chicken?"

"Uh." You mumble out. "What? Cool... Spaceballs reference?"

"They say that God is in the Radio... Ch-ch-ch-checkin' the station." The radio hisses out, before blowing out with a loud POP and a flash of light, smoke rising from the clear scent of burnt fuses. While you kind of wanted to eat that into your arm, you give it a couple pokes and nothing actually happens, leaving you with the impression that the thing has to actually work before you can absorb it into your arm.

Zeed tugs on your pants. "What's up, little guy?" You ask, turning around to face him, and then following his pointed hand to another car, rumbling and shaking like it's full of a couple of hippies having a particularly raucous orgy. You take a step back, away from it, and are only slightly surprised when it POPs like a champagne bottle, the hood slapping upwards with enough force to break off its hinges, little flames filling its interior.

Then, the car you were just checking the radio of POPs a little louder. Another car from across the way, maybe 40 meters away, joins it quickly with a loud, mechanical POP. Then another. Then another.

You are not sure if you have enough bullets to shoot every car.

>Try to see if there's a pattern to them popping so you can predict whatever's traveling from car to car and intercept it.
>Just have patience. Clearly, there's some sort of supernatural entity fiddling with the cars. It'll show itself eventually, and you can shoot it then.
>Nope. Fuck this. Probably the reason why there were lots of corpses. Mission abort. We're going home.
>No, wait! We didn't check every car. What if we missed someone? We need to get everyone's attention before they're about to get pop-goes-the-weaseled by a demon. Maybe shoot the ground to make some easily obvious noise, yell a "Get outta here!" out?
>Free Option.

>>5116994
>Try to see if there's a pattern to them popping so you can predict whatever's traveling from car to car and intercept it.

>>5116994
>Have Zeed camp a working care, ready to Life Drain for a rude awakening
>Check if your scan thing has some range or figures out a weakness

>>5116994
>>Try to see if there's a pattern to them popping so you can predict whatever's traveling from car to car and intercept it.

>>5116994
>Try to see if there's a pattern to them popping so you can predict whatever's traveling from car to car and intercept it.

Taking a break for today, sorry! - some of my medical equipment broke and because I'm steadily falling apart at the seams as a human being, going without it has made sleeping basically impossible so I'm quite exhausted. More to come tomorrow!

>>5116994
>Try to see if there's a pattern to them popping so you can predict whatever's traveling from car to car and intercept it.

>>5118073
>>5117122
>>5117022
>>5117009
You're not exactly what you'd consider a "smart person". You're not exactly analytical either. You'd probably die if you ever got caught in a Stand fight, and yet here you are, watching cars burst with electricity like a minefield. You step away from the nearest one when you feel the air starting to grow heavy and fuzzy, and to your immense displeasure, get quite a painful shock on the back of your fleshy hand for your troubles.

The POPs, which started just as engine blowouts, quickly begin escalating into bright blue bolts of electricity, like lightning in reverse, crapping out the bottoms of the cars and spilling gouts of oil down onto the ground. If there's any pattern, you can't... You can't...

No, you're a hero, of course you can. You just take a deep breath, try to ignore the scent of gasoline, and focus. You quickly notice that the popping only happens to cars adjacent to each other, no more than two or three meters away. You follow it with your eyes as the scent of gasoline begins to overwhelm your nostrils, and you scrunch them up like you're about to sneeze, blessing your genetics for the weird parlor trick that lets you clog up your nose at a moment's notice.

You watch as the zapping force gets itself into a corner, and take aim. There's only one car it could possibly go into now.

>Riddle it with bullets.
>We're not taking any chances. Put a single very large hole into it. (-1 MP).
>Even if you can harm it, this is rapidly becoming a disadvantageous place to be in. Electricity makes sparks, which can light up all this gasoline. You need to vamoose, and *now*.
>Free Option.

>>5119508
>We're not taking any chances. Put a single very large hole into it. (-1 MP).

>>5119508
We're kinda low on MP, aren't we?
Then again I don't think regular bullets are gonna do the trick. Kinda wanna try out Shibaboo but it feels like a Nerve immune demon— being an electromagnetic poltergeist or something.
>We're not taking any chances. Put a single very large hole into it. (-1 MP).

I am game for better ideas tho.

>>5119508
>>We're not taking any chances. Put a single very large hole into it. (-1 MP).

>>5119508
>>We're not taking any chances. Put a single very large hole into it. (-1 MP).
If anything, it'll hamper it enough to be a non-threat.

>>5119508
>We're not taking any chances. Put a single very large hole into it. (-1 MP).
grab that dust to regen mp boys

>>5119508
>We're not taking any chances. Put a single very large hole into it. (-1 MP).

Sorry, gotta take another break for tonight. The relentless onslaught of the Real never ends!

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>>5120574
Turn the Real into the Red and become God. Or something. I should read more Joker Quest

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>>5120515
>>5119726
>>5119702
>>5119685
>>5119586
>>5119584
HP: 4/5
MP: 0/4

Taking chances is for dead men. You take aim, and feel the energy flowing from your arm into your hand into the chamber of your gun. No bullet follows, only a loud, destructive BANG! and a flash of light that rips the car cleanly in half, destroying the engine block like it wasn't even there, sending scraps of metal flying. Fire boils around you while blue sparks slither free from the car, making tiny little noises, deflating like a balloon.

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose as the strange demon crawls towards you, your arm helpfully identifying it.

UNREGISTERED DEMON
JAKI GREMLIN

...

What the fuck is a Jaki?

With that pounding question in mind, and out of batteries, you approach the weakened, fizzling demon with your gun out, ready to riddle it with bullets at a moment's notice. It looks up at you and squeals pitifully, like a deflating balloon pitch-shifted upwards a semitone and paulstretched a bit.

