Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 4:29:16 GMT -5
Amidst the shifting and turning of the tranquil Emerald Sea, Lorelei slept. >Scion: Dream Prospit brought no relief from the depression that dogged Lorelei's steps. It followed her like a cloud as she walked--walked, not floated--to the window of her tower and gazed out upon the city. Before, driven by curiosity, the young scion would have taken flight from her tower, to explore once again this beautiful golden planet. Instead, she simply walked over to her bed and flopped down on her back with a sigh. Time passed. How much time, Lorelei could not say. Rather than the normal buzz of activity, her mind and thoughts were utterly blank, a void. She lay there in a nigh vegetative state, neither sleeping nor thinking, merely existing. The tick-tock of a nearby clock chronicled the slow but inevitable march forward of time. Lorelei might have lain like that for the whole of her nap, had a simple thought not pierced the void. It was nothing profound, she merely began to spot the different constellations represented on her ceiling which, much like her waking self's room, was painted with a perfect representation of the night sky. For a few minutes, she passed the time by finding and naming each constellation: here was Orion, there the Big Dipper, and onward. Then, her thoughts--now unchained from the void and free to race about as they pleased--turned to Dahlia and Gita. With a little tinge of guilt, she realized that they both likely would be jealous of this, and her family life in general. Thoughts on her friends and family brought her mind to Brigitte, her mother in all but blood, and she remembered an old piece of advice given to her long ago: "Whenever you're feeling down or depressed, never hesitate to go to those close to you. A listening ear to hear your troubles or a comforting hug can always help your problems, so long as you let them know that you need it." Lorelei made a long, grimly resolute sigh. " You're right, Mama... I know you're right..." she muttered to herself. " I'd be disrespecting your memory if I just stayed like this, wouldn't I...?" She half-stood up from, half rolled off her bed and dragged her feet over to her computer chair. She took a quick scan of those online to pesterchum--all those who survived, depressingly few of those actually on her list of friends. She only needed a few moments to decide who would be best to contact: Gita. More than anyone else, Gita would know the pain and guilt that came with accidentally harming another. Though she had never killed like Lorelei had--a fresh wave of shame and depression washed over Lorelei just thinking about it--she had accidentally tried to kill her own best friend in a psychotic episode. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] began pestering jeremiadMalacophony [JM] -- {Spoiler}PQ: Gita, are you busy? PQ: I PQ: I kind of really need someone to talk to... JM: Fortunately for you, I'm unconscious. What can I do? PQ: Heh, me too. I'm... on Prospit now. PQ: And PQ: I don't even know where to start telling you what happened... PQ: But I've gotta talk to someone about this or I'm just going to... PQ: I don't know. JM: Just go on. If nothing else, I can be a listening ear. PQ: Right... I mean, that's why I'm talking to you. I think... Well, you might understand this feeling more than anyone else. I guess. PQ: I don't know, that might be really presumptuous considering what happened. PQ: But... PQ: I PQ: I PQ: I killed someone. PQ: I killed someone! PQ: It was an accident I didn't mean for it to happen but I killed a consort he got shot straight through the heart and he didn't even die in my arms he died before I could pick him up I'm covered in his blood and PQ: And I JM: God, Lore, that's awful. I'm sorry it happened. JM: Was it in a fight? If you even want to talk about the details, that is. PQ: It PQ: Yeah. PQ: It's a long story, though, but...well, I guess you're on Derse anyway so you're not busy... PQ: There were these PQ: These caverns PQ: That the angels I was training under sent me to. PQ: And it was the most horrifying thing I've ever witnessed, when I went down into them. PQ: It was so dark, I couldn't see... PQ: My magic didn't work PQ: There were all these whispers and I kept getting these insane thoughts in my head, and I would just start apologizing for nothing or beg forgiveness over and over again when I had done no wrong. PQ: And then I PQ: I saw someone. PQ: Something. PQ: This... PQ: This THING that PQ: Well, I smelled it before I saw it, it was like...urine and fecal matter, the smell. Like someone who had PQ: who had DIED and voided their bowels PQ: And I saw this thing, hanging by a noose, that PQ: It was Adelle. JM: Oh. JM: Oh. Augh. Fuck. JM: I seem to be out of words. PQ: It's ok. PQ: I mean PQ: What can anyone say to that? PQ: Well, I PQ: She kept PQ: kept saying "Don't leave me," "Don't leave me alone again," and... PQ: And PQ: And I just PQ: fell to my knees, I started crying, I've never been so terrified in my life, and she just sort of leaned forward and touched my cheek. PQ: Her skin was so cold. It was PQ: It was just like when I felt her forehead at her open-casket funeral and PQ: I finally managed to run, I chickened out and I ran and I'm never ever going back no matter how much this god damn troll keeps wanting me to. JM: Forget the troll. You block her, I'll stab. PQ: NO PQ: No more blood having to do with me PQ: And she means well anyway PQ: No more death no more blood no more I can't PQ: *sigh* PQ: That was overreacting, I know you were exaggerating. JM: Sorry. There really aren't any perfect words to make a situation like this better. JM: There are these, at least. *hugs* PQ: Thank you. I kinda wish I actually had someone here with me to hug, but that kinda helps. PQ: I guess I just PQ: Need to tell this whole thing to someone. PQ: After I escaped, I was flying away, over an ocean, and my magic just PQ: just STOPPED. PQ: I fell into the water, and then was rescued by a ship. PQ: A group of consorts fighting the monsters because of me. PQ: They got into a battle with another ship, and I was PQ: trying to get the damned drill to work, and it wouldn't PQ: But then it did, far more powerfully than I had expected, and unstable and PQ: It PQ: It destroyed the enemy ship but PQ: A little turtle PQ: His name was Larent PQ: He died PQ: It's all my fault, I failed, he died, I'm a horrible person, it's my fault... JM: That sounds more like an unfortunate accident, than it does like it was your fault. JM: Like you just said: unstable. Unexpected. PQ: It's my fault it was unstable, though! PQ: I should have controlled it. I don't know what happened, I still don't PQ: The god damn thing still won't work PQ: I guess I'm just failing in everything at this point... JM: Everything? JM: Given everything *else* I've seen you accomplish recently, 'a failure' is not something I'd call you. JM: The rest of today...you've had the day from hell. It's awful. It sucks. I can't sugarcoat that. JM: But when we screw up like this, there's only one thing to do next. JM: Never forget what you did, so you'll be sure it won't happen again next time. Learn control. Figure out what doesn't work, and throw it out. JM: You can't beat yourself up about this forever, Lore. PQ: I guess PQ: I guess you are right... PQ: I mean, I know you are right. Logically. I just PQ: I just wish he could have known how sorry I was before he died... JM: That's the thing about death, isn't it? JM: Leaves so much unfinished, and so many full of regrets. JM: Did you know the turtle before he died? PQ: No. PQ: I did not know him at all. PQ: I wish I had... PQ: There was another, Alder. He died in the fighting itself. I PQ: I saw his body. Half of his head was blown off by a cannonball. The brains were leaking out and there was so much blood... PQ: It was horrifying. PQ: I will never understand how men and women were able to kill each other throughout history, because seeing that has soured me of any potential desire to see the death of anyone... PQ: I wonder if it is even worth it, to stand against Zeus, given all the lives that may be lost... JM: Are you seriously asking me whether or not it's worth it to stand up and fight, instead of rolling over and just letting all that happen? JM: Really, Lorelei? JM: Is that what I'm hearing here? PQ: Yes. PQ: It is just... PQ: So many mourning wives, so many orphaned sons, so many souls extinguished like a doused candle flame... PQ: It was all so abstract to me, until now, the kind of sacrifices that would be made. PQ: If they were all MY sacrifices, I would not hesitate. I would push through, bear it, comforted in the belief that even if I failed, the attempt would be noble. PQ: But how can I decide for...for so many others? How can I lead them and sway them with my words to resist, knowing that some will gladly die for this cause? How can I convince them to DO that? Is anything worth that price...? JM: No one who signs up for something like that doesn't know their life is on the line. They've been suffering and oppressed all this time, remember? JM: Knowing that you're not the only one taking a stand makes risk and hardship easier to cope with. PQ: I guess you are right. PQ: I guess I am not forcing anyone, anyway... PQ: I shall simply...do what I can to help, I suppose, and make sure as few of them are hurt as possible. PQ: And act as their leader, I suppose. PQ: It is my burden to bear, because no one else can. JM: Now there's the Lore I recognize. PQ: Hehe. PQ: I am also going to bury them at my mansion. PQ: I suppose for the same reason John was buried there as well. PQ: If I truly am going to be a leader (or "friendleader" as you called me :P) then it is my cross to bear, the deaths of those who follow me. PQ: So I will not forget any of them, and strive to make so it is not in vain. JM: And that's the other thing you do about death. JM: You remember. JM: So see, you've got this pretty much figured out. PQ: Heh, I guess so. I just...needed someone to talk to, really. PQ: I am still not feeling perfect, but...better. PQ: Thank you, Gita. Truly. You are a wonderful friend. JM: Anytime. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] ceased pestering jeremiadMalacophony [JM] >Scion: Wake up No sooner had she ceased the conversation with Gita than she was yanked back into her waking self, being shaken awake by Captain Sully. "Scion, we've made port," he said, gesturing with a nod of his head towards the bustling port city they had docked into. Lorelei stood slowly up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. " I suppose this is where we shall part ways, then?" She smiled softly and extended her hand. " It has been an honor, Captain. I am sorry the Scion of Hope likely has not lived up to expectations." Sully snorted and shook his head. "Nonsense." He placed his small paw in Lorelei's palm, and the two shook. "The honor's mine. And before you go, don't forget to say goodbye to these little wotters too," he said, grinning widely and gesturing with his head to her left. All of the crew on the ship had joined in a semi-circle around the two, staring up at the young Scion who was about to leave their presence. For the first time since she had gone to the caverns, Lorelei's lips curved up into a wide grin. She knelt down in their midst, and hugged all of them.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 4:30:44 GMT -5
Amidst the delicate snowfall and underneath a towering pine tree in the Land of Gold and Snow, Grandfather slept. >Grandfather: Dream Years in the Past, Many... The crisp autumn air in fair Switzerland brought on its winds the first snowfalls of the year. Soft, delicate, harmless...and yet, Frederick--who would, later in his life, become a Grandfather--remembered that the Japanese often associated snow with death. Frederick felt a chill go down his spine, and knew that it was not simply due to the weather. The young man, hair and beard full and black as pitch, standing in his impeccable black suit on the rooftop of a tall corporate building that he owned-- he owned, no one else, God damn it all!--glanced down at his golden Rolex watch with a frown. "I have a very bad feeling about this..." No sooner had he muttered those words then he heard the door creak open and shut with a curt slam. He turned to face the man behind him. Tall, agile, thin as a rake, every bit as impeccably dressed as Frederick himself. Hair blonde and impeccable, eyes a deep blue, features like they were chiseled straight from hard stone. A face Frederick had known and loved since his earliest childhood days. Now, cold and harsh, as if he truly WAS built from naught but stone. He wore a sword around his waist, much as Frederick did. A sad day when friends must come armed to a meeting with each other. "Frederick." Cold, so cold, too cold. "Adalrich," Frederick greeted, just as terse, not as cold. The two men, separated by an expanse of snowy concrete before them, stared into each other's eyes for a few moments that felt like separate eternities for each one. It was Adalrich who broke the silence. "I suppose we're here to do the old song and dance one last time. We each try to convince each other, and it never works out." "I have to try..." Grandfather gestured towards him with both hands, palms upward. "Look at you... Look at what you have become..." His voice cracked as he said the next bit, but he soldiered forward anyway. "D-Did you not tell me when we were children that you believed in me, that I would set right what was wrong?! And now look! I am trying to do just that, and you stand against me, the one man I thought would always be with me in this endeavor!" "Which should be a clue as to how wrong you are!" Adalrich shot back, the cold largely gone from his features, earnesty replacing. "I would always stand beside you if you were in the right, but you aren't! We were young fools when we made those promises, Frederick! Naive, ignorant... We told tales of great injustices so we would have villains to slay! This is the real world, Frederick, not some fairy tale!" "I have shown you all the evidence I have compiled, it is irrefutable! All these...these tricks and underhanded subconscious messaging... Radio, tv, none of it is safe! I have SEEN the evidence, it is worse than what we thought as kids! Evil men doing evil deeds is not the stuff of fairy tales, Adalrich, or do you believe Herr Hitler was a fairy tale as well? Is Stalin, who has taken over much of Europe, naught but an imaginary monster we created for ourselves? If there is nothing wrong going on here, why have I been accosted by numerous assassins?!" Somewhere along the way, the two had begun circling each other, like dogs sizing each other up before a fight. "Because you're threatening the power of many influential people! I don't know who sent the assassins, we'll find out and get rid of them, but that doesn't damn us all! And I've told you, many times, that all that poppycock about subliminal messaging was sheer quackery, false science... How can you not see that?!" "It is in the books!" Frederick threw up his hands in frustration, raising his voice even further. "The account books and there are memos on it! I did not want to believe it for the longest time, but it is impossible NOT to believe given all I have uncovered! The deals with governments, even the vile Soviets themselves, the plots on radio and television, it's all there..." Frederick stopped his circling, and turned away. "I have showed you it all... I suppose it's useless, in the end. And again, you remain unconvinced in the face of the most damning evidence." " Frederick...look at me..." Warm, so warm, as warm as he had always been before all this. Frederick turned around and looked in his old companion's eyes. " Trust in me. All that is planted or some sort of misunderstanding, I know it." He held out his hand for Frederick. "Trust in me, as we trusted in each other long ago." He wanted to. He never wanted anything more in his entire life. Every fiber of his being cried out to trust in Adalrich, and for a solid minute Frederick stayed silent, staring at the offered hand. He wanted to be reconciled with him again, wanted to see him smile again. That smile, more than anything else, was what Frederick wanted. Accepting would make him smile. In the end, isn't that enough? Trust in him... And yet, when his decision was made, he turned his back once again to his old companion. "I'm sorry, old friend... But I made a promise to someone, long ago. Mountains crumble and gods die, but a Von Hayek does not break his promises." He heard the sickening sound of steel sliding from its sheath. He turned, and saw Adalrich reluctantly, yet forcefully, pointing his blade at him. An icy chill ran down his spine, and a pain as much physical as it was emotional pierced his heart through. "No..." Frederick took a step back, shaking his head. "No, don't do this, don't do this!" Cold, so cold, too cold. "I must." And in those frigid blue eyes, though it tore him apart to do so, Frederick found the strength to resist. "It seems the man I once cared for is dead, then..." Steel sliding against sheath, and both men were armed. "I will do what I must." "You will try..." A gust of wind, a clash of steel. Block, parry, thrust, the whole of the fight was naught but a blur to the young scion of the Von Hayek line. The final hope for the redemption of his empire was on the line, and though it pained him Frederick fought with all the force and resolve he could muster. He had made a promise. Von Hayeks do not break promises. A sickened groan, a splash of blood. It covered everything: the pure white snow that coated the roof on which they stood, the blade that was Frederick's by right as a Von Hayek, the hands of the killer that shook like leaves in the wind. Adalrich lay in Frederick's arms as the life slipped from his eyes. Tears flowed down the scion's and fell like tiny raindrops upon Adalrich's cheeks. "Do you regret it...?" Frederick choked out. "Dying like this...?" Adalrich smirked, and raised a weak, trembling hand to place it on Frederick's shoulder. "No more...than you would if you had died for your cause..." "I do this not for myself, but for the greater good..." The light in those dark blue eyes extinguished like a snuffed candle, and Frederick reverently closed the eyes of the man who had been the most important person to him in his life. "Requiem aeternam, dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis." He lowered Adalrich's body to the ground and stood slowly up. "Requiescat in pace..." >Grandfather: Wake up That dream again. It was not always that dream, but it had been happening over and over again for most of his life since that day. He couldn't help but wonder if it was sad that the repeated exposure to it in his dreams had robbed the sentimentality from the moment entirely. Long ago he had woken up from such dreams in a cold sweat, but now...all the sadness was buried under the years of time. He felt nothing. It was not time to dwell on the past, anyway. It was time to set the future in order. Grandfather rose, and continued his journey.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 4:32:54 GMT -5
Amidst the softly howling winds and fluttering snow of the Land of Gold and Snow, Lorelei walked. She had no purpose, other than vaguely to perhaps head home at some ill-defined point in the future. She had briefly contemplated returning to the angels to ask why her drill had stopped working, but by this point she was on a whole other continent, without an easy mode of transport like flying, and figured they would turn her away for running from the caverns anyway. Crunch, crunch, crunch. The endlessly repeating sound of shoe hitting snow. Wind whistled around her, nipping at her exposed and chilled ears. Large, imposing mountains loomed nearby to her right, and she had been walking for some time trying to find a way around them. It was not without bitterness that she remembered how easily this would be were her magic still working. The drill was still held loosely in her right hand. Through the course of the journey she would, at times, alternate between trying to force the drill to work again and giving up on it entirely, only to find her old stubbornness bringing her back to the task "just one more time". The cycle continued onward, and it was in the middle of a given up phase that the young Scion came upon a small little town by the mountains. A small little town, the reader should note, that was currently in a blaze and under assault from a group of behemonts and flying basilisks, as well as a few imps. Lorelei held up her drill in front of her and, once again, focused all her attention on it. "Come on... Come on..." Nothing. The pained cry of a turtle, cut short suddenly by something Lorelei really didn't want to know, made her flinch and shudder. "I am not feeling as bad as I was! Come ON!" Nothing happened, and the rampage occurring in the town continued unabated. Each crackle of fire or scream of a consort sent the worst shivers down the scion's spine. "I don't understand! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!" Not a single light came from the drill. Entirely fed up, unable to endure hearing the plight of her consorts any longer, Lorelei threw down her drill in frustration. "Fine, you pezza di merda!" Of course, she had no sooner thrown the weapon down than she picked it up again. This time, however, she raced towards the town as fast as she could, intending to fight with her drill alone if nothing else. She acquitted herself admirably, all things considered, given the forces arrayed against her and the lack of her primary weapon she was used, by this point, to fighting with. Four of the Behemonts and two of the basilisks fell. Yet, in the end one of their number came up behind her and struck her on the back of her head. The world swam and blurred, and the Scion fell to the cold ground below. She could feel the blood run from the back of her head, soaking into her hair and running down her neck. Her glasses and her drill lay on the ground next to her. She wavered in a twilight between waking and sleep for some time--how long, she would never know--some times seeing vague golden visions, some times the blurred, swimming, burning town she was in. Whether by luck or because the creatures assumed her dead, none deigned to finish her off. The first thing she noticed when she regained a semblance of composure was that her head felt like it was being repeatedly run over by a large truck. The second thing she noticed was that her glasses were not in front of her face, and quickly scrambled to replace them. The third thing she noticed was that the monsters, for whatever reason, had vacated the premises shortly after knocking her down. The turtles still cowered in fear, but no further damage seemed to be done. The fourth thing she noticed explained the third: Her drill was gone. A cold, cold chill of terror ran down her spine. First she simply tried to deny that it had truly happened. She frantically searched high and low for it, all the while repeating "No no no no no no no no no! It cannot be, it is not possible!" And as her search came to no avail, a deep, unsettling dread settled in her stomach. She fell to her knees, despondent. "What am I going to do...?"
