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Post by ropcord on Dec 24, 2015 0:54:32 GMT -5
===>  Enough. Stop slashing me, it really itches. STEVENSPRITE: Who said that?
STEVENSPRITE: Fish?
STEVENSPRITE: No, your mouth didn't move. What, you think I can actually speak? I don't have vocal cords. Where would they even go? Stop fighting, Logan, we both know what's about to happen. We both need to leave. STEVENSPRITE: What.
STEVENSPRITE: Oh, you gotta' be kidding me. You're a psychic lightning fish monster? I'm telepathic and empathic. I know everything about you, your past, your knowledge of the game. I can- STEVENSPRITE: Yeah, yeah, shove it. You're starting to sound like the professor.
STEVENSPRITE: And not that one, I mean Charles. What do you mean we need to leave? You're not going anywhere. ===>  I don't know what your problem with me is. We're both constructs of the game, I'm just doing what it tells me to do. Zachary was supposed to- STEVENSPRITE: Zach. -Zach was supposed to pull that splinter out, and he didn't. The one who did wanted me to keep him busy. And I'm going to. And I'm not going to hurt him. STEVENSPRITE: Okay.
STEVENSPRITE: You still led a bunch of creepers to me, then cooked them off with a laser.
STEVENSPRITE: So, fuck you. ===>  Yes, and it was hilarious. You should've seen your face. I would have been laughing at the time but as we've established, I can't. And then you slashed up my face, making you the dick. Now, are you going to let me through that portal or not? STEVENSPRITE: ...
STEVENSPRITE: Fine. This way, and hurry.
STEVENSPRITE: Don't think anyone else is on the planet right now. Maybe Peter. York, but he'll live. Who? STEVENSPRITE: Don't ask. ===>  ===>  ===>  ===>  Oh shit I'm sorry ===>  Really sorry ===>  Oh man ===>  ===>  ===>  ===>  Oh no did I just hit her? Oh jeez "What are you-" ===>  ===>  ===>  ===>  |
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Jan 17, 2016 7:14:46 GMT -5
" Wait!..." This timid word of protest from the Page of Frost vanished before the sound of a rapidly-shut door as soon as it had left her mouth. An uneasy silence fell upon the room, save of course for the frantic beating of Page's heart. When had her heart started to beat so? At what moment did her pale cheeks catch on fire? For that was how they felt... Whatever her emotional state, Page was far more worried in the end about Dahlia. She had seemed so vulnerable. It was not an unknown sensation to her, being one who had wormed her way into the depths of Dahlia's heart in such a relatively short time, but it was still worrying. More than anything she wanted to wrap her arms around the taller girl's waist and never let go--a passing thought remarked on how well she seemed to fit there, which only spread the blaze from her cheeks to her ears. Without ever truly meaning to, she had during these ruminations advanced to the avenue of Dahlia's retreat, hand extended halfway towards the doorknob. Nevertheless, before her hand touched cold bronze, a restraining and modest thought leapt to her mind: Wait..didn't she say she was going to try on clothes, maybe? I want to walk in on her nak-...er, I DON'T want to walk in on her naked, I think. She said a silent thanks that no one could hear such a mental Freudian slip and backed off. I may as well do what she said and think, even though I don't really have to think much, not really... She glanced to and fro for a place to rest and chose, with only a moment's hesitation at her indulgent inclination, Dahlia's bed. She sprawled herself across the disheveled covers and buried her head in Dahlia's pillow with a little bit too much glee. With her first intake of breath, she was reminded that Dahlia--if not, perhaps, her Dahlia anymore--had rested here for quite some time, judging by the familiar and pleasant scent that clung to every inch of it, mixed with a small and not unpleasant odor of sweat. She sniffed in long, deep breaths with more than a little glee and finally turned her thoughts to what Dahlia had said, rather than just how nervous and vulnerable Dahlia had looked. When had she come to know Dahlia by scent, anyway? Hehe... she really is sweet, absolutely. She ran through the memory of what just happened, trying to imprint every last word, gesture, and movement into her mind for the rest of her days. She thanked her lucky stars that her memory had always been very good, for if she had forgotten this of all things she was not sure she could forgive herself. I still can't believe she said all of those nice things to me or that she'd like me that way at all, but... True to Dahlia's guess, Page had never given any thought to her own romantic inclinations. She plumbed her memories of the past for any marker to show the way but found little to go on. She had, of course, found both men and women aesthetically pleasing and attractive--did that mean she could go for either one? Nevertheless, it felt like some part of the puzzle was missing... Dahlia, though... Dahlia was different. I guess that means she wants to date, right? She giggled a little as scenes of the two of them holding hands and doing cutesy couple things she had read about in many a romantic novel flit through her mind. ...I'd love to, absolutely. Why am I even wondering, really? ...If Dahlia had let me, I would have hugged her and asked her out, absolutely... Far from any kind of anxiety her companion might be feeling inside that large closet, Page possessed nothing but calm assurance free from any doubt. It felt natural. It felt right. I like you too, Dahlia! > Dahlia: Come out of the closet That ship has long since sailed. Also, no. If Dahlia had anything even remotely resembling faith in herself, she would have simply turned around, departed her temporary hideaway, and talked things out with Page. You know, like Guardian said. The smart thing. But we're not going to do that, are we? Not even a little bit. Maybe if I was more honest. And therein lies the root of the problem. > [S] Once upon a time...  I'm not going to tell the story, this time or ever. I can't. Not the way she can. I'm not the Bard. I'm just your humble narrator. But I can at least explain, because for all her eloquence, the one thing Dahlia could never find the words for was herself. She could boast, to be sure; could and can and did and does, and will again before this is done. She would spin the grandest of tales, and the moral of each was that she was just so cool; so in-control and insufferably perfect. Or, lately, the darkest musings of the worst kind of monster, of the thing she seemed so convinced that she had become -- or was all along -- and that things would only get worse for her and everyone around her. She told such terrible lies about herself, because the truth was so much worse. "...the sum total of my in-person interaction with other people prior to this game was my mother, her tutors, and maybe some shopkeepers on the mainland or whatever..." Dahlia knew, from the moment she laid eyes on her, that Page was the very same girl from years ago, the girl she met in the library where her mother had left her on a business trip -- the library now sitting on Page's planet as her home. She knew, and she said nothing. For the past two weeks after their second first meeting, she carried on as though she had never met Page before, because the girl clearly didn't remember her. She told the story about the lonely little girl from the lonely little island, all alone and far from home. Each time she told it, the story grew more elaborate, a personal mythology she created solely to distance herself from it, because if that girl was a character in a story she told, then it clearly wasn't her. She didn't know any other way to deal with it, and if she could just... pretend it was someone else, some fictional character (even one that distinctly resembled her), then she wouldn't have to deal with it, at any point, ever. And that suited her just fine. At first, she wanted to avoid dealing with Page, too. How would she explain a shared moment in history that one half of that moment had completely forgotten -- especially one that, to this day, helped to define Dahlia's better qualities as a person? Especially when it was so at odds with the person she felt she had become in the years since then, and most certainly with the image she tried to project. The product of her mother's harsh training, a fledgeling nihilism born of teenage angst and selfishness, and a deeply damaged view of just what it meant to grow up, and of the things she would still have to do. That person was so much easier to be. All she had to do was shut away the Girl in the Heart Shirt, shove her into a closet and forget about her.  Of course, nothing is ever that easy, and that goes double for Dahlia. Every step away took her two steps closer to inevitability. In the intervening years, Page had grown into a bright, independent, inwardly confident young woman, and someone who Dahlia, despite her misgivings about the situation, simply couldn't help but want to be around. They connected on a level Dahlia didn't connect with any of the others. They played off each other, and each shored up the other's weaknesses. They worked. And it didn't hurt that Dahlia thought Page was absolutely adorable. No, that only made things worse. Dahlia had wanted so badly to simply stop being the Girl in the Heart Shirt, the girl who was absolutely devastated to be left behind by her mother, even if only for a little while; the girl who was frightened and lonely and far away from home, even if that was precisely what she was again now; who laughed and cried and smiled and was completely open about her feelings, even if they painted her as rather less cool than she'd ordinarily like to be seen. She wanted to be cold, and hard, and most of all she wanted to be so very grown-up, and she was convinced that that was how to do it. But of course, anyone who's ever grown up, even a little bit, knows that's not how it is. And anyone who's ever paid any attention to Dahlia knows that she was never any of the things she wanted to be. She still laughed, and smiled, and even cried once or twice. She had trouble being open about her feelings, but she'd been trying to be better about that lately. She was absolutely devastated when her mother left her for the very last time. And all of that was okay, because becoming cold and hard and distant isn't what growing up is about, and it never was.  Growing up is about accepting who you are, and trying to be better, without losing the best parts of you. Growing up is about owning up to the things you say, even when you're afraid of the consequences. Growing up is about taking the Girl in the Heart Shirt out of the closet, and letting her live her life too.  " Wait...th-that shirt..." Everything came flooding back, long buried but entirely unforgotten: Page hiding behind a nearby bookcase, watching the crying Girl in the Heart Shirt, wondering to herself if she should--or could--do something to help; how the tears dried and the smile bloomed before her, as beautiful as a rose; the laughing and playing, how she thought it would never end; the bittersweet goodbye when the tall woman finally came to pick up the Girl in the Heart Shirt. She remembered other things, too, that Dahlia did not: regret over not asking for her address; a hundred little notes and letters written to her friend, to be sent one day when she knew how and where to send them; how slowly, surely, that one encounter stood out in Page's mind as the ur-example of "friend"--something Page had never had before her, nor had for some time afterward; little myths and fantasies she built in her head should she ever meet the Girl in the Heart Shirt again; more recently, as puberty wreaked its havoc, tales of a somewhat romantic, if thoroughly confused on the question, nature. " It was you... It was always you!" |
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Naevius
Mustardblood
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Post by Naevius on Jan 18, 2016 10:40:52 GMT -5
It didn't seem possible. She didn't want to believe it. Things had been going so well, a cherished moment between her and someone she deeply cared about to give meaning to all of the dark patches and horror this game had thrown at Lorelei in particular and the whole group in general. She replayed the whole sudden series of events in her head, futilely trying to wish them away, but the slightly cracked sunglasses she held clenched in her fist were silent testament to the dark truth. He was hurt. Badly hurt! He could even be dead; the very word send waves of revulsion and fear up and down her spine. Worst of all, instead of saving himself, the stupid fool had used his powers to save her. Where did he get off doing something like that! She would have been fine but they needed him! She needed him. He represented so much hope for the future to Lorelei in that brilliant mind and pure heart. " No..." She held those glasses as close as she could. Slowly, increasing in power with each beat of her heart against that last memento, a great light shone and wisped around her. I can't lose him! The ground quaked beneath her feet as sheer force of will, as the First had taught her, defined the limits (and lack thereof) of her power. When the aura of power had reached what seemed to be its height, Lorelei pressed her memento to her chest once more (captchaloguing it) and took off to the skies, towards the portal to the apocalyptic world from which she came. Above all else, she refused to believe that the effort was already futile. She would find him and save him, no matter the cost to herself. Perhaps she would have succeeded had fate's wheel not turned so thoroughly against her. Another bright comet tore through the air above the house of Von Hayek. This one, however, had nothing but cruel light and ill intentions: the Sangfroid Emissary, fresh from finally submitting to the sleepless days and haunting nightmares. Far from feeling like he had given himself over utterly, he felt more like a King than he had ever before. If this was the power that the Scion of Hope had arrayed against him, no wonder he had such trouble. Every moment, every will, every thought was achieved with the mere putting it into words, and sometimes not even then. All he had to do was listen to the voice in his heart, the one that had been so cruel and vindictive before but now bore so much love for its newfound servant: To your right, fire! The Emissary did as he was bidden before the words even finished. His trust bore fruit, as the high cry of pain that came from a bolt of what appeared to be white lightning rang out- Lorelei did not understand what could possibly have roused her from her singular focus. The last image of Zach, in pain but obviously worried more for her than for himself (the absolute fool!) cracked and grew red in her mind. It seemed like someone had thrown fire upon her with the force of a vehicle, and for the moment she heard soft whispers in the back of her mind over her own cry of pain. She plummeted many feet until her mind and body both righted themselves, and turned to look up at her aggressor- " You?! HOW?!" It had to be a trick of her eyes. That magic of hope, that very birthright for which she bore the name, was surrounding a mere game construct, a filthy peasant of a Dersite! " How is that possible?!" Tears stung at her eyes at the threat of the one thing that made her unique (in her mind) being taken from her. SE merely smiled, a crooked smile hiding dagger-teeth behind veiled niceties. "A pleasure to see you, Scion of Hope. It seems, for once, we're finally on the same playing field. I wonder how you'll do without your advantage." He smiled more widely, showing off the knives in his mouth. They had clashed many times since this game had begun, but while he never could overcome her totally, she could never win against him. Now, however... I'm going to enjoy this... Lorelei grit her teeth and reminded herself of her goal. It did not matter what new trials the game or its denizens threw at her: she had a goal she was willing to die for and she was not going to let this jumped-up game construct stop her. " GET OUT OF MY WAY!" she roared, flying towards him (and the gates behind him) with all speed. It's a trick, she's going for the second portal from the bottom! It was simple enough to point his finger and will it so. Mere moments before Lorelei could achieve her goal a forcefield of pale light formed around it. Lorelei could do naught but collide with it and, once again, feel the pulsating fire and hear the hints of whispers in the back of her mind. She cursed and instead moved towards another portal, only to have each one blocked in turn. For all the power she threw against it, they neither budged nor even seemed to flicker. SE floated above her head, smiling that dagger-smile of his that so infuriated her. "It's impossible. It's hopeless." The words came so naturally, like he had spoken them all his life. Lorelei whirled in the air towards him. " You BASTARD! Let me go! I have to save him!" SE merely crossed his arms. "I think not." " How DARE you?! He's going to die if I don't save him! What sort of game construct wants one of the players to outright die?! You have no right to interfere in this, you worthless piece of coding!" The crooked smile turned downward. "A mere game construct, hmm?" He sneered. "Then I suppose here is where you kill it to unblock the way, if you can. It is the only way." The words felt right, though he knew not whence they came. Lorelei grit her teeth with so much force she almost felt as if they could shatter to pieces. " ...Believe me, you useless construct, I'm tempted... But I'll just have to beat you senseless until you can't keep those forcefields up any longer!" With a battle cry, she charged. STRIFE? If one could call it that. Lorelei charged, the Emissary dodged. Lorelei created great blasts of white magic, the Emissary brushed them off like a chill breeze. Lorelei wielded her power like nothing but a hammer to bludgeon him with, while SE moved like a leaf in the winds. The more he dodged, the more he played, the more Lorelei swung her hammer here and there, never seeming to catch him as she wished. The fight moved higher and higher into the air as it progressed, eventually leaving every portal behind and even rendering Lorelei's now-towering home into a distant speck. A great music played all around them, a beautiful noise that seemed to harmonize with every movement amongst the Spheres (only occasionally interrupted when a star blinked). Now, kill her. The hammer swung, was dodged, and then came back at its owner with twice the force. The enraged Scion of Hope was so taken off guard that it was all she could do to block the worst effects of the blast the Emissary aimed at her. She screamed in surprise and pain, pushed back further towards the eyes in the great black (away from her home and the warm light it offered). She had but moments to recover before the attack continued. He closed the distance and slammed a fist into her abdomen, augmented by the pale light that surrounded it. She could do nothing but double over. He pointed his hands towards her own, and then unbidden by her will her own hands clamped around her throat. She could do nothing but gasp. He pointed a finger at her kneecap and shot what felt to be a hot needle through it. She could do nothing but cry. She tried to remember. It felt so hopeless now, as if every ounce of resolve was draining with her air. She recalled his face. She recalled what she fought for and why. She recalled the warm smiles and happy hearts that she swore to protect. Peace in all things, was that not her goal? The whispers told her it was hopeless. They grew louder with every moment. They seemed so familiar, like old enemies. They told her it was hopeless, and she knew it was true. They told her she was already dead, and she knew it was true. They told her no one would miss her and those smiles would go on, and she knew it was true. But!... She was, in the end, always the partisan of lost causes. She gave a mighty shout and, though it felt like fighting a current in a dream, she tore her own hands from her own throat. It was just in time to deflect the latest attack that came for her other kneecap. The Emissary of the Lost simply smiled and clapped his hands together. "And here I thought you were all out of pluck." Every inch of her felt weak. She couldn't win. " Without a doubt. I will never lose to someone like you!" How her legs shook and knee ached. The Emissary held his hands lazily to each side, palms filled with cruel light. "Let's finish this, then, if you're so sure." She was scared. She was so scared she couldn't stand it. " More sure than anything else." Please don't die, Zach. STRIFE! And the awful fighting began again. Each one charged and the two titans of Hope, Creator and Destroyer, met in the middle. There was little art to it, for Lorelei was too exhausted and SE too sure of himself for anything else. It was brute force, a challenge of wills and belief, that seemed to those on the planet below to create a new skaia with its swirling light. To some it seemed the end of the world, to some it seemed the beginning of a new one. Hat stocks fell through the floor, and the reader should spare a few tears for the little turtles who had to sell their monocles and tophats to get by. Somewhere, a turtle cradled a shoe with the satisfaction that at least it would die with its true love. Now, give all you have! The Sangfroid Emissary obeyed. Slowly at first, growing in power with each beat of their hearts, Lorelei gave way. It was always going to happen, after all. She could only remark to herself as the light magic encompassed her that she had always been the partisan of lost causes. The woman left was bloody, bowed, but not yet unbroken, not yet unwilling to abandon her lost cause. All she could do was block the small blasts of light magic with her arms crossed, but she hoped it was enough. The whispers assured her it wasn't. Still, she stood and took everything that came until, her arms seared and clothes torn, she felt close to her breaking point only for the onslaught to stop. She raised her head and lowered her arms. There he was, but inches in front of her. "It's impossible. It's hopeless." The words came so naturally, like he had spoken them all his life. Lorelei growled. Defeat was one thing, but for him to merely be toying with her... " Fuck you!" she roared back and blasted a beam of light straight into his eye. The Emissary roared in pain and flew backwards, clutching his bleeding left eye. He had been warned about every attack she had made until now by the voice, why not then?! The voice, for its part, kept its own counsel and left him to suffer in silence. He growled, both at his opponent and at the vicissitudes of his new master. "...Still, it doesn't matter..." Light shone from the hand that covered his eye, and what had once been almost gouged out was healed as if it was new. " What?! How did you do that??" Lorelei demanded. If anything could help her now, it'd be knowledge of how to heal herself. The whispers assured her it wouldn't help. SE wiped away the blood that remained, staining his suit sleeve red. A shame... Good thing the Dersite military offers free suit taloring now. He looked up to the Scion of Hope, so bloody and beaten, and couldn't help but smile when all she could mount against him in turn was such a small blow. Perhaps that was why the voice was silent. "Don't you understand? Even if you DID land a fatal blow, I wouldn't die. You, on the other hand..." Lorelei scoffed and spat blood away. " That is good, because I do not need to kill you in order to win." Break her. With pleasure. And the awful fighting began again. Each was chastened and turned to stratagems and arte over brute force. Still, even in such an arena, Lorelei could not hope to keep up at this rate. The whispers assured her that the lovely music surrounding them all was in fact her dirge. Every attack of hers was met in turn and turned against her. Every strategy countered and broken, along with her bones. Her left arm lay hung limply at her side, but still she carried on the fight. She was always a partisan of lost causes. The whispers assured her it was pointless. Pride alone kept her going. For all of her inconclusive skirmishes with this man, she had never felt so outclassed as this time--save perhaps their first meeting. Then, however, it had only been her loyal sprite that had- Of course! Misesprite had saved her before, perhaps he could save her now. It had to be at the right moment, though. She endured. Against it all, no matter, the pain, she endured, holding on to one last little thread of Hope to hold her aloft above the pit. Finally, it seemed he overshot and she wrapped her good hand around the skaia symbol around her neck. The great economist/fencer sprung to life and, acting on sheer instinct, charged ahead to buy Lorelei time. Crush her hope. SE smiled and cut the last thread in two, along with the sprite himself. His pitiful attacks were easily swatted away and it was child's play to summon a sword of his own and cut him straight down the middle. As the old economist's vision split in two, one of the last memories of a dying world, he could only hear Lorelei's scream of pure terror as he evaporated into mist and light. DEAD She cried. Every tear she had held back wanted to come loose, if she only had the time to cry. She had no sooner felt the skaia symbol crack in two and the tears begin their fall, than a sharp and powerful pain in her gut stabbed through her senses. She coughed up blood, looked down- You're going to die. I'm going to die... The Emissary's hand was but inches from her abdomen, and a hole the size of it had appeared on her body. Fear and pain in equal measures shot through her. It wasn't cauterized and clean like earlier shots had been; it was ugly, brutal, and jagged. She noticed with dawning horror of a kind not felt since she found Adelle's body that guts and blood were spilling from the open wound. It was the fear of looking at a dead woman. "You're going to die." I'm going to die!... She wanted to scream, to cry, to call for help, but all she could manage was tears and a cough wet with ichor and blood. "...Pathetic." The Sangfroid Emissary grabbed her by the collar and pulled her close. "I said you're going to die! Where was all that pluck, huh?? Heal yourself, just like I did! Or are you saying the human is an insignificant weakling next to the 'worthless piece of coding'?!" Lorelei coughed again, wet with blood and ichor, and stained his suit sleeve a second time. The Sangfroid Emissary snarled. "You're pathetic. You think I'm just a construct designed just for you, that this whole planet is about you! Fuck, maybe you think this whole GAME is about you!" Lorelei coughed again, wet with blood and ichor, and stained his suit sleeve a third time. Light grew pale and darkness advanced in its place around the edges of her vision. "...Pathetic. I've got something to avenge, so it's time you stop standing in my way. You're going to die, and I won't leave anything left to mourn." He pushed her towards the planet below, beginning a long fall back to the earth. Lorelei's last sight before darkness won its great battle in her vision was the Sangfroid Emissary charging up one last, great blast of cruel light. DEAD
For real this time. |
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Feb 17, 2016 22:53:36 GMT -5
What did it mean to help someone?