>"Why are you attacking me?"
>Try to bargain with it for its Essence - you're not sure if you can get it now if you haven't already blown it up with the first shot, and you're out of ammo.
>No you're not, lol. Loot time.(-1 HP).
>That was suspiciously easy. Look around for an ambush before you do anything. Better the Gremlin get away because you're being over-cautious than you Don't get away because you're Under-cautious.
>Ask it what a Jaki is. It probably knows, right?
>Free Option.

>>5121833
>"Why should I let you live?"

>>5121833
>Try to bargain with it for its Essence - you're not sure if you can get it now if you haven't already blown it up with the first shot, and you're out of ammo.
>Ask it what a Jaki is. It probably knows, right?

>>5121833
>Try to bargain with it for its Essence - you're not sure if you can get it now if you haven't already blown it up with the first shot, and you're out of ammo.
>Ask it what a Jaki is. It probably knows, right?

>>5121833
>>Ask it what a Jaki is. It probably knows, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtCqDz-xMoQ

>>5121833
>Try to bargain with it for its Essence - you're not sure if you can get it now if you haven't already blown it up with the first shot, and you're out of ammo.
>Ask it what a Jaki is. It probably knows, right?

>>5121865
>>5121991
>>5122847
"Alright, big boy. Two questions." You say, holding up your human hand with two fingers like you're giving the injured Gremlin a peace sign. You tick your gun up a little bit and it buzzes up into a position that looks sort of like an imitation of a kid sitting criss-cross apple-sauce. It seems interested.

"#1. My arm tells me you're a "Jaki". What the fuck is a Jaki?" You ask. It looks around and babbles loudly, pointing towards the nearest car like it's asking permission. "No, gimme a pantomime."

The Gremlin rears back, trying to look intimidating (and failing), and lets out a "Rawwwr!". It bears its hands into crude imitations of claws and basically tries to look like a bear about to maul someone, but it's not very intimidating because it's maybe two feet tall.

"So, it's like a species, right? Like you've got Monkeys and Pigs for animals and demons have Jaki and Foul?" You ask. The Gremlin nods rapidly. "And the Jaki are big mean things, like bears?"

The Gremlin rears up and "Rawwwr!"s again, but it sounds like a toddler. You tick your gun up a little bit again and it slumps into a puddle of electrified ectoplasm, vaguely humanoid in shape. It nods vigorously.

"Alright, question #2 while I chew on that new info. You've got a little marble of soul nugget that I want. I'm willing to play nice and trade for it." You say, not letting on that you're out of battery and can't blow it into an Essence without hurting yourself anyway. "Or I can shoot you."

The Gremlin babbles quietly, buzzing around in a circle, and then points towards a car parked in the furthest corner of the parking lot, underneath an awning - an incredibly expensive looking Ferrari with tinted windows. You didn't even know people could afford Ferraris in this town.

>Clearly, he wants a nicer ride, but he will also probably immediately try to hit you with whatever car he gets access to. Try to bargain him down. Food? Blood?
>Let him hop into the nearest car radio just so you can actually communicate without having to play fucking Pictionary.
>...I wonder if you could have a Gremlin living in your arm?
>"Alright, so, if I get you that Ferrari, you'll give me your essence, right? And we're bound by your kind's propensity towards deals, yeah?"
>Free Option.

>>5123155
>"Alright, so, if I get you that Ferrari, you'll give me your essence, right? And we're bound by your kind's propensity towards deals, yeah?"
>>Free Option
"Tsk."
"I doubt you can handle it. No offense but you don't look like the type for one."
"It's not just for everyone you know, it needs ... skill and style. Do you think you have got what it takes ?"
"I tell you this, i am going to put you in it if you give me your essence and swear loyalty to me. I will put even a snack on the deal, i feel that generous today. But"
"First you show me if you are a good pilot on one of this dull and normal cars. The Ferrari isn't going anywhere and it s just the two of us here, so we should have no problems. You just need to pass the test. Up for the challenge demon ? If you don't i can just use you as target practice cool with that ?"

>>5123155
>>...I wonder if you could have a Gremlin living in your arm?

>>5123155
>...I wonder if you could have a Gremlin living in your arm?
I guess we can just do a death grip either way

>>5123155
>...I wonder if you could have a Gremlin living in your arm?
If it fails or it refuses, go with >>5123171's path.

>>5123155
>...I wonder if you could have a Gremlin living in your arm?

>>5123333
+1

>>5123489
>>5123333
>>5123310
>>5123175
"Here's a better proposition, actually. Y'know, that's a shiny car and all that, but that's just a car. It's just got a radio and it goes vroom. You know what's better than a car?" You offer, kneeling down so you're a little bit closer to eye level with the Gremlin.

It babbles up at you incoherently.

You hold your arm out. "This is my arm. It is also electronic, but can turn demons like you into whatever that black gunk stuff is real good. Plus, there's a phone. And I can probably put a radio in it later. Hop on in for a spell, you can fuck with other demons, I get a lightning buddy, everyone wins, yeah?"

The Gremlin considers it for a moment, and then bites your finger. Your vision whites out for a moment.

HP: 2/5
MP: 2/4

YOU NOW HAVE A GREMLIN IN YOUR ARM.
WHY DID YOU DO THAT?

Your entire body aches like you've just been electrocuted, which, to be fair, is probably what happened. You check the display on your arm, and instead of displaying its normal HUD, or whatever it is when it's on a little LED panel like that, it shows the Gremlin's laughing face in extreme bitcrushed format, along with its mischievous smile.

Zeed grabs your leg nervously, clearly uncomfortable with the Gremlin's presence. Still, his grubby little alien hands and the sound of gentle wind chimes indicate a willingness to heal some of that electrical burning tingling through your nervous system.

HP: 3/5
MP: 2/4

"Not so bad in there, is it?" You ask. The Gremlin, feeling non-communicative, gives you a thumbs up from within the LCD-like screen, and then the panel slams shut. "Great. Now I have a Gremlin in my arm."