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 4:34:45 GMT -5
"What is the matter, Lorelei?" Lorelei stood and turned towards the voice behind her in a shock. There, just a few feet away, stood her Grandfather, arms crossed and a rare smile on his lips. For but a few moments, she could do naught but stare. "You lose your drill? Too bad..." " Opa!" Lorelei exclaimed, smiling brightly, and ran into his awaiting arms. It was only a few moments more before it hit her how exactly he had said the previous words. She looked up at him, quizzical. " Wait, why did you say that in English?" she asked, switching to English herself. Grandfather smiled, and placed his hands on Lorelei's shoulders. "Come now...do you not remember? You drill is not some thing of metal and machinery." He pointed with a decisive finger at Lorelei's heart. "Your drill is right here!" Lorelei stared at him, barely able to believe it. " Are you...making Gurren Lagann references?" "Well, what kind of grandfather would I be if I remained ignorant of a story that apparently dragged my own granddaughter out of depression?" His smile took on a slightly embarrassed look. "I was going to surprise you for your fifteenth birthday, but then..." he gestured with his hand at all around them, "all this. I did read your works of fiction as well." Lorelei's eyes seemed to shine. " What did you think??" "It was..." Grandfather hesitated for a moment, trying to pick out the right words, "...exactly what I would expect from a 14 year old girl with a swooning crush on Ka mina." Lorelei pouted. " That does not sound terribly praiseworthy..." Grandfather chuckled and mussed up Lorelei's hair a bit. "And with such a crush on that character, you would think you would remember his words! You cannot keep wasting time in this place forever. What is that drill of yours meant to do?" Grandfather released her, and took a few steps back Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it was taking a good story's words far too literally. And yet... Lorelei closed her eyes. Without a drill to focus on, she instead focused in on herself, on her own heart...on her own hope. " My drill is the heart of my soul... My hope shall pierce the heavens themselves!..." Lorelei knew. It was easy again, like breathing. She could feel it. And when she opened her eyes, to Grandfather's look of smiling approval, she could manipulate the white magic once again, all without the very drill she had believed to be its source. She held out her hand, gathered the magic into a whirling orb, and closed her fist around it. Lorelei smiled. Not merely with happiness or mirth, but with that fire of confidence shining in her golden eyes once more. " Hahahahahahaha! Now I TRULY am back!" Grandfather pointed off to the east. "If you need to retrieve your property, the monsters took your drill that way, towards a large factory complex. I am afraid I cannot come with you, though. This is your story. My time as a hero was many years ago." " Thank you so much, Grandfather!" Alive, alive, and full of energy and promise once again. It was all Lorelei could do not to start floating upward at that very moment. She had never felt so renewed and confident. She giggled lightly and airily. " I suppose this is where you say that 'This time it really is goodbye' and I respond that no, you are still in my heart?" Grandfather chuckled and shook his head. "As true as that all is, it is Christmas Eve. We shall see each other again." " Good! I shall want to talk to you about what you thought of the show! But first, I have a drill to recover! Bye, Grandpa!" "Farewell!" Lorelei took off in the easterly direction, soaring through the sky once more. The fire in her heart, but glowing embers before, now burned as if to match the light of all the stars in the sky.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 4:36:00 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) >Peter: GTFO ===> >Peter: Return home. You do that. While it may be fun running around the planet doing precicely jack shit, you really need to replace that time travel... thing. You recall putting it down somewhere before coming to breakfast, but forgot where it was in the commotion following that one guy's death. Poor guy you didn't know. Oh well, time to make some cool shit! >Peter: Make some cool shit. And do it offscreen. Now that you've replaced your TIME TRAVEL DEVICE, covered up your THROBBING SHINER with a handy SOLID EYE, which usually works as a computer, nightvision, and some kind of radar you guess but is pretty useless when you can't actually use the eye it's on, and donned your CAIRO TOPCOAT (no you do not care how stupid it looks it is a computer and that is all that matters), it's time to get back to dicking around oh goddamnit. Someone's trolling you. You guess you can humor them. -- adjutorObedientiary [ AO] began trolling absoluteTranquility [ AT] -- AO: BE2T HATEFRIIEEEEEEND!! AO: Hii!! AO: Whatcha got there dumpa22?? AO: 2eriiou2ly you 100k liike an iidiiot what the 2hiit are you weariing there.AT: This is funeral attire. AT: My poor sweet dignity kicked the bucket when i decided to answer you. AT: So what's up this time?AO: II haven't 2aiid hii to my be2t 2tupiid human fucker lately!! AO: II diidn't want you to forget about me!! AO: II mean you're runniing around weariing 2upiid briight clothe2 and 2tuff. AO: Who know2, maybe you forgot your be2te2t troll along wiith your 2en2e of ta2te and deliicacy!! AO: II 2ee a dii2tiinct lack of paiil2 and candy red 2taiin2 though. AO: You 2ure iit kiicked iit??AT: It's a metaphor. AO: 2eriiou2ly?? AO: IIt'2 an act001al thiing back home diip2hiit.AT: Well that's all fine and dandy but i really don't care about your buckets. AT: Also why would my dignity bleed red? Clearly pitch black fluid runs through his or its or whatevers veins, the color of liquid sorrow and other things that are black. AT: Is troll dignity red? These are the kinds of things i want to know. AT: Not bucket soccer.AO: ... You're an iidiiot, Pete2. AO: Diigniity iisn't a quadrant. AO: And becau2e you bleed 2tupiidly briight 2hade2 of red. AO: Gratz you out-2tupiided the drunk giirl!!AT: .............................. AT: You know what? AT: You're right. AT: I don't know what I was thinking. AT: Can I go back to forgetting you're a thing that exists now? :DAO: NEVAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!! AO: We wiill be the be2te2t of hatefriiend2 for foreeeeeeeever Pete2!! AO: You can't get riid of me!! =>:D AO: 2orry your fliim2y piink monkey2kiin can't handle all the awe2omene22 that ii2 a paragon of trollhood.AT: Is that what you call it? AT: I prefer the term 'champion of asinine fucksnobbery' when i talk about you guys but okay. AT: And i've been meaning to ask, whats with the 2s and the iis and shit? AT: Is that some kind of speech impediment or do you just do that to annoy everyone? AT: Or bothAO: Hahaha!! AO: Both. AO: II have a lii2p. AO: Hone2tly iif you talk to me and II'm not doiing iit, the proper reactiion ii2 to 2hiit your pant2 and run around iin ciircle2 2creamiing =>:3AT: Oh. AT: Well that eckthplaiinth everythiing.AO: ECKthplainth. E%plaiin2.AT: Well have fun punting bucketth with your lithp i'm going to go do whatever it is i'm probably not supposed to be doing. AT: Which means ingnoring these annoying snakes and also you. AT: Mostly you.AO: You can't iignore me Pete2!! AO: II can ju2t keep comiing back to thii2 tiime and annoyiing you untiil you talk to me!! =:DAT: And i can keep coming back to this time and ignoring you i guess? AT: No wait. AT: Whatever i can time travel AT: Thuck on that i guess? AT: ... AT: ...... AT: I'm blocking you. :IAO: That aiin't gonna 2top me. AO: =:| 2eriiou2ly you triied that la2t 2weep. II 2tiill got through.AT: :D -- absoluteTranquility [AT] blocked adjutorObedientiary [ AO] -- -- adjutorObedientiary [ AO] began trolling absoluteTranquility [ AT]-- AO: Ahem. AO: II AO: TOLD AO: YOU AO: 2O. -- adjutorObedientiary [ AO] ceased trolling absoluteTranquility [ AT]--
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 4:36:32 GMT -5
Dahlia crumpled the note in her fist. " Looks like she made it in, too. I'd like to say I'm surprised, but..." She grinned ruefully to herself, stuffing the crumpled note into her pocket and shaking her head. Surprise was the last thing that woman was capable of. I'd like to say I'm disappointed, too, but... I guess I'm not that, either. She pushed the front doors open with a sigh. Page followed along dutifully, her brow furrowed in puzzlement. The silence between the two girls hung in the air for a few moments before Page finally got the gumption to "intrude" by asking a question: " Um... Sorry for asking, but what's going on?" " Rooftop duel. Time-honored tradition of condescending, sarcastic bitches everywhere," she muttered, still half-grinning, as she led Page inside. This would be another of those moments where it was hard to tell if Dahlia was joking or being serious... except that she said it so casually, so matter-of-factly, like it was an everyday thing, that she couldn't not be serious. After a certain point, sarcasm loops right back around to sincerity. The answer hardly seemed to ease Page's puzzlement, but instead made it all the more potent. " Is that...normal for you, possibly? Do you mind if I ask why, perhaps?" " 'course it's normal." Dahlia's tone was a perfect deadpan. " What? You make it sound like life-and-death situations, passive-aggressive one-upsmanship, and barely-concealed disdain bordering on seething hatred aren't a part of the daily routine where you come from." As the pair rounded the corner into the hallway, Dahlia nodded to the door to the kitchen, leading into her question without so much as missing a beat. " Want a sandwich or something?" " Well...yes, kind of..." Page's stomach grumbled lowly in assent. " But um..." Page ran her fingers through her hair, as was her nervous tic. " Good luck, I guess? I don't know what I'm supposed to say here, not really..." " Just grab a bite and come for the show." Dahlia gestured nonchalantly to two cupboards and then the refrigerator before leaning back against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest. " Plates, bread, stuff to put in it. Also drinks. There's probably chips or something somewhere, I kind of lost track of all the junk food when a meteor was about to crush me. Best not to keep the Professor waiting too long, though. She might get bored." That last sounded a bit more ominous than it might in another situation. " Right, sorry..." Alright, you two, you've wasted quite enough time already. Especially you, Dahlia. > Dahlia: Roof. Now. The roof was quite as the two of them had left it, empty but for a few Sburb gadgets, though with one more hole than Dahlia remembered. There was, however, no sign of the note's writer, leaving Dahlia to oh. There she is. Waiting at the far side of the roof, standing stock-still, was an austerely dressed woman calmly watching the pair as they stepped out onto the rooftop. Her face was deceptively smooth, age betrayed only by her world-weary expression; her hair was the same shade of ash blonde as Dahlia's, cut conservatively but slightly messy from her recent misadventures. She waited, perfectly still as-- wait, no, she moved, a mere flicker of motion too fast for the eye to detect, and was suddenly armed, holding an unblemished blade of indeterminate Eastern design in a loose ready grip. " Keep back," Dahlia muttered to Page, gesturing to the nearby alchemiter, which was just about the right height to provide comfortable seating, " and whatever you do, don't interfere. She's testing me..." Dahlia's expression registered a brief flash of what might have been anger, which quickly vanished to be replaced by a half-smile that spoke broadly of insincerity as she turned to face the Professor -- turned to face her mother. " I see you managed to dodge the meteors on your way here. I suppose I shouldn't say I'm surprised." "And I see you brought your friend with you. Even though you always said you're not the friendly type, I had faith that you'd persevere eventually. Though I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised at this one, now should I?" The older woman's lips barely twitched to a calm, controlled smile. Dahlia ignored the question. She would not rise to that bait. " I suppose I also shouldn't ask how you got here." "A less important question than the reason why. The same is true of you, you know. I know this is hard on you. It's hard and nobody understands. But you're here for a reason -- never forget that. Now..." The Professor tightened her relaxed stance, leveling her sword in both hands in preparation for the attack. Dahlia paced forward, arms extended, coat fluttering in the wind that whipped across the rooftop. "...I thought I taught you better than to bring a knife to a sword fight." " I don't want your legendary piece of shit." Dahlia's slow pace became a long, loping stride, knives and body lowered into a more aerodynamic pose, ready to break into a sprint at any moment. "It isn't mine. It never was." The Professor scarcely moved from her position, shifting only to slide one foot forward, broadening her stance in preparation to respond to the attack. "It was made for you. A graceful blade, as strong as your will, as sharp as--" " I get it already!" Dahlia growled, now darting across the rooftop towards her target. " As sharp as my wit, as heavy as my-- argh! What stupid nonsense! If you think it's so great, then why don't you just take it?!?" She lunged, knives flashing as they arced through the air like a cyclone of steel, carving a marvelous spiral into... ...nothing at all. In the moment before impact, the Professor flickered again, vanishing from sight, blurry flickers of motion just barely evading the eye as Dahlia whirled to track her. " You're not going to get me disoriented this time. I'm already at the edge here, so looking behind myself is pointle--" Dahlia cut off sharply and leapt to one side as a silvery flash flickered through the space that her heart had occupied moments before, followed immediately by a black blur and the Professor flashing into visibility. " You're really not holding back this time, are you?" The Professor looked to Dahlia with a warm, motherly smile before vanishing in another flicker of motion. "I could ask the same of you. Cutting me off while I was talking like that was clever -- I suppose I could say you've taken my lessons to heart, then." 'To heart'. Ha ha, mom. Very funny. Dahlia scowled. "The enemies you face from now on won't be holding back, either." The Professor appeared standing atop the entryway to the rooftop stairs. "You'll need to use everything I taught you, and more. In a way, I'm doing you a favor... it is always a mother's duty to look after her beloved daughter. Now, show me what you've learned." The Professor launched across the rooftop in a shadowy blur... and this time, Dahlia followed suit. Two flashes of motion darted across the rooftop back and forth, pausing briefly amidst flashes of steel, blades cleaving through air occupied by a body only a fraction of a second before. It was a beautiful, fatal dance, but it would become apparent over time that it was the Professor who led, and Dahlia could only push herself as hard as possible to keep up. Two flashes of motion darted across the rooftop back and forth, passing sometimes inches from Page, wind whipping her hair to and fro as they passed. There were unspoken rules, an unbroken pact; the girl was off-limits, as were the devices scattered about the roof, and any attempt of one to drive the other off the edge -- despite how easy it might have been, at the speeds they were moving -- would, it seems, have been terribly poor form. Two flashes of motion darted across the rooftop back and forth, mother and daughter, playing a game only they knew how. Though she began the fight scowling, in the few brief moments her face was visible between sudden darting motions across the rooftop, Dahlia could be seen to smile. This was their time -- and no matter the context, Dahlia would take what little connection she could get. Perhaps to recapture the happiness of-- No, that's just silly. "I was studying the meteor earlier. I think I may finally be close to an answer." A wide crescent arc carved a gash through the concrete rooftop; Dahlia flickered into visibility a foot to one side, barely missed, breathing heavily. The Professor materialized a short distance away, pointing at her with a blade now glowing subtly reddish from friction heat. " Even after the world has ended? Your work ethic is admirable." Enviable, perhaps. Another flicker of motion ended with a bright diagonal line in midair and a shower of small stones bursting from the point of impact, glowing-red sword embedded in the rooftop. The pair paused briefly near the punch designix; the Professor near enough to lean on it, and Dahlia a few feet away, knives at the ready, panting from exertion but ready to push through it, knowing that now would be her chance. She darted forward, and in the blink of an eye, pinned the Professor's sleeve to the designix with one knife, the other held in reverse grip an inch from her throat. The Professor smiled, unmoved. "Whether or not you accept it, you inherited it too. If you're ready to stop squandering your potential and ignoring your mission, my results are in the lab downstairs." Dahlia quirked a brow, relaxing her hold on her knives. " ...Wait, what lab? There's no lab he--" In a sudden flicker of motion, Dahlia and her knives were sent flying in a veritable acrobatic fucking pirouette, tumbling across the rooftop and eventually skidding to a stop just in front of Page. For a few moments, Page merely stared. For a few more, she glanced this way and that for any sign of Dahlia's mother--for, after all, she did not wish to interrupt...whatever was going on here. Finding no sign of the Professor--at least to her own, quite untrained eyes which had had quite a deal of trouble tracking what had just happened--she knelt down next to Dahlia and placed a hand on her shoulder. " Dahlia, are you all right, maybe?" she asked, the worry evident in her tone. Dahlia staunchly refused to get up. She was content to lay there for a while, looking slightly less cool than she makes herself out to be ordinarily. " She's gone, isn't she?" It was something of a foregone conclusion. " I...think so?" She looked around and, again, found no trace. " I couldn't really follow you two that well, I guess." Page sat down on the ground next to Dahlia. " Um...are you hungry, perhaps? I mean, I could go get you something, if you want. That looked rather tiring, I think..." Dahlia ignored the question. She would not be pitied. " That wasn't an inquiry, it was a statement." She pushed herself to sit up cross-legged, slightly slumped, hands folded idly in her lap. She made no effort to hide the confusion or disappointment in her expression. " Sticking around was never something she was any good at." Page reflexively opened her mouth to speak, and almost reached out to put a hand on Dahlia's shoulder, but seemed to think better of it. She brought her partially-extended hand back to her side and glanced up at Skaia's pale light shining down on the two of them. " ...Sorry."