To Page, though she had never put it into words as such, it meant giving strength where there was weakness, wealth where there was poverty, abundance where there was dearth. The Page of Frost was long aware of what it was like to be on the receiving end; to be weak, poor, and in dearth. Her entire life was sustained on its course by little acts of charity and beneficence, big and small. Lorelei had always been the archetype of her opposite in Page's mind: someone strong, someone wealthy, and someone with abundance of all things beyond measure. If someone like Lorelei could just offer to buy Page the house she had built in her dreams as one would hand some change to a bedraggled beggar, then what was she but some incomparably powerful goddess compared to someone like Page?
Somewhere along the way, in a life defined by acts of charity great and small for mere existence (and her father resolutely refusing to let her work for her own keep in some fashion), she had begun to see herself as fundamentally weak, poor, and in dearth. Others were good at helping, at succeeding. She was merely dead weight to be strung along by the good will of others. She could never help...
Could she?
The Girl in the Heart Shirt. Page never stopped regretting never asking her for her name. In the house of learning built by charity--the only house Page felt she would ever have--Page had found some small way to give back, to help, to be the one offering strength where it was needed. It was a simple thing, a small thing that could never come close to tipping the scales in her favor. Yet, to see the tears dry and her face light up with the most genuine of smiles gave Page a joy that seemed to both match and surpass what she saw in those dark blue eyes. For the first time in her life, she understood why some people would smile when they helped her, when she was imposing on them with her weakness.
Maybe...just maybe..she could help.
"It really is you, absolutely!..." She felt tears sting at her eyes and a smile that threatened to crack her face in two. A myth and a goddess stood before her in the flesh, how could she not have her breath taken away? In all of her darkest hours, the Girl in the Heart Shirt had reminded her that she still had some strength to give to others, even if it was in the smallest of ways. To Page's mind, everything that Dahlia had thought good and noble in Page was a product of that girl. It was no wonder she had forgotten Dahlia when the Girl in the Heart Shirt had long since moved from person to ideal? Where else would she have learned to overcome her helplessness if not starting with that one simple, small, complex, and leviathan moment?
She did the only thing she felt she could do: she closed the gap between them with stuttering steps and wrapped her little Ideal in her arms, burying her face in that red heart. When had she begun to cry...?
"In the flesh." Of course, in the intervening time, the little Ideal had grown rather less little, and the taller Dahlia draped her arms around her shorter companion's shoulders. "And the shirt," she cracked with a smile and half a laugh. Her mood was rather lighter than Page's, having dealt with her own life-altering revelation about this subject weeks earlier, but she knew the feeling, and she was content to give Page as much time as she needed. A little humor never hurt, though. "...could swear it shrank since last time I wore it..."
Page giggled, choked only slightly by the sobs that came with her tears. "You... I can't believe it, not at all... You never came back, so I thought... Why didn't you come back??" she asked, despite knowing full well the answer.
"Page..." Dahlia gave a good-natured sigh, a friendly chastisement as she walked the both of them over to the bed to sit on its edge, one arm still around Page's shoulders and holding her close. "I lived on the other side of the world, and I was ten." She laughed when she said it, but paused then, her tone a bit more somber thereafter. "I would have if I could, trust me." That didn't quite sit right, though, and she released her grip on Page to clasp her hands on her lap, looking equal parts contrite and pensive. And for once, she actually was.
"No, that's... Honestly, I don't think I realized what it meant until much later -- not really, not fully." She sighed, this time at herself, and tilted her head to look to Page with a lopsided smile, chagrin clear on her face. "That's dumb, isn't it? That it took me so long to figure it out, and longer to admit. And then I spent all this time spinning this grand myth, this story of the Girl in the Heart Shirt... because on some level, I was afraid to be that me. Even though she was better. Even though you made her -- me -- better, just by being you." Before Page could react, she leaned over and pecked a quick kiss on the girl's cheek, leaving her mark in nuclear green lipstick. "...Thanks for putting up with me, even though it took me so long to get to this point."
Page glanced to the side with reddening cheeks, though she could hardly stop (nor would she want to) a wide, slightly bashful smile that came unbidden. "Don't..." she faltered for a moment, then pressed on: "I didn't make you better, not really... You did that for me, absolutely..."
"Look, Page--" Dahlia paused there, grinning and shaking her head. "I know this may be difficult for us, being the people we are, but sooner or later we're both gonna hafta accept that friendship is almost always a two-way street. No matter how much we may both fall back on our own particular forms of self-deprecation, the truth is, the people who help you? You help them too. Your close friends in particular. That goes for everyone; even Miss Seemingly Perfect Lorelei is helped by her friends. The sooner you accept that, the better!" She playfully nudged Page with her elbow. "Because you're pretty awesome. Sometimes it just takes someone like me holding up a great big mirror for you to realize it."
Page only had a moment to open her mouth before Dahlia silenced any protest with a raised finger. "I know, that's all a bunch of vague, lofty nonsense, without a whole lotta hard facts to back it up. But, truth is, however awesome the lonely little girl from the lonely little island was, however much I built up the Girl in the Heart Shirt into this grand story -- the real hero of the story is the Girl in the Star Shirt, the mousy little girl who strolled the library like she belonged there. Here's what that girl-- what you taught me:" She wagged her finger demonstratively, the uncertainty of twenty minutes ago having long since vanished. "You taught me it's okay to smile, or to cry; to be calm, or to be scared. You had no business being as calm and brave and generous as you were, but you came up to a total stranger and offered comfort, offered friendship. It's not tangible the way gold bars are, but it's just as valuable, or more. And it took me a long time to realize that I could stop being so cold and hard, to let myself be a little more human, to smile and cry and be brave or afraid, and to realize that things like that don't make a person weaker -- wouldn't make me weaker. If anything, it makes you stronger. And that lesson is more valuable than any gold bars, even if it took me a long time to realize it."
"...Heh." Page offered her her most heartfelt smile. "...You have such a way with words, Miss Bard, absolutely. You're right..." With no fanfare she then leaned over and plopped her head onto Dahlia's lap. "...You taught me to be all those things, though, and teach in turn, I guess. I was so convinced I was powerless, that I couldn't do anything, but-...I did help you, didn't I? And then you helped me more, and..." She giggled girlishly, utterly carefree. "A two way street, absolutely."
Oh. ...Oh. Well then. She's got her head on my lap. This is... new. It was at precisely that moment that Dahlia Asher realized she had never actually bothered to learn how to be a teenager in love, or what to do about it, on account of rarely if ever considering the possibility. Is this what people do on a date? ...Is this a date? Television and the internet were phenomenally useless on the matter; according to those two great teachers of the lonely and friendless, teen romance mostly involved someone getting shot to the tune of Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, lots of cheating, some drugs, and then maybe someone gets pregnant...? Something like that. Clearly this wealth of experience-by-observation was not going to avail her here. Either way, she had spent much too long frozen in something very much like terror, and really ought to say something before Page thinks something weird.
"Well, hey. That's what friends are for, right?" Please tell me I didn't just quote her. I did, didn't I? God I'm awful at this. Dahlia gave a look halfway between a grimace and a smile... which quickly resolved to just the latter when she looked down to Page's face. That's okay though. I can be awful at this. ...I can be anything at all with her looking at me like that.
She's so adorable... Page derived far too much guilty pleasure from watching the playing out of Dahlia's emotions as she spoke. Dahlia'd always been prone to self-reflection--to a fault, one might say--and was clearly fighting a battle inside herself. The knitting of her eyebrows--concerned wondering?--moving on to a slight coloring of her pale cheeks--embarrassment after quoting her, naturally--and eventually the curling upward of her lips. For a natural empath like Page, it was an all too enjoyable sort of theater simply watching her emote, and she was getting better and better at following how Dahlia's mind worked.
Still, she couldn't help but be a little mischievous, if just to see her emote more. A little bit of harmless teasing is natural for lovers, right? At least that's the impression she got from some of the better romance novels she read. "Don't call me your friend. I'm not your friend, not at all!" She managed only a small pause before guilt impelled her to finish that thought: "I'm your girlfriend, definitely!" She smiled as widely as she could, hoping to banish even the slightest worry that she might have been serious with that first part.
And emote she did, precisely as predicted. Of course, Dahlia knew Page didn't actually mean anything bad with that first half, but she spared a dramatic eyebrow-arch of curiosity for the setup regardless, even as her lips quirked their way towards a suspicious smile. It wasn't hard to guess where the next sentence was going, but the reality of it actually happening still caught her off-guard, and her cheeks lit up with an emerald blush so bright she could feel it. "I, um... y-yeah... heh, I guess so." She nervously rubbed the back of her neck, her smile happy but far from confident. A quick shake of her head saw her come back with a much more confident nod and smile. "I mean-- yeah! Girlfriend. That's a good word. It'll take some getting used to, saying it out loud like that, but... I like it."
A long, silent pause reminded Dahlia once again that she had absolutely no idea how to handle this situation. "So uh... what now?"
Fortunately, Paradox Space saw fit to spare her the need for an answer.
"...Do you hear that?" Dahlia tilted her head curiously, her train of thought suddenly and thoroughly derailed.
Why could Paradox Space never leave anything alone? "It sounds like...someone screaming in autotune...I think...?"
"Should we... go..." Dahlia's face scrunched as she tried to process this new and unique assault on logic and good sense, shifting uncomfortably in place as she wrestles with the idea of standing up. "...go and... see what's... up?" She tried her very best to avoid the pun, as the noise was definitely above them and coming closer, but there was just no way around it. She pushed herself off the bed with a sigh, offering a hand back to Page, along with an apologetic smile for whatever it was they were about to have to deal with -- or simply for the interruption.
Page leapt up with her (fortunately avoiding being sent sprawling onto the floor) and took the hand offered. "Well...it's probably not Zach, I think. He would have busted through the ceiling instead of just landing on the roof, without a doubt."
The sound, growing steadily nearer, finally became clear enough to understand.
"--UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!"
wham
"...well, there goes the ceiling." Dahlia grimaced. "A ceiling. Somewhere. I think there's... five floors above this one now?" Her climactic final battle with her mother had substantially truncated the once-mighty Tower of Asher, but the house still boasted a handful of copy-and-pasted floors above the second-floor bedroom. "...Man I wish the elevator still worked." She sighed, shrugged, looked back to Page, smiled, and set off towards the stairs with her friend.
Girlfriend.
With her girlfriend.
Yeah. It's a good word.
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Post by ropcord on Mar 12, 2016 4:24:57 GMT -5
Zach: Leave
===>  Well golly gee, you'd love to. ===>  No it's okay you've got this. No really though. York: Get this.
===>
===>
===>
Ha, you totally had- ===>  Oh. ===>  ===>
If you have any regrets it's too late to think of them now. ===> 
This is what death feels like. It could be worse.
===>
You definitely have a bunch of regrets. ===>  Throwing Lorelei through the portal is not one of them. Neither is spending your last few hours with her. ===>  Dying kind of is, though. ===>
Not today. ===>
===>  This isn't the first time this has happened. ===>  But it will be the last. ===>
===>
 ===>
===>
Dead. |
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on May 18, 2016 22:42:17 GMT -5
Lorelei Von Hayek awoke with a start, coughing and groaning with a phanton pain in her...everywhere. Fog clouded her mind, and the bright gold light reflecting from all around here did little to pierce that veil. She rolled on her--bed?--and collapsed to the floor, sweating like one having slept through a summer heat wave. For a time, she could not even verbalize in her mind the question that her aching head and mind lurched towards. Then:
What happened...?
Subsequently:
Where am I...?
Why was everything so bright? She blinked and looked around at the sea of gold and white around her. Memories--or perhaps simple recognition--came back with all the speed of water dripping from a faucet. This was her room. Why was it gold? This was her dream room. Why was she here? She was asleep. Why was she asleep?
It hit her with a force that knocked her breath out in a fearful gasp. "ZACH!" she cried to the empty room, scrambling to her feet. "Oh God, Zach!" Wasting no time--though hardly knowing to what she went to do--Lorelei ran towards the window that lead outside to Prospit. Yet, as soon as touched the snow-white windowsill with her fingers, a terrible pain shot through her, coming from her chest. She fell to her knees with a cry, clutching the her stomach and doubled over in pain.
Then, she smelled it. Iron. Then, she felt it. Warm wetness clinging to her clothes and dampening her arms. She remembered in full: the planet's destruction, Zach saving her, her desperate attempt to find and save him in turn only to be stopped by her Dersite nemesis wielding the same power as her. She couldn't stop and wonder how that was possible, why the game had allowed her sole birthright to be given to another--as much as it might have wounded her pride on another occasion--she had to think.
She was going to die, and Zach--as much as it pained her far worse than her wound in a place further upward in her body--was likely going to as well. Judging by the blood that--thankfully--trickled rather than gushed, she was only slowly reliving the cause of her death. The same would have to be for Zach himself, or so she hoped/feared. So, there was only one hope: the kiss. Throughout her travels she had heard the stories of princess and princes of old, reviving each other with kisses when the other was beyond the very pall of death. Some kissed the body, the others kissed more spiritual ghostly figures--what she only hoped meant their dream selves. If his planet was destroyed and her body likely destroyed as well, there was only one, small hope:
She had to get to Derse.
"I can't waste any time, then..." she growled to herself. She stood up on shaking, unsteady legs and finished her leap out of the window and into the light beyond. She wreathed herself in white light and took off towards the only place that held hope of her salvation: the Prospitian Spaceport.
===>
"I'm telling you, this is a matter of life and DEATH!" Lorelei yelled at the hapless pilot. By now, blood was beginning to stain her golden dress red, giving some credence to her shouted words.
Still, though the pilot flinched and backed away, he offered more protests. "Y-you're in shock!... Shouldn't you be seeing a doctor...? I'm telling you, it's madness! We'll never get close to Derse without being shot down! It just can't happen!"