Zeed pulls on your leg with a little more insistence. "Yes, my sweetest Zeed?" You ask, watching it point down the parking lot towards the aforementioned Ferrari. You... are not sure if it was rattling and bouncing that hard a moment ago, or if that's a new development.

>Sit back and watch until something happens and then... shoot it.
>Give it a wide berth. You've got your level grinding done, there's probably nobody around to save right now... just get out. We're done here! Goodbye. Go home.
>Tomorrow's problems for future you. We've got a Gremlin in our arm and nothing can stop us. Let's go find some people to hero for! The Ferrari probably has another monster in it or something anyway.
>Approach it... *carefully*.
>Ask Zeed's opinion on the matter and then follow his unspoken advice.
>Free Option.

>>5124441
>>Ask Zeed's opinion on the matter and then follow his unspoken advice.

>>5124441
>Try to use Eraser Blast, see if it turns thunder element or just shoots the whole demon out

>>5124441
>Approach it... *carefully*.
"Yo that Ferrari you wanted? Something's up with it. I'm gonna go check it out. If it's another demon, I want your help blowing the bastard out."

>>5124441
>Approach it... *carefully*.
>Prepare to try out >>5124489's plan the moment anything goes south.

>>5124441
>>Ask Zeed's opinion on the matter and then follow his unspoken advice.

>>5124629
>>5124758
>>5124489
>>5124479
>>5124860
"Hey, Gremlin. That Ferrari you wanted? Something's up with it. I'm gonna go check it out." You say to your arm, feeling very silly in the process. "Zeed, you got a thought?"

Zeed does not give you a coherent response outside of stone-facedly mimicking the Gremlin's "Rawr" stance. Also, completely silently. You are not an idiot, though, you know how to interpret pantomimes, a skill you feel you will grow increasingly good at as the week goes by.

"There's another demon in there. Like... the Gremlin?" You ask. You approach it carefully, Zeed remaining behind you the whole time, trying to remain behind your silhouette. Your arm beeps and chimes a little 8-bit ditty, like the old timey keygen music when you downloaded pirated software when you were, like, 10.

Zeed nods rapidly, and puts both arms out.

"Another Jaki, specifically?" You ask, taking a second to parse that sentence and feeling profoundly silly. What has your life become?

Zeed nods rapidly again, and you turn towards the car, approaching it with gun drawn. The closer you get, the clearer the rattling sound becomes - like a hammer striking metal. Every so often, a dim red glow of light radiates outward from inside the tinted windows.

>Syncing with Gremlin gave us a recharge, let's just blow it away. (-1 MP)
>More Demons gives us more opportunities to wheel and deal. Let's see what we're working with first. Maybe it can speak, like Decarabia or Vodyanik?
>Hit it with the normal ammunition first to see how it responds.
>Use your Paralysis magic before opening the door to check it out. (-1 MP)
>Free Option.

>>5125623
>More Demons gives us more opportunities to wheel and deal. Let's see what we're working with first. Maybe it can speak, like Decarabia or Vodyanik?
Considering it hasn't attacked us first, I can't see any major harm in doing this outside of a lack of a surprise attack.

>>5125623
>More Demons gives us more opportunities to wheel and deal. Let's see what we're working with first. Maybe it can speak, like Decarabia or Vodyanik?

>>5125623
>More Demons gives us more opportunities to wheel and deal. Let's see what we're working with first. Maybe it can speak, like Decarabia or Vodyanik?

>>5125623
>More Demons gives us more opportunities to wheel and deal. Let's see what we're working with first. Maybe it can speak, like Decarabia or Vodyanik?

>>5125623
>More Demons gives us more opportunities to wheel and deal. Let's see what we're working with first. Maybe it can speak, like Decarabia or Vodyanik?
That's gotta be Ippon-Datara. What's it doing here and not on some Japanese mountain?

File: ippondatara.png (154 KB, 246x553)

154 KB PNG

>>5125871
>>5125848
>>5125719
>>5125705
>>5125646
"Well, okay, here's our policy - try not to shoot first unless we have reason to believe it will try to kill us." You say, first to Zeed, and then turning your gaze towards your arm. You feel thoroughly insane. "Got it?"

You get simultaneous thumbs up from your diminutive partners, and knock on the door of the Ferrari, gun holstered but your biological hand at the ready. You half-expect, from your overconsumption of popular media, that Gremlin is about to hijack control over your arm and do something stupid, but it does not appear to be the case. Maybe it can't control it, maybe it can, it's currently a sort of unknown factor. Either way, you throw the door open and peek your head inside.

What was, probably, at some point, a beautiful Ferrari has been gutted completely. If your eyes don't deceive you, it actually appears to be slightly larger on the inside than on the outside? Either way, the chairs and any luggage have been cleared out, and what is very clearly a flayed human corpse hangs from chains at the very back, while a one-eyed, one-legged demon hammers on what you're pretty sure was a femur with the same repetitive sound of a hammer hitting metal. It's like the inside of the car was turned into a tiny smithy, complete with the demon bending down and blowing fire over his project to turn it red hot so that he can beat the bones further into place. You notice now that the corpse is A: wearing sunglasses, b: missing its entire lower half, and then you notice a stack of strange looking tools reminiscent of that one Far Side comic sitting on a pile next to the anvil.

The creature ignores you.

UNREGISTERED DEMON
JAKI IPPON-DATARA

Your arm displays, before the Gremlin's grinning face replaces it. It points and gestures down across the screen towards the car radio, the sole functioning component of the car still left mostly intact (even the air conditioning seems to have been ripped out and warped into some kind of strange bellow), which is gently piping out traditional Japanese pan flute music at a low volume throughout the strange smithy.

The Ippon-Datara glances at you in recognition that you exist, grunts, and continues hammering away at his work.