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 4:40:04 GMT -5
" ...I am too." Page glanced away from Skaia, back towards Dahlia herself. " What for, possibly?" Dahlia pushed off the roof with a sigh, hopping to her feet and pausing a moment to ineffectually brush the dust from her pants that they had accumulated as she tumbled, thoroughly defeated, across the rooftop. Then and only then did she bother to answer. " I'm sorry you had to see that." And with that, she turned to head for the door. Page scrambled to her feet and ran after Dahlia, until she slowed to walk beside her comrade. " Um, no, you don't have to apologize to me, not at all. I don't mind, really. Besides, you kind of...seemed sort of happy there for a bit during the fight, I think? It was kind of nice to see you smile like that, I guess." Dahlia stopped suddenly, pausing in the doorway, one hand holding the door open but not yet out of the way for Page to follow. " Smile...?" She stared at nothing for a moment; unfocused, distant. Struggling briefly to reconcile two contradictory concepts, she eventually banished the idea -- like so many others -- with a decidedly noncommittal 'huh', and shrugged, continuing on her way down into the house. Page followed along, in silence for a few moments, until once again her soft voice broke the silent void between them. " I know it's not the same, but...well, I kind of was separated from my father sometimes, I guess. I mean, he had to work a lot since no one would ever give him any good jobs for some reason, I think. It's hard to remember, he didn't talk about it, not at all. I just overheard things and I could tell how he was feeling sometimes, possibly. But I didn't see him a lot most days, I guess. I mean it's probably not the same as your situation, not at all, and..." Page sighed and ran a hand through her hair. " I'm sorry, I'm rambling, I guess. You probably don't care about all this, I'm sure." You're damn right I don't care about the admittedly understandable specifics of your inspiringly bright take on a depressingly bleak existence and goddammit I can't even be mean to her in my HEAD! Dahlia sighed, raking both hands back through hair already made messy by her fight. She clutched her head in both hands, palms against her forehead, growling frustration under her breath. " Why..." she hissed, barely a strained whisper, if that. Hands fell to her sides, clenched in fists until her knuckles turned white. At the bottom of the stairs, just outside the door to her room, she turned sharply to face Page, fist raised in seemingly threatening fashion. " ...why are you so goddamned NICE?!?" Dahlia slammed her fist into the wall to her right side. Somewhere down the hall, a painting shook loose of its hook; a dull metal-on-wood thud was followed immediately by the high crack of glass. Dahlia's face was pale, brow furrowed in something that wasn't anger, something a lot closer to sorrow. " You were homeless! Your father did odd jobs just to make ends meet! You barely ever saw him -- and he didn't even have some bullshit excuse like mom did! You didn't even-- you were using a library computer! You should-- you should be angry at the world-- you should hate everything! But you... you..." Eventually, Dahlia simply ran out of steam. Her hand slid down the wall, heedless of the tiny line of red from her scraped knuckles, and her arms fell limp at her sides, drooping like Dahlia herself. Her eyes seemed on the verge of tears. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. At the beginning of the meltdown, Page had recoiled from the raised fist in terror. Yet, as she looked in Dahlia's eyes, she relaxed, and fright morphed into sympathy. When Dahlia had finished, she said nothing, but simply did what she almost had before: reached out and placed a reassuring hand on Dahlia's shoulder. Meeting no resistance, she stepped forward and pulled Dahlia into a hug. " I don't know, really..." she muttered softly, her cheek resting against the taller girl's chest, " I just... there was this girl, once, I think, at my library. I don't remember much about her or how she looked or anything, sort of. I just remembered that she had a heart shirt and she was crying all alone, I think. When I looked at how sad she was, I felt sad too, kind of. So...I talked to her and started showing her around the library and anything I could think of to help her stop crying. Then she was happy. And when she was happy and smiling, so was I, without a doubt. I just started trying to help people more after that, I guess, because when they were happy so was I." She chuckled. " I know that's not the best explanation, but...I don't know." For a long while, Dahlia was silent. Unseen by Page from where she was, her eyes widened as the enormity of that revelation fully settled upon her. When finally she regained command of her weary, leaden limbs, she did not push Page away; did not rapidly and deftly disentangle herself as she might any other time. Instead, she gently, carefully, and politely extricated herself from the hug, and only as quickly as Page let go. She rubbed a dusty sleeve over her eyes -- she wasn't about to cry, honest -- and offered a genuine, slightly apologetic smile. " Thanks, Page... I needed that." It was entirely true. It was always true. " You're really something, you know." She turned and resumed walking, heading for the stairs down. She made an idle note of the felled painting in a side hall in passing; a personal reminder to come back and clean that up later. Later, though, not now. " You're something special and... well, why on earth are you tagging along with someone like me, anyway?" This smile was a good deal more bittersweet; hopefully, Page would only see a glimpse. " All I ever do is hurt people." If 'capable of destroying an innocent girl's life' was something you could put on your résumé, you'd be golden. You monster. Page's cheeks flushed red at the compliment and she ran her hand through her hair. " N-no, I'm not, really..." Fumbling for words, she instead latched upon what Dahlia had said about herself. " And that's not true, not at all! You saved my life, remember, maybe? I don't think you're as bad a person as you seem to think you are, not at all." " I just didn't want to have to attend another funeral to--" That's a lie and you know it. " Argh, fine, I did a good thing for once." Lousy goddamn stupid conscience. Dahlia sighed and shook her head again. Sighed, but... smiled. " But I'm used to walking this proverbial road alone, so I can't guarantee you'll necessarily like where it's going." And just where was it going? Down, at the moment... down, and down, and down again, to the basement. Earlier that day -- it felt like forever ago, before breakfast and John and Guardian and the village and Page's ice powers and the cave and that glyph she was still puzzling over. Before her fight -- game -- conversation, really, with the woman she refused to call mother. It felt like forever ago but it was really just a handful of hours; she fought a pair of ogres down here (how they managed to make their way down the stairs was anyone's guess), and they had smashed a hole in the floor. At the time she had thought nothing of it, but... in hindsight, one very simple fact stood out to her: Most houses, beneath the basement, have a foundation. Not this one. What awaited her was just as she remembered; a hole, wide enough to pass through easily, gaping into hollow blackness. Except it wasn't black anymore. Just beyond where she might have been able to reach if she knelt at the edge of the hole, the nearest of a crisscrossing web of pipes and wires dangled, illuminated in the pale blue light she had long come to associate with computer screens. The floor was only dimly visible, more distant than she might have expected; whatever the sub-basement room was, it was a good deal taller than the basement itself, perhaps twice as tall. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? And so Dahlia jumped. Page yelped in surprise, recoiling just a bit. After the second it took her to regain her composure, she knelt down by the hole and looked down it. " Dahlia? Are...are you ok, maybe?" " Just fine!" Dahlia, no worse for the wear (no moreso than she already was, all things considered, anyway), waved up at Page... then waved to beckon her down. " Go ahead and jump -- if there's one thing I've managed to prove I can do thus far, it's catch you." Even at this distance, her wry grin was unmistakeable. Despite herself, Page giggled, but it was a giggle laced with nervousness and fear. She wavered at the edge for about a whole minute before simply taking a deep breath, closing her eyes, and jumping off. " See? Nothing to it." Though Dahlia's catch was seemingly effortless, physics hadn't suddenly stopped being a thing; moving body plus stationary object equals substantially more force than two bodies moving at equal speed in the same direction, and Dahlia bit back a wince as her already-worn arms bore the force of that impact. She managed, at least, to not drop Page, but was a good deal quicker to set her down this time around. When she did so, there was a quiet crinkling noise, and Dahlia actually looked to her own shoulder in silent hope that that wasn't her. Fortunately, it wasn't. It was, however, another note. " Thank you. Sorry..." Page muttered as she quickly climbed out of Dahlia's arms, desperate to be as little a bother as possible. The note, it seemed, was attached to the bottom of Page's shoe. She gingerly lifted her foot, peeled the note off, and handed it to Dahlia with an apologetic smile. " I, um..Hehe, I think this is yours, possibly. Sorry." Dahlia took the paper, holding it up in the pale blue electronic glow of the screens behind them. It was penned, as she had anticipated, in the Professor's immaculate Bradley Hand ITC. She read it aloud for the benefit of Page's inevitable curiosity. " Dahlia. You know. You could... have..." She slowed as she read, shifting her gaze to the corner of the room. " ...used... the stairs." Ha ha, mom. Very funny. Dahlia couldn't even bring herself to scowl.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 4:45:14 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) >Zach: Wake up. Dammit. >Zach: Look outside. Really, you can't say you didn't see this coming. As soon as you set face on her planet you were sure something would go wrong and end with you unconscious or hemorrhaging blood. Hopefully, this is only the first one. You head over to your window. There's not much for you to do here at the moment, and if the bodyguard was serious, you would be arrested the moment you set foot in public anyway. You consider pestering one of your friends, but remember they're all too busy at the moment doing things that actually matter. As you look out at the familiar sight of the purple city, it occurrs to you that something is different. But wh- ===> what the hell... ===> ...are those?? >Zach: Boggle Are those stars?! You've never seen the real things before! They really are as impressive as everyone keeps saying... but what are they doing in the medium? And why would they show up so suddenly after eight years of empty skies? You take off your shades to get a better look... ===> #$^&*TORN@$#**&^%$@asunder QQQQQQQQQQMAKETTTTTTTTTTTTCOMPLETE 286720984670476DEVOURER1948572946701937UNCHAINED49 7513489 ===> ===> >Zach: Wake up ===> ow. the fuck was that? Your server player seems to have been caught by the tazer as well. You guess that's probably for the best. You ditch the shitty dress and stagger to your feet. ===> Lousy goddamn stupid conscience. >Zach: Use the computers. Be the server. Can't even leave the lunatic alone while she's out cold. You'll definitely be leaving once she wakes up, of course. Until then... Might as well get something done. The netbook displays a familiar, damaged roof. You're pretty sure that's your fault but OH WELL. Dahlia can just deal with it until you fix it which YOU JUST DI-Oh hey someone's pestering you. SHOW PESTERLOG #1 -- cerbericCommando [CC] began trolling inaneFixation [IF] CC: excuse me, human, do you have a spare moment?IF: huh? IF: oh. one of you guys. sure.CC: right, felett mentioned you when i asked about the humans. CC: nothing kind, i assure you. CC: so obviously you must be a great person and i should talk to you first. CC: my name's specterminator commander marcus decatur. CC: though i suppose the title means little anymore...IF: specterminator? IF: that sounds familiar but okay whatever. i'm zach lombardi and if you're doing that viewport thing you can probably tell it's been a long day. :VCC: i wasn't, for politeness' sake. i'll take this to mean you don't mind. CC: can't say i'm surprised, though. this game is hell. i fought a giclops shortly after i entered, and it pretty much kicked my ass.IF: no, not those. i mean they're a pain in the ass but the enemies are like the least of my problems today. IF: but since you can see the whole thing i won't go into detail. IF: so... IF: what'd you want to talk to a human for?CC: curiosity, mostly. CC: haven't bothered to look at your past timeline, however. one moment. CC: ... CC: you know what? the less that is said about what you went through, the better. i'm not even going to ask.IF: thank you. :/ IF: it wouldn't do much good anyway, i barely know what just happened.CC: bizarre human mating rituals aside, i doubt you're in the mood to assuage my curiosity of your species in general. CC: do you have a link to some sort of website that i might go to in order to learn of your species?IF: NO. IF: THAT WAS NOT A MATING RITUAL DO NOT EVEN. IF: JUST IF: NO. IF: *cough* IF: uh IF: try www.wikipedia.org/ or something i guess? i dunno.CC: easy, it was a joke. CC: i saw no pails, after all. CC: but thank you.IF: oh right. IF: well for what it's worth we don't use those. IF: i just saved you an hour of wiki walking. you're welcome. IF: though if you're really new to all this it might not be enough.CC: ...huh. CC: weird alien reproduction, i guess. CC: at least to me. CC: less said about it the better, though. not a topic we should broach. CC: mind if i ask what your land's like and your title is? i'm wondering if they cross over to other sessions of the game.IF: we're mammals. it's not that weird. :/ IF: anyway IF: knight of mind, land of storm and solace. lightning and rain and hurricanes and now creepers fucking everywhere. IF: (creepers are annoying bastards who sneak up on you and explode and i kind of made ones that reproduce asexually somehow) IF: it sucks.CC: huh. don't think we have a knight of mind here. i'm the cavalier of order. land of autumn and stasis. very lovely autumn world frozen in time. CC: how'd you make creepers, though?IF: combining a stupidly hard game with a bat with one's face on it. :/ IF: and this was after the same thing with the cards overlapped gave me a badass weapon so don't say it was stupid because it only sort of was.CC: i don't think anyone could have expected self-replicating creepers just because your weapon happened to have a picture of one. CC: anyway, i think i'll let you get back to whatever you're doing. i doubt having a troll yakking at you is making it any easier.IF: nothing. IF: nothing is what i'm doing. :P IF: but alright later i guess. IF: wait first what's a specterminator? i swear i've heard that word but i can't remember where. IF: some shitty romance novel or something.CC: a romance novel? CC: well, a specterminator is a black ops part of the alternian Empire's military. CC: was, i guess. CC: no idea why it'd be in a human novel, unless it's simply a coincidence.IF: wait black ops IF: dude IF: awesome. XD IF: yeah okay you can go now if you're done here but there will be questions later. IF: all of them. CC: well...thank you. CC: i'm nothing important, though. i just tried to do my duty to the Empire. CC: if you have questions for me, though, i'll gladly answer them. i just thought you were busy and didn't want to bother you.IF: do you have a coilgun?CC: not on me.IF: good pictures of one then? --cerbericCommando [CC] sent files coilgun1.png, coilgun2.png, coilgun3.png -- CC: will that suffice?IF: that was fast :P IF: but yeah i can work with thatCC: i'm something of a gun nut. if you need any pictures of guns or spaceships to alchemize with, i'm your man.IF: you are the best troll.CC: hah! thanks.IF: don't thank me, i am merely stating facts. IF: and i will definitely be asking for pictures when i actually have grist but now i just need something to rip off functionways. XDCC: what are you planning on doing?IF: making a paperclip coilgun for my friend IF: she has a shitty strife specibus so i figured why not. IF: plus it's almost christmas so gifts for everyone. :V IF: (that's like twelvth pedigree or whatever the fuck pythia called it)CC: twelfth perigee's eve. CC: i see, though. do you get some sort of equivalent of a behemoth leaving for your lusi or whatever the equivalent guardian is, as well?IF: no our parents (or my sister, or lorelei's grandpa, or whatever everyone has) give us gifts too. usually. IF: i'm not explaining that you have wikipedia just use it. XD IF: and since i really don't have much to give lying around my house and i'm out of grist, i'm building junk out of other junk.CC: why not kill monsters for more grist? CC: though, i suppose an alchemized gift carries less sentimental meaning than one made by hand.IF: yeah that's the idea. IF: and it's more fun. and my wrist is broken so killing things is out of the question for now.CC: don't you have some sort of healing item you can a-... CC: ah, catch twenty-two. CC: need grist to make something to heal your hand, can't heal your hand because you're out of grist. CC: i suppose you need to wait for someone else to help you out.IF: basically IF: but my server's unconscious, page is busy, lorelei's in hellmurder woods, and those other two don't seem helpful at all. IF: so i'm going to get out of here as soon as that first one wakes up. IF: she may or may not be totally insane and/or bipolar.CC: good luck.IF: i have transcended luck. all that remains for me is murphy's law. IF: but thanks for the thought. XDCC: then "hope you don't fail TOO horribly." CC: any more questions for me?IF: not that i can think of.CC: i'll let you get to your work, then.IF: kthxbai -- cerbericCommando [CC] ceased trolling inaneFixation [IF] -- SHOW PESTERLOG #2 -- guardianGrognard [GG] began pestering inaneFixation [IF] -- GG: Hey, kid. GG: Word of advice: GG: Don't try to contact the horrorterrors. GG: I mean, unless you particularly ENJOY pounding migraines and heads full of crazy. GG: Like some sort of weird fucking masochist-goth combo. GG: Pass the word along to the others too. IF: what do you mean contact them? IF: i'm done asking them questions if that's what you mean. they never give good answers. :/ IF: also are seziure stars on derse normal after everyone enters or is that this session being 'special' again? because- IF: ohhhhhhhh. GG: Yeah, the stars ain't stars. GG: That's one giant, rather pissy horrorterror. GG: Never seen anything like this happen. You have any idea what might have caused this? IF: dammit. IF: as for what caused it i have no idea. IF: telescope lasers? IF: you can time travel, go back to the observatory some time yesterday. i missed it because i woke up but gita said there was an explosion or something when page entered. GG: Yeah, one second. GG: What did you do? IF: what do you mean? IF: right now? i just kinda looked at them. GG: No, back then. I jumped back there and then came back. GG: You were there with the queen and that bodyguard of hers. GG: What did you DO? IF: i didn't do anything! IF: the gauntlet and her ring started glowing and i guess it got magnified or something? i woke up, remember. GG: That god damn gauntlet. GG: Oy, whatever. You've pointed me in the right direction, at least. Thanks. IF: yeah yeah, i fucked up. IF: that happens a lot if you've missed it. IF: just watch after that i guess. IF: and can you check on my body? i don't want to leave it in the street, i'm wanted now and i don't know if i made it back this time. :/ GG: Yeah. GG: Also, don't worry about your mistakes so much. GG: Well, I guess worry about them to the extent of keeping them in mind so as to not repeat 'em. GG: But I've seen far worse fuckups than yours, and made worse myself. And I've seen worse fuckups turn things around in the end. IF: it's not so much the scale that worries me as the amount. IF: but thanks i think? IF: meh. can you tell DO to fuck off? knowing him he's probably on his way to my tower to bring me in right now. >_< IF: that guy has the worst timing sometimes. GG: Kind of an asshole, that one. GG: But yeah, I'll do that. IF: sometimes. IF: you get used to it. IF: or i guess you don't. if it's a one time thing you won't have to, just ignore him. :P GG: All right. GG: Think I'll let you get back to whatever you doing. I need to keep investigating this little clusterfuck of a session of yours. GG: Jesus flipping Christ, you have more problems than mine. And mine was DOOMED. IF: whoops. GG: Heh. GG: Well, whatever. That's what I'm here for. GG: See you. Let me know if you have any questions about anything. IF: later. -- inaneFixation [IF] ceased pestering guardianGrognard [GG] --
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 5:01:46 GMT -5
Well, now that we've all had our laugh at Dahlia's expense, it's about time our heroes had a look around, don't you think? No really. Enough staring dumbfoundedly at the stairway you couldn't have possibly known was there unless you paid attention when your mother told you not to mess with the books on a certain bookshel oh goddammit. Note to self: ask Guardian if there's some way to go back and kick past me's ass. > hey kid
> get a move on
> starting to bore me here " Guess I should get a move on. Surely there's something more interesting down here." Dahlia wasn't quite sure where that came from. After all, weren't they already down here to do something interesting -- namely, to figure out what the Professor was going on about with regard to 'the meteor'? Dahlia shrugged; probably just her tired mind playing tricks on her, anyway. First item of note: the two tanks nearby, containing an obvious chunk of a meteor, and what appeared to be some manner of core sample, possibly from the surrounding area given its coloration. What's the big deal, anyway? It's not like the Professor could have gotten a chunk of the meteor that blew up the house; that's chronologically impossible, since the Professor would have had to have entered the Medium at the same time as Dahlia, meaning no time to grab a piece of that particular space rock. Thus, this had to be a piece of the meteor the Professor was studying prior to her move to this isolated facility -- her 'amazing research' which apparently never turned up any results. If this was just finishing up something so mundane as that, Dahlia would be quite cross. But it would only take a moment to look, so there would be no harm in humoring the old lady. Dahlia strolled over to the computer in front of the meteor fragment's tank and tapped a button on the keyboard to wake it from sleep mode. The screen lit up. A diagnostic program ran in the background, as Dahlia expected, displaying an image of the meteor fragment and the rock sample in the tube nearby, alongside information about each. It would be easy enough to decipher, and figure out what the Professor had meant by 'her results'... but there was another window, too, that Dahlia could only assume the Professor had left open so that she would find it. Dahlia could never resist a good puzzle. > [S] ===> Age-worn speakers crackled to life mid-sentence. The voice belonged to the Professor, though it seemed rather younger than the voice Dahlia remembered. --digital copy of our records here. So much was lost in the fire, I wanted to preserve what was left; candid recordings with handheld tape recorders, mostly, so the quality is... questionable, at best. The content, too, is sometimes less than strictly academic, but... well, scientists are people too. Normally I would edit for brevity, but it seems the universe has largely beaten me to it. I still don't think anyone quite understands what we did here just yet -- I don't even think we do. Not entirely, anyway. Maybe some day this will be of use to someone, once we've put all the pieces together. I'm too close to this, now, to make proper sense of it. Until someone else can sort it all out, let this stand as a record of... an exercise in wonder. Yes, I think that fits. As the recording continued, Dahlia began wandering around the lab, distractedly browsing her way through the lab's contents. There were a number of large tanks; most of them, oddly, still appeared full of water, or... whatever liquid they contained, and in remarkably good condition for a lab which, according to the recording, suffered fire damage at some point. There were scorch marks here and there, and what few notebooks she could find scattered around were mostly charred beyond recognition, but the lab equipment itself was undamaged, though time-worn. Dahlia largely tuned out the recording as it droned, in the scratchy fashion one might expect of a recording made from a deteriorated tape, about the setup of the lab, and their prior research in Mexico, and other things the Professor had already told Dahlia more times than she cared to hear. The voices belonged mostly to the Professor's colleagues; Dahlia remembered most of them from the times they had visited the house to give her lessons. She caught bits and pieces as she wandered aimlessly through the lab, glossing over names and substantial chunks of irrelevant information because she really didn't care, and quite honestly neither did your humble narrator. December ██, 1995 This whole project is cursed. While analyzing site beta, another... I-- I don't know any way to say this without sounding completely ridiculous, but... a meteor landed on Dr. █████. His wife is gonna be pissed. Dahlia clamped a hand over her own mouth to stifle a chuckle at that. Now she was absolutely certain the Professor was just messing with her. Which means this was part of a larger game. How little she knew. The recording continued in another voice. Asher's back from field study on the new meteor. Presently logging gamma and delta samples. She's convinced that it's all related. Given delta and alpha, I'm hard-pressed to doubt her. Is it really right to call a living creature a sample?
...
There's something inside alpha. I don't know how we didn't see it before. It's the same starry stone it's always been, but... there's an order to it, something... mathematical, a physical property we can't properly perceive in this dimension, like M-theory. I don't want to speculate too far, but... the data we're getting, it reminds me of computer code. But not any language I've ever seen. I need more time.
...
--keeping delta in isolation until we're certain it's safe -- for us, and for delta. I think we're being too paranoid. Asher thinks we're not being paranoid enough. ... We're finally getting somewhere with this. It's like a data structure that mimics real physics, or... a guide to a system of physics, wholly self-contained, that looks like a data structure. ██████ called it "the demon". You know, Laplace's-- a perfect simulation of reality is indistinguishable from reality. ██████ thinks the writings at site beta are referring to this -- that this is the same "demon" from the hieroglyphs. Sounds terrified of it, but... also sounds like he wants to see it happen. ... --entire team's working themselves sick on this. Asher told ██████ to take some time off until he felt better. He joked it was space flu; she said that if delta had a virus, he was never close enough to catch it anyway. She's a lot more serious than she was back when we had a class together. I'd say she's become more responsible but I suspect she's thinking about covering his workload, on top of her own. She looks like a woman possessed. ... Delta's amazing. We give her information and she assimilates it as quickly as we can provide it. Like some kind of... biological computer. I guess there's not much else you can do stuck in a tank like that. It's for her own good -- none of the tests we've run have indicated anything contagious on her, but if we took her out, her immune system would be completely unprepared. It might take another year to engineer the necessary synthetic antibodies. At least she's got some healthy hobbies already. Heh. Talking about her like she's our kid or something, even though everyone said not to get attached. Keep this up and I guess she'll be needing a proper name soon. ... --test run of "the demon" successful. God we really need a name for that thing. Preferably something that doesn't sound retarded. Still a lot of bugs to work out, but it's holding up under a minimal implementation of test conditions. It's not a perfect simulation, though -- that's one of the problems with this whole thing, you can't do that, can't simulate a dimension within itself. Nobody's come up with a solution yet that doesn't invoke at least one ontological paradox, but there's a few good ideas. To get it to work, we'd have to find some way to... project the data into imaginary space... sort of like a flat image of a three-dimensional object, but... more so. Does anyone even have the technology to properly handle that? Or the funding? ... That's it, we're done. Nothing more to see here, folks; pack up your bags and go home. We've catalogued every inch of site beta -- every inch we could get into, anyway. We've analyzed every piece of data we could find. There's nothing left to do here but wait for them to cut our funding. The project's being moved; they're handing off the program architecture to the gurus over at SkaiaNet. Can't say I'm not sad to see it go, but that's not our department -- if I have to spend one more day staring at that code, I think I'm gonna turn into Pac-Man. We need to do something with delta. Dr. Asher says she'll take her. Got a courier friend back on the mainland who can get her into the right databases and give her a normal life. Synthetics seem to have done their job, and I sure as hell can't think of anyone else better suited to it. We all signed PSCRL forms. Nobody ever mentions this again; not the way it actually happened, anyway. Looks like we all get to go back to our lives now-- I say "get to", but it's not like it wasn't-- what did Dr. Asher call it that one time? An exercise in wonder. A once in a lifetime experience. Chances are, none of us will ever hear another thing about mysterious meteors for as long as we live, and as much as it's a relief to drop the hush-hush and get back to living regular lives, it's kind of sad, too. This was the stuff of legends. For a brief period, we were riding the cutting edge -- we were gods.
