Souped Up - Journey to the Top

Every 5 years, the Mechampionships are held. Mech Pilots from all across the land join with their giant steeds, prepared to battle their way for a massive prize. One wish. A chance to change reality, time, space, whatever. The Wish Larva expels one of these every fifth year, and thus all society has become revolved around building and fighting mechs to claim the spherical, magic orbs that are released from the slimy, disgusting being that is the Wish Larva.

You are one such Pilot, yearning to climb to the top of the ladder and reach the chance to change fate. However, you have no mech. Oh no! How could this happen? And are you really a Pilot without a mech? Yes, you are. Being a Pilot is about believing, not about what you have.

What you do have, however, is a kitchen. About the size of a small home, it is your comfort and your shelter. It's also your life's work. For you see, it is a modular mech core. It can be upgraded with the proper materials, to create a towering hulk of physical power. However... the proper materials you need are large quantities of food.

Fortunately, this is not too difficult. The world you live in is filled with creatures made entirely of food! In fact, everyone is! You included!

Hmm. Speaking of, that's probably the top priority. Who are you?

Character Sheet (fill this in)Show

Name:
Primary Taste: (Salt, Sweet, Bitter, Spice, Sour or Umami. This determines your strengths and weaknesses, and is the core of your being. Also what food you're made of.)
Appearance: (Physical form. Made out of food, but is fairly open aside from that.)
Favourite Food: (Determines your class. Just put a food in here.)

Name; Bertie Cook
Primary Taste; Bitter
Appearance; A Giant Lemon with Exceedingly buff arms, wearing a bowler hat. Speaks in a Liverpudlian accent
Favourite Food; Fish'n'Chips

Name: Bi
Primary taste: Spice
Apperance: A bowl with a glass dome, with meat legs and meat arms. Has a vegetable hat.
Favorite food: Sisig

Name: James Cook
Primary Taste: Salty
Appearance: A relatively normal looking guy, wearing a white polo with lots of pockets. Feet are clawed and made of xenometal and are dexterous and prehensile.
Favorite Food: Flan

Name: Morgan Starbrook
Primary Taste: Sweet
Appearance: Dome-shaped blob composed of blue gelatin. Has tendrils that are made up of several highly flexible sticks of licorice bundled together that can be used for them to either get around places more quickly or to multitask. Has a 'core' in the center, which seems to be a rather large gumball.
Favourite Food: Rainbow sherbet with a side of sponge cake

Name: Grandma Smith
Primary Taste: Sweet
Appearance: roughly-humanoid agglomeration composed of creamed rice and prunes, strategically studded with werther's originals.
Favourite Food: Molasses

Name: Chicken Little
Primary Taste: Salty
Appearance: A small animate roast chicken. Wait, is this "made of food" or is this just straight-up necromancy?
Favorite Food: Pie, especially in large quantities

You are...Show

Name: Morgan Starbrook
Primary Taste: Sweet
Weakness: Sour
Appearance: Dome-shaped blob composed of blue gelatin. Has tendrils that are made up of several highly flexible sticks of licorice bundled together that can be used for them to either get around places more quickly or to multitask. Has a 'core' in the center, which seems to be a rather large gumball.
Favourite Food: Rainbow sherbet with a side of sponge cake.

Equipment:
Spongy Shield - +2 to Defending Rolls in normal combat, +1 to Attacking Rolls in normal combat. Tastes Sweet. Soft and plushy, but bounces back fiercely.
Chef's Hat - +1 to Cooking Rolls, and any Sweet-tasting Recipes you cook are stronger. Pink, poofy, and looks like a big cotton candy.

Spellbook:
Summon Macaron - You harness Sweet magics to create a moderately large, sentient Macaron of varying color and flavor. It doesn't do much other than leap angrily at enemies, but it's cheap. Costs 2 BP.
Icing Sugar - A cold and Sweet blast of powdery sugar gusts into a group of enemies, dealing a little bit of Sweet damage. Costs 3 BP.

Recipe Book:
Leguette - Using 200 Baking Materials, you bake a giant Leg-shaped sweet pastry to attach to your Kitchen and provide it with motion.
Farm Fresh - At the cost of 250 Baking Materials, you shape an entire Arm for your Kitchen out of bread.

Inventory:
Spongy Shield, Chef's Hat, Spellbook, Recipe book.

