SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 19:04:16 GMT -5
As was so often the case of late, Dahlia made one fatal miscalculation: You cannot stroll triumphantly into town like a hero when you have already given the people a hero. An "incredibly cool hero", even -- their words, not hers. Except... they were her words to begin with. It was almost like she was solely and personally responsible for her own misery. Actually that's exactly what it was like. "right, so, it was thip other day last week, like maybe Wednesday or Monday -- right, lads? -- right, like Friday or so, and we -- me and a few of thip others -- we were over at thip lumber yard, going back and forth to thip work site..." That little blue lizard sure could ramble. He was dressed the same as the others who had gathered in the town hall, but his leadership of the work team was seemingly denoted by the ragged newsboy cap he wore, and he had spent the past nearly ten minutes going on about what they had all been up to for the past several months, with frequent tangents to talk about breakfast, the weather, and anything else his easily-distracted little lizard mind could seize upon. Dahlia was doing her best not to fall asleep. Yeah. Uh-huh. Right, yeah. Definitely still listening. This is fascinating stuff, I'm sure. This is my caring face. Do you see how much this face cares? This is totally the face of someone who wants to complete whatever stupid little quest you're going to give me whenever you finish talking. Nice hat though. Wait, I know. Maybe I'll take the hat, and then I can just order him to shut up. ...Oh hey they're all staring at me. That's not completely awkward or anything. "you got all that, right? would hate to repeat thip, not that we don't have a lot of free time now thanks to all our building materials going missing." "Right, no, of course not." Wait, no, wrong answer. "I mean, yes, I totally followed that, one hundred percent. Tuesday is waffle day, but only if it's dry, otherwise it screws up the batter." Dahlia briefly pondered whether it was ever not dry -- the weather in these places seemed something of a constant, the way video game environments tended to be. She decided not to venture the question, though, for fear of another interminably long ramble. The gathering of blue lizards gazed expectantly up at her. "...And also your building materials have been going missing lately, and you suspect the dinosaurs responsible headed east." That is quite possibly the stupidest sentence I have ever been forced to assemble. But it seemed to pacify the anxious lizards, who nodded eagerly. "right! so if you see thip incredibly cool hero, make sure you let her know!" Dahlia simply sighed, nodded once, and departed. ...Or, tried to depart. On her way out, much like the previous village, she was accosted by another blue lizard. Unlike the eager, bright-eyed youth who stopped her in the other village, this was an older-looking (going by the slight wrinkles under its eyes) lizard. Superficially similar in appearance to the others, the difference between them became apparent the instant the lizard began to speak. "Harbinger." Dahlia could hear the capital letter. It was such a surprise, she managed to completely misplace her usual sarcasm. "...who, me?" It was an unusual thing to be addressed as... but really, Dahlia was finding it rather difficult to get worked up over names lately. "You're not thip one they call thip "incredibly cool hero". You're also not thip one they're expecting -- he's not supposed to arrive for a while yet. You've been preparing thip world for change. So that makes you a harbinger, or a herald, or whatever word thip kids have taken to using nowadays." "If I skip the part where I stick my fingers in my ears, and you skip the part that begins with "why, back in my day", can we call it even?" Oh, there we go, good. Sarcasm: returned. "How are you so sure I'm not the real hero you guys are expecting, gender pronoun confusion aside?" "Wasn't my intent to say somethip like that. Not enough time for that sort of thip anyway." The middle-aged(?) blue lizard narrowed his eyes, haggard gaze seeming to look for something about Dahlia that he couldn't quite detect. "You wouldn't want to be him anyway. He's a Destroyer, that one. You're lucky not to be him -- bad enough you're stuck being his herald." The lizard looked thoughtful for a moment -- an unusual state for them, Dahlia grinned to herself. "No, more like... going and spreading thip word... an apostle. Thip Destroyer's Apostle, you are. I'd