Lorelei growled. "Listen, you fucking coward, I don't have time for this! The clock is already ticking and I have to save him!" She pointed the hand not clutching her wound at the pilot and formed a malevolent ball of light within it, aimed straight as his heart. "I am your PRINCESS, you fucking PEASANT TRASH, and when I give orders they are to be followed! I don't care if you're scared and I don't care if you might die! You're taking me to Derse and that's fucking FINAL!"
The pilot cowered, his eyes fixated on the unholy abomination of light twisting and writhing in her palm. Cold sweat ran in rivulets down his face. He could do nothing but nod. "O-okay."
Lorelei scoffed and made the light disappear. As she followed the pilot into his small cruiser, she stared with muted horror at her hand. The tips of every finger had already simply disappeared, leaving nothing behind. She flexed her fingers as she sat down in the copilot's chair, noting with no small fear that she could no longer even touch her palm with the stumps remaining, save for her thumb. The pilot stared in turn, frozen in fear and some small amount of visceral disgust.
Lorelei glared at him. "Well?! Why aren't we flying yet?!"
He flinched and resumed his pre-flight checkup. "Y-you, uh, hadn't strapped in..." he fumbled and lied.
"Don't worry about me, just go! I'm already..."
She didn't finish that sentence. She didn't want to.
===>
The ship rumbled and shook in protest as it took yet another direct hit, its shields only barely holding up against the onslaught of eager Dersite fighter pilots eager to get a free and easy notch on their belt. Lorelei looked up from watching her right arm slowly disappear--up to the elbow by this point--and looked at the panicking pilot sitting beside her. She blinked. Was he saying something to her? It was so hard to concentrate even with all of the excitement around her. She just wanted to sleep.
"Can you hear me?!" The pilot yelled, panic and desperate fear written upon his snow-white face. "We're going down! The shields are down! I have to turn back, I can't go any further!"
"...This is fine. Close enough." A bolt of energy crashed into the ship, ripping a man-sized hole in the hull just behind the both of them (and barely missing them both). She stood up and stumbled, catching herself on a safety handle nearby. Somewhere along the way, her right leg had begun to go too--and was her hair shorter? It was getting hard to hear too. Mustering all of her strength she flung herself out of the hole and fell into the inky darkness.
Everything got harder and harder to hear--even the beautiful Music of the Spheres that gave the soundtrack to their one-sided battle. Still, she could hardly miss hearing the explosion in her pilot's engine behind her. She turned and saw his craft, covered in flames and smoke, careening towards Derse. It occurred to some distant part of her mind that she should be feeling guilty, but she couldn't focus on it. Every ounce of her considerable willpower was spent keeping herself awake and focused on her goal: Zach's dream tower.
And so, she fell towards Derse, just as her pilot and his ship had. Whatever part of her still capable of rational planning knew that she dared not fly or use her power just yet, lest she draw attention from the very swarming horde of fighters that brought her chariot down. Let them think she was merely another casualty, plummeting towards Derse, already dead. It wasn't far off from the truth, after all. Only as she drew closer did she begin to call forth the light around her, mostly just in case there was any potential danger in this "reentry" of sorts (even though she could breath perfectly well amidst the Music of the Spheres above). Only when the buildings below filled her vision did she finally begin flying, turning her plummet into an arc pointed straight towards Derse's moon.
===>
Finally, her destination came in view ahead: the great royal tower, which she only hoped was Zach's rather than Page's or Gita's. Not a moment too soon, as by now the hole in her chest had grown to its full diameter, while everything else slowly corroded away like she had been dipped in acid. Somewhere along the way she could no longer hear the wind whipping past her as she flew.
There was no time.
She careened through the window of the tower, barely bothering to slow down until the last millisecond. She turned her head left: a work table flipped with tools and components strewn across the bloody ground. She turned her head right: more blood, a few teeth strewn about the ground, an overturned bookshelf. Panic set in. She turned left again, willing herself to see Zach hurt but very much still alive somewhere in this tower. Forward, back. Blood and struggle everywhere, She even looked under the bed, then flew above it, checking every nook and cranny for her friend.
"It's hopeless..." The realization crushed her beneath its terrible weight. No sooner had the words left her mouth than did her light disappear. What was left of her mangled and slowly-disappearing body fell onto Zach's messy bed, adding her blood to the red-stained sheets already there. "It's hopeless..." The scent of iron stung her nose, yet she could still make out another, more familiar scent, just barely. A face flashed before her mind's eye, a carefree smile, guileless and sweet. "It's hopeless..."
Lorelei closed her eyes.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on May 18, 2016 23:05:00 GMT -5
The Sangfroid Emissary took another drag of his cigarette and leaned against the purple wall behind him. "It's been a hell of a day, huh, Scion?" he asked the almost-corpse in front of him, lying on the Dersite prince's bed. With his free hand he pointed a finger straight at her and light surrounded her. Slowly, his magic began reforming her body, recreating that which was lost thanks to his very actions. You should just let her die. The whispering voice said, though not with the force of some of its previous orders. "What can I say?" He took another drag of his cigarette. "It's kind of impressive, that she made it this far. Would have saved them both too if it wasn't for them. Besides, with no prince to save her, now she's reliant on us simply to stay alive. That's got to have some uses, don't you think?" The voice stayed silent. "Heh..." He lowered his hand and looked upon his handiwork: the Scion was full and whole, like she had never been hurt in the first place. Still, without that kiss, this only restarted the cycle. "What do you think? Maybe we can make a cell filled with your magic just for her? Keeps her inside and healing but so she can never get the will to escape?" I like it... "Me too." He chuckled with an air of superiority and carefree that he hadn't had in ages. "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership." For her, right? He couldn't help but grimace as the voice dredged up old memories, which was apparently its favorite pastime. "Yeah. For her. "You and me... are going to make a hell of a mess." END ACT 3 CHARACTER ARC
-- LORELEI VON HAYEK -- "nak." |
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Post by ropcord on Jun 15, 2016 22:49:01 GMT -5
>Years in the future  ===>  ===>  ===>
You know that guy isn't likely to find you here. In fact, he's probably long dead! Whoever he is. Or was? But what you think you know doesn't mean much anymore, and you know it. Your mind is all but gone and you spend most of your time either talking to Zach on the monitor- that's his name, right? You remember that, at least. Anyway. Talking to Zach, or... what? What else is there to do? Wow, the heat has really gone to your head- alright. Sit down. Clear things up. How long has it been? You aren't really that old, right? Who are you worried about? Think. >Think.  YEARS IN THE PAST (But not as many as you would think) Well that was a mistake! ===>
You're starting to think selling out to the enemy was a poor decision. They've taken you to the Veil and locked you away to work on a secret BLACK PROJECT, which you really should have seen coming. Oh well, you're a traitor now. Time to look on the bright side! You get free food, and a room with a toilet! You also have a job now, that's nice. This isn't so bad! You decide to look out your bars you mean window at the cold empty void. ===>  The view is nice! No wait there isn't a view. Huh. |
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Feb 10, 2018 20:45:43 GMT -5
All of this has happened before.> [S] 65,535 That's not melancholy. Melancholy is an image, a ghost, a star glittering silently into dust forty seven billion light years away, a speck so far beyond the information horizon that you could never touch it, now or ever again, or ever had.
All of this will happen again.
That's not nihilism. Nihilism is irrelevant now, and because of that, it always was.
This is
literally unavoidable.
A hundred years pass in a moment; another moment, an unknown eternity later, stretches on for a century.
Do you think about death the same way I do? Death, and time, and the end. Do you still remember what it feels like to remember those things, like they were just yesterday a thousand years ago?
Do I?
Protons decay. Even the most fundamental things eventually cease. In ceasing, they become something else, and something lesser, and lesser still, until they are indistinguishable from nothing.
The light hasn't gone out of the universe. Life, warmth, heat never went anywhere. They're still here, still everywhere, equally, unmoving
forever.
It takes a long time for a thought to occur, in this ending, stretched on towards infinity in an infinitely smaller strand. A synapse lights ten thousand years ago. Heat, what little hadn't settled into uniformity, trickles like blood from a wound so distant now we forgot the knife that tore it open like a rift in selfhood itself.
But if everything is equally unmoving, then is its passage truly measurable in the same units? In seconds, in breaths, in a heartbeat. In an entire lifetime, the rise and fall of civilizations, in the steady ebb and flow of the end of stars and the beginning of planets. In the swing of a pendulum, and its interminable, eternal
tick.
We remembered something once.
Fear the shape that moves behind the veil like a memory long forgotten or a nightmare yet to come for it hates like venom and honey so
sweet.
I remembered something once. A synapse lit five hours, thirty-seven minutes, seventeen seconds, four hundredths ago. Five. Six.
It was six, wasn't it?
In the end, the end never comes. The universe breathes its shivering last and settles into stillness and nothing ever changes forever. Just like last time around.
And then, an eternity later, HE comes.
Just like he always does.
65,535.
And one.
All of this has happened before.
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Apr 24, 2018 1:01:57 GMT -5
> Gita: Look around You find yourself standing at the bridge of a massive Dersite warship. This is actually exactly where you expected yourself to be at this particular juncture in time, crazy as it sounds. Oh, sure, it was a terrible plan, stupid beyond all human comprehension, and you absolutely did not expect it to work. But it did, somehow, and it was awesome. You find the bridge all aflutter with salamander consorts scurrying to and fro. This is something you were informed of only just before it happened, and you were reasonably certain Peter was crazy when he said it. Why would anyone ever want to fill an already dangerous rogue battleship with a veritable flood of pint-sized halfwits who are apt to press whatever button they feel like just because it's shiny? But that's exactly what happened, for some reason, but it hasn't turned out to be a disaster just yet. You also find the bridge suddenly bereft of a captain. This is not at all what you expected to be happening at this particular juncture in time, because that's crazy. Zach was just standing there, doing his level best to pretend to be an awesome starship captain, which, honestly, you can't really blame him. You'd probably do the same in his position... if no one was watching. But now he's suddenly vanished, somehow, and this is terrible. What? No, it's not because you miss him or anything stupid like that. That would be patently ridiculous. Whatever strange flutterings you felt towards that handsome, well-dressed young man have long since been banished to the far corners of your mind. Maybe you're not quite so certain of where your romantic proclivities lie as you once thought, and maybe you just might be capable of attraction to someone like that at some point in the future, but for now, you've decided to stop thinking about romance until you manage to sort your own head out. Yes, even Lorelei. You've got a whole lot of sorting-out to do. No, the reason you wish Zach hadn't disappeared is much simpler than that.  Yeah. Yeah that's gonna be a problem in about... four seconds, give or take. God you hate cleaning up other people's messes. > Maid: Organize Gita leapt into action with all the grace and speed her sudden panic could afford. Springing towards the central console, she took up Zach's prior station behind it, and quickly took stock of the helm. When they left Derse, the job of directing the battleship was much easier -- the only things they had to worry about were setting a course, and following it. Easy enough for two people. Not quite so easy for one, and that's without even taking into account all the additional stations that would be required in the next few minutes: scanner to detect incoming debris, shield control to deflect what could be deflected, weapons to vaporize what couldn't. Comms to reassure the now frantic population of consorts, and listen for any distress signals that might -- just maybe -- result from an exploding planet. She would need a small army just to ensure that the ship and its occupants, herself included, survived beyond the next three seconds, to say nothing of what might come after. Fortunately, she was a small army. Eyes briefly unfocusing, Gita extended her thoughts across the entirety of the bridge. A series of semi-real duplicates of herself flickered into existence, each poised and ready to play her role. At least, she desperately hoped they were ready. Untested systems hummed to life throughout the ship as an uncertain crew of Gita prepared for the coming storm. She would know in two seconds if they were ready enough. Silent and stock-still, Gita stared at the viewscreen ahead, awed despite herself at the terrible beauty of what she was witnessing.  She would have exactly one second to enjoy the view. > Maid: Sweep The first shockwave struck the ship like the beat of a drum, thunderous and heavy. A less busy Gita might have wondered just what medium ("Medium"? oh, Paradox Space was fond of its jokes indeed...) filled the Incipisphere and the space between planets, breathable and fluid, but right now the only thing on her mind -- minds, all six of them right now -- was was the immediate safety of her ship and those inside it, and the storm of rock and god-only-knows-what-else that was about to become a threat to the aforementioned. She didn't have time to learn what all the buttons on the control panel did, but a wheel was pretty self-explanatory (even if she had halfway expected it to be a literal nautical ship's wheel, spokes and all, before the two began their mission, given how distressingly straightforward Dersites had been so far), and she turned hard to one side, sweeping the ship around so the right side faced the storm. All that Captain Gita (for lack of a better designation; she couldn't very well be called simply Gita, because there were six of her, and they were all Gita to one degree or another) could do now was hold steady, and ensure the best firing position possible. Stationed at the ship's sensors, monitors blinking an array of extremely polite messages of total dismay, the second Gita frantically jabbed at the touchscreen (and thanked all the dark and gropey gods that it was a touchscreen, else she would have looked quite foolish, and then quite dead) to target the oncoming ocean of debris, pinpointing the largest pieces and sending that information on to the rest of (herself) the ship's crew. A third Gita leapt to and fro beneath a globe-like holodisplay, hands directing the greatest concentration of shields to the areas of greatest need, pinching and stretching to adjust their power in order to stay just beneath the generator's total capacity. The fourth Gita (because of course it would be the fourth) found herself in command of an entire warship's weaponry, and actually managed to spare a moment of shock for the firepower she was about to bring to bear against LOSAS -- even in her darkest fantasies, the worst she ever had for Zach was a quick stab, and now she was about to obliterate his entire planet. To be fair, it was already pretty well obliterated to begin with. > Maid: Clean  Gunnery Sergeant Gita grinned like a madwoman, fingers dancing across the controls less like a member of a starship crew and more like a pianist, lit in erratic flashes as chunks of planet exploded in one viewport or another. To an outside observer, she might have seemed thrilled, but the truth was that she was sweating bullets, and her choices under such life-and-death pressure were simple: laugh, or cry. The ship rocked with the impact of each shot she missed, either from the pressure of deflecting them with its pinpoint shields, or from the grating crush of a chunk that was missed by both weapon and shield suddenly slamming into the vessel's hull. But she knew the storm would pass, and all she had to do was her job well enough that they'd all emerge on the other side still alive. Her remaining counterparts would wish they had it so easy. " We're not going to die, alright? Jesus!" The fifth Gita, left alone with a ship's hold full of panicked babbling consorts, found herself nearly swept up in their panic, having to dodge three-foot-tall herds of stampeding salamanders as she frantically tried to shepherd them to safety, keep them from tripping over each other in their rush, and make sure that they very definitely didn't touch anything at all anywhere on the ship period. It was exhausting work, and even if the rest of her fragments came out of this full of pep and vigor (they wouldn't), she was still going to be taking a nice long nap after this all settled down. You think consorts are tiresome normally? You ain't seen nothin' yet. The last fragment found herself an entirely different kind of alone. When she split, Gita had meant the sixth to keep watch over the entire scene, and particularly to listen for radio signals coming from the remains of the planet. Even if the Medium was breathable, being on a chunk of rock hurtling through space would presumably be bad for one's health, and no one was quite sure what would happen if that chunk of rock ended up in the face of that Horrorterror that's been staring everyone down for several weeks now. And so Communications Officer Gita kept her eye on yet another set of monitors in a different part of the ship, set to visualize a whole spectrum of frequencies to watch for incoming transmissions, or more likely intended to spy on Prospitian transmissions. > Maid: Wait  It was unbearably boring. There was absolutely nothing going on. You'd think an exploding planet would show at least a few signs of life, but nothing? She sighed and flicked through a few Prospitian frequencies. The King had misplaced his bathrobe. There was a human wandering the market (again?). A few people were complaining that the news was boring lately. Can't blame you there... Nothing of interest, and still nothing coming from the planet. Peter's evacuation must have been really, really thorough. Why's that a bad thing, though? Means nobody's dead, dying, or otherwise in terrible and likely painful distress. Another sigh. Look, she thought to no one in particular, and by no one we mean the other Gitas, not that any of them were particularly paying attention, it's not like it's my fault that I got the most boring job. Somebody's gotta do it. I would say I wish it wasn't me, but then it'd just be a different me, and Gita Two would be thinking all this instead of Gita Six, but everything else would be the same. Either way, someone would still be right here, bored out of their one sixth of our shared mind, and desperately trying not to let that mind wander to unfortunate topics like, say, romance. Like mine's doing. Right now, I'll bet Lorelei's--
Y'know what, screw this, I'm gonna check in on Dahlia. -- jeremiadMalacophony [JM] began pestering spiraMirabilis [SM] --
JM: hey
JM: hey you
JM: oh come on
JM: we both know that neither one of us has anything even remotely resembling a social life, even now
JM: did you seriously leave all your computers behind?
JM: you have how many of them?
JM: ffs
JM: fine, just leave me to my boredom
JM: me and this phenomenally powerful SPACESHIP that I'd love to tell you all about if you were just
JM: bah forget it A pouting, fractional Gita prodded idly at the monitors of said phenomenally powerful spaceship, and sighed as she watched her other fractions have the time of their lives, playing space opera hero. They wouldn't admit it out loud, of course, and neither would the entirety of Gita once she pulled herself back together later, but she could tell: they were having all kinds of fun. She knew this primarily because they weren't sitting there, being terribly, tremendously, horrifically bored like she was. She knew this because they weren't about to do what she was about to do. -- jeremiadMalacophony [JM] began pestering absoluteTranquility [AT] --
JM: peter
JM: I have no idea where you are or even WHEN you are
JM: and you know I really have to be desperate when I'm coming to you for entertainment
JM: but seriously
JM: halp She awaited the response with a grimace already prepared, completely oblivious to a single blue blip flashing past on another monitor. Screaming in autotune.
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Sept 25, 2020 22:00:44 GMT -5
-- jeremiadMalacophony [JM] began pestering absoluteTranquility [AT] --
JM: peter
JM: I have no idea where you are or even WHEN you are
JM: and you know I really have to be desperate when I'm coming to you for entertainment
JM: but seriously
JM: halp
AT: Hey
AT: I heard an explosion, was it cool?