Your name is Morgan Starbrook, and you have an awfully flat kitchen. There are very few counters or tables, to accommodate for your particular stature. You keep a particularly sweet pantry stocked, with tools and basic ingredients suited to making ice cream, confectionery, sweet pastries, or whatever else you decide. You cannot stand the taste of Sour foods, and you have sworn off making them (Weakness: Sour added to Character Sheet.) Your Recipe Book, bare as it may be, contains a few Sweet Recipes, and... nothing else.

You love the taste of Rainbow Sherbet, with a side of Sponge Cake, and you'd say it's your favorite food (or, more suitably, food combo), and it's influenced a lot of your stylistic choices. Your entire flat kitchen is covered in rainbow paint with bouncy platforms for you to get around, convenient with your lack of legs. It also influenced your combat style, and you have trained in the ability to perform Candy Magic, a magic style which lets you manipulate the Sweet element to perform various spells (Spellbook added to character sheet). You also wield a Spongy Shield in your tendrils during combat, leaving it inside you when not in use (Equipment and Inventory added to character sheet.) You also wear a pastel pink Chef's Hat, standard garb for one of your profession.

Now that you have remembered who you were... because somehow you forgot, you should probably get to work on your Kitchen. But wait... What is your Kitchen like? It's flat on the inside, but it's been a while since you went out. What is the exterior like?

Oh, there's also your Fighting Style. For mech battles.

The exterior is a big sponge cake bouncy castle!

And your fighting style is to charge people with your deceptively soft outside, but then spike them with hidden candy lances!

The exterior... well, think 'giant snail' for this one, except in this case, the 'shell' is more like a giant, colorful bowl, while the 'snail' itself seems to be comprised of sponge cake. Originally, you were going make it more sherbet-based, but decided against it, mainly due to how much of a mess the rainbow slime trail would probably leave.

As for fighting style? Well, it's a somewhat defensive one, though not in the way one would think. No, instead of tanking, your main focus is on Counters. Be it returning missiles (or minions!) to sender or simply just kicking your foe's teeth in when they screw up, you know how to turn an enemy's attacks against them and give a little something extra in return!

Like a Castle from Ye Olden Times. Every Brick a Different Coloured Spongecake in a rainbow gradient , The Mortar made of Sherbert.
Your Fighting Style is based on the legendary (or should you say LEGendary) Martial art of Kickboxing. Every day since you were a wee little blob, You'd watched Tape after Tape of the Kickboxing legends, Determined that you would one day surpass them all. Unfortunately, the Leg fairy never did get around to bringing you any, so you resolved to make up for that by learning how to do it with your giant robot

The exterior is a bakery floating in space.

Attack Style:
Disable and Strike: You incorporate disabling moves and substances into your style. You would throw gums, dusts, and syrups to inhibit their senses and movement. You then strike them while incapacitated with various projectiles and attacks.

Kitchen SheetShow

Kitchen Core: Snail
Fighting Style: Disable and Strike

Special Moves:
Sugary Suplex: You attempt to lift the opponent above you, and smash their Core against the ground behind you. This is automatically successful against Disabled targets. This has a cooldown of 2 turns.
Honey Glaze: The cannon resting within your Kitchen extends, and fires an explosion of honey towards your opponent, rendering them stuck to the ground, and thus Disabled for 1 turn. This has a cooldown of 3 turns.

Passives:
Auto-Glazing Flour: Any bread you bake has a habit of turning into sweet glazed bread. This gives any and all Mech Attachments you bake that involve bread gain the Sweet Taste.

Your Kitchen's exterior resembles a Snail (Kitchen Core added to Kitchen Sheet), with a colourful industrial-strength ceramic bowl in a spiral shape containing an extended protrusion of spongecake. This protrusion is shaped like an extendable cannon, useful for your Fighting Style.

That is, Disable and Strike (Fighting Style added to Kitchen Sheet). You send sweet treats flying at your enemies from this long cannon, before rushing in to knock their lights out. You've practiced in simulations, and have devised a few special moves, although you're still very new (Special Moves added to Kitchen Sheet.)

You're quite proud of what you've done with fairly limited materials, even affording a few upgrades while you're at it (Passives added to Kitchen Sheet.) You, however, do not have any mech attachments. This is quite the issue, as you can't Pilot a mech with no legs. Or wheels. Or any sort of movement device.