>"Uh... That stuff for sale?"
>"Right, sorry to bother you.". He's not attacking you on sight, and he's clearly busy, just leave him alone.
>"...Um, was he like that when you found him?" Gesture towards the corpse.
>"You mind if we take this radio? I'll trade you if you want." Gremlin wants the radio, right?
>Eraser time. (-1 MP)
>Free Option.

>>5127127
>"You mind if we take this radio? I'll trade you if you want." Gremlin wants the radio, right?
Prepare to fire an eraser bolt the moment he tries attacking us.

>>5127127
>"Uh... That stuff for sale?"

>>5127127
>"Uh... That stuff for sale?"
>"You mind if we take this radio? I'll trade you if you want." Gremlin wants the radio, right?

>>5127127
"You mind if we take this radio? I'll trade you if you want." Gremlin wants the radio, right?

What a rotten way to die

>>5127127

>"Uh... That stuff for sale?"
we still need to figure out macca, right?

>>5127428
+1

>>5127152
>>5127294
>>5127428
>>5127430
>>5127668
>>5127772
"Hey, uh... That stuff for sale?" You ask, pointing to the pile of what you are reasonably sure is reforged human parts turned into macabre cow tools.

The Ippon-Datara glances at you with a single furrowed brow (of sorts, given that you can only see one eye and not his eyebrow, but his eye does the furrowed brow thing). "Yes." He grunts.

You point at the radio. "What about that? You uh... You mind if we take it, maybe trade for it? I can--" You start, assuming that, as a blacksmith, the radio is not a thing that's for sale, exactly.

"Yes." He repeats.

"Oh, great! I'll just--" You start, and he interrupts you again.

"Yes, I do mind. Do not touch my music box." He says, and your body falls a little bit. You feel a tingle in your arm.

"Right. Well, the stuff that's for sale, how much? Do you take credit card...?" You ask, wondering if banking institutions even work now. Even if not, you have some cash on hand, so that should work...

Ippon-Datara looks at you like you are an idiot. "Magnetite." He says, loud and gruff as before. He goes back to hammering his prey.

"Magnetite, right, Magnetite..." You ask, and then turn to Zeed. "Do I know what Magnetite is? Like, have I seen it before?"

Zeed nods yes.

"Is it, like... a demon thing? Do I have some right now?" You ask Zeed. He nods yes again, and points to your arm, pantomiming you flipping your panel up. You do so, and flip through the various menus (most of them in some incomprehensible garbage script) with little twitches of your wrist until you get to the battery, whereupon Zeed stops you by tugging at your wrist. "Oh! Is Magnetite the black powder that comes out of dead demons?"

Zeed nods yes, with a little more vigor.

"Right, okay, it does look pretty Magnetite...y." You say to nobody in particular.

"Are you done yet?" Ippon-Datara asks impatiently. "Either buy something or leave me alone."

"Can you at least explain what any of this stuff is?" You ask.

"No." Ippon-Datara brusquely responds.

>"Seriously, how much for the radio?"
>Buy a serrated-looking sword thing. (-2 MP)
>Buy a small pile of white marbles. (-1 MP)
>Buy what looks like a perfect left half of a human skull. (-1 MP)
>Buy a small white ring. (-2 MP, -1 HP)
>Offer... alternative means of payment. (It won't work, but it will be funny, probably.)
>Why are you even bothering? Just shoot him in the face and take his loot. (-1 MP)
>This is a waste of time. Just leave and go do something else.
>Steal the radio and run. He's got one leg! How fast can he move?

>>5128661
Considering how blunt and to the point this dude is, he was probably very serious about the music box thing.

If we are gonna humor buying stuff
>Buy a serrated-looking sword thing (-2 MP)

Otherwise
>Why are you even bothering? Just shoot him in the face and take his loot (-1 MP)

>>5128661
>Buy a serrated-looking sword thing. (-2 MP)
Also say
>if you throw in the radio ill be sure to come back and bring more magnetite to trade with.

>>5128672
Also cant we maybe get another car radio to use as a replacement and get outlr gremlin to get it working as a substitute while we get to keep the ferrari radio?

>>5128672
+1, plus another thing
>>Offer... alternative means of payment. (It won't work, but it will be funny, probably.)
Show him dance moves and party tricks, we are in the apocalypse, so we might as well try to have fun

>>5128661
>Buy a serrated-looking sword thing. (-2 MP)

>>5128661
>Buy a serrated-looking sword thing. (-2 MP)
>Ask if he hunts people to make his stuff

>>5128851
Support.

File: 1455253799144.jpg (176 KB, 849x608)

176 KB JPG

>>5128661
>Buy a serrated-looking sword thing (-2 MP)
>Ask if he hunts people to make his stuff
REMEMBER THIS PLACE, FRIENDLY NPCS ARE IMPORTANT ESPECIALLY EQUIPMENT SHOP ONES

>>5129176
>>5129062
>>5128851
>>5128807
>>5128670
>>5128672
You are very dead set on getting the sword. First, though, you have to figure out how to actually get the Magnetite... out of you? You fiddle around with your arm for a bit, and eventually jumpscare yourself when the inner side of your arm, close to your thumb, pops open with a loud hiss. You feel a little static charge roll through your robot arm as one dense cylinder of compressed black iron filing stuff clunks out into your hand, followed by another. They're about the size of a D battery each, and probably about a pound per, a striking quantity of weight given their size. You could probably beat someone to death with them if you really put your mind to it.

You flip your arm back, closing the compartment that opened up, and listen quietly for the small whirring as your internal mechanisms shift and writhe around once more. You plunk the two cylinders of compressed Magnetite down on the edge of the Ippon-Datara's anvil. "Can I get the sword for this?"

"Sword?" The Ippon-Datara asks, clearly confused. You point to the thing that you are pretty sure is a sword. "Knife." He says.

"Can I get the knife for this much Magnetite?" You ask, feeling like a broken record.

"Yes." He replies, grabbing it and giving it to you gently. Now that you have a good close look at it, you are completely sure that this was a person's vertebrae at some point, and you feel a little gross holding it.