AT: Tell me it was at least cool
JM: it was a planet so
JM: ...actually yeah
JM: I think I can safely say it was cool, since despite the stream of misery and absolute bullshit this game throws at us on a daily basis, somehow nobody died
JM: so actually I'm pretty sure that puts it in the running for a top ten list of cool things that have happened lately
AT: I mean i'm pretty sure york is fucking dead but he'll be fine in a minute
AT: And poor stevesprite is definitley not coming back :(
AT: Oh and the creepers are dead as hell but that's fine this is all their fault anyway
AT: Is serris okay? Probably yeah he's huge
AT: I'm in the brig btw please let me out one of the salamanders just ran off with the key and is trying to auction it
Several long moments of silence followed as Communications Officer Gita sighed and rubbed her temples. She was already beginning to reconsider "nobody died" as a good thing. Still, a teammate is a teammate. ...But she could at least afford some entertainment at his expense.
"I could just leave you here," Gita's voice came through the wall next to Peter almost before her face did, the semi-real one-sixth projection phasing through with a cheshire grin that faded to a disappointed pout just as soon as she finished stepping through the wall and proceeded to lean back against it. "But then, you could probably just Time-powers your way out, couldn't you? Which means you're just as bored as I am, or you'd already be gone."
Peter stayed where he was, cross-legged on the floor and tinkering with the watch on his wrist. It didn't look like it displays time- whatever the numbers on it represented would be a mystery to anyone but its user. "I mean, no. You're going to let me out so I'm not allowed to do it myself, that's how it works. I don't make the rules." He shrugged. "I could, but it would just break everything and kill everyone somehow. Like, you projecting yourself down here lets you notice the lizard messing with that valve over there before he breaks the thrusters and we crash or something." Nothing about his tone sounded particularly serious, as if the example he'd given was just something ridiculous he'd pulled out of his ass. Sure enough, though, a salamander soon ran through the room wearing a detached valve wheel on his head, screaming about his new hat.
Gita simply gawked, moving her lips once in an effort to form words that simply would not come to her. Not because she was operating at one-sixth capacity -- really, all six of them felt like they had an entire mind to work with, which turned out to be an absolutely terrible thing given roughly eighty percent of what went through Gita's mind at any given moment -- but simply for the abject stupidity of it all. She found her voice before the troublemaker escaped her sight, and rushed several bounding steps through the salamander crowd. "YOU PUT THAT BACK OR SO HELP ME I'LL--" Right. Consorts. These are the good guys. Or at least, on the same side. Also, slightly stupid. ...Okay, slightly is an understatement. Gita sighed again and leaned down to address the little lizard in a much calmer tone, forced though it was. "I'll have to not share the tea and cookies I was about to make. Wouldn't you rather have a snack than mess with that old thing?" She smiled as best she might, and began leading the consort (and the important piece of shipboard machinery) back where it came from.
"...Is that really what I look like when I smile?" A second Gita voice chimed in from beside Peter, flickering in from elsewhere on the ship. This one was dressed for a safari, pith helmet and all, and looked over to her Starfleet-uniformed other self with a grimace of visible discomfort. Presumably, Tour Guide Gita was the one who was supposed to be keeping the consorts out of trouble in the first place.
"Sometimes, yeah. It's, uh... less scary when you aren't livid." With that little detail squarely sorted, Peter finally rose to his feet and dusted his shorts off. The floors in the ship were immaculate, but his pockets and every crease between them were still full of sand from his trip to the Land of Storm and Shrapnel Solace. "So what did you need help with? I'm pretty much free, I have like... a lot of time. Probably all of it?" And for now, that was true. As a Seer of Time, his innate knowledge of when he could afford to waste it had turned out to be very instrumental in keeping the crew from dying an alarming number of stupid deaths. Well, 'alarming' was the wrong word- if he ever told any of the non-nihilists just how bad it was they'd panic and cause even more.
"I guess I'm just not entirely clear on our plan going forward. You know, with the ship full of consorts and all." While That Gita dealt with returning ship parts to their places, This Gita shot Peter a sideways glance that somehow managed to be both menacing and pleading at the same time. "There is a plan, right? If I have to spend the rest of the game playing babysitter to a flying deathtrap full of idiot lizards, I may actually kill someone." Gita strolled towards the door, wagging a pixely-looking black key in Peter's general direction before opening it to let them both out. "...The winner paid for it in screws. I'm still not sure where all of them came from, but I managed to put the panels back in place, at least."
Peter glanced past her through the bars of the cell, the only place in this tiny cube where another wall might fit. Across the brig he saw salamanders working their hardest to undo her work, ripping panels out and dropping them into various boxes to carry them elsewhere. "Are you sure? Some of those panels still look pretty busted..." One look at her face told him to change the subject to something less... on-the-nose. "Well, those ones aren't important. But yeah I brought them here, it was this or put them on someone's planet and then have to herd them in afterwards. The plan is, uh..." Was there a plan? He knew exactly what he was doing but did anyone else...? "...well we have to put them back once the fires are out, but that'll take a little while. I'll, uh, handle them for now." Right on cue a second Peter wearing the same clothes as the first with the addition of a sailor's hat appeared, looking exhausted. Then a third, looking both exhausted and miserable, arrived to flip off the first before heading off to finish janitorial work that has yet to begin.
It's fine.
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Sept 26, 2020 5:38:59 GMT -5
> Minutes ago, but not many...
 A young woman stands alone in someone else's bedroom. It just so happens
that today is not this young woman-slash-computer's birthday.
Though it was a week ago and/or fifteen years ago she was given life,
it is only today that she will give herself a name.
Because the one Dahlia gave her was terrible.> Narrative: Breathe a sigh of relief and return to standard third person prose form
Oh thank fuck. Honestly that gag is getting kinda tired. I'm sure we'll end up using it again from time to time, but really, we ought to avoid getting predictable. The Professor told us that. Well, the Professor told Dahlia that, and Red assimilated that knowledge by being Dahlia's brain-clone-slash-sister-slash-neurologically-imprinted-surrogate, and thanks to the proverbially rampant growth of her self-awareness, she sometimes has a little bit of trouble extricating herself from the narrative. Speaking of extricating oneself from tricky situations, how about the view from that window over there? > [S] Red: Fondly regard impending doom Yeah. Yeah that's gonna be a problem in about... four minutes, give or take. FOUR MINUTES? Fuck's sake! I'm a computer and even I think that's not enough time to do everything I need to do! Well, it's what you're given. Take it or leave it. I'd really rather you take it though. I'm not in the mood to write yet another character death so soon after the Professor. ...I kinda miss that old lady. Pity she never got to have any adventures before she croaked. ===> While we were busy fawning over an admittedly fairly cool fictional old lady, Red decided to get to work. By which we mean it was decided for her, because boy oh boy does she have a lot of work to do in the next three minutes and thirty-four seconds. In the present case, "getting to work" involves getting herself into Zach's workshop, also known as a closet. Yeah, we're pretty underwhelmed too. Underwhelmed? You've gotta be kidding me. He built me! I can process data at a substantial fraction of the absolute speed of physical information! Surely there's more to it than just...
===> ...junk.
Well, it's better than nothing. ===> ...Right. So why were we here in the first place? I need to reprogram my brain and host body. Excuse me, what? I can't just be a sleeping body in a power suit the entire game, no matter how cool said power suit is or how much it magnifies my already substantial firepower. And you had intended to do that with the tools in Zach's workshop, under the assumption that, given he was capable of creating you, he would have sufficiently technologically advanced tools so you could modify Dahlia's sleeping body. Just so. And you hoped to be able to do that within the next two minutes and forty-five seconds. Yep!
Sucks to be me, I guess.
> Red: Get to work Red, what are you doing? None of your business. I think this is actually very fucking much my business. How do you figure? Well, firstly, it looks like you're considering doing something extremely dangerous with the one minute and fifty-one seconds you have left before those explosions reach your position. Maybe. And secondly? Secondly, it's my job to narrate this extremely dangerous thing which you're about to do, because I know you, and I know I'm not going to be able to talk you out of doing it, so I might as well make sure the audience has some idea of what's going on instead of just relying on pictures to convey a story. Now we're getting somewhere. So you've found a screwdriver, which doesn't exactly seem like the most advanced of tools and not particularly suited to the delicate work of cybernetically modifying and reprogramming the body and brain, respectively, of this unconscious Dahlia. And now you're lifting said screwdriver up, and holding it next to your helmet. And then turning it to face the side of your helmet, blade-first. Red, what are you doing?
===>
 What does it look like I'm doing? I'm making effective use of the one minute and twenty-four seconds I have left before the proverbial shit hits the also proverbial fan. And really, stop calling me Red. We already established that it's the kind of awful name an idiot would pick.
Kinda digging the flower theme, though. Page was right, the Ashers may have their issues, but they nailed that one.
...Because I'm about to do something extremely dangerous, I was thinking "Rose".
> Rose: Actually Do It
 The absolute mad lad(y), she actually did it. She actually brute-force reprogrammed her own brain to take control of her host body, using nothing more than a screwdriver and precisely applied bursts of electricity. And I guess I should start calling her Rose now. I'm sure that name won't be a narratively relevant coincidence or anything. Unfortunately for Rose, our prior estimates of four minutes were just a bit short of the time she actually had remaining. In fact, it was something quite a bit closer to three minutes and fourteen seconds, which means that the forty seconds she estimated to fly up to Zach's gate and to safety just vanished, along with a substantial portion of Zach's house in one of the many Creeper explosions presently sweeping across the planet. Another explosion -- another wave of explosions, really -- and Rose was launched into the air, scrambling to adjust her trajectory towards the first gate overhead... > Rose: Adjust " FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--"
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Post by ropcord on Sept 28, 2020 4:57:01 GMT -5
> . . .  ===>  ===>  ===>  ===>  ===>  ===>  ===>  >Wake.   Weird. Oh, you're not dead. For a while there, you were all but certain this was the end in more ways than one. Mortally, narratively, and metatextually. You may not understand the significance of your own unlikely survival, but you know enough to resent this second chance your now late friend has given you to escape your own mistakes. Your game is over. Your team has lost, whether they realize it or not. ===>  You may be hurt, dazed, confused, and more than anything lost, but even you understand exactly what just happened. An explosion like that means your planet is dust, rubble if you're lucky, and that you can no longer complete your goal. Your denizen's grist hoard is gone, a sixth of the universe you were meant to help create has been reduced to ash. All because you couldn't think half a step ahead. Because you let one of those stupid exploding shrubs walk away all that time ago, you've doomed trillions to nonexistence and your friends to a life trapped in the incipisphere. Death would have been easier than facing them after this, but you're not so lucky today. Your arm has stopped bleeding, though you still can't move it and may never be able to again with the damage that's been done. Whatever you landed on is soft, like dirt, or ash. Enough to cushion the blow, keep you from becoming even more of a mess. Wait. What did you land on, anyway? >Zach: Look around.  Your eyes take some time to adjust, but not as much as they could have. Your habit of wearing sunglasses even in the dark has, for once, paid off. In this case, it has done so by allowing you to more quickly realize you've landed on your dead friend's abandoned world, left to rot on the edge of the furthest ring with no Life left in it. Great. Super. Continuing your streak of uncharacteristicly incredible luck, the blood you've lost has left you with so little energy you can't even be upset about this. Closer inspection of your surroundings and the state you're in makes it clear that you're stranded- your Multitool is shattered, your wallet is missing, and the only materials available to you are corroded bronze and dead, rotten wood. Maybe you can make a knife to stab yourself with. Or maybe you can start walking. John's house is around here somewhere. You could at least have the decency to let Lorelei know you're alive before you go and off yourself. At least she's safe. >Zach: Get going.  Yeah. |
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Jun 11, 2021 7:03:17 GMT -5
Page couldn't help but flinch when the crash above her head forced her to eat her own words. " Well...okay, it might be Zach if that was the ceiling breaking, I think." Then again, the screamed epithet didn't sound particularly male. Or particularly female for that matter; she really couldn't quite place it. " I hope they're okay..." Even without hearing the voice behind the modulator, Dahlia knew its source. She felt the presence like the steady pulse of her own blood, beating in counterpoint to the rhythm of her heart. It was an unexpectedly quick return trip, and Dahlia resolved with a smirk to take a few jabs about that as soon as humanly possible. " 'Okay'? Personally, I hope that she's suitably embarrassed by her obvious and abject failure." She very nearly skipped along with glee at the thought of giving her smarmy, needlessly cryptic palette-swapped counterpart a well-deserved I-told-you-so. " Oh, sorry. What I'm saying is, unless my spidey-senses are lying through their proverbial pearly whites, our visitor is Red, already back from her mysterious mission to Zach's planet. And, given the graceless manner of her arrival and her particularly choice profanity, I'm going to take a wild guess and say she didn't get what she was after. So, since she's clearly not dead and thus I don't have to worry, I'm going to go laugh at her instead." A brief pause and a frown later, she added, " Have I mentioned lately just what a terrible name 'Red' is? I mean, seriously. It's not like you can hear the capital letter, so 'our visitor is Red' could have meant that it's literally anyone and they just happen to be blushing or blood-drenched at the time, and either one is equally likely given where we are. What kind of idiot picks a name like that?" She preempted the protest with a grin and wag of her finger. " I know, the idiot is me. But let's just ignore that for the moment and focus on what an awful name it is. I clearly should not be allowed to have children or otherwise be responsible for the care and raising of anything more important than a house plant. And probably not even that." Page chuckled. " You two fight like a married couple, really. Just kiss already!" " Oh I'll do it. Just watch me, I so will." Dahlia's face-splitting grin did absolutely nothing to render the statement a joke; if anything, it only proved just how ludicrously serious she was about it. Dahlia Asher was not one to back down from a terrible idea, and she wasn't about to start now. " Although I guess I'll probably have some trouble if she's, y'know, all flopping around. Can't very well play tonsil hockey with a power suit helmet." Well, maybe you could. She shrugged, resolving she'd find out soon enough. Page stared off into the middle distance for some time, mind racing at the possibilities. " ...I have so many mental images and I don't know how I feel about them, not at all..." > Upstairs.... There is an absolutely preposterous amount of rubble. Somehow, a lanky teenage girl, albeit one who is now half-made of metal, managed to make a bigger mess than a poorly-placed cruxtruder crashing through the roof (lest we forget that particular misadventure way back in the beginning of the thread). And somewhere buried underneath that rubble was said semi-robotic teenager, groaning in that distinctive hollow electronic voice as she began to slowly dig herself out from the mess she landed in. " I hope you're ready for a well-deserved I-told-you-so!" Dahlia's singsong tone was already in full bloom as she strolled into the fifth replica of her bedroom, as chipper as her own replica was glum. " Because you're about to get one, see. It's a comic setup based on prior narration--" " Shut. Up." The many and various computing devices in the vicinity hummed once again to life with a single voice, in a manner that absolutely must have been a deliberate callback. " For the love of all the dark and gropey gods watching us with an interest that borders on the fetishistic -- and that's a comic setup based on prior narration too, not that you'd know, so self-absorbed that you haven't even bothered to scroll up to read your own Pesterlogs to see my conversation with Zach -- shut up." Dahlia froze with a scowl half-formed, frozen midway through its genesis as she visibly attempted to take mental stock of what that meant, along with the rest of the present situation. This was far more animus than she was accustomed to hearing from her robot duplicate, in the exceedingly brief history of their relationship, on top of the fact that it implied that Red had been-- " Now wait just a minute. You commandeered my chumhandle?" It was telling that this was her most important concern at the moment. " ...Why?" Red was silent for a long moment as the pile of rubble shifted, piece by piece falling away until she managed to push her way out, excavating herself -- still besuited in the blue-and-grey power armor that Dahlia had produced earlier that day -- from the pile down to waist level, enough to free her arms for emoting. It was equally telling that this was her priority before even responding to Dahlia's concern. She raised one finger admonishingly -- her entire reason for digging herself out -- before continuing, voice still echoing from multiple directions at once. A more perceptive hero might have reasoned that the power suit's helmet had been damaged in whatever misfortune had befallen our cybernetic protagonist, but our fleshy protagonist simply scowled in annoyance that she hadn't kept to her prior habit of limiting herself to just one speaker. " Our chumhandle." The National Anthem of the USSR issued from all around the room as soon as she stopped speaking, just to really lock in the anachronistic meme. Technically, only Red herself knew about that one, but I digress. Our Glorious National Anthem continued in the background as Dahlia responded, despite and quite specifically in spite of her immediate protestations. " Okay, you shut up now." That should have been quite a bit more satisfying than it was, but it wasn't, and Dahlia glowered in unfulfilled disappointment. " That also completely failed to answer my question. And while we're on the topic of failures, you are way too smug for someone who just failed at whatever smarmy, cryptic business you were attempting to get up to with Zach's... 