warn you to keep from getting too close, but... I guess you're already there, aren't'cha?" Dahlia was no longer grinning. "Er, yeah, I am all kinds of glad not to be him." She chuckled nervously. This 'hero' nonsense, she recognized -- supposedly, that was her own role here, whether or not she wanted it. But what was this 'he' business? And 'Destroyer'? Apostle, too, but that was clearly just stupid-lizard-speak. In any case, better to keep quiet about it until she had learned more. "So glad. You have no idea." Quick. Topic change. "Anyway, thanks for the warning. You got a name?" So I can remember who the crazies are, and avoid you in the future. "Not one that matters." "...Heh, me neither." Without another word, Dahlia departed the village, heading eastward.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:04:39 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===>
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 19:05:28 GMT -5
((Zuki's post))
"That did sound like a girl screaming...think it might be Page," Temujin remarked to Sis, oddly nonchalant given the situation. "I'll go check." He vaulted over the windowsill in a rather impressive movement that, ultimately, was quite pointless given the fact that he just began floating as soon as he was outside of the tower. Sure enough, off a bit in the distance, Page was busy flying around in circles and loop-de-loops, celebrating along with Gita. "Yep, it's Page. The last Derse dreamer's woken up, it seems." He turned back to Sis. "By the way, you want a lift anywhere, oh flightless one?" he asked, smiling crookedly. She smirked. "Yeah, sure. Just hold on tight. I don't wanna' end up a stain on the sidewalk." "Pffft. If someone like that bodyguard can survive a fall from this height, I think you could." In a careful yet obviously very much practiced motion, Temujin picked Sis up and floated out into the Derse sky. "Where to?" "Fly me to the screaming child, magic man." She was grinning as they lifted off, for reasons we can only guess. "Who's that other one?" "As you wish. And I'll spare you a cliche airline joke." He grinned and began flying towards the two dreaming girls. "And that's...Gita, if I recall correctly. Probably shouldn't let her know that I know her name, or that you do. Kinda freaks her out." "Gita... Sounds familiar. Wait, isn't she the psychopath who wrecked my apartment?" Temujin raised an eyebrow. "You're asking me?" "You're the immortal time-traveling badass who's been doing this for who knows how long. Who else am I going to ask, my unconscious little brother?" "Hey, I don't know what kinda man y'think I am, but snooping on crazy psychopaths as they wreck someone's house is against my code of morals," he responded, tongue thoroughly in cheek. Any further banter on the issue was cut off by Temujin arriving within earshot of Page and Gita. Page, for her part, stopped in the middle of a loop-de-loop when she noticed the two, hanging upside down until she righted herself. "O-oh, hello, Guardian." She glanced at Sis, "And you too, Miss...I guess." Smooth as silk as always. The nervousness over meeting this new person was evident, and she somehow managed to shuffle her feet despite hanging in mid-air. Zach's sister chuckled. Page seemed more shy than she remembered from their one conversation. To be fair, that was a long time ago and she wasn't sure Page had realized it wasn't her brother talking. Before responding, she took a moment to glance over the two of them. "Lombardi." "Ah!" Gita interjected, eyebrows raising in recognition. "The klutz's sister. Pleasure to meet you and all that junk, I'm sure." She glanced from Sis to Temujin. "Is this the part where we shake hands and politely inquire as to what brings us all to Derse?" "I was here to check up on 'the klutz'," Temujin supplied. "Speakin' of which, don't try to commune with the horrorterrors. Something's wrong. Rather than get the super special benefit of having dark tentacled gods like something out of a bad Japanese manga crossover with Lovecraft tenderly grope your mind, they savagely grope it now and you're left bleedin' out your ears on the pavement." "In other words, Page, don't look too closely at the sky, especially if we've dipped into the penumbra of the Furthest Ring. It's," here she paused midsentence to shudder, "...unpleasant." Page's eyes were wide as saucers, and she vigorously nodded her assent. "I...didn't really want to talk to the tentacle gods anyway, I think..." "Should be fine for now lookin' at the sky when you're not in an