Dahlia just kept pacing. Just what the hell kind of work was her mother involved with? Computer hacking? Theoretical physics? Some sort of government project? Genetic engineering? None of this made sense. This was well beyond the geology that was her mother's chosen field. And she couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something... some nagging voice in her head telling her to check around a little more, telling her to look over there, telling her to > would you just turn around already Dahlia turned, raising her hand to the massive object lit in intermittent flashes of flickering computer light, let out a shocked gasp, and fell silent. The recorded voice of her mother echoed hollowly through the lab. Though it was three and a half years ago she was given life, it is only today she will be given a name.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 5:03:48 GMT -5
--asterismAscendant [ AA] began trolling philosopherQueen [PQ]-- {Spoiler}{Spoiler}AA: Oh. You're flying again. PQ: Oh, hello, Khirun! PQ: Indeed I am, and I believe I owe you an apology. PQ: For my behavior after I came out of the caverns, I mean. It was unwarranted. I am sorry. AA: It doesn't matter. PQ: ...Are you all right, Khirun? PQ: You are bereft of your usual quirk and... PQ: I do not know, just seem tired or something? PQ: Or am I just reading this wrong? AA: Oh? No, I'm fine. *Fine.* Is tha' better? AA: Just sitting here. Thinking. Or not thinking, sometimes. PQ: What about? AA: Nothing, really. AA: Nothing that swallows limbs and fingers and rock-spires. AA: If you poke a spear into it, Nothing comes back out. No more spearhead. PQ: That seems vaguely familiar somehow, yet I cannot seem to remember why... PQ: Is it a part of your land? I wonder if it is in any way related to the darkness in my own? AA: *Darkness*? It's dark in the caves, how we *like it.* AA: Nothing isn't *Dark.* Nothing puddles and drips in the blackest caverns. AA: Seeps into stone AA: Saps form, feeling. PQ: I see. PQ: So, I imagine it may be a tad similar to what exists in my world, yet different in many ways, it seems. PQ: I suppose this explains why you seem so apathetic? Had a run-in with this Nothing? AA: What do you think it feels like? AA: It looks like you've gone blind. AA: Trolls have ten fingers. I can find out. AA: The cave-lizards don't talk much after Nothing happens. PQ: That sounds like an exceedingly bad idea, Khirun. PQ: If it truly destroys whatever it touches, you should likely stay as far away as possible. What if it, I do not know, starts feeding on more of you if you stick your finger in? PQ: Besides, if it truly is Nothing, then I wager it feels like nothing at all. No need to risk your life and limb for something that should be obvious if you think on it. AA: Why stay away?. AA: There's Nothing to fear, and therefore Nothing to run away from, you ken. AA: An' not just Nothing down here. PQ: Now we are just, I think, getting a tad too hung up on the word used for this thing. PQ: This "nothing" exists...or does not exist... Well, it is a threat, to say the least, of existence, correct? PQ: Then you have to find a way to stop reality and existence from breaking down into this strange nothingness! If not you, then who? PQ: Do not just...give up before you have even started! AA: Before? AA: I had...started. AA: I am here AA: I am *down here* for a reason. AA: Yes, that's right. AA: And then I stopped. AA: Because the reason didn't seem to matter so much. PQ: Of course it matters! If I am reading what you have said thus far, does this Nothing not jeopardize the fate of your whole planet? PQ: If it helps, try to imagine all those who believe in you and are counting on you! PQ: All of your consorts, who believe that their Hope shall save their world! PQ: All of your friends, who do not want you to just give up and let this Nothing take you! PQ: I believe in you as well! I know you can do it, so just get up and keep trying! AA: I'm all alone. AA: Even for a troll, solitary. AA: I could sit right here forever and no one will notice. AA: Nobody will care. PQ: That is not true at all! PQ: I am sure you are drastically underestimating how the other trolls care about you! PQ: Even if you are not, then I am here for you. I believe in you and would be very sad to see you die! PQ: So get up and keep going! If not for your own sake, then mine. If not on your own volition, then because I am telling you to do so! PQ: Do not surrender to this apathy! AA: I'm standing up. AA: Walking. AA: Walkin' *away* from th'ledge AA: Like I'm walking through *waist-high sludge,* Lore. PQ: Excellent. Keep going and don't surrender! AA: *Sludge* in my *head* PQ: And hey, were you not the one to mention the importance of those fairy tale stories to me, and how we were essentially living them now? PQ: When has one of the heroes from those stories ever simply given up out of apathy, or refused the call to adventure in the first place? AA: Little Wriggler Brown-in-Green gets *eaten.* By a *spider.* PQ: That...is probably not the best fairy tale to focus on. PQ: How about this one: Peter Pan saves the girl and defeats the dastardly Captain Hook. PQ: Ironically, he is able to fly by thinking happy thoughts. PQ: It never occurred to me until now how somewhat similar that is to my situation. PQ: Anyway, try to keep moving forward. I am SURE there is SOME story you have read that can give you the strength to keep going! AA: Uphill, now. AA: It's steep. AA: How'm I s'posed to think about *stories* at a time like this, *lassie*? There was a beat here, yet just as Lorelei opened her mouth to respond Khirun continued. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}AA: Do humans tell th'one about *The Little Dung Beetle*? AA: He rolls up garbage an' corpses an' things, and The *King o' The Milk-White Road* turns 'em into new stars? PQ: That sounds suspiciously similar to a relatively recent video game, actually. PQ: Katamari Damacy where you control a little guy who rolls up things just for that purpose, though he serves the King of the Cosmos. AA: I have stars in my pocket. AA: I have *stars!* in my *pockets!* AA: Well. Sylladex. PQ: Sounds like quite a wonderful fairy tale, indeed! PQ: All the more reason not to give up. You have a story that will be told down the generations of your consorts to create, after all! PQ: Are you completely away from the Nothing yet? AA: Enough tae think straight. AA: I didnae say why I went down intae th'*depths* of my Land, did I Lore? PQ: Now there is the adorably troll!Scottish accent I remember! PQ: No, I do not believe you did. Why? AA: ...Failin' tae see what's so cute about th'way I speak an' type. AA: Anywho. AA: It's Th'Land o' *Caves* an' **Stars** AA: Wee an' *bright,* all o'er the surface on my Land. AA: *Starlight holds back The Nothing,* keeps it at bay. AA: Ye ken where this was going, bright lass? PQ: Well, I think it is! I still have not given you a link or anything explaining what a scottish person is, have I? I am afraid it must wait, considering I need to keep as much attention as possible on flying (though talking does not bother me). PQ: That aside, I would wager you collected the stars from the surface and were bringing them ot their proper places to ward off the Nothing, correct? AA: Aye. Bringing *light* into *dark places.* AA: E'en we trolls can't see in *complete* darkness. AA: I, uh. I shouldnae have started so deep intae th'caverns. AA: Or kept *all* th'**stars** in my sylladex. PQ: That actually is something I have had to learn recently, as well. PQ: You cannot right every wrong immediately--you will only be met with failure. You have to be more gradual and careful about it, I think. PQ: Hehehe, such as, for example, trying to go back into a factory after receiving a major concussion from said factory's boss. I am quite glad Peter was there to stop me. AA: Ye're lucky tae have close friends like that, Lorelei. AA: What's in th'factory? PQ: They used to be owned by the turtle consorts, but they were appropriated to create the monsters all across this world. PQ: Using the turtles' own resources to terrorize them. There is a sort of brilliantly horrible feeling to that. PQ: I am actually on my way to another large factory complex at the moment, to retrieve the drill that was stolen from me. My grandfather pointed the way. PQ: (He is something of an analogue to a lusus-figure, to me.) AA: It's important tae you. AA: The *drill*, I mean. AA: Why? PQ: Well, a variety of reasons, really. PQ: For one, I created it from a drill that was made for me by a friend. PQ: It is also simply my property in the first place, so I feel I must reclaim it. PQ: And, well, it is rather silly... PQ: But there is this tv show that I am very indebted for when it comes to inspiration to keep going when things are tough. PQ: It is called "Gurren Lagann" and the drill is a common motif within it (which is also why I chose drillkind as my specibus in the first place, though I certainly never expected to actually use one in combat). AA: Ah see. AA: Never took much opportunity t'watch much o' the cinema or grubtube, m'self. AA: *Other priorities,* ye ken. AA: Had wondered abou tha', wielding th'drill. No' a verra *sensible* choice. AA: But ye're a *sheltered* highblood, as it were. PQ: Heh, indeed. My blood is red, same as others, but I would be lying if I said I was not far more privileged growing up than others. PQ: I almost wish I was not. Maybe this whole fighting thing might be easier, then. Yet idle wonderings on such matters hardly make any difference, do they? Best to play the hand I am dealt. PQ: Say, what is your specibus, if you do not mind me asking? AA: I hae *two*. Spear an' bowKind. AA: Might need to alchemize a *few* more o' th'first. PQ: Ah, that is right, you did mention sticking spears into the Nothing earlier. PQ: You know, it only now occurs to me. PQ: While I definitely do not mind, why did you contact me in the first place? What about staring into the Nothing made your thoughts turn to me? AA: I'm not sure. *Krrr.* AA: It's frightfully pan-woozy stuff. Sopor *doesn't* compare. AA: *Krr* Let me try an' remember. AA: *...* AA: Tha' wazzit. Somethin' similar 'appens tae ye. AA: I'd pulled up th'Port t'rewatch it, an' compare. PQ: ...What? Lorelei came to a full and complete halt in the middle of the air, eyes as wide as saucers. PQ: What are you saying? PQ: That I am swallowed by darkness at some point? PQ: I know I asked not to divulge what happens in my future, but this seems rather important.AA: Ah *dinnae know* what happens to ye. AA: Ye've got your weapon out, yer lookin' aroun' the space... AA: An' then it goes *Dark*. An *uncanny* sort o' blackness. AA: Ah cannae move forward in time past that tae a time tha' I can see you again. The young scion fell silent, eyes pensive and far-off. She ran through her mind any number of ways something like that could happen, worried a bit over it all... Yet, in the end, she simply shook her head, smiling ever so slightly, and continued on with her flight. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}PQ: Well, if that shall come, then it shall come. PQ: And when it does, I shall simply push through and overcome any danger or threat that it poses! PQ: Besides, there is no sense in worrying over things one cannot change in the first place. All I can do is prepare myself for when it comes. PQ: Thank you for the warning! AA: Awful *blithe* ye be about all this, Lorelei. AA: Tha' blackness was th'puzzle what set me to hunt you down in th'first place. PQ: Blithe? I would like to think not. Simply confident. PQ: Shut out doubt and go beyond the impossible! That is the way I do things. PQ: Do not take said confidence as not appreciating the potential threat. PQ: In fact, I am willing to bet that the darkness that occludes my viewport has somethng to do with the darkness in those caverns the angels sent me to. PQ: So as much as I may not WANT to, it seems that to further understand this potential threat I must return. PQ: Fortunately, I understand now why my magic did not work. AA: Well. We're o' one mind about tha', at least. AA: *Krrrr.* So why do ye think it's back? AA: For tha' matter, why do *ye* 'ave magic, when I dinnae? AA: We're both Heroes of *Hope,* after all. PQ: That one, I cannot answer. It is entirely possible it has something to do with the first parts of our titles. PQ: Or you could, perhaps, have the capability and simply have not discovered it? PQ: For me, at least, the drill provided a good focusing point, from which my powers could awaken, I think. PQ: Yet it also made me think that the powers came from the drill alone, which was my problem when I went to the caverns. PQ: As much as it sounds like a cheesy Aesop, the power was inside of me all along. Powered by my own hope and will. AA: ...It wouldnae work anyother way, would it? AA: *Krrr* Somethin' to think on. PQ: Indeed. Perhaps try to alchemize something that will help you focus at first, as I did? PQ: I believe I threw in a book about dreams and such, which may have been what helped me gain access to the power locked away in my subconscious. It was at this point that Lorelei finally arrived at her destination: a large, sprawling factory complex, belching great towers of smoke into the air above. PQ: Well, it seems I have arrived to my destination. PQ: Are you away from the Nothing yet? I shall likely have to cut our conversation short here, as what I am about to do shall understandably require all of my attention.AA: *Oh, aye.* AA: On th'surface now, wif *empty pockets.* AA: I figured tae hunt down a return gate an' check on m'hive. AA: Luck in battle, Lorelei. Death an' suffering to your enemies.PQ: Neither of those things i really wish to give to my enemies, though the former shall be likely necessary. AA: Jus' what's *traditional,* ye ken.PQ: That is what I figured, yes. So thank you! It has been a pleasure speaking with you. PQ: Farewell! -- philosopherQueen [PQ] ceased pestering asterismAscendant [AA] -- The large, stately gold front door swung open, its hinges creaking with an awful, piercing sound. From this opened portal poured a legion of various monsters, fresh from the factory. Imps, ogres, liches--nary a one was absent from the congregation. They all surrounded Lorelei in a wide circle, baring fangs and hissing menacingly. Lorelei smirked. ===> A great deal of grist richer, Lorelei entered the giant doors, which immediately--controlled by some unseen force--creaked shut behind her. All was silent, save for the distant sound of steam engines and factory machinery that thudded through the thick gold walls. To her immediate right and left were large paintings, the one on the right a stately representation of a mustachioed turtle who Lorelei assumed was the former owner, and the one on the left a picture of what Lorelei assumed were all of the turtles who had worked here. Both were defiled and torn almost beyond recognition. Lorelei pressed onward, ignoring the fatigue that clawed at the back of her mind and seemed to add weight to her every limb. As decisive in her favor as the previous battle had been, she still was not used to using her magic without the drill as a focus point. Dredging it up on her own was more difficult, though the difficulty was in part ameliorated by the strong sense of will and confidence she felt as she walked forward, ever closer to her goal. Indeed, without even needing to be consciously willed to do so, the white aura of her magic--Hope, not Skaian, as she had so long falsely believed--surrounded her, wisping like smokeless flame. The first room led into a long hallway, which ended in another pair of doors, this far smaller than the previous ones, standing at seven feet high. The large, gaping hole in the gold wall to her right testified to the frustration the larger monsters had no doubt felt trying to fit through it. Through the hole itself a somewhat small assembly line chugged along, creating imps of various prototypings. They all seemed to notice her at once, and froze to the spot. Lorelei pointed her finger at them, and shot an arcing blast of magic, like white lightning, that tore through some of the imps. What were not destroyed by the blast itself were ended when the blast hit the machine, creating a catastrophic explosion that even Lorelei herself had to duck and cover to evade. The Scion brushed away dust from her clothes (quite futilely, as the lovely suit and skirt had long been ruined by all the blood stains anyway) and admired her work. The explosion had utterly vanquished the imps, stopped production, blown a hole in a nearby wall, and left a smoking wreck of machinery. " Well, that should attract a great deal of attention, hopefully..." she muttered to herself. Lorelei slipped away through the aforementioned small door, and proceeded further into the factory. ===> Lorelei ducked into a small opening between two large machines, and watched as a veritable legion of monsters ran by in a disorganized muddle. Lorelei noted, with no small amount of amusement, that they seemed headed straight for the site of that disturbance she had caused earlier. Once she was certain that they had passed, she got out and continued on her way. The research laboratory was her objective. Though she by no means could have captured a monster to question them, logic dictated that one potential place her drill could have gone was to the research laboratory in this facility, so it could be studied and perhaps countered, as the Dersites were quite possibly under the same erroneous belief as she herself had been that the DRILL made the magic. When she finally arrived at the laboratory, she found it, quite unexpectedly, bereft of any and all guards. The door stood at the same height as the one before, and was utterly lacking in any ornamentation save for a gold plaque above it, where the word "LABORTORY" had been painted in thick black letters--Lorelei couldn't help but smirk at the misspelling. Lorelei walked quietly as she could over to the doorway and creeeeeeeeeaked the door open... only to barely miss being hit by a laser beam. The one who fired the shot was a tall male Dersite with glasses and a general bookish look. He had fired the shot with his free, left hand without even looking at Lorelei's direction, for he was currently far too engrossed in examining Lorelei's drill with some bizarre machine that appeared to be a microscope with some added parts that served a function Lorelei could not guess. "I thought I ordered no one to bother me!" he snapped. A pause hung in the air, before he came to the realization that Lorelei's yelp of terror could not possibly have been made by any monster. He looked up and peered at Lorelei through his glasses, his expression inscrutable. "Well, well, what have we here?"
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 16:57:18 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) ===> You'd say the SWEET LOOT was worth the potential annoying conversations! But enough of this. You should head through a gate before someone drags your sorry ass into hours of pointless sidequests. You're not going to let yourself fall for that. The consorts do NOT need you to fetch them twenty ogre rumps for their soup, nor do they need someone to escort them through Killslaughter Gorge so that they can reunite with their old roommates or whatever. You've played enough video games to know where talking to random NPC's leads. So, time to go. >Enough work. Back to slacking. First you'll go to a beach on one of these planets! Maybe when you're done doing beach things (you're not really sure what that means but you're open to suggestions) you can go build snowmen with Lorelei! You've got as long as you need to do whatever you want as long as you stay away from the... >Snakes. "Hi I'm Randy! I'm a ssssnake!" ===> SHOW DIALOGLOG PETER: ffffffffuuuuuuu........ RANDY: Hi! I'm Randy! Thissss is Doug! DOUG: Hi! RANDY: We're sssnakesss! PETER: I can see that... RANDY: Hi! RANDY: Are you the knight? PETER: Wait what? PETER: No i am not. I'm the seer! PETER: Can I go now? RANDY: Oh that'sss even better! We were going to beat up the knight but- PETER: Why would you do that? DOUG: Didn't you get the memo? PETER: Uh no? RANDY: Well that's okay because we need your help sssseer! RANDY: Did you sssee all the towersss on your way here? PETER: ............. RANDY: There are towerssss! PETER: I gathered. RANDY: Did you sssee the sssteeeeaam, ssseer?? PETER: Yes I saw the- RANDY: It comes from the towersss! PETER: oh my god RANDY: The sssteam comesss from deep insside the ground. None of usss know why becausssse we can't go very deep. DOUG: Becaussse we don't have armsss! RANDY: Or appropriate gear but that'ssss another ssstory. RANDY: Anyway did you sssssee the ugly monster thingsss on ssssome of the towerssss?? PETER: Yeah they had like these weird- RANDY: They're ussssing the sssteam to power them! PETER: ugh PETER: What are they? RANDY: I don't know!! PETER: Then what are you trying to tell me? >:/ RANDY: Uh RANDY: I'm not really ssssure! RANDY: I jusssst wanted to be sssssure you knew about them! DOUG: Psssssssssst RANDY: What issss it?? DOUG: PSSSSSSSSSSSST RANDY: Ssssspit it out, Doug! DOUG: They're tanksssss! PETER: Woah wait what?? DOUG: Tanksssssssss! The shooty kind! Nemesssssissssss had the little guyssss make them! PETER: Nemesisss? PETER: I mean nemesis PETER: Is that my demizen? DOUG: Yep!! RANDY: Doug how do you know all of thissss? DOUG: I don't know! It'sss jussst there! PETER: Well that's great you guys have fun with your tanks, I'm going to RANDY: But ssseer! You're sssuppossed to get rid of them! PETER: What are they even doing? None of them fired a shot the whole time I was portalling around. DOUG: They're waiting for sssomething! PETER: Waiting for what? DOUG: I'm not sssure! All I know isss that they have them up for a reasssson! PETER: Ugh, fine. I'll see what i can do. PETER: By the way do you two know anything about the guy in the polo shirt? RANDY: The tall one? DOUG: We sssaw him! RANDY: He told us hisss name wasss 'Pissssoff Runtsss' and then left! PETER: oh my fucking god PETER: Well which way did he go? RANDY: I don't know! PETER: >__________< PETER: Well where's the nearest tank? DOUG: We sssaw one climbing your tower!
PETER: What?!
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 17:04:22 GMT -5
"I suppose I should have known better than to think you would not follow," the glasses-wearing Dersite continued, sliding a black sword from its sheath with his right hand, "yet I did not expect you to make it this far, in truth." Lorelei glanced down at the drill, then back at the man before her. Trying her best to seem confident and steady--and ignore the gun pointed at her--she demanded, " Please, return my drill and we can depart in peace. I would hate to have to..." the word "kill" came to mind, but stuck in her throat, and she could not bring herself to say it, " to...hurt you." The Dersite chuckled. "An awfully brave little girl, to be making demands unarmed." Lorelei smiled confidently and pointed at herself with her thumb. " Are you not aware of who I am? That is just a technicality!" "Hah!... Indeed. By hook or by crook, you somehow managed to make it this far. It would be foolish to ignore your cunning. Yet the answer is still no." There was a small pause, each sizing up the other, before Lorelei again spoke up. " Wait! Before we...we..." Fight? Kill each other? Die? Murder? Each word stuck in her throat much as it had before, " ...do this, I want to ask: what is your name?" The man fixed her with a strange stare, confused and mildly surprised. "What is it to you, Scion of Hope?" Lorelei frowned, casting her glance to the ground for but a few moments before remembering that she should be keeping a close eye, no matter what her emotional state, on this man and the gun pointed at her. " Well, I simply do not want to potentially..." Kill? Murder? Fight? Destroy? " ...kill someone, and not know his name." I want something to put on the gravestone. she mentally added. "...I have no name, Scion. I am Nobody." " What? Why, what do you mean?" Another pause, and "Nobody" seemed to weigh his options. For whatever reason--perhaps a desire to distract Lorelei, or perhaps a wish to tell his story, or some reason our hero could never know--in the end, he chose to tell his little tale. "Some time ago, I was but a common footsoldier, fighting the war on the Battlefield. We had been ambushed by a Prospitian brigade, and were being torn to pieces. All but I and a few men and women were left. Just when all hope seemed lost, and we were going to all be killed, he arrived." He said "he" in a reverent tone, almost religious. "The Black King. Our Lord and Protector. When they saw him coming, the Prospitians took to flight. Since that day, I have owed my very existence to my King. I have served Him in any way possible, and I renounced my name and identity to better become an instrument of His will. I am Nobody." Lorelei was stunned. Such a level of reverence simply for saving his life? She glanced down at the ground yet again, and held a hand to her head. " That's..." Zap This time, the blood that stained the dark fabric of her suit red was Lorelei's own, and no other's. It ran in deep torrents from a hole that pierced straight through her heart, fired from the gun that had been leveled at her this whole time. In a single moment of carelessness, it was over. The Scion of Hope collapsed to the floor. Her eyes dilated, unfocused, and seemed to lose some of their luster. DEAD?