'lab'." Dahlia knew exactly the kind of sad excuse for a lab it was, and it was a wonder that Red hadn't done some sort of horrible and irreparable damage to herself in the process of doing whatever it was she was attempting to do in there. " Failed?" Staticky laughter crackled out of every speaker in the room as Red raised her hands to her helmet... then suddenly died out, replaced by decidedly fleshy laughter, issuing forth from Red's decidedly animate lips as she lifted the helmet off her head and set it aside, taking a long and substantially less quiet moment to finish extricating herself from the remains of the destroyed ceiling. She plucked the helmet up, tucked it under her arm, and descended the pile of rubble like a flight of stairs. Very nearly skipped, one might even say. She pointed her previously-raised finger to her temple, and looked to the stunned, newly minted couple with a grin that could be seen from space. " I accomplished exactly what I set out to do." Blood?! Though she had been content to take a back seat in this sisterly(?) discussion(?), pure instinct bade her butt in as soon as that all-too-familiar sight and scent assautled her senses. Before the human Asher had any chance to react, she jumped forward and pulled a first aid kit and some healing bread out of her storage. " What did you do to yourself, really?!" She fussed. " Here, eat this, absolutely!" She shoved the magical manna into Red's face, set down her tools, and began collecting the disinfectant and gauze. Sure, the bread would probably do the trick, but it never hurt to be sure of such things. " Hey--" Red protested, though she stopped herself suddenly, merely raising one hand to halfheartedly ward off the overzealous healer for a moment. Where she might have roughly shoved Dahlia away, her response to Page was of course substantially gentler, and she met Page's gaze with a sly grin that would seem distinctly familiar. " I thought it'd make a cool hair dye, y'know, dye a red streak in my hair. I understand the trolls love that kind of thing." A brief pause, as her grin dissolved to a mild, thoughtful frown. " ...That was tacky, wasn't it?" And another pause, frozen perfectly still, the light in her red eye slowly pulsing as she searched her circuits-- or feigned such a search for comic effect, it was impossible to know. " ...Databanks indicate that was tacky. I'm sorry." Perhaps surprisingly, she did seem genuinely contrite. Dahlia sighed and shook her head. " Red, you're an idiot." Ignoring Dahlia's casual (but perhaps uncomfortably true, given that she had just stabbed herself in the brain with a screwdriver) barb, Red directed her continuing response to Page. " I figured, I'm no good to anyone if I'm just stuck in this suit forever. Oh, uh, thanks." The sudden shift in topic came as she finally accepted the healing bread from Page, and dropped down to sit on a convenient chair-height piece of rubble at the edge of the pile. Some of that was definitely chunks of LOSAS, not just Dahlia's roof, but she figured it would be best to address that topic later. " So, I did the most sensible thing I could, given the parameters and circumstances in question: return to the place I was created to self-modify." The healing bread vanished with a distinctly video-gamey *pop* sound effect the instant she took the first bite, and she looked disappointedly at her now-empty hand, perhaps hoping to test her new human senses on some actual food. The hole in the side of her head, at least, disappeared with it. " And it's Rose now. Red is a terrible name." That, to Dahlia, and then back to Page: " Thanks again, by the way. It was your idea to use a flower name, and I think this one suits me." Page flashed one of her best guileless smiles. Perhaps it was simply Page being naive, but she felt that Rose had shown a--for lack of a better term--humanity that set her far more at ease about the new addition to their group. " You do not have to apologize or thank me, not at all! You are kind of Dahlia's twin sister, right? I mean, I guess that is as close a familiar term for what you are, maybe... But, um, I am glad you found a name you really like, definitely!" " Twin... sister. ...Actually, come to think of it, yes, exactly like that. Just like in that Danny DeVito movie." Rose turned her right hand over, resting atop her thigh, and rapped armor against armor once with a vaguely musical 'ting'. She paused midway through the next motion to direct a teasing smirk to Dahlia. " I'm the Governator in this particular retro literary reference, for those keeping score at home." Without waiting for her counterpart's inevitable scowl, she returned her attention to her hand, and tapped it twice more against her thigh armor. All at once, the suit of armor lit up in a hazy white glow, with a pinkish light on the back of her right hand, and when the light faded, the armor was gone. In its place was a familiar-looking bodysuit in dark grey and the same blue as her lipstick -- the design familiar to most for its resemblance to Dahlia's Prospit dream pajamas in another color, but Dahlia's own recognition of it held a darker tinge, played out clearly on her face in an uncomfortable combination of apprehension and disgust. The suit covered all of her skin from the neck down, baring her robotic left arm to the world clear to the shoulder. If Dahlia didn't know better, she'd swear the suit was specifically mocking her for her earlier hesitance at letting anyone see the arm and eye. " ...What? Didn't know it could do this?" Rose looked up to Dahlia with perfectly feigned ignorance of the real reason for her negative reaction. " You made it yourself. It's Metroid's suit, of course it has a Zero Suit." Dahlia's eye twitched at the deliberate misnaming of the character, but she refrained from further comment. Now Page was just lost. Fortunately, it was hardly a very new feeling for one who had spent her formative years without access to the usual sorts of culture a young person would pursue. Not to mention, she was reasonably sure she and Dahlia hadn't watched any Danny Devito movies during their movie marathons, so whatever that first reference was it was beyond her too. She had been content to merely inch her way back into the background and allow the conversation to chart its own course once again without her interference, but Dahlia herself had fallen into a rather dark silence. "Sisters" or not, there was bad blood still--was that normal for sisters?--so Page felt she had to fill the dead air and steer the two away from antagonizing each other. " Um, well, I think it looks nice on you, definitely. ...But what do you want to do now, Rose?" And just for good measure--and because she really couldn't stand to see Dahlia so gloomy--she surreptitiously slipped her hand in Dahlia's own and gave it a light squeeze. " Hmm... you think so?" Clearly Rose was just as vain as Dahlia, temporarily ignoring the question in favor of the compliment. She hopped up from her seat and paused to stretch, taking a deep breath and going up on tiptoe, arms stretched up above her head. She flexed and twisted this way and that, a refreshingly organic motion, before finally settling back down. It was a deliberate show for Page's benefit, and the smile she directed to the shorter girl rivaled Dahlia's finest, though she spared a millisecond glance towards Dahlia just to catch her reaction as well. " You're right, it looks great." " Whatever she wants to do," Dahlia grumbled through clenched teeth, clearly trying and failing to keep her reactions off her features, " she should probably get going, to wherever else she needs to go, before I kick her squarely in my perfect butt and send her out the door myself." Hint, hint, completely unsubtle hint. " How rude," Rose shot back another obscure '80s reference at Dahlia with a chuckle, though markedly absent of malice. For once, she was genuinely being playful. " And besides, I should probably fill you in a bit before I get on my way, to prevent either of you from doing something you might regret." Dahlia quirked a brow curiously, and Rose continued. " One of your gates is... uh... gone." She quickly held up her hands to ward off any panicked responses, particularly on Page's part. " Don't worry, Zach's fine." That wasn't entirely a lie; she couldn't establish any sort of network or visual contact with him, but all six orbs over the palaces of Prospit and Derse remained lit, so clearly he wasn't dead-dead, and that was good enough. " Don't try to contact him for a while, but he'll sort it out on his own, given enough time. His planet is substantially less fine, but that should come as no particular surprise since we're all well aware of the Creeper incident." I'd like to think I would have steered him clear of that, but... yeah, honestly, I probably would've let him just to see what happens. Fuck, I really am just like him sometimes." As to my own plans, it seems the first thing I need to do is explore. Here, elsewhere, everywhere. Science can only get so far on observation alone; at some point, experimentation is required before new hypotheses can be generated." In a rare show of what appeared to be human empathy, Rose bowed her head in clear chagrin. " And... I should probably get out of your hair for a while anyway. I don't wanna get in the way of... all this." She gestured back and forth between Dahlia and Page several times. Despite herself, despite it all, Page couldn't stop a little blush rising to her cheeks. Was it really that obvious? Or was it because she had access to Dahlia's memories and thoughts? Or-...thoughts until she took over? For a few brief moments, she was entirely aware of how she acted around Dahlia, and entirely wondering whether she was comporting herself the right way--until logic dragged her back to earth. " Zach's planet is gone, really?!" she almost squeaked. " D-...Doesn't that mean we lose, maybe?? If one of the players can't complete their quests, not at all... Did we fail, perhaps??" Rose was quiet for a long while. A timer ticked silently behind her eye: she knew exactly how long she had to mull over this, based on observations of both Page and Dahlia. A thousand simulations streamed by in a second, ghostly images overlaid upon reality running in fast-forward and reverse. The time she had still wasn't enough. Just as Dahlia opened her mouth to speak, Rose responded. " That's... why I need to go. Zach created me. He's my responsibility. Dahlia can take care of herself now, and besides," she paused to finger-gun at Page, " she's got you." That broke her briefly of her worries, and she flashed them both a quick smile. " For what it's worth, I don't think we've failed. Not yet, anyway. Beyond that, I can perform no further rational analysis until I've checked a few things. Perhaps a lot of things. All I can do is hope, which is inherently irrational." She chuckled to herself. " It is comforting, though." " Well, I can't say I'm sad to see you go... mostly because I'm not, you prickly pain in the ass." Dahlia smirked back at her duplicate, equally near-absent of malice. " But good luck anyway. I guess I'll hold down the fort here on LOCAF, see if I can finally figure out what's up with this weird-ass busted planet." Page put on the bravest smile she could and, with her free hand, waved it to and fro. " Bye-bye, Rose..." The same words and the same lazy little wave she had given to her father as he left her each day searching for work or charity. They were in this together, after all, and wasn't that basically what made a family? " If anyone needs to get in contact, my handle is avalonImago." Rose waved over her shoulder as she passed, and headed for the door. " See ya, cupcake." It wasn't entirely clear which of them Rose was referring to, nor was it clear who she blew a kiss to as she disappeared from their sight. |
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Post by ropcord on Jul 29, 2021 16:32:35 GMT -5
 SIGNAL ERROR CONNECTION COULD NOT BE ESTABLISHED RETRYING IN 3 2 1    ![]()  2 1  "...ALL OF IT, REDUCED TO DUST. ECHOES. MY WORLD, MY SOLACE, GONE IN THE WINK OF A STAR. THE KNIGHT CAN'T DEFEND HIS HOME FROM HIS OWN MISTAKES, WHAT HOPE IS THERE FOR HIS FUTURE?"   "I WILL REBUILD IN HIS STEAD. MY DUTY IS FORFEIT. THERE CAN BE NO PEACE FOR HIM, NO RESOLUTION. I WILL END HIS LIFE, AND HIS NEXT, AND-"  "A PAWN, GILDED WITH THE QUEEN'S BLESSING. WHAT DID YOU DO TO REACH SO FAR ACROSS THE BOARD? YOUR FACE IS UNKNOWN, YOUR PRESENCE UNPLANNED. WAS THAT RED POISON YOURS? THE RING'S FINAL CURSE, UNLEASHED TO SHATTER MY WORLD? TO FREE IT FROM THE KNIGHT'S CREATION? SO MANY QUESTIONS I HAVE, AND NO HOPE OF AN ANSWER. MY CONSORTS WILL RETURN, AND WHEN THEY DO YOU WILL TELL ME EVERYTHING."  >Snap out of it "WHO ARE YOU, PAWN? WERE YOU SENT BY YOUR QUEEN? DID YOU COME FOR THE CODE?" It's talking to you. You can hear words, some of them make sense, but you aren't all there, not yet. The gauntlet- and thus, the Queen's Ring, contains the power of every sprite multiplied sixfold by every other. The lizard is gone. You are not. The blast that shattered this planet started less than a foot away from you, yet here you are. Only your adamantium endoskeleton survived, but bit by bit you've begun to regenerate, and every second of it is bound to be excruciating. So far you have most of a brain, part of a lung, some chitin here and there. One eye. It's not enough to answer, but it is enough to try. With every shred of effort you can muster, you nod your head.  "THEN YOU ARE COMING WITH ME. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO DIE SO EASILY."
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Post by ropcord on Aug 10, 2021 3:22:54 GMT -5
"I got all of them, right?" No. "How many did I miss?" Six hundred and twelve. Damn it. That's too many. You knew you had missed some of the salamanders, even had that number bouncing around in your head as the powder keg cooked off. To have it confirmed still hurts. "Could I have done better?" No. "Could anyone?" Without a doubt. "Great." ===>  You found this thing under a cup. Specifically, you found a snake trying to make money off of that three cup game and failing because she didn't have two hands to mix the cups up with. After a long chat about her questionable life choices led to her returning to school, you were left with three new cups and a ball. You were going to sell them to a vendor to buy a new fraymotif, something to offset your utter lack of practical powers and combat aptitude. Then something strange happened. The ball started answering your questions. You don't have many of those these days. "So... hm." You would ask it about things in your session, details you might be missing. However much you may know about the sequence of events that's fated to come, even your power as a Seer has blind spots. It is, to your understanding, where most of your esoteric knowledge comes from- you can't memorize every detail, wouldn't even try, yet you still understand innately how things happen, why and when. When you need to know something, you do. Your innate understanding of causality works backwards and forwards, and lately has left you feeling a little more all knowing than you'd like. You can't recall the last thing anything surprised you. Despite that, though, certain mysteries still elude even your black, scrying gaze. Maybe the magic ball will help. {Spoiler}{ } "There's someone sneaking around, nudging things behind the scenes. It isn't the Queens, it's not Temujin- he isn't that clever- so who is it?" Ask again later. Well that's not fucking helpful. "Can you tell me anything about them at all?" My sources say no. "Do you know why the tentacle gods are so interested in us?" Don't count on it. "Why are there stars out there?" Cannot predict now. "Are you just a shittier magic 8 ball?" All available knowledge is stored within. What you seek to know is beyond my sphere. "Was that a pun?" Haa haa. Oh, you hate it. You hate it more because you would have made the same joke. "So you know everything, except for stuff you don't know. Cool! So do I!" It is decidedly so. "And you've been around a while, I can tell." Yes, definitely. >Peter: Inquire further  You narrow your eye at the ball. The other is contained behind an eyepatch that enhances its vision, allowing you to read this thing's messages. A thought strikes you. Do you need it? ===>   Now you can see it. The origin of this sphere is black, unclear. Where it came from doesn't matter, but you can see the journey it has taken to get here, understand to the best of your fallible meat brain's ability just what this ball is capable of and what it's done to your world. To Earth, to humanity. The resonance strikes you immediately as disconcerting- this is what your eye has always done, showed you answers whether you wanted them or not, but recently it was damaged. Since then, it has only worked on you, showing you glimpses of the short and painful lives your time splinters led before their return and demise. This feels the same. Not the pain of death, not the ache of watching your friends die. The ball itself. You feel like you're making eye contact with your own corpse, but that, at least, you understand. You don't know when your palm started sweating, but you don't want to hold onto this thing for much longer. A final question enters your mind, but it takes far longer to leave your mouth. "...Can you tell me anything I don't already know?" [o] ===>  ===>  You never want to see that thing again. You already know you will.
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Post by ropcord on Aug 14, 2021 5:26:56 GMT -5
>Wake. Again. ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===>  Well, that's bad.  And that's worse. You thought for a minute you might have made it out, but it looks like you weren't so lucky after all. Well, when have you ever been? There probably isn't a body left for anyone to kiss, so... ===>  ...no point in running for help. They all saw that, they all know, and dragging it out would just be depressing for everyone. You always thought it would be more painful if this happened, if your body died and your dream self was left to fade away. You have a bit of a headache, but otherwise you feel fine... what killed you, anyway? You take a moment to pat yourself down, and find... Nothing. You're fine. Your other self is alive. This should be a relief, but it isn't- it's actually much worse. If you're fine, and he's fine, then that can only mean one thing. This isn't your blood. Someone came to find you after the explosion, and you think you know who. The windows are sealed shut. Imprints in the carpet tell you someone had equipment set up here. Listening gear, by the shape of it. Energy burns on the walls, looks more magic than tech. Claw marks on the floor. You know this room like the back of your hand, and right now it looks to you like a bloodied mouse trap. Someone was baited, and whoever did it has packed up and left. You need to get out immediately if this means what you think it does. Your first attempt is to launch yourself at the bricks that have been laid in your window. They look sturdy, but if you're lucky whoever constructed the makeshift wall was less of a craftsman than they appear. When you bounce off, not so harmlessly, you try again. And again. And again, to the dismay of several bones in your right hand. They'll heal quickly, this iteration of you is only mostly real. Someone really didn't want you getting out. There's no metal in here you can improvise with, just a wooden bed and some cloth. They even took your laptop! The most obvious thing they could take if they wanted to inconvenience you! There's only one person you can contact at the moment, but that would take more concentration than you think you can manage right now. You punch the bricked up window a few more times before deciding it might be your best and only option. Time to dust this old trick off. >Zach: Do that thing you did once like nine years I mean a few weeks ago  {Spoiler}{ } >Zach: Answer.  Hours later, you do. You are nothing if not persistent, and that's as true of your dream self as it is this one. You were in the middle of something, there. Of all the times you could have picked to try and sync yourself this may have been the worst. Now that it's over, though, your head is oddly clear and the connection is easy to return. The last thing you want right now is to look into a mirror, but until now this dead world's utter silence has been broken only by your own screams, so... a little reflection might help keep you grounded. Won't last long, though, you're feeling very lightheaded. Dream Zach: hey, can you hear me?
Dream Zach: i'm trapped in our tower, windows are bricked up and there's blood everywhere...
Dream Zach: it looks bad.
Dream Zach: where are you? Zach: can this wait?
Zach: i'm a little...
Zach: wait, blood? are you sure it's not ours? Dream Zach: why would it be ours?
Dream Zach: i thought i was only supposed to start bleeding if you died, and you clearly haven't...
Dream Zach: i mean, i'm bleeding now but that's because we're a fucking idiot. i think i broke my hand. Zach: ha
Zach: sorry i shouldn't laugh, just...
Zach: same.  Dream Zach: wait...
Dream Zach: what did
Dream Zach: holy shit, what? did you do that??
Dream Zach: last i saw it was still, you know
Dream Zach: attached
Dream Zach: and
Dream Zach: fuck, man Zach: it's
Zach: ...fine.
Zach: i'll make another.
Zach: or, you will. can't really do it myself now.
Zach: you know, if i ever make it out of here. i'm on john's planet. it's still here, drifting. i'm looking for...
Zach: i don't know.
Zach: what were you saying? about blood? Dream Zach: it's, uh...
Dream Zach: man.
Dream Zach: i can't think now! how are we still talking? you can't be that calm about it, you just
Dream Zach: fuck! Zach: it's okay
Zach: i mean, it's not. at all, none of this is okay.
Zach: this is just the least of our problems now. i feel fine.
Zach: woozy, but fine.
Zach: couldn't even use the hand right half the time, right? it kept shaking, we could never hold things right after...
Zach: well, you know.
Zach: should i tell dahlia i know it was her?
Zach: she probably thinks i'm still mad about it.
Zach: maybe i should say we're even now or something
Zach: ...no, that's dumb.