Acquired the Jaki Greatknife!

As soon as you grab it with your robot arm, it immediately dissolves into off-white sludge.

God damnit.

You stare at your hands for a second while the Ippon-Datara laughs at your expense, loud, raucous, and wheezing, like an old man. The goop slowly disappears into the crevices of your hand. You squeeze your palm together, and a moment later, something that looks similar enough in appearance to the knife you bought just sort of... slithers out of your hand? A nice, smooth grip with an exaggeratedly serrated edge, like one of those sword breaker daggers. It looks very slightly less like it's made out of someone's spine.

"Great. Glad you're satisfied with your purchase. Now get out." Ippon-Datara grumbles at you.

Your Devil Eraser has enough room for one Demonic Weapon at a time. Acquiring another one will erase the currently installed weapon. You can summon your Demonic Weapon and put it away at any time nearly, but not quite, instantaneously.

HP: 2/5
MP: 0/4

>"Wait, hold on. I still wanna trade for that radio. What do I gotta get you for it?"
>Rip out the radio with your new toy and just fucking bolt.
>Test out the Jaki Greatknife on Ippon-Datara.
>"Do you, like, hunt people down to make this stuff?"
>Free Option.

>>5130208
>"Do you, like, hunt people down to make this stuff?"
Sweet, that's actually worth it. Slash attribute stuff made of human materials would probably break.

>>5130208
ok as he says so sayanora
>leave

>>5130208
>Wait, hold on. I still wanna trade for that radio. What do I gotta get you for it?"

The fact it's repeatedly mentioned means it will be important

>>5130208
>"Thanks for the cool knife."
>Slide outta there and rip open the nearest car to look for a functional radio.

I rather stay on a shopkeeper NPC's good side.

>>5130249
+1, know what he wants and strive to get it

>>5130208
>"Wait, hold on. I still wanna trade for that radio. What do I gotta get you for it?"

If we can't trade it now, we could come later.
>"Thanks for the cool knife."
>Slide outta there and rip open the nearest car to look for a functional radio.

>>5130208
>go get a working radio and replace it with the ferrari one ala indiana jones. If all fails RUN

Apologies for the delay - QM's curse strikes again. Update sometime tomorrow probably.

>>5130249
>>5130685
>>5130525
"Wait, hold on. I still wanna trade for that radio. What do I gotta get you for it?" You say, bending down into a slight slavic squat, elbows on your knees.

He looks at you up and down. "Karakuri. Or a pipe."

You glance down at your silent companions, wondering what a Karakuri is. You riffle through your brain for information and come up blank. "So, something of equal value?" You ask, a little bit at a loss.

"That's how barter works, yes." Ippon-Data replies dryly. "If you're not going to replace my soothing music with more soothing music then you can at least give me something good to watch or use."

"Right." You reply, letting your Jaki Greatknife melt back into your hand.

Well?

>This is way too much effort, just bounce.
>No, we want to fulfill Gremlin's end of the bargain. Just kind of stumble into the radio and absorb it by accident, maybe?
>No, wait, if he's our merchant NPC like in one of our video games it'd probably be good to maintain a good working relationship with him. We'll go find one of his whatevers... as soon as we figure out where to look.
>Free Option.

>>5135835
>No, wait, if he's our merchant NPC like in one of our video games it'd probably be good to maintain a good working relationship with him. We'll go find one of his whatevers... as soon as we figure out where to look.
sounds good

>>5135835
>No, wait, if he's our merchant NPC like in one of our video games it'd probably be good to maintain a good working relationship with him. We'll go find one of his whatevers... as soon as we figure out where to look.
Pleasing two demons for the price of one? Sure.

Pat our robot arm thing and tell the Gremlin we'll be getting his radio soon, once we find whatever the fuck is a Karkuri is.

>>5135835
>No, wait, if he's our merchant NPC like in one of our video games it'd probably be good to maintain a good working relationship with him. We'll go find one of his whatevers... as soon as we figure out where to look.
Remind the Gremlin that that radio is not going anywhere, and he WILL get it, so he better be patient

>>5135835
>No, wait, if he's our merchant NPC like in one of our video games it'd probably be good to maintain a good working relationship with him. We'll go find one of his whatevers... as soon as we figure out where to look.
+1 to the general sentiment of "we'll get you your goods, Gremlin."

>>5135835
>No, wait, if he's our merchant NPC like in one of our video games it'd probably be good to maintain a good working relationship with him. We'll go find one of his whatevers... as soon as we figure out where to look.

>>5135835
>>No, wait, if he's our merchant NPC like in one of our video games it'd probably be good to maintain a good working relationship with him. We'll go find one of his whatevers... as soon as we figure out where to look.
A pipe ?

>>5135995
Either a smoking pipe, a pipe instrument, or a metal pipe.

I assume it's either the first or third one.

File: devilerasermap_2.png (3.87 MB, 3840x1827)

3.87 MB PNG

I swear to christ if this new medication doesn't actually do anything after the Two Months it takes for it to start kicking in and I have to suffer these side effects for nothing I'm going to fucking go ballistic.
>>5135848
>>5135886
>>5135961
>>5135975
>>5135995
"Right, well... I'll be back." You say. Ippon-Datara grunts at you as you exit the car, shutting the Ferrari's door behind you, summoning a burst of smoke and car exhaust that makes you cover your face in response. You cough a couple times, and when the smoke clears and settles, the Ferrari has vanished.

You have a feeling you'll be able to find it when the time comes. Still, your arm, or the Gremlin inside of it, whines quietly. You give it a comforting pat, which feels extremely weird, and Zeed looks around, bug-eyed as normal, trying to locate the vanished vehicle.

"Don't worry, lil' fella. I'll get you the good radio."

It chirps quietly. You check your phone to see if it has a GPS, by which you mean "you think at your arm to see if the phone you ate has some sort of GPS". It does, so you mark some locations of interest.