eclipse, so don't give yourself an ulcer worryin' or nothing. Just don't stare too long just to be safe and stay inside in an eclipse," Temujin said, shifting Sis in his arms a bit. Despite the new revelations about tentacle monsters, Sis looked strangely pleased as she held onto Guardian's arm. "Well, I'm not stickin' around for the next one. Have fun with that." "Smart. How's your brother doing, by the way?" Clearly, this is a completely casual tone of inquiry on the part of Gita. Just small-talk. That's right. "Out cold. I think he stared at the aliens a little too long." "Oh god. That's the last thing I need, him snooping around the house alone." "I don't think he'd do anything too bad. Intentionally, anyway. What's he doing at your house?" Flying people can't scruff their feet on the floor. So Gita scratched the back of her head and looked askance. "Ah. He crashed in through the window? And proceeded to sulk, be irrationally afraid of cats, and get his [strk]fi-[/strk] fool ass electrocuted." "Yeah, that sounds about right." wait, what? Was she about to say... oh, hell. It took all of Sis's effort not to start cracking up. "Electrocuted, huh? The hell was he doing?" "Getting aggro in the house. It set Nookomii--that's, ah, my sprite--off." "And then you just decided to take a nap while he couldn't break anything...?" "Ah. I." This is excrutiating. "I may have gotten caught in the shock-wave." Gita's manner at this admission was perhaps more characteristic of, say, Page. *snrk* "Aha. What were you two doing, exactly?" Gita's voice was flat. "You don't even want to know. Really, you don't. It was completely ridiculous." Oh god. Sis knew it was only a matter of time before she started laughing her ass off. It was all she could do to hold it in. "Oh, I'm sure I do. Please go on." Why am I telling her this?[/color] In spite of herself, Gita elucidated. "It was the consort. 'Ve got these green cats, see...and I was trying to show him that they were cute and harmless. It disagreed. When the row started, Nookomi zorched all three of us. Whup. Out like a light.." Lombardi shook her head, laughing quietly to herself. "So your sprite tazed both of you because a cat flipped out. Not quite what I was expecting to hear, but... I'll believe you." For what it's worth, she knew clusterfucks were common around Zach and believed every word. "That is exactly what happened. Yes." Having been silent for most of the conversation, Temujin finally couldn't stop himself from chortling underneath his breath, thoroughly amused either by the incident itself or by whatever he had thought regarding it. Between his and Sis' laughter, it brought Page's attention back to the conversation at hand. Up until then she had been staring off in the distance at the great purple city all around her. "...Huh? O-oh, sorry, I wasn't really paying attention, I think. Sorry!" Her gaze drifted back to the moon. "It's beautiful here, definitely..." "Oh! Definitely!" Gita piped in, glad of the interruption. "I've been awake for years, y'know, and it's as haunting as ever." "Do you mind if I go explore, possibly?" Page asked, sounding like she was asking them to tear off their own arms instead of just excusing her from a conversation she hadn't been much involved in in the first place. "No, no, go on ahead. See if you can find a Dersite, goes by...uh. 'Bodyguard.' He's a good sort." "Yeah, totally!" Temujin remarked just a little too quickly, sharing a surreptitious glance with Sis and putting on his best poker face. "O-okay, thank you. Goodbye!" With a wave and a smile, Page turned and flew down towards the city streets below, flying just above them as she wended her way through the streets. Temujin adjusted his hold on Sis again. While it was hardly much of a problem to carry her, his arms were starting to fall asleep on him. "By the way, you said you wanted to leave Derse, right? In that case I'll offer you a one-time ride with Guardian Air to a destination of your choice." He grinned. "I'll spare ya the stupid airline jokes I could make. Partly because I can't think of anything good." Lombardi snickered. "We should go check on Zach. Make sure he hasn't burned anything down, or gotten his... what was it? Ah, yeah. "Fine ass" mauled by cats." She turned to Gita with a wide grin on her face, just before the two of them took off. For a long moment, Gita hovered there in the darkness of the Dersian sky. Slowly, slowly, she brought her palm up to her face. "Dark gods above, I am never hearing the end of that. Stupid sexy Zach Lombardi."