No, you'll have to get to Scavenging. The Sourdough Canyons are a good place to start, as you'll find plenty of dough and flour there for beginner-level mech parts.

Although, there's also the Caramel Falls, a much more dangerous (and hot) area which could provide you with some more specialized ingredients.

Whatever you decide, you will need to do some exploring of the area to get the most out of your venture.

Caramel Falls. I think if we can make clever use of what abilities we do have, then we can at least get something of a leg up (no pun intended) on anyone else that's just as fresh as we are.

Sourdough Canyons.

After some hard decisions... you decide to go to the Sourdough Canyons, because even if you did get ingredients from Caramel Falls, would you know how to use them? Probably not. Thus, you pack your things, and begin sliding towards the West, where the Sourdough Canyons lie.

---

After travelling for some time, you arrive at the lip of the Canyons, and are astounded by the sight before you. Soft white powder travels in clouds across the treacherous landscape, whipping at the crusty, baked sand. There are no settlements for miles around, as these clouds cause some pretty bad pain to most people. Thankfully you don't really have a mouth... or eyes. Or much of anything like a face, really.

There is a fairly steep drop in front of you, but due to the intensive mining that occurred here in the late 70s, stairs down to the bottom have been made. How convenient! As you slip and slither down the stairs, you notice the large pillars stretching across the canyons, from one side to the other, are actually covered in small holes. As you watch them, a small insect pops out. Then another. And another. You begin moving more, in haste, as a torrent of insects stream along the pillar, moving from holes all across it to get to the other side. You see them picking the sugarfruits that grow on the canyon edges, and realize that these pillars are not natural formations. These insects formed them, and you worry about what might happen if you get too close to that horde.

Those sugarfruits are one of your prime targets, in fact. They contain an incredibly high amount of fructose, and have formed solid blocks of sugar with seeds inside rather than actual fruit! They make a powerful ingredient, if you can get to them. Sadly most of them are on one end of those pillars. You progress further down the stairs, and finally reach the lowest point. The dusty winds are strong here, making it a little harder to see, but not affecting you too much. The bottom floor of the Canyon isn't particularly interesting, as it's mostly just flakes of bread crust, but on the walls are many small pockets, containing a variety of interesting ingredients. There are also a few caverns around, which could lead to dangerous, yet profitable ventures!

Well, now that you're here, you grab your map out (Map added to Inventory), and look around.

Character SheetShow

Name: Morgan Starbrook
Primary Taste: Sweet
Weakness: Sour
Appearance: Dome-shaped blob composed of blue gelatin. Has tendrils that are made up of several highly flexible sticks of licorice bundled together that can be used for them to either get around places more quickly or to multitask. Has a 'core' in the center, which seems to be a rather large gumball.
Favourite Food: Rainbow sherbet with a side of sponge cake.

Equipment:
Spongy Shield - +2 to Defending Rolls in normal combat, +1 to Attacking Rolls in normal combat. Tastes Sweet. Soft and plushy, but bounces back fiercely.
Chef's Hat - +1 to Cooking Rolls, and any Sweet-tasting Recipes you cook are stronger. Pink, poofy, and looks like a big cotton candy.

Spellbook:
Summon Macaron - You harness Sweet magics to create a moderately large, sentient Macaron of varying color and flavor. It doesn't do much other than leap angrily at enemies, but it's cheap. Costs 2 BP.
Icing Sugar - A cold and Sweet blast of powdery sugar gusts into a group of enemies, dealing a little bit of Sweet damage. Costs 3 BP.

Recipe Book:
Leguette - Using 200 Baking Materials, you bake a giant Leg-shaped sweet pastry to attach to your Kitchen and provide it with motion.
Farm Fresh - At the cost of 250 Baking Materials, you shape an entire Arm for your Kitchen out of bread.

Inventory:
Spongy Shield, Chef's Hat, Spellbook, Recipe book, Map.

MapShow

┌╌╌╌╌╌N╌╌╌╌╌┐
╎/.................\``o```╎
╎C..................\``o``╎
╎`\...................|```╎
W`|...................|````E
╎``\.......0........|o```╎
╎```\...............C````╎
╎````\........S....\`````╎
└╌╌╌╌╌S╌╌╌╌╌┘
You are represented by the 0.