>Where to, and what's the plan?
>Fuck this, Gremlin will just have to live with a shitty radio for now.

>>5137402
It's a big picture! Full size it.

>>5137402
We should go to the antique shop (Dude seems like a pretty old hat demon, Karakuri is probably something pretty old), then swing by the Smoke Shop to try finding a smoking pipe.

Two prime locations (next to a secondary one, the art museum) and we can stop at our home base to resupply on the way over to the smoke shop (or the antique shop, wherever is closest)

>>5137410
support

>>5137402
>Antique Shop
Look for an apple store or something along the way, ipods aren't bad.

One of those camping stores or DIY stores would be pretty good, too. A laser pointer is pretty dangerous when amped up to demon levels, and some cooking equipment would be nice.

>>5137410
+1

Update tomorrow afternoon, too exhausted, sorry fellas

>>5139281
Np

As mentioned in my *other* quest, apologies in advance if the updates are a little lackluster for a bit. tl;dr I'm super, duper sick and it's making both writing and thinking about writing very difficult. Please bear with me, and thank you for your patience.

Also if any of you guys know any tinnitus cures please gibe tyvm
>>5137410
>>5137426
You decide that the most likely place to find this guy's "Karakuri", whatever it is, is probably at an antique store. He seems like an old fashioned kind of dude, you can't imagine you'd be unable to find something he liked there.

Quest in log and goal in mind, you, Zeed, and the Gremlin stuck in your arm all take off together towards the antique store that you know of vaguely by reputation - a place owned by a curmudgeonly old dude who supplies, inadvertently, a large amount of the city's druggies with their drug money. You wonder how he's doing.

Walking along the city streets is a desolate activity. You catch sight of a couple of people, but you both give each other a wide berth, watching them and their demon companions go about their business in what has starkly fallen into "post-apocalypse". So many shapes of creatures, some of which are genuinely just kind of hard to look at for one reason or another, it would feel almost like Shadowrun if it wasn't so kind of horrific, what with the bodies strewn about. Occasionally, a wild demon crawls onto a corpse and begins to harvest it for Magnetite, each one processing their meat in a different way than the last.

It's grisly. You also try to give the wild demons a wide berth.

Eventually, you come to the antique store - boarded up at the front, with a car pulled up in front of the door, and the shutters down, and the curtains on the windows. It's almost fortress-esque. You have no idea if anyone is in there or not, since you certainly don't hear anything...

>Just knock, dude.
>You've got a robotic demon arm. Bust the door down or something.
>Shout through the door?
>Free Option.

>>5142002
>Just knock, dude.
I rather not get shot at, thanks.

>>5142002
>Knock and talk. Demons generally have bad grammar, so that'll solve the getting shot problems.

>>5142002
>Just knock, dude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbQXtdu3to4

>>5142002
>knock but stay to the side out of the door way in case someone blasts through it.

>>5142002
>Just knock, dude.

>>5142002

>Shout through the door?


Just dont pay attention to tinnitus as usually it stops in a while.
I have had tinnitus for almost 20 years and most of the time i dont even notice it.

Hey OP i dont know if this will help or not. I play music and have had tinnitus butnit dissapeared after a couple weeks. How did you get it?
https://www.tinnitracks.com/en/therapeuticeffect

>>5143608
Likely stress and/or arthritis induced TMJ - basically, my jaw is fucked, similar to most other parts of my body.
>>5142960
Yeah it's been ongoing for like a year it just got way worse w/ the covid, probably due to me tensing up all the time.
>>5142272
>>5142171
>>5142139
>>5142115
>>5142003
You gingerly step around the car while your arm gently buzzes, Zeed keeping watch. His big black peepers gaze around in all directions, keeping vigilant watch like the world's most adorably unnerving owl. You squeeze into the space between the car and the storefront, a tight, narrow fit, and give the door just, y'know, a little knocky-knock. Nothing crazy. You just knock on the door.

"Hello? Anyone home? I'm human!" You speak, just loud enough to be heard, as you rattle against the door. While you expect some sort of bothersome challenge to overcome, perhaps a curmudgeonly "Fuck off!" from the old man inside, you are pleasantly surprised when the door just opens up and you fall inside, tripping over your feet. You manage to catch yourself with your robotic hand, only to look up and stare down the barrel of a pistol. "Oh, for fucks sake."

"You're fine. Get in." A wrinkly old man says, his voice destroyed from what sounds like years of chain-smoking cigarettes. You stumble inside, Zeed following in closely behind. A large, goat-like demon, basically round and at least three times as big as anyone else in the room, with piercing yellow eyes, stares the two of you down, and the old man shuts the door with the tinkling of a bell. "Whaddya want? I can't give you any ammunition, but I'll share what food and sundries I can spare."

>Thank him for his hospitality but say that you're here to see if he has a "Karakuri"?
>Look around and ask him if he has any old doodads or gizmos you can absorb into your freaky demon robot arm. Demonstrate said arm.
>Pester his demon.
>Ask if he's seen Ippon-Datara around.
>...Might as well share food if he's offering? Saves you from expending some of your own.
>Free Option.

>>5144986
>"Nah, just looking for what we think is an antique. Do you know what a Karakuri is? We're looking for one."
>Look around and ask him if he has any old doodads or gizmos you can absorb into your freaky demon robot arm. Demonstrate said arm. "I'll be willing to pay for 'em."
Rather just make this snappy and to the point. No point burning too much daylight.

>>5144986
>Look around and ask him if he has any old doodads or gizmos you can absorb into your freaky demon robot arm. Demonstrate said arm.
>Basically shopping for stuff demons want

>>5144989
+1 and "And who's that?" regarding who he has with him

>>5144986
Ask his demon if he knows where we can get karakuri

>>5144987
>>5144989
>>5145169
https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Karakuri

>>5145196
So its a toy automaton, ok that should be easy to find here

>>5144986
>Thank him for his hospitality but say that you're here to see if he has a "Karakuri"?
>Look around and ask him if he has any old doodads or gizmos you can absorb into your freaky demon robot arm. Demonstrate said arm.