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:16:44 GMT -5
The iron will of the Von Hayeks... Lorelei had chewed on that idea the whole time, once Florian was done with his story, she spent changing into new clothes (save black instead of grey). Her grandfather's determination, no matter the price, to set right what had been wrong only further fueled Lorelei's determination to return to the caverns. Come to think of it, determination or no, it'd be good to have an escape plan ready just in case... Lorelei chewed on this thought for some time, pacing her room, until it hit her. Of course! The portal gun code Peter gave me! Lorelei had forgotten in all the hustle and bustle of the day. It would be a simple enough matter to place a portal at the entrance and use it as an escape rope if she needed to. >Lorelei: Alchemy spree! Might as well find out what else she could make besides the portal gun, hmm? Combining the healing bread and some ointment found in the medicine cabinet produced a healing ointment that didn't require the patient to eat it (which Lorelei stocked up on quite a bit of). The map she created at the very beginning of her adventure in the Land of Gold and Snow she combined with a compass, which gave her a compass that pointed in the direction of any destination of hers. Then she got an interesting idea: she took a captcharoid (for having a camera that could do that still was a thing and hadn't stopped being a thing) of herself. This she combined with some jar to get HER BRAIN IN A JAR. Or she would have, at least, were it not for the exorbitant cost of such a rare thing as an individual's mind. All the same, she was able to captcharoid the projection the alchemiter gave of what it would create (thanks to some new machinery added by Page), and was able to in turn use the brain in another alchemy. She combined it with her journal to create a SELF-WRITING JOURNAL. Now everything she would write down in a journal would be written as it went, without the need for Lorelei to take time to do so. Handy! And, of course, because she hadn't before, she created some Kamina shades that were inexplicably able to stay on her face despite having no visible frames. Just for indulgence's sake. Okay maybe his cape and sarashi and sword as well. Lorelei could go as him next Halloween! ...Assuming that they still kept that holiday in the new universe. And assuming they were IN a new universe then... Ok maybe Nia's outfit too. Outfits. Though Lorelei wasn't sure if she'd ever have the courage to wear that skintight black anti-spiral costume of hers. Last but not least, she couldn't help but create a veritable legion of new dresses and outfits, some very good, some ok, and some downright terrible. She even contemplated possibly creating AURA STARSHINE'S outfit, but dropped the idea as being too hard to pull off. It's not like she would have worn it anyway. Because AURA STARSHINE was NOT a self-insert! As she went about sorting her loot (hanging up outfits in her extremely capacious closet, mostly) she decided that it was time to try and get back in touch with people. She had, after all, been so engrossed in her own affairs for some time. If she was to be some sort of friendleader to her compatriots, she needed to stay in touch! Choosing randomly, she contacted Zach. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] began pestering inaneFixation [IF] -- PQ: Greetings, Zach. PQ: Do you have a moment?IF: yeah i think i'm stuck here for a while so i have time. :PPQ: You are stuck? How so?IF: well i guess i could leave but your psychotic friend is unconscious again and it'd be pretty messed up to leave her here surrounded by assholes with knives in their hands. IF: ... IF: don't ask.PQ: Well, thank you for looking after her. PQ: How did she fall unconscious, though? Is she all right?IF: tazerbot got us both but some horrorterrors knocked dream me back out. IF: i'm pretty sure that's going to give me brain damage but it's not like i don't have plenty of that already. :VPQ: Well. PQ: This sounds like a very very long story. PQ: I shall spare you having to tell it. PQ: What do you mean the horrorterrors knocked you back out? They do not normally do that, yes?IF: nope. IF: there's one up there and it looks like stars (which apparently would look pretty awesome by the way) and if you stare at it too long it'll give you a seziure or something. ask guardian, he knows more than me. Lesson learned: if ever on Derse, do not look at the "stars". Lorelei, of course, merely assumed that it was as such on the distant dream planet she had only heard of through others, quite ignorant of the