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 17:06:09 GMT -5
Silence. Thick and suffocating, it hung in the air, only broken by the light hum of the machinery nearby. Page had hung in the background the whole time, silent and listening. Now she stepped up, her soft footfalls further punctuating the silence, yet never seeming to overcome it. She stood beside Dahlia, gazing down at the information on "Subject Delta". She fidgeted, brought her eyes up to Dahlia's--topaz reflecting in sapphire reflecting in cold blue electric light. " Dahlia, I-..." Words failed. Page thought that they would have perhaps even failed for one as accomplished in language as Lorelei, for what could one truly say to this? Instead, she, as she had many times before in the short time since their meeting, held out a hand and placed it supportively upon Dahlia's shoulder. Silence. Wordlessly agape, Dahlia stood, staring up at the enormous glass tank, eyes reflecting the rings of light at its top and bottom, not even registering Page's presence. Her fingers trailed down the smooth glass, quiet squeak of first fingertips and then nails drowned out in the low electronic hum ambient throughout the lab. Midnight blue eyes fell -- not to Page's, but to the screen before her. Three years... four months... six days. She didn't even want to think it through, didn't want to give too much thought to the numbers, because that would make them real -- but she did, because she had to. For over three years, Subject Delta lived nearly her entire life in this glass prison -- not a person, not a child, but science. And Subject Delta... was Dahlia. She was, for such a long time, not even a person. She was a thing -- an object to be studied, a scientific curiosity, a variable to be monitored and recorded. She was a subject. She was research. And she couldn't even bring herself to cry. Silence. Dahlia turned, mechanically, and staggered away from the tank, away from the screen, away from Subject Delta and the data and her old name and three years and four months and six days; staggered as if pulled, staggered away from Page's reassuring touch on her shoulder. It wasn't a refusal of comfort, so much as a denial of its existence; nothing existed for Dahlia except the tank behind her, glowing pale blue, and the stairs ahead, pallid off-white in the glow of ancient fluorescents. She had to get out of here. Page stumbled along, at first behind and then to the side, silent, sometimes casting worried glances yet never speaking up. Much as she felt that she wanted to hug Dahlia, given all that they had just learned (and truly believed her friend could benefit from it), another part of her rightly guessed that Dahlia probably didn't want to stick around in this place. Stairs. Dahlia picked her way past the last of the cords and pipes snaking their way across the floor, between work stations and liquid-filled tanks. You could have used the... She gave a bitter, hollow cough of a laugh. Because a less physically demanding path of entry might have softened the blow of learning that she was a meteor-science-baby? Dahlia couldn't even bring herself to be angry about it, though. Stairs led up, and also down. There was another level to the lab? But Dahlia needed to get out of here. Needed to get as far away from here as-- no, needed to get somewhere safe. Comforting. Dahlia trudged silently up the staircase, fumbling only briefly with the keypad on the door at the top of the stairs. She knew what the code would be. The door slid open with a mechanical precision quite unlike what would be expected of a fifteen-year-old device; the other side was a bookshelf, as she had predicted, and the books rattled quietly against each other as the wall it was attached to slid open. A quiet thump suggested some object had fallen off the shelf just before it stopped. Dahlia stooped briefly as she passed, plucking from the floor a tiny, architecturally accurate model of a windmill. A key on the side suggested it could be wound; Dahlia twisted it distractedly as she made her way through the living room (wall still covered in photos detailing the evolution of the bizarre mathematical equation on her bedroom wall), heading for the hallway and eventually the stairs, heading for somewhere safe. Comforting. Did her own room even count, now, now that she saw what everyone else had seen for years? But that was where she ended up, regardless, staring at the equations scrawled on the walls in her own unsteady hand. Equations... missing something. Dahlia pulled out one of her desk drawers, heedless of the mess of pens and paper and trinkets and notes she had written to herself days or months or years ago that now littered the floor next to her favorite computer chair. A single crayon stood up amidst the tiny pile of junk, a blue Excalibur of color as old as her name; Dahlia plucked her trusty Crayola Midnight Blue from its resting place, and with a few deft strokes, added one final line to the snaking progression of equations around her room, filling in the last open space with a mathematical code not even Dahlia herself understood... and then stopped, straightened, stared, arms hanging loosely at her sides, wielding crayon and windmill before a computational monster of her own making. That was enough. It was surprising, and an almost uncharacteristically assertive of a thought for the young Page of Frost, but she felt, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she couldn't just keep watching this. It was enough. She had to do something. So, without asking or placing a hand on a shoulder first or anything, Page simply walked up and around to in front of Dahlia, and embraced her. Dahlia froze, dropping crayon and windmill to the floor. The latter landed upright, and with a few quiet clicks of its internal mechanism, began playing an old song, a familiar song. Dahlia couldn't even bring herself to cry. Exhausted, worn, emotionally drained, Dahlia raised trembling hands to match Page's embrace, clutching to the back of the shorter girl's jacket as if to life itself. Head bowed, tearless face buried in messy brown hair, she held Page close in abiding silence for what seemed like forever before finally speaking again. " ...Thanks, Page. I needed that." It was entirely true. It was always true.
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 18:10:45 GMT -5
Some time later -- maybe a minute, maybe five, as Dahlia was well past the point of counting -- the troubled blonde finally let go of her younger companion. That was a new sensation, not wanting to let go. It had been a long time since Dahlia had considered any sort of physical contact -- or even physical proximity -- as something safe and comforting. But she had to let go eventually, just as she had to do this. Dahlia stepped back, plucked the windmill music box from its place on the floor, and dropped down to sit on her ruined bed with a sigh, resting her back against the cruxtruder still sitting sideways in the middle of the bed. She stared down at the model windmill, fiddling idly with it, passing it from one hand to the other, but not winding it again. For a long while she didn't speak, just toyed with the windmill, preemptively interrupting only just before Page might have thought to fill the silence. "I'm going to hate myself for saying this." For the first time since the lab, Dahlia finally looked straight at Page. "So I'm only gonna say it once." Somewhere along the line, her resolve faltered, and her gaze fell again to the windmill she was still playing with. From her tone, and the slightest hint of a sarcastic grin, it would be easy to surmise she had recovered, at least in part. The grin, of course, was mostly for her own total failure to stand by her self-sufficient, loner persona. If there was one thing Dahlia was good at, it was kicking her own ass. "I really liked having you here with me. It's been a long time since I've really talked with anyone, up close and personal, besides mom and her tutors. It was... I'm glad you were around to help me get my feet under me." Page smiled. It was light, carefree, utterly devoid of pretenses or hidden meanings. Simply...happy, just like that first smile so long ago. "That's what friends are for, right, maybe? Hehehe, I guess it's payment for you literally helping me 'get my feet under me' back when my shoes malfunctioned, possibly!" "Heh... that--" Dahlia cut off sharply, covering an unexpected sputter of a laugh that actually caught her entirely by surprise. After a few moments of genuine laughter, Dahlia cleared her throat quietly, continuing with a rather more serious expression. Damn it, do you have any idea how hard it is to say this after that? But it had to be said. "Page, I... I'm a mess right now. I don't know just what to make of all that yet, I don't know what that means," she gestured to the wall at the corner of the room, where she'd written the last line of inscrutable mathematical code just minutes before, "I don't know what I'm doing, and I really don't even know quite how I feel right now... other than just... empty." She paused, mulling over her own point, unclear as it was. "What I mean is... you can't just stick around here, waiting for me to get my act together, ignoring your own mission." That was an important word. Mission. It was important, even if Dahlia couldn't quite place just why. "You've got a planet too, and consorts, and quests and... and all those things people do in a game like this. And you can't just leave that and wait for me to figure out which way's up. Lorelei's probably, you know," Dahlia made a halfhearted flying gesture with a hand held flat, chuckling quietly to herself, "zipping around her planet with her magic, saving consorts, taking down evil factories or whatever business she said she got up to with Peter before I even got here. She's gonna be sitting there at the end, wondering what the hell took us all so long. And me?" She made a vague circular motion with her hand, as if to explain something she couldn't even manage to properly conceptualize. "I'm just... I need some time, to get my head straight." Dahlia pressed that hand to her forehead, rubbing slow, firm circles, as if to wipe away her troubles. It didn't. "Maybe hours, maybe days... I don't know. My whole world just got turned upside down, and I haven't even slept. Now's probably a little too late to pretend I have a conscience, but... I can't, in good faith, keep you here for who knows how long, no matter how much I like--" Another sharp cutoff, this one expressionless but for a brief flash of what might have been surprise. "...I mean, you're great company, but you've got things you need to do. And waiting on me here isn't going to get them done." Before Page could protest, she raised a hand, one finger uplifted. "I insist." Page had opened her mouth to respond when Dahlia had raised her finger to stop her, and then promptly fell silent. For a few moments, she fidgeted, visibly torn. In the end, she did not even address the main issue at first, but focused on something that Dahlia had likely said off-handedly: "You, um... I don't think you should say you don't have a conscience, maybe. I mean, everyone does...and you've shown yours, I think." Dahlia was quiet for a bit, simply staring at the windmill sitting on her lap. A smile spread slowly across her blue-painted lips; half rueful grin, half weary admission of a welcome defeat. "Maybe you're right, maybe I do." She raised her eyes -- and that tired, unsteady smile -- to Page. "Which is exactly why I can't let you wait around here on me. I can't place myself above your responsibilities." Back to the windmill again. "I'm not saying leave me alone forever. I really... I mean, it was really nice, having you around." Damn it, you made me say it a second time... "But if I'm just going to be here, trying to sort things out in my own head, I'd much rather have just one of us wasting time on that, instead of two. Once I've put myself back together..." A long pause. Was she blushing? Just barely, but... "I'd like to see you again, alright? Maybe I'll even come visit you this time, instead." Another pause, and then Page smiled. Light, carefree, and happy, just as before. "Well, if you're sure, I guess... I would like that, though, definitely." She walked and, barely having to bend down to do it given her shorter stature, gave Dahlia one last quick hug. "Good luck, then, I guess? I'm not sure what's proper to say here, really..." She let go and took a few steps back, hands behind her back. "Oh, um, and don't hesitate to pester me if you want to, really. I don't mind, not at all. But...well, bye for now, then, Dahlia!" Dahlia simply nodded, smiling a subtle but entirely honest smile to match Page's. "I think I'd like that." Three... I'm so doomed. She waved, again chuckling quietly to herself. "Go on, before I change my mind." And Page turned, and left, and Dahlia was alone. Where once there was the warm glow of Page's presence, of her smile, of that curiously pleasant feeling in her heart, now it was... cold, and dark, and empty. Despite herself, Dahlia suddenly snickered. ...hehehe... zipping around her planet like some silly gold-and-black fairy... ...I should check on Lorelei.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:19:22 GMT -5
The view was breathtaking, as Page flew high above her land on winged shoes (no longer trusting the rocket versions since the mishap before). The snow gently falling down, the multi-colored aurora of clouds in the sky, and even the great flaming pillars that were said to be a bane to this world all made a wonderful site to behold. And yet, as the chilling wind seemed to go straight through her clothing (her NORMAL clothes--though much thickened via alchemy for the weather--no longer the ones that looked quite like Dahlia's, for she had changed just prior to leaving) Page couldn't suppress rueful thoughts upon her return here. Why did she have to be saddled with a place so cold? The climes of Dahlia's land had been far more pleasing, even with all the really scary dinosaurs. A smile came to her lips at the thought of her new friend. It was almost funny, really, to think back on her worries that she would annoy Dahlia in some fashion when she was asking if the girl wanted some company or help in her world. Sure, Dahlia had acted somewhat oddly, all things considered, but that also seemed, to an extent, par for the course for the girl. She was... the word "intricate" popped into Page's mind, and it seemed to fit almost too well. Like a puzzle where the more one solved it, the more new layers it showed. Not that there was anything wrong with that, really. A lot of people were "intricate", and Page had never become as close to someone as quickly as she had with Dahlia. Dahlia was special, somehow. I sure hope Dahlia will be all right and be able to get her head on straight after all that's happened, really... But, what am I saying, perhaps? Of course she will, definitely. A strange certainty of faith, that Page could not really pinpoint the reason behind. All the same, she knew Dahlia would be fine, in the end. There was no doubt. Another chill breeze broke her Dahlia-centric reverie, and the young Page of Frost reminded herself that she came here for a reason: to see to her consorts and land quests. She'd be hardly doing what Dahlia wanted her to do if she spent the whole time thinking about her friend. ===> A medium-sized town lay on the landscape below, and Page flew down towards it. The first thing that she noticed were the walls: large, thick, made of ice, and encircling the town with parapets and such carved into it. The gate, on the other hand, was made of wood. It was large, but clearly in disrepair and disuse, and Page could not help but wonder if it had frozen in the open position on its hinges. Inside the town, all buildings were made of wood, and the houses and businesses were fashioned in something reminiscent to Viking architecture. Ice was used largely for ornamentation, both on houses themselves (Page noted a haphazard thing of many icicles that appeared to be a form of windchime, and one where little bits of ice were placed together to create a sort of drawing on the wall of a house) and around the streets (a few small statues dotted the place, various crocodilian figures for the most part). What most caught Page's attention, however, was the large statue of what appeared to be a snowflake in the very center of the town, which towered over all other structures in the town. Even more peculiar, was how the crocs all seemed to be gathered around it in two groups: one to the east and one to the west). As she got closer, she realized that they were, in fact, singing. None of them had any instruments, so the eastern group appeared to be responsible for that, creating the melody that the song followed with nothing but naks. The western group, on the other hand, seemed to be responsible for the actual singing lyrics. At the moment, the song was more subdued, and the western and eastern crocs both seemed to be deliberately dropping their voices rather than singing as loud as possible. "-and hear our tale, of one who wields the nevermelting ice! Take hope, dear comrades, for the savior shall come, and rid the world of vile Ahriman's lies!" Here the song suddenly picked up. "Page of Frost! Winter Queen! In your name we sing! For the world has lost its balance, and only one can set it right! Ice-blood! Flame's Bane! For the evil Ahriman preys on living and dead! Savior! Protector! In your name we sing! Heed our song, and claim your legend!" Page flushed scarlet. Here the song seem to have ended, and the crocs slowly began leaving to go about their affairs. If one was honest, they would have to say that the song wasn't particularly GOOD--really more adorable, but what could one expect from ones as somewhat daft as consorts tended to be?--yet the fact that they were very definitely singing about her, and in such a reverent fashion, hit Page like a ton of bricks. Part of her wanted to tell them who she was, but the rest shouted that part down. After all, if they found out that their great heroine and savior was just some mousey little girl who hated the cold and was...well... Page they would be horribly disappointed. Right? Right. Of that Page had no doubt. Best to just try and get some information out of them. Especially to find out who this "Ahriman" person was. After all, Page's denizens were Hades and Persephone, so who was this Ahriman? She walked up to one of the crocs who seemed to be walking back alone, and softly called out, " Um, excuse me..." The croc kept walking, ignorant of her words. She raised her voice, " Excuse me, do you mind if I ask some questions, maybe?" The little croc NAKed in surprise, and turned to face Page. "Naknaknaknak! You scared the nak out of me!" .........But if I scared it out of you, why did you nak four times there, possibly? Or was that what you mean, that I scared you enough to make you nak, maybe? " Uh, yes, sorry, definitely! I'm kind of new here, I guess, and I was just wondering what that was you were singing, possibly?" The little crocodile's eyes seemed to light up at mention of the song, and he wasted no time launching into an explanation. "That was our nak to the Page of Frost, the greatest hero who will ever nak! Much greater than all others! Much much much greater, naknak! We gather around her symbol made of unmelting ice in the middle of town and nak for her to come and save us, as all the legends say she will!" He almost spoke with religious reverence when he mentioned the Page of Frost. Page blushed yet again, and she hoped against all hope that the crocodile wouldn't know what that meant since he was a crocodile, and crocodiles do not blush. Oh god they were going to be so disappointed when they found out! She'd be crushing all their little dreams by her mere existence... " I-I see, I think... Um, who is Ahriman, maybe?" The crocodile's look of reverence and awe immediately switched to a mixture of fear and hate. "Ahriman is the Great Destroyer, the Undying Flame, who creates the fire pillars that nak all around our world! He kills the living and feeds upon the dead! Only the Page of Frost, She of the Ice-Blood, Flame's Bane, can nak him!" Where once her face had been deep scarlet, now all the color seemed to drain from it entirely. Did...did that mean...she effectively had THREE denizens?! > Page: Mental Breakdown three denizens THREE denizens three DENIZENS THREE DENIZENS THREE DENIZENS THREE DENIZENS three three three THREE THREE?! Page's eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed to the ground. Naptime.
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 18:20:27 GMT -5
And so, Dahlia proceeded to do just that. -- spiraMirabilis [SM] began pestering philosopherQueen [PQ] -- SM: Hey SM: Lorelei SM: I SM: uh SM: Sorry, I'm SM: not exactly feeling like myself right now. Nothing. Dahlia sighed, one hand rubbing her forehead, bouncing the back of her head rhythmically against the cruxtruder she was still leaning against -- perhaps to keep herself from slamming it against the wall. Her head, that is. Not the cruxtruder. She wasn't quite that good.
She wasn't anywhere near that good. SM: Fuck's sake, Lorelei. The one time I need someone to talk to and you're nowhere to be found. SM: I mean, this is some seriously heavy shit right here, not like before. This stuff makes meteors look like child's play. SM: Or I guess meteors are a part of it. I'm not even sure anymore. SM: Lorelei, I'm SM: Never mind, I'll say it in person next time I see you. And still nobody answered. Dahlia clenched her hands into loose fists for just a moment before relaxing again. She couldn't even get angry about this. With another heavy sigh, she set aside the windmill music box and barked one last sarcastic quip at the projected screen of her locketputer. SM: You better either be getting laid, or lying dead in a ditch somewhere. SM: And we both know the ditch is more likely.
