Hunt for the White Angel

The Hunt for the White Angel involves Sophia Delphi, Angela Harrison, Kristoph Langusten and Joshua Harrison searching for a mysterious vigilante in the Oraulan East Condemned Zone.

Receipt of Intel

While the reward money Sophia and the others received from defeating the Cult of Kronos helped to cover the legal fees for Mimi Delphi's fight against Virtuoso, they were still left with one other problem. Sophia, Angela and even Kristoph had all accrued signficiant student debt ever since they enrolled into the University of Oraulan. While they somehow managed to juggle their studies and coursework, all of them were having trouble keeping up financially. Having started to fall behind, Sophia, Angela and Kristoph began taking odd jobs. Sophia began accepting offers for Rampant cleaning services, Angela would conduct vrNet broadcasts based on the Dreaming Kingdoms online game, and Kristoph would freelance as a programmer for Sundew Foundation. Meanwhile, Joshua Harrison continued his job as a club bouncer for the Onion Arcade. The four of them would try to meet at Mimi's Milkshakes once or twice a week, but their busy lives made it difficult for them to keep in contact for long.

In the Oraulan East Condemned Zone, life continued among the ruined towns and the wastelands. Rumors began to spread about a mysterious vigilante known as the White Angel who would provide food and supplies to those in need before quickly vanishing. The White Angel had become a folk legend although the criminal underworld knew that this figure was more than just a legend. Whoever this White Angel was had been interfering with various illegal operations, including that of the Cult of Kronos.

While at the Onion Arcade, Joshua received a tip off from the Federation based on some information revealed in an interrogation session of the captured Cult of Kronos members. The Federation had on good authority that the true identity of the White Angel was none other than Seraphina Harrison, Joshua's wife. Joshua had presumed she died during the Virtual Wars but the possibility that she might still be alive shocked him. The Federation naturally was not able to intervene, but Joshua could not ignore it any longer. He decided to set off back into the Condemned Zone alone to try to find her. While he did tell Angela, he wanted her to stay behind to focus on her studies.

While Angela was understanding, even Sophia and Kristoph had noticed her mood change, now knowing the possibility that her mother might still be alive. Sophia and Kristoph reassured her that Joshua knew what he was doing, but after two weeks, Joshua had yet to return home. At that point, they were starting to get worried that something had happened to him. Sophia with Twinkle at her side, Angela and Kristoph decide to meet up again, this time going to the Onion Arcade to ask Lindon and Ara MacKenzie to see if Joshua had told them where exactly he was going. They shared the same intel with them as they did with Joshua, and they were able to follow.

Back into the Condemned Zone

The team retraced the steps they took during the Raid on the Cult of Kronos. They visited Lycanton again then went to Hope. Considering Hope was Angela's hometown, it was one of the best places to start their search. From that point forward, they had to travel further into the Condemned Zone than they ever did before. With Twinkle's help, they were able to survey the land and examine recent activity to find out which way he could have gone.

Surveying the area eventually leads them to the remains of a national park, a dark forest scorched by the fires of the Virtual Wars. A local murder of crows made its home in the area. Sophia asked the crows if they had sighted the White Angel or Joshua. The crows were hesitant to answer as they warned of another danger: an exiled commander from Taranis who had been stalking the Condemned Zone. Angela shared some of packed rations she brought with her to offer to the crows as payment for providing information. They obliged and offered a vague hint that Cistern Town tended to have a lot of sightings of the White Angel. It could be reached by going south then slightly to the east.

The path to Cistern Town would be dangerous. The team found themselves having to cross through partially flooded urban ruins. The nearest path around it would take them many more miles to cross, and that was not an option given how worried they were over something having happened to Joshua. It would be risky, but they had little other choice.

While navigating the ruins, some of the structures they had to climb on were unstable. When Sophia attempted to cross a gap by jumping to a roof, the roof collapsed beneath her, and she slipped and fell into the polluted water below. A nearby Ferogator with its sights set on Sophia as its next prey began to swim towards her. Sophia made a mad dash to get out of the water while Kristoph tried to slow the creature down with his nanobots. Angela threw out her whip for Sophia to grab onto, allowing her to just barely made it out of the water in time before the Ferogator snatched towards her with its jaws. Kristoph shaped his nanobots into that of a large tiger and succeeded in scaring it away.