fact that the stars in her own sky were the same. {Spoiler} PQ: Well, that is good to know. PQ: Has anything else of note happened? Had any luck in your land?IF: ugh. i haven't even been able to get back there for more than two minutes today. IF: did you know the antenna gita built up is basically a giant lightning rod now? IF: also that there are creepers spawning on my roof?PQ: Lightning creepers?IF: EVERYWHERE.PQ: Oh goody. PQ: You know I actually thought it could not get worse! PQ: That shall teach me :PIF: believe me, this is nothing. just give it a few days. there'll be enough to blow up the damn planet. :/PQ: Do you have a plan for taking care of them before this happens?IF: right now it's either 'have my server make some kind of trap' or 'blow up my house before they spread' IF: and the trapmaker may or may not hate my guts.PQ: Well, "may or may not" seems a step up from "definitely" as it seemed to be yesterday! PQ: I shall see what I can do about persuading her. I have faith she would not be the type to let this utterly destroy your home or planet.IF: yeah. IF: i'd do it myself but i have to keep borrowing peter's computer so i can work on her roof. and her laptop is running dahlia's bullshit. IF: can't really use three computers at once.PQ: Why not just ask him to do it? PQ: He is a time traveler, it is not like you would be imposing on his time or that he would be too busy.IF: he said he was busy but i'm pretty sure he just didn't want to talk or do anything productive. :PPQ: Hmm. I shall have to ask him about this. We all have server duties we have to uphold, after all!IF: ...PQ: Huh? PQ: ...Oh, John. PQ: My God, so much has happened today, I almost forgot about him. PQ: Zach, what happened was not your fault. You know that, right? PQ: If Guardian is to be believed, none of us could have stopped whatever it was that killed him.IF: i know that. IF: can we not talk about this right now?PQ: Right. I just wanted to make sure. PQ: Sorry. PQ: Do you think you could take over entirely as Dahlia's server, so Gita can focus on being yours?IF: only if she trusts me with her laptop after this. IF: i can't use my actual computer right now and i really don't want to make this worse.PQ: I meant later, and more in the long term. I shall have to ask Gita if there is any way to give Dahlia's server duties to you so you may do them on your own computer. PQ: She is, after all, one of the developers. If anyone knows how to do that, it would be her. PQ: Page needs a server as well. Maybe Dahlia can be hers.IF: yeah you really can't beat jm in a codes off. i tried. she emptied my sylladex at me. :I IF: she is simply the best there is. IF: and i guess dahlia is going to have to take john's place in the chain now. someone should tell page.PQ: As much as I hate to think of anyone replacing John in any fashion, that was what I was thinking, yes. PQ: I shall tell her when I talk to her. I am currently trying to touch base with everyone after some extremely hectic events in my own land, see if anyone needs help or anything.IF: what kind of hectic? IF: is it the good kind, the bad kind, or the stupid bullshit kind? i've been getting a lot of the third here and want to know if that's normal. :/PQ: More the bad kind. It is a very long story that I will tell if you wish. PQ: But the short version is that there are three more graves near John's, two of them by my hand. Both accidental, but only one an enemy I was fighting.IF: oh, shit. carapaces?PQ: The one I fought against and accidentally killed, yes. The enemies left me for dead and took my drill to him in a great factory complex. I pursued to reclaim it, fought him, and ended up killing him in the heat of battle without meaning to. PQ: He called himself "Nobody". His king had saved his life once and he began, out of a sense of life debt, to devote himself entirely to the king, to the point of dropping any individual identity. PQ: If you go by the graveyard in front of my mansion, his is the one labeled "Here lies Someone."IF: i don't think i knew that one but he seems like kind of a dick if he just attacked everyone. :/ IF: uh IF: no offense. IF: but i mean he was kind of our enemy wasn't he?PQ: Yes, but that does not mean I wished to kill him. PQ: Indeed, I have vowed never to kill again. If I wish a world where no one must kill another, I must first master that principle within myself, after all.IF: well IF: good luck with that. IF: i think i'll have to reserve judgment on that until i actually have to fight someone with a conscience.PQ: Killing a sentient being is not fun at all, I will tell you that. PQ: If you are wondering, the