It was more likely for Dahlia too. -- spiraMirabilis [SM] ceased pestering philosopherQueen [PQ] -- Dahlia pushed off the bed, lurching towards the door. Halfway there, she paused... and sighed again. -- spiraMirabilis [SM] began pestering philosopherQueen [PQ] -- SM: It was SM: a fucking SM: joke. SM: Goddamn even my sense of humor is broken. I'm sorry, Lorelei. SM: Just... answer me, please. Sometime. Whenever you get back. SM: I'm so sorry. -- spiraMirabilis [SM] ceased pestering philosopherQueen [PQ] -- Head in hands, Dahlia contemplated once more collapsing on her bed and simply forgetting it all, and giving in, and just curling up in a ball until the world stopped being so horrifically fucked up. Except it was never going to do that. Jesus Dahlia get ahold of yourself. One foot in front of the other. To the door. Gotta find some way to shake this. One foot in front of the other. Can't stop now. Sitting around being useless won't do anyone a bit of good, least of all you. One foot in front of the other. The hall, and the stairs. Up, not down. Never down. Never again. That's what I'll do. It was a lame plan, but it was better than no plan. Alchemize something... alchemize all kinds of things, have a goddamn alchemy spree, that'll-- it won't cheer me up but maybe it'll help. A decisive nod; certainty was good, certainty was better than emptiness. Certainty was better than remembering that she's a some some sort of science-meteor-baby thing. Dahlia shook her head to clear it. To try to clear it. It wasn't working. Nothing was working. Nothing was working and everything was wrong and it's all fucked up in the worst possible ways and there's no going back ever again and oh thank fuck here's the punch designix. As quickly as her fingers could fly -- and if the last thing she did up here (that being the duel, let us not forget) was any indication, that was pretty quick -- she plucked cards from her sylladex and started running calculations on a projected screen from a set of ringputers, then keyed one into the designix, punched a card, and half-stumbled, half-ran over to the totem lathe. From the pile she and Page had brought up there for her own alchemy spree (wait a minute) Dahlia grabbed several as-yet-uncarved totems, slapped them into the lathe and set it to work. She would make a bunch of neat stuff, just like Page did (wait a minute), and hopefully it would perk up her mood a bit. Or if not, it should at least be good for a laugh, to see what horrible miscegenation of fashion the game might decide to inflict upon her. Well, at least she managed to produce some decent stuff (wait a minute) for Page, back then. Maybe she'd have some luck. At least moderately hopeful, Dahlia stepped over to the alchemiter, placed the first totem on the platform, and (WAIT JUST ONE GODDAMN MINUTE THERE SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT HERE) was notified quite unexpectedly that her reach had substantially exceeded her grasp. That is to say, she was pretty much entirely cleaned out of grist. She had spent it all making stuff for poor Page, which the author couldn't be arsed to detail at the time but which was definitely made and definitely cost real grist in those little timeskips way back there. And in all that misaimed beneficence, Dahlia had completely forgotten to make anything for herself. She wanted to be furious. She wanted to rage, and thrust her fist to the heavens, and scream. But Dahlia did none of those things. Instead, she simply produced her rocket pack from her sylladex, switched it on, and calmly aimed herself towards the mainland, visions of underling slaughter already dancing through her head. Moral of the story: I'm going to stab everyone.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:20:40 GMT -5
>Page: Wake up Light blue eyes fluttered open in a field of purple. For a few moments, Page thought herself in a particularly lucid dream. The room she was in seemed positively MADE of the color. The only furniture to be found were purple bookshelves that lined the walls and a single computer, exactly like the one she usually used in her library, sitting against the wall beside the only window. Page herself lay flat on her back on a cold tile floor (yet did not feel the least bit cramped or sore, only making her more persuaded this was simply some weirdly lucid dream). It was only when she got up and walked to the window, that she realized how right, and how wrong, she truly was. It was a whole planet filled with purple, and Page could just make out some black figures walking around on the ground. Two other towers much like hers loomed in the distance. " So this must be that dreaming world Zach mentioned, I guess...?" Page whispered to herself in awe. She turned her head this way and that, trying to see just how far this city extended, but she could nary see the end of it. As she looked to the right, something caught her eye: two black swords, stuck into the wall of her tower. She thought she could see something written in green on one of the swords, but not quite. She leaned out as far as she could before risking falling (something she did NOT want to do, given the great height at which her tower sat). " ....'Sorry'?" " Speaking of which, let me in?" A redhaired girl appeared suddenly in Page's field of vision, head peering up from the bottom of the sphere that capped her dream tower. Page let out a surprised yelp and fell backwards from the window onto her behind. A pause as Page took time to comprehend the situation and pick herself back up, then she stuck her head outside the window again. " Gita?! You're flying, possibly??" Another beat, before Page suddenly remembered her manners. " ...O-oh, um, yes, come right in, I guess." She stepped back from the window to allow Gita room to enter. " Thanks," was her terse reply. Without any further ado, Gita hovered herself (and her excessively lacy, ruffled, purple-and-white pyjamas) in through the window. Her entrance was accompanied by a sigh of relief. " Thanks. It's angry out there. Better inside." She forced a smile, trying to look pleasant through the obvious discomfort indicated by her grimace and hand-to-temple gesture. Page was now hit by a strange realization: she had no idea what to do here. What was courteous or proper when a guest was in one's home--the word had a strange dimension now, as this very much seemed to be a room she owned, and was therefore a home--was never something she had dealt with before. No one had ever asked her if they could enter the library she had spent most of her days. Page fidgeted for a few moments, nervously running a hand through her hair. " Do you want to sit down, perhaps?" she asked, gesturing to the only piece of furniture in the room besides the rows and rows of bookshelves: the computer desk. That was what people did when they invited people into their homes, right? Asked them if they wanted to sit down? That was how it went in some of the books she read and some of the tv shows she had watched online. " Yeah, sure." Gita looked about the purple room with a critical eye: from the shelves to the desk, to the floor to the rest of the shelves. She pulled out the seat and turned it to face Page. " Huh, no bed." And then, moving on without waiting for Page's answer " No, of course not--your Da, th'library, and all that." She looked back at the hesitant girl. " Just woke up, then?" Page nodded. " Right, I think so. Is this Derse, maybe?" She stole another glance to the window and the great purple city beyond before remembering her manners and looking back at Gita. " Got it in one." The redhead smiled, just a pixel more, and nodded. " Pretty, yeah?" This time she took a longer glance, feeling justified since the conversation had moved to the subject of the world's beauty. " It is, definitely." A pause, then she looked back at Gita. " By the way, were you flying or did I just see that incorrectly, perhaps?" The grin got a few pixels broader again. " Yup. E'erybody dreamin' can fly." She hovered a few inches above the chair, legs still folded, to demonstrate. Page's eyes, already fairly large normally, grew as wide as saucers as she watched her friend float into the air. " That's amazing, really..." she muttered in a tone of awe. " But, um, how do you do it, possibly?" Hand to chin in thought, Gita floated there for a moment. " Shit, Page. I've been flyin' Derse for years and years. You think I remember how I started? You...you just do. You're asleep. It's a dream. You can fly in your dreams, can'tcha?" She looks back and spreads her arms in a big shrug. Another nervous hand-running-through-her-hair tic. " I don't remember most of them, really. I can't remember any where I flew, I think." Nevertheless, the young girl shut her eyes and tried her best to just fly...and found, upon opening her eyes, that she was still as shackled to the ground as before. " I don't think I'm doing it right, I guess..." " Fall and miss the ground?" This smile is positively impish. Page giggled lightly, instantly spotting the reference from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. " I...guess so, maybe?" Though the idea of actually putting that to the test wasn't too appealing, so she closed her eyes and tried again, again to no avail. "Hn. Here," Gita shooofs over to Page, and extends a hand. " Hop up, I'll help." Page nodded and, after a moment's hesitation, grabbed Gita's hand. " On three. A-one, a-two, and--UP!" Gita yanked sharply on Page's hand, flying a few feet higher up as she did so. Like pulling someone up a ledge, she hoped to trick the grounded girl into thinking the open air was a stable surface. Page leaped up on Gita's command, and to her credit tried to believe that she could fly. Yet, even though Gita was very clearly flying before her, some nagging self-doubt still lay at the back of her mind. She ended up flailing for a little bit, hanging onto Gita's arm desperately, until she realized that might be making her comrade uncomfortable (though the girl, both due to small height and being quite thin given her diet, hardly weighed much at all). She promptly dropped to the floor with an embarrassed, apologetic look in her eyes. " Sorry," she said, utterly out of habit. " It's, uh. It's okay. Really." There was a long, awkward, silence. Gita slowly drifted back down to the ground. " Do you want to take the stairs down?" Page glanced around at her room, looking for anything that might be a hatch of some sort with stairs, and finding nothing. " There are stairs, perhaps?" Gita kicked a section of wall experimentally, and tried to pull a book off a shelf to see if it would trigger a secret passage, just in case. She succeeded in scuffing her purple suede slipper, and browsing through a copy of inspirational and prophetic poetry. Jack-diddly-squat. " Guess your room doesn't have 'em. Only one way out, then." Gita jerks her head towards the single open window. " Uh, okay..." Page walked over to the window, again having her breath taken away by the sight. While she was sure she'd get used to this eventually, like Gita probably had, it was all still so new and exciting. Yet as much as she wanted to see it... " Are you sure you want to carry me down there, really? I'm fine with staying up here, I think. I don't want to bother you, not at all." Gita frowns for a moment, making sure she caught all that in Page's thick, mumbled, Irish accent. " T'be honest, I was gonna have you jump out the window and figure the rest out before you went splat." A pause. " Or catch you, if it came to that. M'm a pretty good flier. An' you're a Dreamer of Derse. This stuff's our legacy. You gotta figure it out, learn the planet, sooner or later. So what'll it be?" She eased her flying form over Page's head and back out the window, turning back to look at the hesitant girl. Eyes wide as saucers once again, though this time it was a look of pure horror. She was silent for a moment, almost shaking visibly, until: " W-well...i-i-if I have to, then...could you at least b-be there to catch me, please?" she mumbled, almost unintelligible as the fear had rendered her normally quite thick Irish accent all the thicker. Gita could barely make it out, but Page's body language and intention were clear enough. " Of course. Be flyin' right behind ya, Page." Slowly, carefully, hands shaking, Page lifted one foot onto the windowsill. She peeked her head out as well and saw the ground far, far, TOO far away, and promptly yelped in fear, falling back. Yet after another moment to steady her nerves, she had her foot back on the windowsill again. Her eyes locked downward--for through a mixture of terror and awe, for she had never been this far up in her life, she could not look away--she raised her other foot until she was perched precariously on the windowsill, ready to take the final plunge. At least, ready physically. Mentally, it was a whole other matter. Her entire body shook with fear, yet she nevertheless tried to talk herself down from her terror. CalmdowncalmdowncalmdownCALMDOWN! You'll be ok...possibly. Gita will catch you if you can't fly...hopefully. There's nothing to worry about...I think. A deep, steadying breath. I can do this...I guess. Be brave, like Lorelei...or at least try to. Just...have to make that...leap of fa- Here, something accidental, and yet quite auspicious, occurred: Page slipped. She lost her footing on the windowsill and went tumbling forward out of her tower. She screamed so loudly that one might have wagered the whole of Derse's moon could hear it, until she suddenly stopped mid-scream. For, ironically MOTIVATED by her fear, she had found herself willing herself with all her being to fly (and not die). Serenely, as if she had never been in danger at all, she floated around, this way and that (slowly and cautiously, at first). " I...I did it... " I DID IT!" she celebrated, pumping a fist in the air and laughing like she was having the time of her life.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:24:47 GMT -5
((This was, at the time, something I charitably considered an "experiment" to see how a twist like this would even be received. Of course, fool that I was, I still should have realized without needing to test it. Nevertheless, I let it stand as a reminder to myself that I am and always shall be a hack of extraordinary proportions. Art courtesy of Veriama.)) The proceeding was what, by all rights, should have happened to Lorelei Catarina Kurfurstin Von Hayek. For all her strong will and ability, a laser bolt through the heart would have been her undoing. Were she lucky, another, perhaps the very object of her heart's desire, would have appeared to give her the kiss of life, and the Scion would continue to live. Yet even this outcome would have, eventually and inexorably, ended in the total destruction of the group of children who have yet to realize their destiny. And what sort of story would this be, with our Knight, Seer, Scion, Duchess, Bard, and Page made to stay cadavers? Certainly not one they would allow. Was it luck, some form of divine intervention, mere chance, perhaps an unconscious echo from a doomed timeline that changed fate? Or perhaps the Scion had her own little guardian angel? Whatever the reason, the Scion of Hope would not die that day. Just in time, she raised her arms in defense. A shield of magic formed around them, and deflected the shot. Be it by any of the aforementioned forces, the shot did not simply deflect away harmlessly, either. It was sent, straighter than an arrow, back to the very hand that fired it, blowing the gun straight out of Nobody's hands. There was no anger reflected in this nonexistent individual's features, and naught but a little surprise. Instead, amusement. He chuckled. "Not bad..." He took Lorelei's drill from its spot on the machine, and it disappeared (into his inventory, Lorelei could only believe). Nobody took a martial stance with his sword. "Yet nowhere near good enough..." STRIFE Nobody rushed forward in a flash, aided by what appeared to be rocket boots that Lorelei had never noticed before. He flew through the air towards her at a frightening speed and cut through--literally cut through, much to Lorelei's surprise--a bolt of magic shot at him. Within moments he had closed the distance, stabbing for the heart that his gun's shot had failed to pierce. Much as she had before, Lorelei deflected the blow with a white magic shield that covered her arm, and flew away while firing continued volleys. Though she had hoped to rely on her superior maneuverability in this fight, she soon found that her edge was not quite so vast as she had hoped. Nobody seemed to almost skate effortlessly through the air on his shoes, changing direction this way and that, always matching Lorelei's furious pace. It was a deadly dance through the air, Back away, fire, deflect, advance, spin, counter. It was an uninterrupted duet, for as much noise and fluster as they were making, the monsters seemed to heed Nobody's previous orders not to interrupt him, no matter what. There was nothing but the battle, for the two. The world around them seemed to grey and lose definition, as all focus was pointed towards the opponent. Somewhere in the back of Lorelei's mind she noticed that someone was attempting to contact her but it was lost in the rage of battle. Without even realizing she had done it, she dismissed pesterchum and ignored any subsequent beeps for her attention (of which there were many). And as the dance continued, one fact became more and more clear: it was Lorelei who led, not Nobody. The ability to attack from range was critical, and Nobody was forced, for all his elegance in the air, to play catchup to the Scion and relentlessly try to press the attack, always failing. Though fatigue plagued Lorelei's mind, she fought through it. She just kept repeating the words to herself: Never retreat, never surrender, never look back... Never retreat, never surrender, never look back! In the end, in a single moment of carelessness, it was all over. Nobody was just a little too slow one time, and Lorelei pressed her palm to his chest, sending a bolt of white magic straight through his heart. Once again, the blood that stained the dark fabric of Lorelei's suit was another's. It ran in deep torrents from the hole through Nobody's heart, flowing down her hand and into her sleeve. Nobody's sword slipped from his weak grip and clanged loudly on the floor below. Lorelei did not notice. Instead, she merely looked into the white circles that were the eyes of this man she had killed, and slowly lowered the both of them to the ground. There, she knelt beside, and held him as his life's blood spilled from a wound of her creation. " Do you regret it...?" the words stuck in her throat, and had to be forcibly choked out. Tears stung at her eyes, blurred her vision of this man who lay dying in her arms, of this murder victim, yet did not quite began to fall. " Dying like this...?" Nobody smirked, and raised a weak, trembling hand to place it on Lorelei's shoulder. "No more... than you would if you had died for your cause..." " I do this not for myself, but for the greater good..." Those white circles seemed to lose some of their luster, and the hand on Lorelei's shoulder slumped and fell to the ground beside them. Lorelei reverently closed the eyes of a man she had never known whose life she had taken. " Requiem aeternam, dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescat in pace."
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:25:39 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) In the great purple moon that orbited Derse, one Guardian lay unconscious in a prison cell. Another, some time after (in his frame of reference), now floated lazily near the base of Zach's tower, circling it. His gaze went this way and that, on the lookout for the body of a young boy who was one who had taken his team's place in the game of Sburb. Much as he expected, there was nothing to be found outside of the tower itself: Zach must be within it. As he floated upwards, he began to hear voices from the tower, at first muffled, yet rising greatly in volume both due to him moving towards them and due to their own progressively louder shouting. >Round Two. ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> "Uh..." Guardian turned towards the remaining awake occupant of Zach's dreamtower, as if only seeing her now for the first time. With a slight smile he held out his hand for a handshake. " You're...Zach's sis, right? I'm Guardian. Zach asked me to check on his dream self." "Oh. Yeah, that's me." She shook his hand. "That's... not your real name, is it?" That would be pretty weird. Almost as bad as that guy calling himself bodyguard. Who did he think he was, anyway? Trying to drag a harmless kid into jail. Guardian smirked. " Yeah. Real name's Temujin, but I go by Guardian more often than not. Nice to meet you." "...Huh. You too." The woman placed her hand on her hip and turned to regard her sleeping brother. "Knew he wasn't kidding." Guardian leaned back against the wall beside the window, arms crossed (and not coincidentally in the best position possible to take BP by surprise if he somehow managed to make his way back up). " Wasn't kidding about what?" "This place. Derse. Soon as the lizard mentioned it was here I headed up to see if it was true." She shrugged. "He kept talking about it. Zach, not Steve or Logansprite or whatever he is now." " Heh. I've actually not met many who have taken their charges at their word when told about the dreaming moons before the game itself started. You must trust the kid quite a bit." "I kind of had to. He built a computer here and used it to pester me while he was sleeping. Kid's a goddamn genius." Guardian barked a laugh. " I'd ask why he'd make one when all the rooms come with computers, but from what little I know of him that sounds exactly like something he'd do." HIs eyes wandered down to the symbol on Sis' chest, seemed almost perplexed and contemplating for a few moments. He probably didn't notice the deathglare. "Really?" A look of realization flashed in Guardian's eyes, and he raised his gaze back to Sis' face. " Yeah, I-" Stopped cold by the death glare. There was a beat, and then he smiled embarrassedly. " Ehe, sorry, that wasn't what it seemed like. I've just...seen that symbol before. Do you know someone named Taylor Ayers?" She looked embarassed up until he mentioned the name. "Yeah, the shirt's our uniform. We worked in the same... wait. Ha! I knew your name sounded familiar. He mentioned you a couple of times. Gonna' miss that guy." With a wistful, melancholy smile, Guardian shook his head. " Nah, not me. Not this version of me, at least. But you don't have to worry about Taylor. I took him, the version of myself that he knew, and two others back in time, to the early 1900s, so they could live out the rest of their lives." "Er... Not like I know anything about time travel, but isn't that dangerous?" " Yeah, but if something had gone wrong it already would have, so to speak. It's a time loop, to be sure, but there are a lot of those. I imagine you might encounter a few caused in this game." "... Sure. You know why he fell?" New subject. Time travel's no fun. Too many possible complications for her. Guardian moved from his position leaning against the wall, and turned to look out the window. He pointed upwards at the manifold points of light that painted the sky. " Did Zach ever tell you about the horrorterrors?" "Barely. Always seemed like he didn't know much about them." " No one really does. Not even me, and I've been alive for millenia. They're outside human comprehension. But I do know this much: those aren't stars, those are the eyes of a single horrorterror. He's wounded by something that happened with Zach, BP, and the Queen in an observatory. So if one tries to contact the horrorterrors now, all they get is a horrible shrieking mass of almost-words that they can barely understand, and tend to pass out." He looked at Sis, amused. " A past me, from my perspective at least, is probably still passed out in a prison cell because of that. It's not permanently damaging, though. Not only once, at least." ===> "Heh. Thought that was you." She walked over to the window and looked out at the city. "Some guy with a hat dragged you off. I tried to stop him but that other jackass got in my way." ===> "Oh, I'm the jackass. You've got a lot of ner-" ===> "Who is that?" " 'Bodyguard' he calls himself--I guess like I call myself 'Guardian'. He's the Queen's bodyguard. An asshole, but you probably shouldn't kill him. He's kind of important in the timeline. Nice right hook, by the way. 'D you ever spar with Taylor?" She smirked. "If you ever heard him complain about getting his ass kicked, it was probably me. Taught self-defense for a year or so before that, figured he could learn a thing or two. And he did. Fast." " Guess I know your style by proxy, then, considering I sparred with my version of Taylor quite a bit." Again that wistful, melancholy look as he gazed out at the purple moon. "...Oh. What happened to that one?" He glanced back at Sis. " Died, actually. See, I'm the only survivor of the last human session. It was our failure that made me...well, basically, I reset the whole thing, and now Zach and the rest of those kids are hopefully gonna do what we couldn't." He said it with an almost bizarre sort of serenity to his voice. He didn't seem sad or depressed at all. Time heals all wounds, as they say. The elder Lombardi didn't seem to have anything to say to that. She just sort of stood there, lost in thought. Because she's outside the spectrum of playable characters here, we don't get to know what these thoughts were. Not that it makes much of a difference. Moments later, a scream echoed through the city. It almost sounded like... "Was that a little girl?"