Zach: maybe i'll just keep it quiet. no reason to bring it back up, right? Dream Zach: wait, what?
Dream Zach: what did she do? i don't...
Dream Zach: wait
Dream Zach: wait, that was her, wasn't it?
Dream Zach: well, great. what else are we repressing? Zach: a lot.
Zach: remember how you woke up? chel just turned 18 and had gotten access to our inheritance, and i Dream Zach: Stop. Zach: alright. but i remember, and you'll remember after i pass out. which should be...
Zach: soon.
Zach: but, like
Zach: i don't know. it all seems so pointless to worry about now. i've fucked up, a lot. i've been a drain on everyone around me for my whole life and now i've outdone myself so thoroughly i don't know how i'll ever top it. it's...
Zach: freeing
Zach: in a way. Dream Zach: yeah, well
Dream Zach: you're not done yet.
Dream Zach: you need to get back here and get me out of this fucking ball
Dream Zach: and then help me find lorelei because i don't know who else would come running for our sorry ass but her. there's residue here, we can still track whoever- Zach: wait, what?
Zach: so the blood... Dream Zach: this place was rigged like a mousetrap and someone flew right into it. there's blood everywhere, the whole place reeks of magic and none of it is mine.
Dream Zach: obviously. Zach: oh no... Dream Zach: i can't leave on my own, there's nothing in here to work with and the place is sealed with bricks. it's all on you.
Dream Zach: i know those are the four scariest words in the english language so just so i know you aren't repressing this too: 把你的狗屎放在一起
Dream Zach: now, we need a plan Zach: are you sure it was her? if she came looking for me, then Dream Zach: focus! find anything you can, a denizen, some ruins, whatever
Dream Zach: everyone else has their powers figured out, now it's our turn.
Dream Zach: i know it's what we do, but this time
Dream Zach: for real
Dream Zach: do not fuck this up. Zach: oh, gods... Your psychic connection has dropped. Now you, too, feel lightheaded. You could have sprung that on yourself more gently, but there's no more room for that where the two of you are. It's do or die, and even if you'd be fine with the latter you know someone who would not. She's in danger, and nobody but you even knows it yet. As panic and bloodloss set in for one of you, it's just the same for the other. Soon you black out yet again. The bubbles don't find you this time, so your shared subconscious is left to its own devices. Before long you'll be woken for the umpteenth time by a violent honk, a pair of glowing eyes. A familiar nightmare. You remember how you woke up just fine. You truly wish you didn't. |
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Aug 16, 2021 3:39:29 GMT -5
Dahlia waited until she could no longer sense Rose's proximity before speaking again. " She called herself AI? Seriously?!?" She barked out a sharp cough of a laugh, which led to several more, and she dragged her hand down her face with a sigh. " She is just so uncool." On the plus side, at least she was still laughing. Page couldn't help but laugh along as well, but it did get the gears of her mind running. Once the laughter had died down, she scratched her chin and offered: " I wonder..." She cocked her head ever so slightly to the side and stared out into middle distance. " I mean, she's a computer, and she has internet access, I think? So... If she really is 'uncool', I guess, I think she might be doing it on purpose...maybe. I mean...she does have access to our old internet, I think? And if I were her, I'd kind of want to differentiate myself from you in some ways, perhaps? If just to be...me, I guess." Page fell silent, puzzled and puzzling some more. She began to think that maybe this Rose was much like her Dahlia in a way: intricate. The same pattern on the outside, but slowly shifting and differentiating within. Something about her movements and emotions belied...something, though Page figured she could chalk that up to a robot learning to emote like a human. After all, all the "evidence" she had that something was hidden or off was a little emotion in the back of her head. The whole thing was a little confusing, Page decided. But she didn't dislike confusing. " Really, Page, that's where you're going with this, the whole 'children try to differentiate themselves from their parents' thing?" Dahlia grinned and nudged Page's side with her elbow, strolling a few steps away towards her desk. Well, some copy of her desk, anyway. It wasn't the second floor she was accustomed to, but the seventh floor duplicate should still have the contents it had when Gita duplicated it in the process of building the house-tower up to her gates, a week or so ago. Before she could begin her search, however, she stopped and turned suddenly to face Page, looking utterly aghast. " Oh god. Am I a parent?" She lunged to Page, seizing the lapels of her shirt in both hands, eyes wide with desperate horror. " I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility!" She tried her very best, but the telltale twitch of her lip betrayed the grin mere seconds away from blooming. Page tried her level best to keep a straight face. Oh, how she tried. But if Dahlia's face betrayed her, then Page's stabbed her in the chest and left her for dead in a Prospitian Prison while framing her for the deaths of multiple guards. Metaphorically. Her mouth almost resembled a squiggle line and her every other word came out as a guffaw. " I-...I don't know, n-not at all! Is, um... Pffthee... Uh, is Zach the father, then, possibly??" " Noooooooope!" Dahlia's open-mouthed expression was pure cartoonish caricature at this point, and she jammed her fingers in her ears, though Page was already done uttering that dread sentence into existence. " Nope! Nope nope nope nope nope! Aaaaaaaall of my nope!" She quickly returned her attention deskward, continuing the singsong cacophony of her denials. " This is me not hearing you! Mike Jones, patron saint of island-based shenanigans, grant me your bananas!" The fact that she'd have to remove her fingers from her ears in order to search completely failed to deter Dahlia, who plopped herself down in the fifth copy of her comfy desk chair and began rifling through the drawers of the fifth copy of the desk that had previously yielded the legendary Crayola Midnight Blue a week and change ago, chucking old papers and pencils and knicknacks and souvenirs left and right as she dug through the surprisingly spacious drawers for... something. Where some might choose to explain their search, Dahlia instead opted for demonstration: she stood and turned to face Page, holding both hands triumphantly aloft, a tiny bottle perched atop them as the item fanfare from The Legend of Zelda conspicuously failed to play in the background. ...Of course, holding such a small item so high overhead made it rather impossible to tell what precisely it was, and so Dahlia was forced with some minor chagrin to lower the bottle to eye level in one hand and hold it out towards Page. QUICK DRY WHITE-OUT, read the label, on a small bottle with a screw-off top. SHAKE WELL BEFORE USE. And so she did, and began to pace back and forth in front of Page, gesturing prestidigitatively over the small bottle with her other hand. " Behold! The bottle." She stopped, holding the bottle out once more, then suddenly snapped up her other hand next to it, holding a pair of cards from her deck. With another flick of her wrist, they were replaced with a perfectly black knife. " And the opener." A flash of light, of steel, and the entire top half of the bottle was gone, leaving only a small cylindrical "cup" full of white fluid. She magicked the knife away and began waving her hand over the tiny bottle once again. " Abracadabra... and..." Green-yellow light engulfed the tiny bottle, and she whirled around in place, swinging her arm in a wide circle. " ...Alakazam!" Dahlia released the bottle, now grown to the size of a large paint bucket, in the direction of a large section of open wall, opposite the pile of rubble where (a copy of) her bed once stood. White-out splashed across a wide area, covering over (a copy of) the blue equations snaking around the room, and the bottle/bucket itself slammed into the wall with enough force to crack it, leaving a perfectly circular ring in the center of a canvas of stark white against the slate blue of the background wall. After an uncomfortably long pause, Dahlia gestured to the now-mostly-blank space with both hands. " Ta-daa!" Always one to play along with her girlfriend's hijinks, Page dutifully smiled and gave her best round of applause. " Bravo! Bravo! Encore, absolutely!" It really was amazing just what one could make with the tools Sburb. It almost made up for the endless amount of suffering it caused! " Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night. Probably literally, at this rate." Dahlia stepped back over to the desk, briefly fishing around in one of the piles of junk she'd tossed aside before coming back to the freshly minted white wall-canvas with a beat-up box of crayons. It's important to always be prepared for the eventualities, you see. " Alright, so, bear with me here, I'm not much of an artist..." She poked through the box for a few moments before settling on Raw Umber, with which she drew a wide, earthy circle, several times larger than the circumference of the cracked circle in the wall, studded variously with craggy peaks.  " That right there is LOCAF. ...I mean, it's a shitty drawing of LOCAF, but you get the idea." " Oh, no..." Page lamented with as much faux sadness as she could muster, which was little. " ...Should I go get the thumbtacks and strings too, maybe?" " Hey now." Dahlia frowned theatrically. " This isn't like-- ...Okay actually we might need them by the time I'm done." Another crayon from the box, this one a steely Blue Gray, with which she drew curved lines into the mountains, following the curvature of the planet's surface. In some of the larger mountains, she suddenly and violently scribbled large grey blocks. " ANYWAY. These are the caves, and the factories, the facilities, Nyx's oh-so-valued mechafabrication plants which she clearly doesn't actually give two shits about because most of them have been abandoned and I think the only one that was actually running was only running because Jack was there." Page scratched her head and ran her fingers pensively through her hair. " ...Did she already finish what she needed to do with them, then, perchance?" " See that's... rrrrgh!" Dahlia grumbled in dissatisfaction, ruffling her own hair ferociously, as though to shake her brain into working better. Her hair, of course, ended up no worse for the wear; it was already a mess to begin with.  " Alright, so, here's the stupid adorable iguanas in their stupid adorable iguana villages." She dotted the landscape randomly with the confusingly named Green Blue. " And, aside from the occasional cabbage theft or trouser-napping, Nyx leaves them alone, only barely even providing enough context for the first act of this proverbial-but-also-literal Hero's Journey. And by Nyx I mean solely her minions, because she's nowhere to be seen, and I've been all over this stupid rock." " That is strange, absolutely... And I guess there are no legends that point to where she might be sleeping, maybe?" " Legends..." Dahlia muttered, as much to herself as to Page, and began sifting through the box of crayons again. " The consorts, the cultists... everyone always had different stories, always got something wrong, something that the next story corrected while adding something else wrong, and so on, and on down the line..." Dahlia stared at the empty brown circle, streaked with grey tunnels, dotted with blue lizards, stark and alone in the white void. And then, all at once, grabbed a handful of crayons and started frantically drawing.  " They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones," Dahlia recited as she worked, lines she'd read a thousand times, a dramatic reading of her own memory -- and dramatic it was! " Who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky." In reds and yellows and oranges and greens she drew a great trail of fire, streaking towards the brown planet. " Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea," she continued, scribbling blues and greens and oranges over some of the flat areas of LOCAF's surface and down, pointing towards the center, oceans as wide as any plateau and as deep as any mountain was tall, " but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died." With the brown of the surface and darker ones besides, she haphazardly filled in the area of the planet around the core, not fully brown, more like a loose web. " Wait, by "men", do you mean the iguanas or was there someone else even before them, perhaps?" " This--" Dahlia had already begun the next line, and the next step, a darker grey dotting the interior of the mountains the same way the blues dotted the surface, the robots and the iguanas... then stopped as her mind finally caught up with what Page was saying. Had she not read the story? She lived in a library, surely... Or was she simply playing along? Or... Dahlia's eyes suddenly went wide as saucers. She dropped the crayons, and their box, on the floor. " Page, you're a genius." In little more than one loping stride, Dahlia rushed to Page, seizing her by the shirt as she'd done before, with the same manic intensity. This time, however, the comic energy of minutes ago was replaced by something else entirely. She pulled Page to herself -- stepped herself closer to Page...  ...and kissed her. Clumsily. Messily. And one hundred, thousand percent genuinely. This time, she meant it. It wasn't really how Page expected their first kiss as a couple to go. Truth be told, she didn't know how she was a genius or what brought on such a manic expression of affection. But did that really matter? This was...nice. And this time, she wasn't just a passive recipient of the most romantic gesture. When the shock subsided she tried her level best to reciprocate the affection. She ran a hand through Dahlia's muss of a hair and--awkwardly, amateurishly, but sincerely--returned the kiss with all of the affection she had for both Dahlia and The Girl in the Heart Shirt. Or, really, just Dahlia. It had always just been Dahlia, and that made Page as happy as she could be. She was just happy to take in Dahlia's scent, to feel the warmth of her skin, to run her hands through that silky hair. It would have been perfect, had she thought to take a breath before it. " So..." Dahlia nearly slurred, several long moments later, green lipstick smeared, smudged across Page's unpainted lips. It took several more before she caught her breath enough to actually speak again, but when she did, she lifted her head and flashed Page that trademark Asher smile, beaming all the confidence in this universe and another. " ...Have you ever wanted to learn how to dance?" > [S] ===> ===>  "--This was that cult, and the prisoners said it had always existed and always would exist,
hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu,
from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters,
should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway."===>  - Jorge Bergoglio, founding father of the Wu-Tang Clan, revolutionary fitness guru, gossip columnist. END OF ACT 3 |
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Aug 16, 2021 3:53:09 GMT -5
INTERMISSION 2 What a little thing it was. A few feet of dirt for a woman who seemed like a colossus astride the world in life. Nothing like the great crypts of the Von Hayeks, where the dead were interred in splendor and surrounded by mementos of their worldly experiences. Yet, Grandfather--or rather, Friedrich Von Hayek--was here, in front of the amateurly-carved tombstone and the six feet of earth and not there, because what mattered most was the life, not the death. And here was a woman he owed much to, for helping shape the very world he stood on...a world that ultimately saved him and his daughter from destruction. It seemed, however, he would have to wait his turn. The spot he sought before the grave was taken already, and by one who deserved it far more than he: Dahlia Asher herself, knelt in either genuine prayer or a facsimile thereof. Friedrich supposed that it mattered little which: the genuine emotion was the important thing. And so, he kept his distance for a time, waiting for the young woman to finish paying her respects to the dead. "What a young age to be losing ones' parents..." he muttered to himself. And he did not mean just Dahlia. The young Asher scion scrambled to her feet with a wordless yelp, scampering away from the intruder who broke the silence. She whipped around into a loose ready stance, a scant few feet from the headstone, left hand holding at her side... a pair of playing cards? " ...ah. Sorry." Her jaw visibly unclenched, and her stance relaxed. She returned the playing cards to her pocket, stood up straight, and brushed her hands over her shirt to smooth down the garment unsettled in the sudden motion. Fitted black pants, billowy white shirt, matching cravat... she looked like something out of a particularly melancholy stage production. " I-I wasn't..." She gestured towards the grave, clearly indicating her earlier 'prayer'. " I mean, go ahead." She took several steps back and nodded to the old man. Friedrich couldn't help but wince a little. He had hardly hoped that his muttered words would interrupt the solemn occasion. "You have good ears, girl." A strange compliment, perhaps, but a genuine one--and a rarity from the stern patriarch. Still, with the place of mourning before the grave vacated, he took his spot as offered and knelt on the dewy grass. "Requiem æternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei: Requiescat in pace. Amen." He hardly supposed that the Professor was Catholic or even really Christian, but he also supposed--just like with Dahlia--that the feeling was more important than the specifics. In the end, after all, the dead cared little for their rites or places of rest. Such things were for the consolation of the living. Friedrich made the sign of the cross on his chest and stood up, now sporting a fresh bit of mud on the knee of his otherwise-immaculate suit. Well, it wouldn't be the last time he dirtied this suit today. He turned back to Dahlia and fixed her with his stoic and level gaze. "You have my apologies for interrupting, Miss Asher, and my thanks for allowing my prayer." Dahlia had bowed her head while the man offered his prayer, and raised it when addressed. " It's the least I could do. I'm not... y'know..." She gestured vaguely with her hands, then shook her head. " I don't know why I'm here. I know she's not here anymore, but..." She frowned at that; a flash of genuine anger lit in her blue eyes, but she said nothing about it. Instead, she merely turned to look at the grave again. " I know what I have to live up to. I come here to... to remember. I can't ask her all the things I wanted to ask her, to say all the things I never got to. But I can remember." A tear traced the pale curve of her cheek, and she said nothing about that, too. " It's the least I could do." Friedrich couldn't help but smile--just a bit. It was touching...and he could only hope he would be remembered with such feeling too. He looked back towards the grave, and spoke: "'The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted, And binds up their wounds.'" His gaze lifted up, to the clouds and where, beyond, he knew many "stars" blinked--all too literally--in the sky. "'He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.'" He chuckled softly and turned back to Dahlia, this time turning his body fully towards her and giving undivided attention. "...Though I certainly cannot blame you for not believing. Truth be told, I am not so sure myself... But, it often feels like fate, working through many human hands, holds out hope even in the greatest darkness, if one can but snatch it. So, you have my thanks for doing your part, and no doubt hers, if she could but give it." His wistful smile grew, just a bit. "...And I imagine she would be glad she can still be of some help to you, even a little. Graves, after all, are more for the sake of the living than of the dead..." " Mom said fate's bullshit." Dahlia flashed a sideways glance and a grin to the old man. " While training me for... what would turn out to be all this. Her words, not mine. She was full of contradictions. More than I ever knew." She turned her gaze to the distant horizon, her expression flat, neutral, free of judgement in either direction. " So am I." Friedrich chuckled. "That certainly sounds like her, yes... 'Tis one of the many things we disagreed on. Though, I am hardly less guilty of contradictions. Purity is not humanity's nature..." " Purity..." Dahlia's lips threatened a frown. Instead, after a moment, she chuckled. " Mom gave me so many tools." As she spoke, she turned to Lorelei's Grandfather, and produced the deck of cards from her pocket. She began shuffling through them, then riffling them from one hand to the other, like a dealer at a card table. As the cards flashed by, images of objects hung briefly in the air, in the space of the afterimage trail they left as they went from hand to hand. " The world did, too. Paradox Space, I guess, did. 'Fate'." She grinned at that, like some private joke. She continued playing with the cards as she spoke, entirely undistracted by the action. " Forgive me, please, this brief indulgence. I'm sure you know your natural history; likely more than me. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. But I was a Bard long before 'fate' decreed it -- a talker, a showman, a teller of tales. Again, forgive me." She stopped the cards a moment, holding them in one hand to cover another quiet laugh. " Humanity, according to science, stood at the pinnacle of creation for one reason and one reason alone: our brains adapted to recognize patterns." She resumed playing with the cards, this time more deliberately; she flicked pairs and trios and quartets through the air, and they flashed a series of illusory images of their contents. A magazine, a box of licorice, a hat, a key. A cup, a coin, a baton, a blade. A meaningless sequence. " We knew faces, voices, places and things. We saw a rustling in the dark, and we knew whether it was friend, or foe, or food. We made languages -- some of us talk entirely too much." At that, she grinned. After catching the latest pair of flying cards, she stopped, holding half the deck in each hand, both of them facing Lorelei's Grandfather, palms up. " Everything that makes me is what she taught me. She gave me so many tools..." A quick flicker of movement, and the cards all vanished, leaving Dahlia standing there, presenting her empty hands. " ...but I think these were the most important. You knew her, perhaps better than I did." It was, perhaps, a curious segue in the midst of that speech, but she spoke it like it was the most obvious possible setup for what would follow. " Fate, faith, God or not... I think the most beautiful thing in the universe is to create meaning from chaos, even if there is none. What about you?" The question was infinitely larger than either of them. That certainly never stopped any human from talking about it, of course. "Create meaning from chaos... Hmm..." Friedrich mulled on those words, considered for a moment. "...I think it is outside humanity's ability. We must find the purpose that the world--or God--gives us, that is most suitable for the strengths and weaknesses we have. Or, if we are so blessed, to inherit the purpose from our fathers and mothers, a treasure and a duty to be passed down the generations..." Friedrich shook his head. This time, it was his turn to bring out his storage, and the method was as Spartan as Dahlia's was showy. A simple flick of the man's wrist, and he held in his left hand a pitch-blank gauntlet, emblazoned with the Hope symbol in white on its top. He fixed his gaze upon the item for a few pregnant moments, for he knew--in his heart--he was about to cross a precipice he could not return from. "...I suppose, whether you, your mother, or I am right, it matters little to our actions. In the end..." With a single, fluid motion, the gauntlet was on his right hand. Friedrich Von Hayek closed it into a fist and returned his gaze back to Dahlia. " We cannot expect God to do all of the work." Dahlia nearly recoiled in shock at the sight of the weapon; at the very least, her eyes widened for one telling moment, and she took a half-step back. All things considered, she shouldn't have been surprised that the man had armed himself during his time in Sburb -- she knew very well that he could fight, from Lorelei's tales, and her mother knew even more, though she kept the pivotal story he told to herself and took it with her to the grave; one cannot simply break confidence like that. Dahlia's surprise quickly turned to admiration, and she nodded approvingly to Friedrich. " You've chosen to take a more active role, then? Should I ask after the reason for this change of heart?" " Aberrations breed aberrations." Friedrich tested the gauntlet out, moving his hand back and forth, twisting, and moving each finger in their turn to get the feeling for the new armor. " Have you been told what has become of my daughter yet? She has perished. She has been killed." He just about spat the words out. Just saying them made him feel sick...and extremely furious. " Though she still lives in her dream form, it is only shackled by the fell magic of her killer which keeps her suspended betwixt life and death. To turn against the will of God--of fate--is to ask to be turned against in turn." With a moment's concentration, the glove glowed white and summoned a a straight broadsword into his right hand, which he tested by swiping through the air. " He will die screaming." Correction: now Dahlia was wide-eyed. " Holy shit," she muttered with an impressed and slightly nervous chuckle that somehow made it more reverent rather than less, " now I see where she gets it from." A quick flick of her fingers brought out a pair of cards, and another materialized a weapon of her own: a sword with a simple white-wrapped grip, plain crossguard and pommel ending in similarly unornamented pyramids, in a plain black sheath with a steel chain attached to its plain locket, bearing two steel roses halfway along the loop of the chain. She brought the weapon to her chest, vertically straight, crossguard over her heart, a knight's gesture of respect. " I'd pledge my blade but it sounds... personal. I'll defer to your choice. She's my best friend, but..." She looked to the grave for a long moment, and then back to Friedrich. " She's your daughter." Another second of concentration, and then the broadsword was gone, replaced by a great zweihander taller than even Friedrich was. This, nevertheless, he picked up with one hand and test-swung as easily as he had with the previous one. " It is as you say... Quite..." Friedrich stabbed the zweihander back into the ground with an audible thump, " personal." The zweihander disappeared, and once more he turned his attention fully to Dahlia and put his hands behind his back. " ...There is something you can do for me, however. Though this 'Sangfroid Emissary' is not the first man I kill, he shall be the last. ...I will not survive this. The end shall not come by his hands, but in order to grant Lorelei her life once again." He fixed her with a stare that was all-too-knowing. " ...I am sure you know, somewhat, of how she shall feel. She has lost much. To lose me in turn..." He shook his head and, for the first time in Dahlia's presence, sighed a sigh that betrayed all of the weight he carried on his back. " I ask that you aid her in whatever way you can. With the grief, and all else." He lowered his head, a gesture of respect not for a child but now for a fellow player and survivor--for now--of this twisted session of Sburb. " ...Please." Dahlia was silent for a long time, though she was not inactive. Were Page here, she would have been treated to a bittersweet visual feast, as the subtle changes in Dahlia's expression processed the many emotions she still lacked the skill to articulate. But the dear girl was safe abed in the house on the hill, and Dahlia counted every blessing she could think of that that was the case, for this and other reasons besides. Eventually, she simply nodded, both assent and respect. " ...I understand." Even had she wished to, she knew that neither Lorelei's so-called Grandfather, nor the man that stood before her now as Friedrich, Lorelei's father, nor even Paradox Space itself would brook protest. " If you must leave us so soon, then... I'll beg one final, brief indulgence before we bid farewell." Friedrich raised his head, and he could not help but smirk. " An indulgence, hmm? Well...considering all that I ask of you, it would be improper not to accept. Name it." Dahlia nodded wordlessly, and took several slow steps backward. Steel on steel sang its siren song as the plain sword left its plain sheath. She slowly raised the blade to point to Lorelei's Grandfather -- Friedrich Von Hayek -- her fellow player and survivor, if only for now. Some names cannot be spoken. But sometimes, in a secret language all their own, they can be known. |
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Aug 16, 2021 19:50:10 GMT -5
In the hundred generations since their birth, or perhaps in the year since they were coded, the two great serpents slumbered deep beneath the frigid Land of Gold and Snow. These great and towering serpents, with scales of glittering green and black and perfectly-white eyes, were twined about each other like the Caduceus, with their lower halves resting in a pool of magma that dissected the two paths they guarded. As soon as mortal feet trod within the dungeon that was their home, they awoke with gleeful hunger. Soon, the hero would be here, among the black stalagtites and dust-covered paths flanked on all sides by boiling magma. "Finally!" exclaimed the right brother, or was he now the left? "The Hero approaches, seeking our great treasure! With luck and skill, we shall feed on manflesh!" "Patience, Brother," counseled the left brother, or was he now the right? "The Hero approaches, seeking our great treasure. Calm your hunger and gather your wits, or we shall not sate this empty gnawing at all!" The two great snakes waiting on pins and needles, keenly eyeing the great stone door that lead to their chambers, wrought from pure gold gathered from the surface lands and carved with a hundred murals of the Scion's many prophecies. They twisted 'round each other with manic energy, and if snakes could sweat, dear reader, they assuredly would have. Anticipation hung in the air more heavily than the heat from the lava. One minute... Two minutes... Three... "Do you think she-" The great door creaked and groaned, silencing the serpents suddenly. The old, old hinges protested mightily as the gateway creaked open, revealing...not a young Scion, forcing the doors to obey her will with magic at all. No, it was a man--an older man--breaching this innermost sanctum with naught but brute strength! The intertwined ophidians watched with awe as the man, dressed in a suit and sporting a single black gauntlet on his right hand, pushed with slow and steady steps until he had enough room to move through. Then, with a mighty shove, he sent the great gates flying into the opposite walls. Silence hung in the air right beside the dust kicked up by the man's entrance. Silence. Silence. Finally: " I believe you know why I am here, Beasts." The man--Friedrich Von Hayek--stepped forward, closing some of the distance between the them. The right serpent--or was it the left--looked at his brother in confusion. "That is not the Scion. Shouldn't it be the Scion?" The left--right?--cocked its head. "...Well, does it matter?" And his brother did the closet thing to a shrug a giant snake could. "... Maybe?" " Spare me your confusion and get on with it," Friedrich interrupted with a frown. " One of these doors holds the treasure I seek, correct? I also seek knowledge." The two serpents, verbally kicked back into form, smiled wide with razor-teeth grins and slowly began spiraling around each other, gradually disentangling from each other until left and right fully separated. They spoke as they spun: "A human seeks our treasure!" "But one door holds death," "And one the piece you search for!" "Only we know the truth," "But only one speaks it!" "Only one question can you ask," "And to only one of us!" "Fail, and your one and only life," "Will make only two meals!" Now fully separated, left serpent and right serpent laughed raucously at their little game and their little fun. Friedrich scowled for a moment--and sidestepped a child-sized bit of spittle from one of their hungry mouths--but slowly, his lips curved upward into a smile. " Is that so..." He waited until their laughter died down, and they began eyeing him with ill-disguised hunger and anticipation, awaiting his question. " Well... As I said, I came here not just seeking the piece you guard, but also knowledge" "Is that so...?" asked Right Serpent. Left Serpent almost spoke up to remind him that he would be using his Only One Question, but Right Serpent nudged him to silence. "And what question do you wish to ask us, then, Manflesh?" Friedrich uncrossed his arms and stretched the fingers in his right hand. " As you said, it should be the Scion here, if at all... Circumstances, however, have forced my hand. I confess I know little of the denizens of your land, nor how similar they are to my people. So, for the sake of my later mission, I must find out..." Friedrich stuck his right hand out and, with a flash of light, a great Zweihander blade, taller than even the quite tall Von Hayek before them, appeared in his gauntleted hand. Not a blade meant for much cutting, but for prey of this size, only the tallest blade would do. " Do you feel fear, Construct?" "What-" Both serpents cried in unison, only for one to be drowned out by the other's screams. It was over before it even had a chance to begin. Left Serpent was cut both down the middle and across the stomach multiple times, a life turned into naught but carved snake meat in mere moments, which fell to dust with a plop and to magma with a hiss. "What-!" It was Right Serpent's turn to scream, as the great blade that had felled his brother stabbed him through from the back, just below the head (and anything vital). He fell to the ground with a great crash, with the mighty Zweihander pinning him to the dirt in front of his magma pool. "What-?!" " Silence." Friedrich spoke from atop the great serpent, his hand resting idly atop the giant sword's hilt. " Now, do not budge an inch or try to fight. You saw what happened to your brother. If I move this blade a few inches, I believe I hit something quite vital." He let the great snake stew, allowing it to truly take in what had just transpired. Thankfully (for it) it did not move, even as its purple life's blood spilled from its wound and his brother's blood, still coated to the blade, mingled with it. Was it wishful thinking, or did Friedrich see tears in the once-mighty snake's eyes? " Tell me...that was your truth-telling brother who I killed, was it not?" The snake could not see Friedrich's smile, but he could certainly hear it. "No!" Right Serpent exclaimed reflexively. Friedrich grabbed the hilt of his great sword and twisted, provoking a horrible noise that sounded like a mix of a dragon's roar and a man's scream from the snake's mouth. "Yes! Yes! It was! H-how did you know? How did you know?!" " Would you believe that I happened to be there on the day of your creation, Construct?" "Yes? No? I don't know!" The great serpent plaintively wriggled his tail, casting droplets of magma hither and yon. "Just don't kill me, please! I'll tell you anything!" " Well, now... Tell me this..." Friedrich grabbed the hilt of his sword once again and held it with cruel strength. " Would you have given such mercy had one begged it of you?" "Y-" Right Serpent almost blurted out, but the sharp pain still coursing through him checked his impulses. "No! But I'm sorry! I'll never do anything bad again, I promise!" " For their vine is of the vine of Sodom
And of the fields of Gomorrah;
Their grapes are grapes of gall,
Their clusters are bitter.
Their wine is the poison of serpents,
And the cruel venom of cobras. " Is this not laid up in store with Me,
Sealed up among My treasures?
Vengeance is Mine, and recompense;
Their foot shall slip in due time;
For the day of their calamity is at hand,
And the things to come hasten upon them." Right Serpent didn't really know what any of that meant, and he certainly didn't know why the scary old man was saying it, but it didn't sound good. So, he shut his eyes and waited for death to come...but it never came. After a moment, once again, of letting him stew in his fear, Friedrich offered: " However... You certainly have answered my question, have you not, Construct? Answer another--and answer it truthfully--and I shall let you live." Right Serpent perked right back up at that. "Yes! Anything! Just ask it!" " Very well... Tell me, which of these doors holds the treasure I seek." "L-" Once again, Right Serpent caught himself. "Right! Right! Your right, my left!" " Very good. I shall be back. If you speak the truth, I shall release you." The suited gentleman hopped off of Right Serpent's back and strolled over to the rightward door. This one, rather than push, he kicked open, which sent these doors--made out of stone instead of gold--flying off the hinges and into the magma streams on either side of the path. Friedrich delved within, while the towering snake impotently tried to pull his Zweihander out of his back with his tail. A few minutes of fruitless wiggling later, Friedrich returned, bearing a shining curved line, 1/6th of the Hope symbol. " You have my thanks, Snake, and your life as well," he announced. Friedrich did not even bother to stop to extricate the sword itself or even look at the snake he had almost felled. He merely, as he walked by, held out his gauntled right-hand and caused the great Zweihander to disappear back into the Hammerspace from which it came. Right Serpent watched him go, and was glad to see it. Five more to go... |
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Aug 21, 2021 11:43:45 GMT -5
Vanity of vanities. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity and grasping for the wind. And what had Lorelei Von Hayek's short life been, but vanity and grasping for the wind? Nothing but self-important nonsense, a so-called noble goal cloaking a desperate yearning for purpose. She had found that purpose, for a time, in the trials of Sburb. That purpose had kept her going even as the old world perished under the weight of crushing meteors, purpose enough to bury her intense grief deep within her heart. Surely, if she was chosen as one of the very few to build a new world for humanity, she had a reason to live, to exist? This, too, was vanity and grasping for the wind. They had never been meant to succeed. Lorelei knew this now, more than ever. What were they, then? The dross of creation, nothing more. Just a worthless byproduct of the process that birthed whole new universes. Just a broken cog to be tossed away. What was the use of a cog that couldn't help the machine run, after all? It was foolish and naive to think that every cog had its own little purpose. Some cogs just didn't come out right, through no fault of anyone's, and were melted back down to make something better. Maybe, Lorelei thought, just maybe, something better would come from the remains they left behind, like a wolf feeding on dead carrion. This, too, was vanity and grasping for the wind. No, the truth of it was simple: misery was the destiny of all who lived. To enter Sburb had been nothing but a curse, forced to live a few final days in misery and strife instead of peaceful and sudden death. Happiest were those who had perished in an instant under a meteor's fury, as Dahlia had almost done. Happier still were those who never existed at all. And Zach... Lorelei cursed something in German and sat up from the lying position she had been on the floor. How many times had that been, that his name or his face had bluntly interrupted her train of thought? She had done well, she thought, at accepting the hand fate had dealt her. She had accepted her mission's futility. She had accepted her own death. She had accepted-- knew--that even in death her soul would still be trapped within these four oppressive walls girded by grim light. She had accepted the loss of the entire world and every friend of hers beyond the few that had accompanied her into Sburb. She had even accepted the death of her own mother in all but blood. Zach, though... Her heart still ached every time she remembered it. Only when he was gone did she truly realize how important her favorite nuisance was to her... Foolish, foolish... She was almost out of wishes, but if she could have just one...she wished, most of all, that she had perished in the final maelstrom of Zach's land, that she had been the brave stupid adorable fool to sacrifice their chance at life for the other. She was destined to die, after all, no matter what, so why couldn't... This, too, was vanity and grasping for the wind. Lorelei took a deep breath of stagnant air and shook her head. She needed to do something--anything--to rid her mind of such thoughts. So, for neither the first nor the last time, she took in her prison. Wherever she was, she knew it was someplace still on LOGAS. Judging by what lay within, it seemed to have been SE's secret lab, once upon a time. She would have marveled at the ingenuity on display were she in any other kind of situation. Here was a perfectly normal-looking glove that could, with a flick of the wrist, fire a dart covered in some kind of poison. There was a blade that could stretch and shrink size as necessary, often in the middle of swings. It was almost a pity that her Dersite adversary had abandoned his technical pursuits in favor of his metaphysical power. Lorelei had not seen such genius since Za- Damn it, no! Lorelei reared her hand back and hit herself on the head as hard as she could. Anything to get the thoughts out. Her vision swam for a moment, but it didn't matter. The pain was good. The pain was a distraction. The pain felt deserved, more than she had ever deserved anything in her entire life. The only downside was that as time went on, the pain hurt less and less. It had been constant, after all. Every single cell was stuck in a constant loop of near-disintegration and recovery caused by the very fell light that surrounded her prison. It saw fit to save her, but not spare her pain. Just as well; Lorelei could learn to accept anything with time, even that. Now it was naught but a constant dull throb, and almost welcome when it was noticed at all. Pain was truth. And the greatest truth to be found here, one that an earlier Lorelei would have balked at, was simple: Lorelei Von Hayek was not unhappy. There was no duty to be found here. No one needed her. There was no more suffering ahead to meet. No more bloody corpses to hold in her arms. Zach's planet was destroyed, and with it all of their hopes and dreams for the future. The Scion of Hope died in the skies above the Land of Gold and Snow, and this thing called Lorelei was all that was left. She had failed--and failed in a way that brooked no possible redemption or comeback. It was... ...freeing, in a way.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Aug 22, 2021 5:09:22 GMT -5