other two deaths were consorts of mine. One killed accidentally when I was in a naval battle and lost control of my magic, the other a casualty of said naval battle. Larent and Alder.IF: that's too bad. IF: wait the consorts weren't attacking you? IF: :/PQ: Of course not! I am trying to save them, after all. PQ: ...Why, are they attacking you?IF: yeah. :I IF: like, all of them.PQ: Even your own?IF: maybe. i've only seen like three and they were hiding from monsters. IF: but they didn't throw rocks at me when i took care of it IF: the worst are the cats though.PQ: Those being Gita's consorts, yes? PQ: Odd, though... PQ: I shall question my own next I get a chance and see if they know anything of this.IF: yeah they're the third reason i'm stuck in this building. :I IF: the first is the unconscious crazy lady and the second is the broken wrist. IF: fourth is lack of grist.PQ: Your wrist is broken? What happened?IF: there's a reason i'm not a pilot, lorelei. IF: leave it at that.PQ: And I suppose you are out of any healing item, which in turn is made impossible to rectify by your lack of grist. PQ: That is another thing I should speak with Gita about when I get a chance: the possibility of sharing grist amongst players.IF: yeah there's pretty much no way she couldn't do that. :VPQ: I think I need to create a list of things I need to do. In fact I shall create a word file now for such a purpose.IF: actually there was this website that let you make like public word documents. IF: hold on, i'll make one for you. IF: sync.in/FRIENDLEADER IF: wait looks like some assholes took that name already nevermind. :IPQ: Hahahahahaha! PQ: And here I thought "friendleader" was a word we had made up. PQ: Or rather, I believe it was Gita who first coined the term. PQ: Still, I wonder what on earth it was used for? I suppose it is lost to the ages.IF: timeslider says it was some forum RP bullshit but that's not important. :P IF: so yeah i guess use that to remind us not to do stupid stuff like smashing our faces into windows and not sticking the landing.PQ: Sounder advice I have never heard. PQ: Anyway, I am almost done hanging up clothing I got from a recent alchemy spree, so I shall let you go. PQ: Good luck, Zach! PQ: Or at least marginally better luck than you usually get.IF: aw shit alchemy IF: now i'm jealous AND stuck. IF: anyway yeah later. i'll try not to set gita on fire.PQ: Haha. It is very much appreciated. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] ceased pestering inaneFixation [IF] -- Though she had no more things to do around the mansion, that conversation had raised some things that Lorelei definitely needed to take care of before she went traipsing off to those accursed caverns again--the mere thought sent a chill down Lorelei's spine, but she fought the feeling off. Considering how the last incident had left Lorelei more than a little... cranky let's call it, it was likely best to take care of all that she could before leaving. Lorelei returned once again to the cozy chair by the fire place in her palatial living room. Just as she was about to contact Gita, though, her glasses pinged in recognition of an incoming message. -- bismerBiblioclasm [BB] began trolling philosopherQueen [PQ] -- {Spoiler} BB: hello. BB: this is... lorelei, isn't it? BB: perhaps i have it wrong. BB: ...huh, your lusus appears to Be absent as well.PQ: Oh, hello! Yes, I am Lorelei Von Hayek. PQ: It is quite a pleasure to meet you. PQ: And, yes, my grandfather is currently away. PQ: But to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?BB: feiren heilos. BB: and, i am glad to hear it- well, that your... grandfather is away. BB: rather than dead. BB: this game seems to make a habit of ending custodian's lives, i mean. BB: so it's just a tad worrying.PQ: I am quite sorry to hear that... PQ: I believe my grandfather shall be fine, though. A finer swordsman one could not hope to meet, even in his advanced age. PQ: Oh, wait, I should probably explain what a grandfather is, should I not? PQ: He is basically the father of my father. My father and mother are the two people who reproduced together to create me. PQ: Does that make sense?BB: so... perhaps like... BB: the ancestor of your ancestor? BB: you know him, and he is still alive?PQ: Trolls have ancestors? PQ: Perhaps the word contains different connotations in our cultures (though it is still surprising to me that we have a functionally similar language and grammatical structure). For me, ancestor is a catch-all term usually reserved for all those in the lineage past my grandfather. PQ: For example, If I was to trace that "father of my father