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:32:02 GMT -5
I did this. It was quiet, all too quiet, in the lab where a man had died in her arms, killed by her own hands. Not even the distant hum of the machinery could penetrate the thick walls that surrounded this lab. Nothing to break the silence, but Lorelei's thoughts. I did this... It was a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling. Lorelei almost wanted to drop the dead Dersite man she held in her arms and go vomit somewhere. It was an accident, she didn't mean for it to happen like this! Yet somehow, the worst part was that, as deep as the guilt was... I did this! ...it wasn't as strong as the first time had been. Not as bad as with the consort. She wanted to think it was because this man deserved it more. She wanted to believe it. She TRIED to believe it. I DID THIS! But it just wasn't true. I did this... She was slowly, very slowly, but surely...getting used to it. I did this... And that part scared her and shamed her more than anything else. How long she held him, she could never know. Could have been hours, could have been minutes. But at some point, she realized what had utterly escaped her notice during the fight: Dahlia had contacted her. No, Dahlia needed her. The reclusive and often standoffish young woman was reaching out to her, to her friend. The guilt and the shame and the fear, she all buried. There would be time later to stew in her own emotions, or perhaps herself seek help from another. For now, though she still held Nobody's corpse in her lap, she brought up the pesterchum screen on her glasses and spoke into it, her voice calm and steady. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] began pestering spiraMirabilis [SM] -- PQ: Dahlia, are you ok? PQ: ...No, that is a stupid thing to ask, you clearly are not. PQ: I am sorry I was not here for you right away. If it helps to know, I was busy fighting for my life. PQ: And you do not have to apologize for the joke, or anything at all. PQ: Do you still wish to talk with me about what is bothering you? There was no response. Lorelei waited. She would wait as long as she had to for Dahlia to return and see her message. If she left, she might get involved in something and miss her again, so she resolved to wait for the rest of the day if she had to. Fortunately, however, though the pause was quite a long one indeed, Dahlia got back to her eventually. {Spoiler}SM: Lorelei, I SM: mother SM: the lab SM: Page SM: I just... PQ: Take your time, Dahlia. I am here as long as you need me. SM: Lorelei, I'm going to kill everything SM: everywhere SM: ever. PQ: Quite the mammoth task you have taken upon yourself, my friend. PQ: Why not just try and talk about what is the matter and save yourself all that trouble? PQ: Besides, take it from me: killing is by no means fun. SM: You kidding? It's several orders of magnitude more fun than thinking about the Professor. Or Page. Or that SM: that SM: never mind. PQ: Yet ultimately more cathartic and healthy, I believe. PQ: It is something my mother (may she rest in peace) always tried to teach me: to reach out to those who care about you when you are going through something tough. PQ: But if you truly do not wish to tell me yet or at all, that is fine. PQ: I am here when you are, though. SM: Oh sure, lay that Catholic guilt on me right after mom kicks my ass and then I discover I'm some sort of crazy meteor tube-baby. Is there something about today, some rule I'm not yet aware of, that specifies that Dahlia is not allowed to hold on to what precious little remains of her once-cherished belief that the world actually made something vaguely resembling sense once upon a time? SM: And that, additionally and furthermore, Dahlia is to abandon her previously prodigious amounts of incredulity, believe every stupid little thing everyone tells her, open up and start getting friendly with people (because that's totally something I do right?), and swallow her pride and just go on like some weepy teenybopper on her asinine blog or something? SM: That sound you hear? That's my dignity collapsing on itself like a dying star. PQ: We are in the middle of the apocalypse and...apparently you are some sort of "crazy meteor tube-baby"? PQ: These are hardly what one would call normal circumstances, and I think we need to stick together. PQ: What do you mean by "crazy meteor tube-baby", though...? SM: Alright, I'm going to level with you here, and for a couple minutes I am going to be slightly less cool than I make myself out to be ordinarily. SM: I'm honestly not quite sure how to properly explain it. I saw the lab, and heard their recordings. They discovered some sort of "starry stone", and then an island, and a temple, and a meteor, and something called Subject Delta that they kept in a tank for safety, for three and a half years, to analyze it all. Big hush-hush sciencey stuff, government funding, SkaiaNet. A long pause. Lorelei did not interrupt her, for she figured that Dahlia would continue when she was ready. SM: I'm Subject Delta.PQ: Why would they... PQ: Why would they do that to a CHILD...?SM: I don't know and I don't want to think about it, which is why I'm out here killing things, because it's so much easier not to think about the deeper implications of things while I'm busy killing. SM: I mean, on one level, I guess I kind of understand it... something comes down on a meteor, kills one of your coworkers, the responsible thing to do is isolate it until you can properly analyze it, in case it's carrying... I don't know, space germs or something, you don't want to start a global pandemic and wipe out humanity (oh wait too late). SM: So by the time they were done doing their analysis and getting the tools they needed, it... I mean, *I*, hadn't developed the necessary antibodies to deal with... Earth bacteria and viruses. They started off isolating Delta to protect themselves, but in the end, they were doing it to protect Delta. SM: I mean me. SM: Delta... Dahlia. Heh. I'll bet someone thinks they're goddamn hilarious.PQ: I see... PQ: I wish I knew the best thing to say about that. PQ: I suppose a spiel on how we are all defined by our actions, not our birth and blah blah blah etc. would just be so obvious as to border on the tautologous, and would not help besides. PQ: You always seemed to look like your mother, though... It is surprising. I never would have guessed you were not related.SM: I think I always knew, in a way. SM: She was always either too doting, or too hands-off... never normal, like a SM: ...I guess I don't even know what a normal family would be, really. Yours, I guess? SM: I think eventually it just got to her, the weight of taking care of something that's not hers, and keeping this secret all that time. SM: I understand why she hated me now.PQ: Do you really think she hated you? PQ: I mean, I cannot speak to your family situation, ignorant as I am of all of it, but she did save your life with that game, did she not?SM: Do I have a sign on my back reading "psychoanalyze me" or something? You and Page both. Another long pause, and again Lorelei stayed silent until Dahlia continued when she was ready. SM: I should be glad to be rid of her, but I'm not.PQ: Oh, was Page there when all that happened? PQ: I do hope you were not TOO hard on her. She is delicate, in some ways.SM: Jesus Lorelei what sort of asshole do you think I SM: oh wait you're entirely right. My bad. SM: I was a bit too out of sorts to be hard on her. Well, I mean... I yelled at her, earlier, but I think she's alright. Safely ensured she was sick of me when it came time to remind her of her mission back on her own planet. SM: Well, no, that's not entirely honest. I just needed some time to myself, to sort my head out. SM: ...As you can see, it's not working so well as I'd hoped.PQ: Well, I am glad you two got along well enough. PQ: I really do not know what else to say, though... PQ: Do you have a plan? Regarding your land quest or something of the sort. PQ: If idly thinking on all this or killing imps is not helping, perhaps working towards a clear and defined goal might aid your spirits?SM: Oh yeah, I am all over this "plan" business. I'm like the man with the plan. SM: Except not a man. SM: ...And I guess not exactly human either. SM: What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get responsible, and get shit done, and see about this "land quest" nonsense, and maybe even chase down a few frogs while I'm at it. SM: Which means I'm going to say goodbye for now, and stroll triumphantly into this retarded blue lizard village here like the hero I am, and ask them what sort of asinine fetch missions they could possibly have for me, and go from there. SM: And what you're going to do is not tell anyone about this. I have a reputation to maintain, after all.PQ: Heh. PQ: As you wish. PQ: Take care of yourself, Dahlia.SM: Don't get all mushy on me now. SM: You take care too. :P -- spiraMirabilis [SM] ceased pestering philosopherQueen [PQ] -- Lorelei took a long, deep, shaky breath, and wiped away tears from her eyes--tears? When had she started crying...? It took a bit of finagling, but she managed to get her drill from Nobody's inventory. Her mind empty of all thoughts, she stood up, carrying Nobody in her arms in a manner reminiscent of the famous Pieta sculpture. She didn't bother to try and go back through the factory. At a later date, when she was more powerful and capable of doing so, she knew she would return to set this place free. For now, though? She just had to leave, and a hole blasted through the roof provided a quick route of escape to fly through.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:34:38 GMT -5
There were a few scattered monsters around the mansion. Lorelei took care of them quickly. There was a man in front of her mansion. Digging a hole. Curiosity cut through the blank-minded gloom pervading the young Von Hayek, for the man digging the hole was none other than Guardian. Shovel in hand, he was digging out a rectangular bit of ground in the vicinity of, but not near, John's grave. Lorelei alighted to the ground behind him and set down Nobody in the snow. " May I use that when you are finished?" Much as with her conversation with Dahlia, her voice was calm and steady. If Guardian was surprised, he did not show it at all. Instead, he merely turned back to her and nodded. " What happened?" he asked, glancing down at Nobody. " It is a long story... He took my drill, basically. I went to the factory where he was to get it back. We fought, and in the heat of battle I..." Killed? Murdered? Destroyed? Ended? " ...killed him." " I see..." Guardian fixed her with a thoughtful stare for a few moments, then suddenly pulled his sword from his specibus and pointed it at Lorelei's shoulder, just an inch from touching her with the point of the blade (surprising Lorelei, but not TOO much). " The body's a tricky thing. I could stab you here, likely cut an important artery, probably kill you." He moved his blade's tip over to Lorelei's outer shoulder. " Stab here, probably just hit muscle or fat, you'd live." He put his sword away and turned back to resume his digging. " Point is, the body's a tricky thing, and it's hard to fight nonlethally. Takes more care, and when you're in a tough fight you don't have the luxury to try and fight nonlethally--you take what options present themselves. Try not to beat yourself up over it. Y'did what you had to do." " I see..." Lorelei took the bodies of Larent and Alder, the two consorts who had died in the naval battle earlier, from her specibus and lay them beside Nobody. Each one would get a grave. When she looked back up at Guardian, she saw that he appeared to be already finished with his grave: it was as wide as a normal one, yet nowhere near as deep--clearly intended to look like an actual grave rather than be an actual one. " What are you doing...?" Guardian pulled a single card from his specibus. " Burying the alternate mes who died fighting that weird Green Sun-powered thing in Zach's land." He tossed the card--apparently containing a pile of dead Guardians--and began working to cover them back up again. " I normally just tear the cards, but this time...I dunno, I guess they deserve a funeral for that. I think they died for something important. I can't give them all individual graves, but I can do this. Hope you don't mind." Lorelei shook her head, still staring at the dead bodies on the ground (though it was a useless gesture, given Guardian had his back turned to her). " No, I do not mind. If any should bear this burden, it should be me." Guardian looked back to her for a moment, as if he wanted to say something, but apparently decided against it. Instead, he finished up his grave and took a sword from his inventory that glowed with an unnatural red aura and sometimes seemed to disappear and reappear in the span of a second. He stuck this blade at the head of the grave, to function as a gravestone. He handed the shovel off to Lorelei and placed a reassuring, almost fatherly hand upon her shoulder, smiling softly. When she smiled back--a little forced, but genuine and thankful for his support--he let go and, without a word of goodbye (for he felt more than a simple nod was not necessary) he vanished. Alone again, with nothing but the quiet howl of the winter winds to break the silence. Lorelei threw herself into her work, first marking out three graves in the snow for each corpse. Then came the digging. It was hard, backbreaking, dirty work--particularly for the young scion of the Von Hayeks, ever the rich, pampered little girl before all this apocalypse business. But it felt good, in a sense, to work like this. To subsume herself entirely in the immediate task at hand. Dig the shovel in, pull it out, throw dirt aside. Mechanical motions, like the movement of a piston. Dig the shovel in, pull it out, throw dirt aside. It was not long before Lorelei's shoulders, back, and arms began to ache, but Lorelei ignored it. She relished the blank numbness of her thoughts that concentrating on the work brought. Dig the shovel in, pull it out, throw dirt aside. Eventually, she found herself with three open graves. First, she took the body of Larent, the young consort she had accidentally killed, and lay him in his grave. " Requiescat in pace, so that I may learn from the mistake that took your life, and endeavor to save as many of your brethren as I can to atone." Then Alder, the only other turtle who had died in the battle, who had part of his head taken off by a cannonball. " Requiescat in pace, so that your death not be in vain, and your cause granted victory in the end." And, finally, Nobody. Though her aching muscles cried out in protest, she lifted his body from the ground and set him in his grave. " Requiescat in pace, so that your people may be turned from their destructive course, and the tragedy of your life and death not be repeated." Fatigue weighed down her muscles, slowed her movement, forced her to stop for a break every minute or so. She felt light-headed and a little woozy--and yet still she chose not to simply use her magic to fill the graves back up. This had to be something she did herself, by her own hands. This was the cross she had to bear. Dig the shovel in, pull it out, throw dirt into the grave. Dig the shovel in, pull it out, throw dirt into the grave. Eventually, it was done. Her suit and her skirt was bloodied and dirtied beyond any hope of cleaning, but it was done--or, at least, almost done. There was one thing left to do. Lorelei found three large stones that could function as gravestones and--almost without realizing she did it--used her magic to pick them up and place them at the head of each grave. Then, with her drill (aided by magic), she carved into each gravestone in turn. Here lies Larent Here lies Alder Here lies Lorelei paused, but only for a moment before making her decision. Here lies Someone
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:34:56 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) PETER: What?!>Peter: Check. ===> SHOW DIALOGLOG PETER: AAAAH PETER: How long has that been there?!? RANDY: *shrug* PETER: How do i kill it?? PETER: Come on you have to know something! DOUG: You could always talk to it! PETER: ...................... RANDY: Doug that isss ridiculousss. RANDY: Sssser, why don't you try getting rid of the monssstersss? PETER: Oh PETER: Duh. That should be easy enough! ===> DOUG: I'm not sure... PETER: Shut up i got this >Seer: Descend ===> "'Sup, motherfuckers?"
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 18:37:46 GMT -5
-- philosopherQueen [PQ] began pestering spiraMirabilis [SM] -- PQ: Dahlia, are you ok? PQ: ...No, that is a stupid thing to ask, you clearly are not. PQ: I am sorry I was not here for you right away. If it helps to know, I was busy fighting for my life. PQ: And you do not have to apologize for the joke, or anything at all. PQ: Do you still wish to talk with me about what is bothering you? Dahlia rocketed across the umber-hued landscape of the Land of Canyons and Frogs -- at any other time, she might have paused to wonder why it was named for canyons, when it was quite clearly the towering, craggy mountains that were its most noteworthy feature. At any other time, she likely would have answered her oldest friend in more punctual fashion. But this was not any other time; this was right now, and right now, Dahlia was going through quite a lot. Delta had to wait three years. Lorelei could wait three minutes. SM: Lorelei, I SM: mother SM: the lab SM: Page SM: I just... PQ: Take your time, Dahlia. I am here as long as you need me. Three minutes, it seemed, still didn't do much for Dahlia's mentality. She landed, and stalked briskly across the baked clay ground; she was out of sorts, but still had enough presence of mind to know that she couldn't trust herself to give proper focus to both flying and conversation, not in the state she was in. Not that what she needed was to talk. She didn't need to talk, and she didn't need a friend. What she needed, was to stab something. SM: Lorelei, I'm going to kill everything SM: everywhere SM: ever. It didn't make her feel any better. Dahlia continued the conversation distractedly; she snarked, and chided, and rambled, but her heart wasn't in it. She wanted Lorelei to shut up. She wanted to be left alone, with her pain and anger and sadness and confusion, and she wanted to stop talking. Dahlia spoke on autopilot; clever turns of phrase were cruise control, consciously taking note of only bits and pieces of the conversation. Against better judgement Dahlia told Lorelei how she was feeling, how ridiculous it all was and how lost it made her feel to simply have to take everything -- Lorelei's genuine concern included -- at face value. Against better judgement, she told Lorelei about the lab, and her mother's work... ...and about Subject Delta. Dahlia paused there. It wasn't that she was uncomfortable talking about it, or using that name. Perhaps... it was because she was a bit too comfortable with the name. Or the lack of a name -- a designation. A title. If she could just... stop being Dahlia, and be something else, something both more and less than Dahlia, something capable of pushing down all the things that troubled her in the face of more important concerns, something that could just seize upon her mission and use that to push through... something that could stop wondering about Page... SM: What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get responsible, and get shit done, and see about this "land quest" nonsense, and maybe even chase down a few frogs while I'm at it. SM: Which means I'm going to say goodbye for now, and stroll triumphantly into this retarded blue lizard village here like the hero I am, and ask them what sort of asinine fetch missions they could possibly have for me, and go from there. SM: And what you're going to do is not tell anyone about this. I have a reputation to maintain, after all. PQ: Heh. PQ: As you wish. PQ: Take care of yourself, Dahlia. SM: Don't get all mushy on me now. SM: You take care too. :P -- spiraMirabilis [SM] ceased pestering philosopherQueen [PQ] -- Despite herself, Dahlia let Lorelei make her smile. She set off towards the village ahead, another ramshackle settlement peopled by the simple blue lizards whom her sprite had called "consorts". Supposedly, they waited for a "Hero of Space" to solve whatever inconsequential problems they had. Maybe she'd try being a hero for once. ...Pffft, you actually believed that? As if...