>>5144986
>>Thank him for his hospitality but say that you're here to see if he has a "Karakuri"?
>>Look around and ask him if he has any old doodads or gizmos you can absorb into your freaky demon robot arm. Demonstrate said arm.

>>5145309
>>5146021
>>5144989
>>5145063
>>5145169
No point wasting time when you've got quests to fill. "Thanks, but I'm good on food - I'm actually looking for something specific. You got any, uh, "Karakuri"?" You ask, trying to find a place to lean on that doesn't look fragile. Most of the shelves have been cleared, and have gone from "stockpiles of antiques" to "stockpiles of canned food" just sort of out and about, and the smell of cooking meat permeates the air, albeit a meat that's somewhat... off smelling. Not rotten off, just... different off. It wafts down from above, presumably from the old man's apartment or something that's stitched to the top of the store.

"Karakuri...? Oh, like one of those old wooden robots." The old man says, rubbing his chin with thought. His demon companion stares at you while your arm pings gently with identification.

UNIDENTIFIED DEMON
NIGHT FOMORIAN

It growls at you. You give it a little bit of a wide berth, while the old man disappears into the back of his shop.

Zeed clings to your leg with one hand, grabbing your pants, while the Fomorian stares at you. You stare him back. He snorts derisively.

The old man comes out with a small box of some kind, maybe about both your hands put together, and pulls it up to the front. He opens the lid, revealing a small, Japanese-ish looking figurine, and then begins turning a crank on the back, causing the figurine to perform a small but intricate dance across the surface of the box, complete with a little bit of tinkly music. "It's not quite an actual full-size karakuri puppet, but it's not like those are very easy to come by these days!" The old man jokes, letting go of the crank and letting it go for about thirty seconds on its own while it slowly winds back down to a halt.

You make a mental note to yourself while you consider the options at hand to ask about his demon and also ask about "doodads you can absorb into your arm".

>"What do you want to trade for it? I've got food but you look pretty stocked up... Need any Magnetite?"
>"You got any small wounds that need patching up? I've got a healer, I'll trade heal for music box."
>"No, I'm not sure if that'll work... You know where I might be able to take a shot at getting a real thing? I assume this is kind of like a miniature?"
>Paralyze him, take it, and leave. (-1 HP)
>Free Option.

>>5146063
>"You got any small wounds that need patching up? I've got a healer, I'll trade heal for music box."

>>5146063
>"You got any small wounds that need patching up? I've got a healer, I'll trade heal for music box."
>"If that doesn't work, what do you want to trade for it? I've got food but you look pretty stocked up...Need any Magnetite?"

>>5146063
>>"You got any small wounds that need patching up? I've got a healer, I'll trade heal for music box."
>>"If that doesn't work, what do you want to trade for it? I've got food but you look pretty stocked up...Need any Magnetite?"

Taking my fatigue break for the week tonight. Catch you all tomorrow!

>>5146063
>>5146163 +1

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>>5146163
+1

>>5147133
rest well qm

>>5146162
>>5146163
>>5146169
"You got any small wounds that need patching up? I've got a healer, I'll trade heals for a music box." You say, gesturing to Zeed. "If that doesn't work, I'll cop you some Magneti--"

"Oh, don't worry about it." The man says, pushing the box towards you. "Take the damn thing, who's still around to sell it to?"

You blink at him a couple of times, and making sure to only grab it with your human arm, you stuff it in your backpack. "Uh. You sure? You have a thing I want, and, like... I might have stuff you need or also... want?"

The old man laughs at you. "Oh, you're a wee one, aren't you? No, I'll live without it."

"...You sure?" You ask again, incredulously.

"Yes. Food is still on the table if you want it. Metaphorically speaking." The old man replies, leaning on the counter, finger on his gun in a way that indicates a distinctly nonzero amount of experience with gun safety. You wave him away politely.

"I'm good on food at the moment, but I am curious -- who's the goat fella?" You ask, flicking your gaze towards Fomorian.

The hovering demon snorts derisively at you.

"Oh, he's just a little big fella from the old country." The old man says, reaching out to scratch Fomorian on the side of his belly. Unlike the chilly reception you've received, the goat-demon responds exceptionally positively to the attention from the old man, letting its eyes shut and nostrils widen for a moment before it hits you with a gust of chilly air.

Fomorian opens his mouth, and proceeds to say something in what you think might be... Scottish? Irish? Gaelic? Something from around that general area of Europe. Either way, you do not understand it. "Calls himself "Fomorian". Maybe so, but a great bit kinder than what the stories say."

"I'll say." You reply dryly. You glance at Zeed, who still seems nervous around the pacified Fomorian. "Oh, right, before I forget - you may notice that I have a very weird robotic arm thing. It has a tendency to eat anything mechanical I touch with it. You have anything you don't want that might be useful?"

"Do I got things I don't want-- you know what? Come to the back with me, sonny."

Pick some sort of small antique trinket or doodad from the late 1800s or newer you might expect to see in a house or attic - the Old Man *probably*, but not guaranteed, has it in stock and is willing to relinquish one for your weird robot arm, no questions asked.

>>5149080
Gonna throw some ideas out


>Discontinued Telescope. Too big and heavy to carry around, too weak for modern standards
>Fancy old rifle, with shiny engravings and not much power or ammo to speak of
>Old Style speaker, with technically functional vacuum tubes
>A sealed lead container. Inside is a collection of irradiated watch components and paint from the Radium Girls
>A "flamethrower", actually a chemical weapons launcher that stopped being used on account of being a war crime. No actual chemicals, of course.