Upon swimming to shore, however, Sophia found a giant leech attached to her leg. Acting as swiftly as possible, Angela took care to pry the leech from Sophia. While Sophia was okay for now, she would eventually need a more thorough examination later according to an analysis from Twinkle. Outside of the Ferogators and leeches, the waters of the Oraulan East Condemned Zone were filled with disease and flesh eating bacteria. It would not be long before Sophia began displaying fever-like symptoms, but she insisted that she keep going.

After progressing further, the group found themselves ambushed by a horde of Rampants. They were able to hold them off, but Sophia eventually began to succumb to the fever and she had to take a pause, leaving Angela and Kristoph to handle the remaining Rampants. They could not keep it up for much longer as the horde was unusually relentless, showing no signs of slowing down. Angela tired out while Kristoph was exhausting the last bits of his nanobot supply. In the nick of time, however, a mysterious figure showed up detonating a sonic device that dispersed the Rampants. A woman clad from head to toe in white tactical armor, a cloak and a hood had appeared, inviting the group to follow them. She helped Sophia back onto her feet, telling her she would get proper medical treatment soon. This figure was the rumored White Angel.

Cistern Town

The White Angel led them underground to a spacious cistern filled with makeshift shelters, tents and other structures. It was a place filled with refugees and other wandering individuals who had taken shelter in the area. Sophia was placed to lay down on a cot where several nurses would get to work treating her of the fever symptoms. The White Angel then removed her helmet, revealing her face. It was Seraphina Harrison, Angela's mother. Seraphina and Angela shared an embrace having finally reunited for the first time in years. Angela asked about where Joshua was. While Seraphina did have the chance to meet him, he had gone back out into the Condemned Zone tracking down a Sylph named Damien Alabaster, a disgraced Taranisian necromancer who had been terrorizing Cistern Town with armies of Rampants. Years ago, this was the same person who destroyed the town of Hope. Joshua had remained in the Condemned Zone for as long as had as he felt he couldn't leave due to Cistern Town being under threat, and he was unwilling to let Cistern Town suffer the same fate as Hope.

In the meantime, while Sophia recovered, Angela and Kristoph decided to help tend to the refugees and collect supplies. Angela had a practical chance at being a medic to help people in need. Seraphina also had a moment to share some stories about having met Joshua as well as some of the dates they went on. They also had the opportunity to hear of her first date with Joshua at a pizza parlour from her perspective. Seraphina went into a lot more detail than Joshua had before, sharing their delightful and sometimes awkward interactions with one another.

A short time later, Joshua returns from having been away, having come to warn Seraphina about an impending attack on Cistern Town. He is utterly shocked to see Sophia, Angela and Kristoph there, almost chastising them for getting involved. However, he can't deny that their presence is helpful. As it turns out, Damien Alabaster is trying to resurrect a Goliath machine that went dormant after the Virtual Wars ended. This is all while Damien prepares to lay siege with an army of Rampants. They were going to have to split up between tracking down Damien versus defending Cistern Town.

Sophia was still a bit sick, but she recovered just enough to move around. She volunteered herself to take on the Goliath as her technokinesis was the only tool the team had on hand that would be effective enough. Kristoph decided to join her looking to help her slow down the Goliath. Joshua, Seraphina and Angela decided to stay to defend Cistern Town.

The Goliath

Sophia and Kristoph went ahead, following the towering silhouette of the now awakened Goliath. An army of Rampants stood between them and the target, and they tried to take out as many as they could along the way before too many would reach Cistern Town. They hoped to thin them out a little so that the Harrisons would not have to deal with too many of them. Of course, their priority was the Goliath. It was a towering humanoid machine capable of firing out streams of molten metal from a cyclopian-like eye.

Sophia thought to use the same technique of taking down the Goliath as she did with the nanogoo. However, she needed to get close enough to its cranial processing unit. Kristoph found a way to help by creating a series of nanobot platforms that Sophia could hop up, circling around the machine until she climbed to the very top. Holding on as tight as she could, she projected herself inside of the Goliath into its mindscape and fought through the antivirus systems. After shutting off some critical systems, the Goliath froze in place, toppling over and crashing to the ground. Sophia had fallen off, unable to break her fall, but just in time, Kristoph caught her using nanobots in the shape of large hands.

Sophia complimented Kristoph for his quick thinking, although Kristoph thought in hindsight that he could have prevented her from falling into the swamp earlier had he been fast enough. Sophia told him not to worry about it, admitting that she had probably gotten a little clumsy. Ultimately, she reassured him that perhaps everyone will get the chance to learn from their experiences.

With the Goliath dispatched, they would hurry back to Cistern Town to help reinforce their defenses though it would take some time for them to get back.