To the East, there are many openings in the Canyon wall, pockets of resources that may require some climbing. There are two Caverns near you, one to the East and one to the West. Rich in resources and danger! To your South is a Snake-like creature, which is essentially a living giant gummy worm. It hisses in your direction, but you can tell that it's friendly. Maybe it's his hat. He has a big straw hat.

You could also move further North or South, but you arrived from the North so there doesn't seem to be much point.

(Ignore the periods and graves. They're just filler.)

Before we head off and do some collectin', let's see what's up with the snake first. It'd be a tad rude to ignore him, especially seein' as he's callin' out to us. Besides, maybe he'll be able to tell us somethin' we might not know.

Let's start our search in the west cavern.

Before we head off and do some collectin', let's see what's up with the snake first. It'd be a tad rude to ignore him, especially seein' as he's callin' out to us. Besides, maybe he'll be able to tell us somethin' we might not know.

You head down towards the snake, and he hisses at you more. Once you approach, he begins to speak in a language you can actually understand.

"'Sssssup? I sssssee you're a Pilot. Why elsssssssse would you be here? Me? I'm here becausssssssse my friend, another Pilot, went in one of thesssssse cavessssss... Ssssssshe ssssstill hassssn't returned. It'sssss been a day. I don't know you, ssssso thisss might be a bit much to asssssk, but if you ssssssee her down there, pleasssssse bring her up?"

You jiggle affirmatively, as you don't really... have a mouth, but he gets the message, and thanks you, before leaving you to go on your way (Quests added to Mechanics.)

Let's start our search in the west cavern.

You head into the West Cavern, and find that the entrance is completely smooth. You end up sliding down the ramp quite fast, and end up many feet below the ground. You attempt to slide up the smooth hard bread ramp, but you're just too slippery.

Well, you're down here now. May as well see what else this place has in store for you.

---

Character SheetShow

Name: Morgan Starbrook
Primary Taste: Sweet
Weakness: Sour
Appearance: Dome-shaped blob composed of blue gelatin. Has tendrils that are made up of several highly flexible sticks of licorice bundled together that can be used for them to either get around places more quickly or to multitask. Has a 'core' in the center, which seems to be a rather large gumball.
Favourite Food: Rainbow sherbet with a side of sponge cake.

Equipment:
Spongy Shield - +2 to Defending Rolls in normal combat, +1 to Attacking Rolls in normal combat. Tastes Sweet. Soft and plushy, but bounces back fiercely.
Chef's Hat - +1 to Cooking Rolls, and any Sweet-tasting Recipes you cook are stronger. Pink, poofy, and looks like a big cotton candy.

Spellbook:
Summon Macaron - You harness Sweet magics to create a moderately large, sentient Macaron of varying color and flavor. It doesn't do much other than leap angrily at enemies, but it's cheap. Costs 2 BP.
Icing Sugar - A cold and Sweet blast of powdery sugar gusts into a group of enemies, dealing a little bit of Sweet damage. Costs 3 BP.

Recipe Book:
Leguette - Using 200 Baking Materials, you bake a giant Leg-shaped sweet pastry to attach to your Kitchen and provide it with motion.
Farm Fresh - At the cost of 250 Baking Materials, you shape an entire Arm for your Kitchen out of bread.

Inventory:
Spongy Shield, Chef's Hat, Spellbook, Recipe book, Map.

QuestsShow

SSSSS.O.SSSSSS. - Find and rescue the friend of Sssslithering Sssssammy.

MapShow

┌╌╌╌╌╌N╌╌╌╌╌┐
╎~~~................../```╎
╎~~.......0......../`````╎
╎~..................\`````╎
W\.....................\```` E
╎`\......?.....^......|```╎
╎``\....................\``╎
╎```\.....<>.?..........\`╎
└╌╌╌╌╌S╌╌╌╌╌┘
You are now in a Cavern.

To your west is a pool of Sweet, Sugary Syrup (~), which you could Collect to use as a Special Ingredient later on. There are a few unknown (?) things lying around, but you could Investigate them further. A stalactite of Salted Caramel sticks out of the ground (^), and what... seems to be a gem made of... sugar? (<>). Mysterious. Of course, you can still venture to the North or South.

My, my. Lots of things to check out! Since the syrup pool probably isn't going anywhere, we can collect that later. I think first priority should be to check out the unknown thing nearest to the stalactite. And speaking of... maybe see if we can't break it off? Afterwards, next thing do do would be to check out the Sugar Gem and the mystery object that's almost right next to it.