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:52:48 GMT -5
It felt good to pray. Good in ways Lorelei had not felt in what seemed like a whole lifetime ago, yet was likely weeks or months or maybe days--Lorelei could not remember. To whom she prayed, even the girl herself could not say. Skaia? Whatever gods Zach claimed to commune with on Derse? God, be it the Christian one or another entirely? It was an unknowable mystery, and other times that knowledge would have given her pause and made her feel unease, but not at that moment. It was good to pray head bowed, eyes closed for the souls--whether or not they existed--of the departed whose mortal forms lay in fresh graves the relentless snow even now was hard at work covering. It felt right. At that moment, Lorelei needed nothing else. -- asterismAscendant [AA] began trolling philosopherQueen [PQ] -- AA: You bury *th'dead*? AA: Huh. AA: Krr. This a good time? Lorelei roused from her prayers and checked who was sending her messages. As she half-expected, it was Khirun again. Not that she minded, of course; the message almost caused Lorelei to smile a bit. Almost. Somewhat odd, really, how close Lorelei felt to the troll despite only knowing her for a day, yet she supposed that was a natural consequence of the other girl viewing Lorelei in some of her more emotionally vulnerable moments. Besides, the young Von Hayek was always quick to trust in the first place. {Spoiler}PQ: Yes, we do. At least, it is common in the culture I am from. Some other cultures tend to cremate, but every human culture has some sort of way to lay the dead to rest, without exception. PQ: And it is fine, do not worry. PQ: How are you doing, Khirun? AA: Nae bad, nae bad. AA: *Hope* an' Alchemy experiments temp'rally stalled. AA: Helping a the other AA--Pythia, 'ave ye met?--oot with her froghunt. AA: Easy work. Way too *bright,* on 'er Land, though. PQ: I cannot say I have met her yet, no. PQ: What do you mean by "froghunt", however? AA: Talkative lass, but a wee bit mad. Verra *political*. AA: Oh, ye dinnae know about th'frogs? AA: Surely, a canny lass like miss Lorelei 'as noticed they're *important* by now! PQ: But of course. PQ: They are worshipped by my consorts. I recall much earlier, when heading to meet the angels, being told that a half-turtle, half-frog species guarded the godswood (they were just regular turtles, though). Just about every tree had a frog face carved into it. PQ: And they seem to worship a "Speaker of the Vast Croak" in particular. PQ: Was this froghunt some sort of religiously-themed sidequest? AA: *Sidequest*? Ach, no! AA: Helpin' *glowgirl* breed th'Big Frog is more'n half th'reason we're here in *the first place*! AA: Might be *all o' it* PQ: Ah, is it the manner in which a new universe is created? AA: Sure as blood. AA: Not privvy tae all th'details yet--didnae ask, ye ken--but th'Genesis Frog'll be the new one we spawn an' enter. AA: An' Pythia's a hunter of *trolls*. She's a bit rubbish at beasts. AA: There's a whole mess an' fuss about *ectobiology* an' *paradox slime* back at her hive, but it dinnae work iffen ye don't go out an' *capture* th' wee beastie a' some point. AA: An' then ye breed 'em up into the Big One. PQ: I see. PQ: At some point I should likely go and visit Dahlia, to see if she needs my help in an endeavor that I would wager is similar, if not outright identical, to that. AA: I'd imagine so. Lorelei paused for a moment, until she finally posed a question that had been niggling at the back of her mind, which she almost feared the answer to. It was a question that struck at the heart of why she stood in front of these graves in what was quickly becoming a graveyard of sorts. {Spoiler}PQ: ...Forgive me for going off-topic like this, but.. PQ: Well, have you ever... PQ: Have you ever killed before? AA: Oh, aye. AA: I can't imagine a troll that hasn't. AA: *Why?* PQ: I killed him. PQ: The dersite I buried. And one of the consorts. PQ: The other died because of me, because of my cause. PQ: But they were accidents. The consort definitely. PQ: The dersite, in the heat of battle. PQ: Does it get easier, the more you kill? AA: *Krr* Yes. An' no. AA: Depends on *th'kill*, I've found. AA: Some *easy*, some *awful*. PQ: I see. PQ: I feel PQ: Ashamed. PQ: Guilty. PQ: Horrified. PQ: And this time the horror and the guilt wasn't as profound as the first time. PQ: That, in turn, makes me feel even more guilty, like I'm slowly losing some part of my outlook on life or my morality or PQ: something. AA: Aye, aye. Easier in time, like anythin' else. AA: Y'get *accustomed* to it, like...flexing a new muscle. An emotional one. AA: I'm thinking, though: it's worse for you, Lore. AA: Think I ken why. PQ: Because of my spoiled, sheltered life growing up? AA: No, lass! AA: Because ye' care about perfect strangers, *enemies*, e'en, like they're dear friends! AA: Killing *people* is hard, an' awful. Slaying a *beast* may be self-defense, or practical. AA: Th'troll I dinnae know, an' dinnae care about? No' tha' far from animal. PQ: I see. PQ: It is not really different with humans. PQ: There once was a man who dropped a great atomic bomb onto a whole city, almost entirely wiping it out. PQ: He did not feel any regret, until much later in his life, I think. Lorelei paused. Again, she hardly wished to know the answer of the question on the tip of her tongue, but curiosity bade her ask it. PQ: What was it like? PQ: Your first time, I mean. PQ: Killing.AA: *Krrr*. Scary. Confusing. Messy.PQ: That sounds familiar.AA: *No*, like: AA: *Mom screamin' in my thinking pan, strugglin' not tae ken th'mess from her eyes* AA: Tha' kind o' *confusing*. Wouldna' have survived wit'out her help. AA: It were an older troll, thinkin' he could raid an *isolated little* *still buildin' her hive*. AA: *Krr* AA: Backed into th'corner, holdin' out with my spear until she could get back. AA: Stabbed th'body over an' over before I really realized it were *done*. AA: Entrails smell *awful*. Couldn't stop shaking. Wanted ta *throw up*.PQ: I'm sorry. PQ: I guess I can't really empathize with the desperate struggle for survival like that PQ: But I know what you mean by how much entrails smell, and wanting to vomit.AA: Ach. Never *expected* to have *that* in common wi' ye.PQ: Heh. PQ: All I know is PQ: That the prospect of it becoming easier scares me. I don't want it to become easier. PQ: And I don't want to ever do this again.AA: At th' cost o' your own life, Lore?PQ: No, not at the cost of my life. PQ: And not at anyone else's, friend or foe. PQ: I shall find a way, I swear it. I will not kill again if it is at all possible.AA: *Krr*. A tall order for a *'game'* tha' asks us tae commit regicide. A newfound confidence filled Lorelei, chasing away any further depressed thoughts. For the first time in the conversation, Lorelei smiled--and it was no ordinary one, but that same confident, exuberant smile that was quickly becoming such a trademark of hers. PQ: Are you not aware of who I am? PQ: It may take time, a lot of effort, and some ingenuity, but I have no doubt I can pull it off if I give it my all!AA: *Crazy*, *pacifist*, *human*. AA: Ach. If anyone would do it, it'd be you, Lor'.PQ: Haha! PQ: That is the nature of an idealist, though, is it not? PQ: To see the world as it is, and imagine how it could be.AA: An' yours: a *world without* killing? AA: *Krrrrr.* This time there was a pause on Khirun's end, and Lorelei did not fill the gap--instead, she gave her new friend some time to think. AA: S'pose I can *imagine* a few *advantages* tae tha'. *Kr*.PQ: Even if it is unattainable, there is virtue always in striving towards perfection. PQ: And one cannot seek to reform the world to a certain state if one has not mastered it in oneself. PQ: It will not be easy, but... PQ: Well, everyone has someone who cares about them, has dreams they had. Favorite flavors and colors and things they wanted to experience. PQ: I do not want to take that away from anyone, or take that person away from others, if at all possible. PQ: If that makes any sense at all... Another pause on Khirun's end, this time longer. Once again, Lorelei stayed quiet and let her think. AA: All tae well.PQ: I mean, I understand why you did what you did, I hope it does not come off otherwise. PQ: You grew up in a different culture, your outlook is different than mine. PQ: But maybe you might want to think on what I have said? There is no better time to change one's ways than the apocalypse, as strange as it is to say it.AA: Nae much reason tae kill *trolls* left, so few a' we are. At least. AA: Brainfood, here, aye.PQ: Want me to let you go so you may think in peace, or would you rather I stay?AA: Pythia looks nearly done wi' her ectoslime nonsense. Expect we'll be tracking down th' next batch of hopperspawn soon. AA: I think better wi' *moving feet*. AA: Maybe bring it up wi' her, e'en.PQ: My my, seems I may have tossed a stone into this pool of water. I wonder how far the ripples shall go? PQ: It has been nice talking with you, though, Khirun. It helped me sort through my feelings on all that has happened. Thank you for contacting me.AA: Troll me next time, why don't ye? AA: *Seems* I'm always th'one startin' these rambles. Lorelei smiled again, though this time less confident and more friendly (and a tad amused). PQ: Of course. PQ: Actually, I already kind of was planning on contacting you whenever I returned to the caverns. PQ: Both for my own moral support--for I fear I may need it--and also for you to satisfy your curiosity on the matter. PQ: If you do not mind, of course.AA: Nae mind a bit. AA: I *look forward* tae your quest.PQ: Well, I am quite glad to hear that. PQ: For now, though, I think I need a break. PQ: And perhaps some wine. PQ: I shall speak with you later, then. Farewell!AA: Good hunting! -- philosopherQueen [PQ] ceased pestering asterismAscendant [AA] -- True to her parting words to her patron troll, and despite the confident energy her mind felt at her newfound resolve to never kill again, her body was nevertheless still sore and tired and dirty, begging for a chance to rest. >Lorelei: Return home Lorelei had barely entered the mansion before being almost swarmed by her various servants, who had apparently been waiting at the door for her for some time. She couldn't help but smile warmly, thankful beyond all words for their dedication (though she certainly tried putting it into words for them as they administered to her wants). To one she asked for a glass of white wine, to help settle her nerves after such a long day (as was normal in Switzerland, another would prepare a change of clothes similar to the ones she had just ruined, another went to fetch some food (for Lorelei truly had not realized before now just how hungry she was). Leaving her stained and dirty shoes behind, Lorelei trudged upstairs to the bathroom, where she took one of the longest hot showers of her life. ===> Some time later, she found herself by a roaring fire in the common room, in a custom-made bathrobe (her new set of clothing waiting in her room when she was ready) with a plate of (now mostly eaten) food and a glass of wine. Appetite satiated, she sat in the large, comfortable leather chair that had always been her place of seating in this room--with a bit of a pang in her heart, she noticed that the chair to the right, Grandfather's, lay unoccupied. As she sipped wine, she had her glasses create a holographic projection of a keyboard--nothing passed the time better than socializing, and there was one boy in particular who she was quite curious about. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] began pestering absoluteTranquility [AT] -- PQ: Hello, Peter. PQ: Do you have some time to spare for me?AT: I have lots of time. :P AT: What's up?PQ: Ahaha, that is correct, you do. All the time in the world. PQ: Well, I was actually somewhat curious about you. PQ: What was it like where you went to school? Lorelei had never been one to dance around the issue when she was curious about another person. Always she just jumped straight to asking them questions about themselves. {Spoiler}AT: Crowded. Kinda annoying too, everyone there was an idiot :P AT: (Schools in shitty places are generally full of people who dont want to be there) AT: The food was horrible. AT: Like AT: Some of it was literally painful to eat PQ: That sounds fairly horrible... I am quite glad for my private schooling. PQ: Was there nothing good about it, though? No friends you made? AT: Not really. School was kinda the bane of my existance back on earth AT: Living with my aunt just sucked in general. AT: Fortunately i had this magical thing called the internet :D PQ: I am quite sorry to hear that. PQ: It was very different for me, really. School was the place where I did most of my socializing. I had a great many friends, and tended to be one of the more popular girls there. PQ: Did you at least make any friends on the internet? PQ: It is kind of funny, really, that you were the only one none of us knew prior to joining this game. AT: Haha, i knew it. AT: You always seemed like the kind of person who could get along with everyone :P AT: And yeah i did but none of them really lasted. PQ: "A lady must always be sociable and polite", I was practically taught from day one. PQ: And I am sorry to hear that--but hey, I think, merely by the very nature of what we are going through, now will be a time all of us form lasting friendships with each other. AT: I hope so. It would be nothing short of a horrendous clusterfuck if the last dozen or so people left hated each other's guts. AT: But so far you all seem pretty cool! AT: Except for that last one I don't know. I can't really say anything about her yet. :P PQ: Dahlia can be...prickly. But she is a good person at heart, for all her protestations otherwise. PQ: Quite a tendency to pick on others, though. PQ: But anyway, I did not contact you to discuss her. I still have more questions I wish to ask! (And if you have any in return, please do not hesitate to ask). PQ: What were some of your favorite hobbies? AT: Haha okay AT: Papercraft, video games, interwab tomfoolery, and i am a very mediocre artist. AT: As evidenced by my bedroom walls and also this SECRET PROJECT OF TOP SECRET SECRETNESS. AT: :D PQ: Well, I certainly hope it fares better than your SECRET ADVENTURE MAP :P AT: I told you, that one was sabotaged by the AT: Okay I forget what I told you but the point is that map was awesome. :B AT: Besides the drawings arent the important part AT: I hope you like reading! (of course you do that was stupid and did not help build suspense at all next topic please?) PQ: Ahahaha! PQ: Well, I am sure I will quite enjoy whatever you are up to, if previous trends hold. PQ: Speaking of which, is there anything in particular you want for Christmas--since it occurs to me that today is the Eve of that holiday--or would you rather I try and surprise you? AT: Uhhhh AT: I have no idea. These alchemiters make getting stuff too easy, hence secret gifty projects. :P AT: Surprise me! PQ: I shall have to think quite hard on it, then. Though I likely can only hope to try and match whatever is in that brain of yours, Partner in Insanity of mine. PQ: Good thing, then, that my element is what it is! AT: O RLY? AT: Heheheh now i cant wait. AT: (I don't know what to do for anyone else but i'll try to figure that out later. :/) AT: How's the hopey science magic coming along? PQ: It would be quite a tale to tell all that I have experienced in that regard since I departed your land, but suffice it to say it has been going well enough. PQ: Turns out it is not Skaian magic at all, but merely the force of my own hope and will. AT: Awesome? AT: (is that awesome? y/n) AT: I'm working on timey wimey bullshit as we speak. And by that i mean i got some practice in like a lot of hours ago, which is right now for everyone else. I can't do it without my watch though. :P PQ: I would say it is awesome, yes! The part about the magic, at least. PQ: Actually, that reminds me that my own drill has turned out to be more of an item to help me focus my abilities rather than what gives them to me in the first place. PQ: I wonder if it is the same with your own powers? AT: TBH i'm kinda scared to try it. Especially after earlier. I REALLY don't want to screw up some time travel in the middle of a fight. AT: It's... messy. PQ: That is perhaps wise. PQ: Did something happen, though? AT: I'm not sure you want to hear it. AT: Let's just say there was a fatality and leave it at that? AT: (never attack a tank without a good plan is the lesson here, as past me and other past me are about to learn) PQ: A tank. PQ: ...A tank?! AT: Yeah turns out that's what those weird boxy things on the towers are. AT: They have deceptively large and deadly crews. :/ PQ: Well, then, I am greatly glad for the second chance that your time powers apparently provided. PQ: Rather reminds me of the near-death experiences I have had in this game...but that is hardly a topic to be discussed in polite conversation, is it? PQ: Say, what sort of videogames did you most enjoy? AT: Lots. XD AT: Portal and TF2 are good, warhammer, crysis, elder scrolls, uh... AT: Minecraft is awesome. PQ: I played minecraft a bit as well. I think I once created a representation of Krak Des Chevaliers, a rather formidable crusader castle in the Middle East. PQ: My greatest love was for the Sims, however. PQ: Hehehe, I was FAR too addicted to running those little virtual lives than could be considered sane or healthy. AT: Man, now i wish i'd grabbed that before steam blew up. :/ AT: Speaking of minecraft and blowing up... AT: I just had a TERRIBLE IDEA! AT: But it can wait, I've gotta' work on your SECRET [REDACDED] PQ: I suppose the world (or what is left of it) shall wait with bated breath to see if granting you all the time in the world to enact your ideas shall be a great blessing or an unfathomable curse :P AT: It'll be both. Blessing for us, curse for the underlings! AT: Or maybe the other way around but that's still both. PQ: Well, at least it cannot possibly be worse than Zach's self-replicating creepers. PQ: (I say, likely jinxing it to be far worse than could ever be imagined). AT: That AT: Actually was kind of part of the plan :I PQ: God have mercy on SOMEONE'S soul, then, be it ours or the underlings'. PQ: Say, what kind of papercrafts did you create? AT: Just whatever i found online AT: I have a batmobile and an AT-AT lying around somewhere, for example. XD PQ: I would like to see those sometime. I am actually something of a Batman fan myself (and who does not love Star Wars?). PQ: Ehehe, I recall that, when I was a very young girl, I used to want to use my family's own fortune to become BATGIRL, SCOURGE OF THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD~~ PQ: But, alas, a lady does not punch criminals in a one-woman mission of vigilante justice. AT: Pffffffff AT: Well that's totally what i'd do if i had money. XD AT: (not really) AT: But... AT: You could totally do that now PQ: I think, though, if I donned a cape and cowl, began taking on the symbolism of a bat, etc. I would likely just confuse my consorts. PQ: I love them, but they can be daft little things, can they not? Save for ones here and there I have found possessing uncommon intelligence. AT: Thaaat's kind of an understatement. Have you talked to the snakes? AT: Just AT: >___O AT: I don't think i've seen a single one capable of adding single digit numbers. PQ: Haha, that is a shame. I, at least, came across a ship captain--by the name of Captain Sully--who was quite wise, and one priest who seemed to possess enough intelligence to deduce that I was the Scion of Hope without being told. PQ: What have they been having you do? AT: Oh god the sidequests AT: There was this one in some kind of weird snake circus where i had to not drown or something (it was COMPLETELY POINTLESS, too) AT: And then there was this really fucked up one. I'm not even sure what happened. Something about a goat and a wedding and some giants? AT: TBH I just kind of left before i finished it. I'd really rather not know what the little bastards have ready for me :I PQ: Well... PQ: Do you not have a "main quest" of sorts? Something to do with your denizen? A great wrong to set right? AT: Killing the tanks is supposed to be part one but i'm not sure how much i trust these guys to know what they're talking about. AT: One mistook me for IF and tried pushing me off a building and another one thought the alchemiter was a flying machine. :/ PQ: Wait PQ: They wanted to kill ZACH? PQ: Why would they want to kill Zach? AT: Not kill, it was a short building. i'm pretty sure they were just being dicks. AT: And i have no fucking clue. Maybe they just don't like him. :P PQ: Sounds as if the whole world has it out for the poor guy. PQ: Next we speak I should warn him of potential beatdown by serpentine ne'erdowells. PQ: You might have some other source of information, though. I have angels in my land, for example. AT: Huh AT: I'll look around then AT: By the way what time is christmas stuff tomorrow? I need to know when i should have this done. :P AT: (not really but when is it anyway) PQ: Sometime in the evening, likely. Or, well, evening for those of you in the North American time zones. PQ: Page and I, as the Europeans, shall just have to adjust for the rest of you :P PQ: Though I suppose Dahlia must also, given she lived out in the Pacific ocean. PQ: Anyway, the point is, probably...hmm... around 6:00 Central time? That may be subject to change. I shall have to create a memo when it is finalized. AT: AM or PM? PQ: I mentioned the evening, so PM. PQ: Unless I have somehow gotten the word in English incorrect? AT: No i didn't see that AT: But somehow it would feel wrong not rushing to get your presents before any sane person would be awake. XD PQ: Haha, well, I desperately wish to avoid a recurrence of what happened at the breakfast this morning. AT: Oh yeah, that was this morning. AT: Seems like it's been longer. Time travel is weird. :/ PQ: I imagine the very nature of your power means that you shall experience this whole game in a different manner than the rest of us, bound by linear time as we are. PQ: Say, out of curiosity, what do you do if you see a future you doing something? I mean, is it possible to contradict what you saw? AT: Nope AT: If you try to you either end up causing it to happen or splitting the timeline. AT: And that's bad. AT: It means we all die in a version of reality that can't exist. :/ AT: Except for me. I go back and die in THIS reality, and that stops the split by forcing me to do what i saw. Somehow. AT: It sucks. PQ: ... PQ: Well. PQ: That DOES sound horrible. PQ: I wonder if there is a way to change it? AT: That's how paradox space works. Changing anything would kind of break all of reality. AT: And since reality isn't currently skullfucking itself that means it's not possible. :V PQ: Perhaps. PQ: I am still pretty skeptical about that, however. AT: That's probably a good thing AT: It's really not that fun. :/ PQ: Please let me know if you learn anything more about the nature of..."paradox space", did you call it? AT: You like it? It's a name I pulled out of my ass two hours ago. :P AT: Or maybe I heard it somewhere and forgot. AT: But yeah will do PQ: Hmm... I think I have one last question. PQ: Do you have a favorite gift that you have ever gotten? PQ: It might help point me in the right direction regarding my gift to you. AT: Actually it was my laptop AT: But uh... AT: Hmm AT: Uh... i have no idea. My aunt was kinda terrible at it. AT: Really whatever you come up with i'm sure i'll like. :D PQ: I shall certainly do my best! PQ: Actually, do you have any more questions for me? AT: None right now AT: But tomorrow prepare to be swamped by annoying questions AT: I will be on your case like some kind of briefcase ninja looking for maybe not secret documents but the kind you'll actually talk about? AT: ... AT: And someday i will make a metaphor that doesn't suck. PQ: Heeheeheehee! PQ: I shall certainly look forward to it, on both counts. PQ: I believe it is time I take my leave, however. It has been a pleasure speaking with you, Peter. AT: Heheh, you too AT: Later! -- philosopherQueen [PQ] ceased pestering absoluteTranquility [AT] -- ===> The way flames danced in the fireplace always seemed to at once be a good place to look as one's mind wandered, and a good thing to watch to clear one's mind. The fire flickered and crackled, and Lorelei found her mind wandering to all that had happened this Christmas Eve, and what she had yet to do before she felt justified in ending the day's endeavors: return to the caverns. Footsteps roused her from her reverie. Since attending to her needs, the servants (and her sprite as well) had largely left her alone until now, perhaps--rightly--thinking that she needed some time alone with her thoughts. Yet now Florian approached and sat down in the chair across from Lorelei. "Lady Von Hayek," he greeted respectfully. Lorelei looked up from the fireplace to a man who might as well have been family to her, like all of her servants were, and smiled. " Hello, Florian. What can I do for you?" Florian seemed to internally debate something, then leaned forward in his seat, fixing his young master with a worried look. "The three graves you dug, Lady Lorelei... I... We all saw you dig them, from the windows when you arrived. Do you...wish to speak of them?" " Did it remind you of one of your war stories from your grandfather, Florian?" Florian grimaced. "If ever there was a war story that involved a sweet little girl digging graves for three people by herself, covered in blood, it is none I have heard, my lady." Lorelei chuckled, not without a hint of sadness to it, and turned once again to look into the dancing flames. " I have no reason to keep it from you, Florian..." A small sigh. " There is a war, as you may or may not know, brewing in my land. The forces of Zeus and Derse wish to subjugate the lizard consorts, I wish to free them--or, more importantly, teach them to free themselves. War...has casualties..." "Zeus? Derse?" " Zeus like the greek god, yes, I believe. Derse is a nation seeking to destroy Prospit and...well, if you wish the full spiel, you would be better served asking Herr Von Mises. The point is, a lot has happened... I almost died against a foe more cunning than I expected. I saw...horrible things in a cavern full of unnatural and maddening darkness. And because of what I saw there, I lost control of the white magic fueled by my own hope. When I was traveling in a ship manned by my consorts, we accosted an enemy ship...I attempted to fight, lost control, and though I sunk the enemy vessel, I also killed one of the consorts." "By Jesus..." Florian mumbled, aghast. "Lady Lorelei, I..." Lorelei raised a hand for him to stop speaking, though with a warm smile to remove any sting such a gesture might have. " It is ok. His name was Larent. The other consort, Alder, was killed in the fighting." Florian was silent, but only for a moment. "...And the third?" he asked, seeming as if he feared the answer it would bring. " After all that with the consorts, later I was back on land. My drill was taken from me, but Grandfather found me and gave me hope again--did you know he actually watched Gurren Lagann?" a revelation that, at least, made Florian seem pleasantly surprised, " I tracked the drill down and, in the heat of battle, without meaning to, killed the man who took the drill." She looked down at her hands, half-clenched into fists. " I shall not kill again. I do not wish to take any other life, no matter what." "Even though you are in the middle of a war? Is that possible?" Her hands clenched fully into fists and she looked towards Florian, golden eyes shining with resolve. " If it is not, I shall make it possible." Florian seemed surprised-- shocked almost--before he broke out into a wide grin. "...You are your grandfather's granddaughter, without a doubt. You've inherited his iron will in full, perhaps even more so. It reminds me of a story..." Lorelei smiled widely, feeling an almost childish glee at the prospect of another one of Florian's stories. He was always the storyteller of the family, after all, and Lorelei had been raised on his various tales, true and false. " Another war story, is it?" Florian chuckled and shook his head. "I guess you could say it. A story of a hero who overcame all odds to achieve greatness. Your grandfather instructed me to tell it to you when I thought you needed it most, and now I shall. The tale of Frederick Von Hayek."
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 18:53:25 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) ===> You think maybe this wasn't the best idea. ===> They agree. >Peter: Aggrieve encroaching malefactors You shed your ridiculous blinking jacket and launch a devestating aerial attack on the nearest CRUDE GICLOPS. Your trusty SCYTHE connects and digs in, carving a jagged swath through the beast's singular eyebWOAH WAIT WHAT. Oh, it's him. >Be the douchebag? You didn't really think that would work, did you? You cannot be the douchebag as, though it may not seem like it, he is functioning as our Seer's guardian. You may be wondering how he got into the medium, or what his relationship with Peter is. Maybe you want to know just why he entered at all, or what he's doing punching little kids on rooftops. I know Peter would like to know these things, but since he's not here to ask the best we can hope for is for the douchebag to answer them on his own. >Douchebag: Enter name You still can't do that. Did I ever say you could? No. Stop that. Just give up. You're not going to get his name from him, or anything else for that SHOW DIALOGLOG ???: What's the holdup, David? Can't find any more kids to punch? DAVID: Will you shut up about that? No, just thinking. ???: Well hurry it up, we need to get going. ...Goddamnit. ((WHO WAS THAT DOUCHEBAG? WHO WAS THAT OTHER DOUCHEBAG?? WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO PETER??? FIND OUT WHENEVER, ON DOOFTRAPPED POST Z!!!!)) ((I regret nothing.))
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