>>5149080
Might as well spit out some ideas as well
>An antique camera, either something like pic related or a very early film camera like a Leica I
>Some old, rusty part of a T-Mobile or other ancient car. Preferably the engine
>An ancient air conditioning unit
>C'mon, this place probably has a typewriter too.

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>>5149099
shit, here's the image

>An Old brass Sailor's Sextant

>lets look for a music box that plays music when you open it and has a figurine

Will be at work tomorrow and likely have time to do an afternoon update at my desk, and will pick a thing then if there's no general consensus on "thing to jam into our arm".

>>5149080
An authentic arc lamp
A repeating rifle
One roll of old camera film
A seismograph
Some dynamite

>>5150006
in Devil Eraser, mystery box opens qm

>>5149099
>>5149088
>>5150079
>>5149666
You follow him to the back of the store in a sort of understated, gently nonplussed manner, with Zeed following closely behind. "You don't really seem surprised by the mechanical demonic arm thing." You quip, trying to make light small talk.

"Sonny, just today alone I have seen literal under-my-bed monsters that my Pappy used to tell me about come out of people's phones and bite them in half. I think the time for questioning things is long, long over." The old man says. You nod quietly at him. Point taken. "Most of what people sell me are not exactly what we'd consider "mechanical". Old plates, usually. The occasional haunted doll."

"Those things coming to life with the demon apocalypse?" You crack as he shuffles you into the back room where the shelves are stocked high and untidy with reams of stuff.

"No way. I call a priest to exorcise them and then I smash 'em to bits. You don't get as old as I do by playing games, sonny." He replies, grinning at you, his bald head gleaming in the light.

"Is that a joke?" You ask, unsure if he's joking or not.

He blinks at you a couple of times. "What do you think?" He asks, and you drop the subject both out of awkwardness and not actually knowing what to think.

You stand around, bouncing slightly on your heels like the ADHD-laden mess you are while he rummages around, whistling quietly to himself. After about 15 minutes of watching him dig into increasingly precarious piles of antique junk, he emerges like a diver from the seabed with precious treasure. "Here we are! Probably the only thing left that I think might be of any actual use for a spry young lad with a plan like yourself."

For a second, you want to ask him what he thinks your plan is, but your mild sense of intimidation prevents that sentence from going anywhere.

He gives you a polite little curtsey and presents...

>An old camera, the kind you need to cover your face with a black cloth for.
>A typewriter, still probably functioning if you give it the ink and ribbon, but who wants a typewriter?
>A vintage electric lamp - surprisingly, still with lightbulb, even if the cord doesn't fit anything modern.

>>5150511
>An old camera, the kind you need to cover your face with a black cloth for.

>>5150511
>An old camera, the kind you need to cover your face with a black cloth for.
typewriter might actually be really useful for talking to zeke and other demons tho

>>5150511
>A vintage electric lamp - surprisingly, still with lightbulb, even if the cord doesn't fit anything modern.

Im firin up my lazer
https://youtu.be/jMx1-yaRLyQ

>>5150511
>>A typewriter, still probably functioning if you give it the ink and ribbon, but who wants a typewriter?

>>5150511
>A typewriter, still probably functioning if you give it the ink and ribbon, but who wants a typewriter?

>>5150511
>An old camera, the kind you need to cover your face with a black cloth for.

Sorry, need to close up shop for this thread. Will try to get a new one out ASAP. Health took a sudden nosedive - I'm not dying but it's predictably hard to write in the condition I'm in. Stay safe, readers.

>>5153985
I shall sacrifice one chicken in the name of your health.

>>5153985
Np man stay safe as well.
We will return to kill with our gun-hand man

https://youtu.be/QW56IVU-mXw

>>5153985
It's all good, focus on resting up. Health comes first.

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>>5153985
Don't give up, you'll make it through one day

Does someone mind archiving this thread on suptg for us, w/ the same tags as the last one?

>>5155230
Nvm, got off my ass and did it

https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5107197/

>>5153985
Damn, get better Richard Watterson

>>5155230
I don't know how to do it, sorry

>>5155230
>>5155235
post it as lws.thisisnotatrueending.com from now on, that's the actual certificate link

So, after talking with my doctor more and taking an honest assessment of my health and condition, I'm afraid that Devil Eraser will have to go on a temporary but indefinite hiatus - as some of you may know, I am currently running two quests at once, and I don't really have the energy or time to do that anymore when I'm sleeping 16-18 hours a day.

Devil Eraser *will* return when I reach a point in Dragon Slayer Quest that I'm comfortable hiatusing *that* quest onto the cryogenic freezing shelf, and then coming back here. Maybe switching off each thread or something. Who knows?

Hopefully some day in the future my doctor can figure out what exactly the physical mechanism of what's wrong with me is and we can work on getting that fixed, and then I can go back to double fisting quests, but right now in the physical condition I'm in I'm afraid that's not happening.

Sorry, everyone. I appreciate your readership very much and hope some day soon to return to this quest! I have so many cool ideas for it...

>>5160169
no worries. it was good while it lasted.
get better

if you ever return with SMT Evil Eraser, hopefully i will be there for the thread.

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>>5160169
>sleeping 16-18 hours a day.
That's not fucking normal. Do brain scans and xrays. Your doctor better not be an incompetent fuck that's just "lol take these meds and see if they help, and give me more of your money" like most doctors these days that turn their patients into their personal test subjects. Fuck em.

I hope you can reach the healthy state you seek

>>5160169
Godspeed anon, hope you get better.
4chan and other shit can totally wait, taking care of your health is more important.

>>5160169
God dammit, that amount of hours is not normal, take good care, and you better return some day, we need to reach some day the thread number 100 where we kill god, but I will wait for it OP, have a good day

>>5161227
>>5160805
To be clear it's not a physiological/psychological need - I'm not that *tired*, but I am exhausted enough that doing most activities is significantly more difficult and napping is just an easy way to stop feeling exhausted and achey for a couple hours, like my brain's own fast travel system.