Damien's Ultimatum

Meanwhile, back at Cistern Town, the Harrisons had been holding the line against the Rampant incursion. It was not long before Damien Alabaster himself showed up, now having surrounded them. At this point, Seraphina, Angela and Joshua had been pushed to the brink of exhaustion and the defenses were slipping. Damien himself eventually showed up and demanded they surrender. He proclaimed that he would stop the siege only if Seraphina turned herself over. Naturally, Seraphina refused. Damien, however, noticed that her daughter was now present. So instead, Damien chose to target her directly. He summoned an entity made of hardlight known as Franzo the Clown, a surviving consciousness upload of a twisted psychopath that had kidnapped Angela as a child from which her father rescued from. Apparently, Damien had found his remains while scouring the Condemned Zone and collected his "soul".

Seeing a nightmarish figure from her childhood startled Angela, causing her to freeze in place and flashback to her time in captivity. Franzo the Clown in life had been abducting children to place them in a virtual reality circus to force them to play games where if they died in the game, they also died in real life. In that moment of hesitation, Angela became vulnerable, and Franzo the Clown managed to grab her and point a gun to her head.

Naturally, Joshua cursed out Damien calling him a coward. After Damien began to count down before shooting Angela, Seraphina surrendered, begging Damien not to hurt Angela. Damien accepted the terms of the surrender and began to gloat about his victory. He pointed his own gun at Seraphina, about to execute her.

Just when Damien pulled the trigger, something distracted him, so his shot missed. Sophia and Kristoph had returned with a surprise attack. Kristoph used some makeshift nanobot platforms to fling Sophia into the air as she was sent barreling towards Damien with both her palms full of burning plasma. This knocked Damien to the ground, and Joshua followed up this opportunity by using his katana to cut off Damien's cybernetic arm which he was using to control the other Rampants. He then followed up with a slice through the chest, finishing him off.

Sophia and Kristoph helped to mop up the remaining Rampants, while Angela had broken free of Franzo's grasp. She used her whip to grab the gun from the hardlight construct, then repeatedly shot Franzo over and over again even as he collapsed into a pile of glass. Sophia, realizing the state of rage Angela was in, grabbed hold of her trying to calm her down. Damien, who was just barely alive enough to witness what happened, smirked how he had managed to traumatize Seraphina's daughter as one last act of spite. As he died, he proudly proclaimed that Angela was going to find herself down the vigilante path soon and that her actions would cause people to get hurt.

Seraphina had gotten up, but the gunshot from Damien had grazed her abdomen. Thankfully, the wound was not fatal and with the rest of the group's help and Seraphina's instructions, she was able to recover. While the others fetched various supplies, Angela took the lead in providing the actual medical treatment, putting her skills to practical use.

Aftermath

Cistern Town was saved despite a few casualties among the refugees, and Damien Alabaster would no longer threaten this part of the Condemned Zone. Angela got physically ill from processing everything that happened to her, and she wondered if she should be pursuing the vigilante life at all. Seraphina reassured her that her help was crucial in saving the town, with Sophia and Kristoph adding that it was all a team effort. Joseph was especially relieved that he had the chance to exact vengeance against the man responsible for tearing apart his family, but dreaded the idea of putting Angela in danger.

After having the chance to rest up, the group was ready to return home. However, Seraphina said she was not ready to leave yet, and the people of Cistern Town needed her help a little while longer. She made a promise that she would one day come home, and gave Angela a small token to take back with her: a figurine from Francesco's Pizza and Pasta depicting the restaurant's mascot that she had held onto ever since Angela was a child and before the town of Hope was destroyed.

Sophia, Angela, Kristoph and Joshua met back at Mimi's Milkshakes for a chance to refresh themselves. They also talked about the idea of taking a vacation after such an excrutiating mission. Joshua asked Angela to reconsider the vigilante life, but Angela reaffirmed that her goal in life was to find ways to help people. The rest of the group chimed in they were happy to be there for one another as needed. But for now, Sophia, Angela and Kristoph had some studying to catch up on.

When Joshua returned to work at the Onion Arcade, he asked Ara MacKenzie for a quick favor: to deliver a pizza to a specific set of coordinates in the Condemned Zone. With the help of Mimi Delphi and a few other friends, they recreated the exact recipe used in the old Franceso's Pizza and Pasta restaurant. Ara MacKenzie then flew for miles all the way to Cistern Town to deliver the goods to Seraphina. A full medium-sized pizza as well as an enclosed note from Joshua with other messages from Sophia, Angela and Kristoph.