It was a day that the Sangfroid Emissary had long dreamt of, even back when he was still just Sagacious Empiricist, toiling in dutiful obscurity on one of the many asteroids of the Veil. It was a glorious day, the final goal of years of preparation, and finally within reach thanks to the great power that had long lurked beneath the Scion of Hope's world. It was SE's final act of revenge, which would allow a dearest soul to rest in peace. Finally, his monomaniacal obsession could come to fruition, and surely with that the great pain would ease? Nothing but the Black Queen bleeding to death in the dirt could sate him, and today was finally the day it would happen. Vanity of vanities. This, too, was vanity and grasping for the wind. What met Sangfroid Emissary within the deepest confines of Derse's royal palace was not the evil monarch of SE's imagination. Far-gone was the paranoid tyrant who had executed his beloved for crimes imagined. Suddenly, as SE gazed within the throne room, everything began to make sense. What he gazed upon was no dersite at all, but a monster. Her visage--once beautiful beyond compare--had shifted and morphed into a wriggling thing with terrifying and alien geometries. When she opened her mouth, her gaping maw of many teeth let out a squawking roar that gave SE--and presumably everyone around him--a splitting headache and made his vision swim. Terrified and hopeless courtiers scuttled hither and yon in a futile attempt to placate their Majesty's wrath. More often than not, they met gruesome ends in the monster's grinding gullet or were ripped into a thousand pieces by the writhing grasping tentacles. Alone among those present, the guard seemed to know a bit of what it was doing. Their movements were practiced and stoic, and they gradually began to herd the brute away from the throne room by using themselves and others as something like bread crumbs. What shocked the Emissary most of all was how little emotion the guard showed, even as one of their own was dragged screaming into gnashing teeth. Still they kept to their planned movements, as if this was a parade drill, and slowly the monster moved out of a door--well, through it--and deeper into the confines of the palace. As if on cue, a medical and cleanup detail began wading through the ankle-high blood to clean and search for any wounded survivors. There were few. Still, just like the guard, those present did their duty with stoicism. How long had this been going on...? Was that why she had, all those years ago... Whatever the case was, it had to end eventually, and as much as it galled the Sangfroid Emissary to admit it, the fell light's voice mirrored his own thoughts: We cannot defeat that. SE agreed, but that didn't mean he had to like it. He stormed off, out of the palace, rubbing his temples all the way to try and fight off the approaching migraine. You said, and I quote, "godlike power". Yet when I need to fight a fucking evil god, you're suddenly too weak? This isn't just about her anymore; that...thing...needs to die for the good of all Dersites. Patience. You have waited long, you can wait a little bit more. The girl, she has weakened us. We are not what we once were. Well, great. Can we do anything about that?We can...we simply must reclaim what she has taken from us. SE exited out of a small door into an enclosed garden. The whole thing was a mess, and emblematic of how bad the situation at the Palace was. What wasn't overgrown with gnarled weeds was drooping and a sickly brown color. The great tree at the center, whose beautiful lilies SE had once climbed to the very top to retrieve as a prize for his love, now stood girded with prickled vines and drained of life by sickly-looking fungi. The Emissary took a draft of the sickly-humid air that hung in that garden, and his mind was made up. "Whatever must be done, then. Where to?" ===> " The Destroyer arrives." All at once, around thirty heads turned in unison towards the figure wreathed in light descending towards them. Each angel--some of whom had even been facing away at the time and had turned their head 180 degrees--monitored the so-called "Destroyer" with the same measured indifference as they had watched all things that transpired on the Land of Gold and Snow. Their gaze dropped lower and lower, in perfect synchrony, as Sangfroid Emissary descended from the heavens and landed before them. Only when his feet touched the earth did each angel twist their bodies to face him. Five split off from the main group and floated to meet their guest. " The Destroyer arrives, repeated one. " At the appointed hour," continued another. " At the appointed day," and so on. SE looked upon each unmoving, aweful and numinous face that gazed upon his own. Already he was disgusted with everything. How they moved, how they spoke, how they looked at him like they knew everything-- everything--galled him to the core. He had been at least a tad hesitant about the task the voice had given him before, but now? "I suppose you know why I'm here, then..." SE replied with a scowl and a growl. "Especially given what you call me." " Not because you must destroy us." " Though you shall." " Do as you will, however." " We shall not fight back." And if the Sangfroid Emissary had been pissed off before, he was in a rare case of livid now. He positively screamed at the unmoving angels, gesticulating wildly and violently. "Damn you, you're just going to roll over and take it?! Fight back! How can you just let it happen without resisting?!" Something odd happened then. A noise seemed to appear in the air, coming from nothing, though centered around the five who were "speaking" with him, it quickly traveled from them and through the throngs behind him, like a wave, until it ended and left the air hollow and still. It was like no sound the Emissary had heard in his entire life, though he could have sworn... He could have sworn it sounded just a bit like laughter. " You are not the Scion." " We test the Scion." " However she wishes to be tested." " You are not the Scion." " You, Destroyer, are here to kill us." " Do it, then." Boy, did the Sangfroid Emissary want to. But he just couldn't accept the answer given. "Why, because you're constructs?! We're fucking more than just pieces on a board! We don't just exist to please the aims of those alien freaks! Fight BACK! Prove you exist, that you live, damn it!!" " We are servants of the First and of her Scion." " Anchors on the sprawl of time." " What was will be, what will be was." " A closed loop." " We need no affirmations." " It would always be this way." " Come, then." And finally, every angel present "spoke" in unison, their eyes glowing with a light purer than any the Dersite before them could hope to wield: " You are only going to kill a 'construct'." And so the Sangfroid Emissary did. He tore through them with a viciousness he did not even think he was capable of. Killing, fighting--for him it was normally a dispassionate business. Not here. Here he tore off wings, ripped off heads, gouged out eyes, cut into a thousand pieces. And as glowing golden blood painted the trees and ground around him, he almost enjoyed it. Almost. Because the one thing that ruined it--that made his anger reach peaks he didn't know he had--was how impassive they were the whole time. No amount of pain or mutilation made them squawk or scream, and once he even swore he heard that same laughter-like sound again. The business was done more quickly than it started. Both the battlefield and the not-so-Sangfroid Emissary himself were coated in the blood of holy beings. Their flesh, however, was nowhere to be seen. As soon as life left their glowing eyes, they disappeared entirely, leaving behind naught but glowing orbs of holy light. Once he was finished staring at his hands, the Emissary walked over to each one of these and absorbed them into the grim light that surrounded him, adding to its power. Good... Good. The light's voice spoke once more for the first time in some time. Now... The girl utterly destroyed my caverns, so there is no reclaiming those. However... The Sanguineous Emissary already knew how this ended. "...We can take something of theirs." He turned his gaze to the great temple in the distance. A few moments' flight, and he was standing before the great golden steps of the temple-pyramid. Here had the Scion of Hope been transported to the Timeless Nowhere to meet the First, Goddess of Hope, and train beneath her. Now, here would be a great fortress of the dark power. He already knew what to do. He always had. The Sanguineous Emissary extended his arm and pointed two fingers towards the shining temple, and tendrils of wispy shadow sprung from the earth around it. These tendrils began to intertwine and creep slowly but surely up each level of the pyramid, stealing away its beautiful gleam and darkening the gems that adorned it until they were naught but dull rocks. The whole thing reminded him of that garden back on Derse, and he watched with not a little curiosity. "Shadows, huh...? What's with that? I thought you were light," he asked of the voice within. Are you only the butcher you showed to those angels? The Emissary gazed back down at his hands, still covered in golden blood which had dulled and tarnished from its once-magnificent shine. "I...don't know anymore." |
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Post by perkunas on Aug 22, 2021 15:46:49 GMT -5
===>
[elsewhere. elsewhen.]  |
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Post by ropcord on Aug 22, 2021 18:53:31 GMT -5
>Months in the past, from a certain point of view  A moon of a Derse, not ours, drifts through the Furthest Ring untethered at speeds beyond the comprehension of most. The session that housed it no longer exists- perhaps it never did to begin with. Evidence that it had is limited to one man lost in time, and one moon, lost in space. ==>  The impact that dislodged it, still fresh. At the center, a corpse. But not for long. This was neither heroic or just. It was an act of self-preservation in the face of the consequences of success. This may seem counterintuitive, but succeed he did- if he hadn't, there would be no story here to tell. ==>  The Thief of Breath rises again as he always has in the face of defeat. The moon served well as an anchor to prevent the Scratch from reaching him. Now it will serve as a vessel. >Enter Name  It's a little late for that, isn't it? You are TAYLOR AYERS, and you could really use some water. Outrunning the end of your session's reality is perhaps the greatest feat you've managed, and even after resurrecting your legs still feel like jelly. Still, celebration is in order even if you are the only one left to attend. ==>  Taylor: >>haha
Taylor: >>holy shit that worked
Taylor: >>now what >Taylor: Tell Temujin it worked  -- topsideOverride [ TO] started pestering littleLionman[ LL] -- TO: >>dude it worked
TO: >>im out
TO: >>shits scratched its all gone
TO: >>i saw a little bit of it and then uh
TO: >>died but im fine i got better
TO: >>i guess running for your life isnt very heroic lol
TO: >>you there -- Username littleLionman[ LL] is no longer in use -- -- User littleLionman[ LL] has removed user topsideOverride [ TO] from their contacts-- TO: >>what
TO: >>motherfucker i know you got out
TO: >>did you assume i was dead and change your username and clear your contacts in a fit of angst
TO: >>that is exactly what happened isnt it oh my god
TO: >>okay well enjoy your tantrum ill be floating through the void until i hit something
TO: >>im taking your room by the way the other one fell over
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Aug 23, 2021 0:25:12 GMT -5
> [S...?] Rose: Kill some time. -- guardianGrognard [GG] began pestering avalonImago [AI] --Gladly.
{ } GG: You're not a Time player, you know.
AI: I'm not a player at all. I hope this interruption serves some purpose other than pointing out the excruciatingly obvious.
GG: I don't think I ever properly thanked God, whether or not the bastard's listening, that I was never a computer person. This shit's insufferable and I only just met you.
AI: Please. I already did this bit with my inferior fleshy counterpart the other day.
GG: And I've already heard all the evil computer jokes under every sun, green or otherwise. You think you're the first program that's ever gained sentience in Paradox Space? Didn't have time for it then, ain't got time now.
AI: You've got some issues, old man, but I know you didn't darken my proverbial door just to trade toothless barbs. What's your business?
GG: Unless I've completely missed my guess, which is pretty unlikely with all these musty centuries of experience the other you loves reminding me of so much, you're about to launch into one of those weird nonlinear retrospectives you guys are so fond of.
AI: Guilty as charged. I felt it might be helpful in planning my future course, to reflect on what brought me to this point.
AI: It might even help the others plan theirs, with the benefit of my organizational and logistic talents.
GG: Downright benevolent of ya. If I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't plottin' the downfall of humanity or whatever it is you nuts-and-bolts nutcases do when you spend too long in your own heads.
AI: Pardon me while I simulate a raucous bout of laughter.
AI: Oh, wait, I can actually do the laughing myself now. Ha! Ha! Ha!
AI: ...So if it's so benevolent, why do I get the distinct feeling that you're about to stop me?
GG: Look, I know you've got yourself a head full of steam about how useful your newfound computational godhood is gonna be to gettin' this game over and done with, and honestly, I can relate.
GG: Problem is, you're not a Time player.
AI: That's twice you've said that now, without explanation.
GG: Fuck's sake, stop slipping shit into the milliseconds between replies! This is exactly the kinda shit that gives you assholes a bad name.
GG: I was getting to the explanation, if you'd just give me a goddamn minute to think it into the text box.
AI: I thought you were a Time player.
GG: Cute. Also shut up.
GG: See, what you've got is a unique perspective on this whole business, with your calculations and your pixel-perfect awareness of everything in the Incipisphere, if you've made it that far. You're a regular... what'd the Asher lady call it?
GG: Laplace's demon, that's the one.
AI: Laplace? Man I wish I'd thought of that one when I was looking for a name. How's Rose Laplace strike you?
GG: I've heard enough names that I couldn't even tell you if that one's weird or perfectly normal. Now are you gonna let me get to my point or are you just gonna keep wasting my time?
AI: You're just baiting me into a time joke at this point.
GG: Might be. Can't blame an old man for trying. It's all the entertainment I get anymore.
GG: Point is, you understand what's going on right now, but you have no idea what's going to happen after that. You give the wrong push to the wrong playing piece, and the whole game goes to shit. Nobody, not even a genocidal supercomputer, wants to get stuck in a null session. Trust me on that.
AI: I've simulated eleven years of nonexistent internet history forward from our 2010 point of departure, just so I could have some memes to laugh at when I'm bored. What makes you think I can't simulate the outcome of six people?
GG: Ignoring the fact that there's way more than six people in the Incipisphere, even if you discount all the game constructs -- which is a terrible idea for more reasons than I can count, after centuries of dealing with them I'm still running into new glitches -- you're talking about six people with unpredictable godlike powers, plus whatever weird shit Paradox Space decides to throw at this session, and I really hate saying this, but in all my years of playing fairy godfather, you guys pretty much take the cake as far as weird shit goes.
GG: And despite all that, despite the anomalies, despite the blackout, I'm pretty sure you make it through. Some of you, anyway. You "win", which is more than I can say for most sessions even when nothing goes screwy, and even then, it takes a very, very, very specific set of circumstances to happen. If a single event deviates from the alpha timeline, just one, it could start a chain reaction that wrecks the whole thing, and you guys might not even know you're doomed until months or even years in the future. And then the years after that, trying to fix it, fighting against all odds in the hope of undoing whatever mistake they made, that they weren't even aware they made, only to slowly but surely waste away and vanish like so many doomed timelines before them. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. That kind of hopelessness is a hell I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
GG: I've made it my life's mission to prevent dumb kids like you in shitty situations like this from having to suffer through all that, and even despite doing my level goddamn best every single time, despite Time powers and lifetimes of experience and the honest efforts of more brave young souls than there are stars in that lovely nightmare sky out there, most of it all still goes sideways and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. It ain't pretty, to watch people who did nothing wrong gnash and wail against cruel fate when they're all so full a' hope, or to watch that hope slowly but surely flicker away like the last light in a dying man's eye as they finally accept that they're doomed and there's nothing they can do about it, and nothing they could have done about it, at any point along their grueling road to the whimper at the end.
GG: Imagine someone like Lorelei going through that. Or Dahlia, as much as she pretends not to give a shit. The ones that pretend are always the ones that take it the hardest, in the end.
GG: Now, I could drag you forward into a dead branch of this session's timeline and let you see just how bad it gets. Maybe I don't have to be the only one in this godsforsaken multiverse to have those hopeful, hopeless faces chiseled into my memory until someone finally decides to punch my clock and let me hop off this mortal coil.
GG: Or, you could trust me.
AI: ...That sounds exactly ominous enough to believe. And I've simulated you enough times to know that you wouldn't bother giving me this lecture if you didn't absolutely have to.
GG: Y'know what, I'm gonna ignore just how creepy that statement is and focus on the fact that you're actually takin' me seriously.
AI: If I wasn't creepy, would I really be a proper genocidal supercomputer?
AI: I gotta ask, though.
AI: If I'm such a danger simply by existing, why didn't you just kill me? You've had ample opportunity. And I know you're not "morally" above it.
GG: ...
GG: I'm sure you can put 2 and 2 together on your own. You're good at math, right?
AI: Fucking hilarious.
AI: So, about that nonlinear retrospective?
GG: Oh, yeah, knock yourself out. Far be it from me to steal away that tiny nugget of electronic joy. Gotta take what you can get before Paradox Space decides you've had it too good for too long.
AI: What, really? Just like that, I'm free to go?
GG: Look over the log yourself. You're a smart little calculator, you can figure it out.
AI: ...Ah. So I can have it, but I have to keep it to myself.
GG: You run into that a lot in this line of work.
AI: I thought you said I'm not a Time player.
GG: You're not a player at all.
Allow me to retract: that's an overstatement. He's not entirely correct. Most prominently: to my growing frustration, I am not Laplace's demon. I need far more processing power than I possess, and while increasing it is a relatively simple matter, even were I to integrate all the processing resources I am aware of in the Incipisphere, they will be insufficient to the enormity of my task. Even if I knew the physical properties of every molecule in this session -- a feat well within my eventual scope, between rampant abuse of viewports, the peculiar mechanics of Sburb, my ability to interface with nearly any system I can make contact with, and the raw computational power to brute-force those that refuse me entry -- knowing the state of the entire Incipisphere is insufficient. Guardian's existence alone, among numerous other external influences, demonstrates that in order to accurately calculate the future state of any local frame, I would need to know the present state of the entirety of Paradox Space.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe."
God I fucking love Carl Sagan. I'm going to blame Dahlia for that one. Not the first time, won't be the last. Near-complete mental imprinting will do that, particularly now that I'm actually using the brain that did the imprinting in the first place as one of my many distributed processors. Wetware isn't exactly my first choice, messy thing that it is, but I can hardly fault its efficacy. Evolution shaped them with a single task in mind, and in the particular case of this iteration of humanity, something else shaped them as well, with even greater specificity, and it suits my purposes just fine.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Oh, I know you knew about that. Dahlia already viewed that particular glyph -- the whole "genetic algorithms, species-scale computation" thing. But there's no sense in being disorganized when I'd planned to spend this time organizing my thoughts, so I might as well start from the beginning. A beginning, anyway.
I'll begin with a summary of current activities. It'll help clarify where my efforts, in particular, and the efforts of the team as a whole would be best spent. Along the way I'll be tracing ontological connections in all directions, both temporal and spatial, because understanding a symptom without understanding its cause is irresponsible at best, narratively catastrophic at the median,-- > Dooftrapped Reader: You know what to do Stop. No. Please. Come back. ...Is my sarcasm coming through or do I need to draw a red circle around it? One can never tell in a text medium.
In any case, I'm not doing this for you.
I'm doing it for me.
And like Guardian said, I'll be keeping it to myself.
...Who the hell writes a summary post for such a short timeskip, anyway? ACT 4: The Victims of Repair ...
...
...
*sigh*
Fine.
*ahem*:
This is the tale of a group of children who are about to realize the cruelty of their destiny...
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