and so on" line back far enough, I would find that I am descended from the Prussian King Frederick the Great. I would call him my "ancestor". PQ: But I thought trolls reproduced via some...what was the term on that website Felett gave me...? "Incestuous slurry"? How can one have ancestors from that?BB: how odd. BB: to us-- er, trolls, rather-- our ancestors are people who are strikingly similar to us. share our symbol. carve out a path in life that reflects our own. BB: if you Believe in it, that is. BB: some don't, some do. BB: some are lucky enough for their ancestors to leave behind something for them. BB: ...and for it to fall into their hands, rather than someone else's, i suppose.PQ: That does sound quite interesting, if a little genetically improbable. But I suppose stranger things are possible, and I am hardly some sort of expert on troll genetics! PQ: Do you happen to know of your ancestor?BB: i do not. BB: forgive me for changing the subject so suddenly, But i should say BB: i contacted you Because... what was her name... page? BB: she holds you in rather high regard.PQ: Oh, you have already spoken with her? PQ: She is quite a sweetheart. I am glad to hear that she thinks of me that way. She is something of a younger sister to me, though we are not related. PQ: Er, does your culture have a concept of sisterhood?BB: yes, somewhat. ...i think. BB: ...i'm not entirely sure if our definitions of sister are the same. BB: she was travelling with someone else. the name started with a d.PQ: Dahlia Asher, perhaps?BB: i Believe so. BB: if you don't mind me asking, what do you think of the others in your session? are you friends with them?PQ: I certainly do not mind at all. PQ: I like to think I am friends with all of them, yes. The only one I did not know prior to this game was Peter, but we seem to have hit it off in a fairly short amount of time. PQ: Peter being absoluteTranquility. PQ: And it seems that I have partly gravitated to, partly been chosen as a sort of friendleader amongst our little group.BB: that's good to hear! BB: ...read. BB: how do you feel you are doing so far? in the role of... friendleader, i suppose.PQ: Oh, I should probably tell you, considering our cultural differences: friendleader is not really a real word, but instead one we came up with that combines friend and leader. PQ: As for how I am doing, I think fairly well? I have kept a memo, tried to keep people informed and not infighting. Indeed, I was about to take care of some issues that had arisen when you contacted me (but do not worry, they are hardly vital and can wait for this conversation's end). PQ: Peter, at least, seemed grateful. He bought me cake while we were on Prospit out of gratitude (he really is a sweetheart).BB: hm, that's odd. BB: friendleader sounds strangely like threshecutioner, or specterminator. ...er, roles in the empire's army.PQ: Interesting. Are they all military roles or roles involving combat, or did everyone--even, say, medics or bureaucrats--have titles like that?BB: most. you would Be far Better off asking marcus rather than me about the army. cerbericCommando. BB: i admit i've never really taken a look at it myself. BB: i had er, Better ways to Burn time. BB: that does seem rather productive though. i nearly wish we had a "friendleader" ourselves. BB: But that is more like asking for the ultimate auspistice. BB: ah! speaking of cake. you like cooking?PQ: Yes I do! Did Page happen to mention that? PQ: I learned to cook from an early age, though I have servants who would do it for me. It is very fun. PQ: Are you a chef yourself?BB: yes. BB: to Both of your questions. BB: although i wouldn't say chef, Because it is mainly a hobby of mine. BB: up there with Bomb-making and arson.PQ: Wait PQ: What?BB: ...that was something of a joke.PQ: Oh! Ahehe, all right. Sorry. PQ: I actually have a file on my computer with many of the recipes I have acquired over time. I do not know if the ingredients would be something you could find in your own world but would you like to see them?BB: i wouldn't mind in the least. BB: and then perhaps you should go take care of those issues you were speaking of earlier? i would hate to keep you away from that much longer.PQ: Oh, I do not mind at all. As I said, they are not exactly crucial or on a time limit. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] sent file recipes.txt -- PQ: I hope you find some good use for them. I would actually love to hear about what kinds of food are common amongst trolls.BB: thank you. BB: well, hmm. BB: for one, there's nutmeg lasagna. BB: you would probably Be Better off completely skipping the nutmeg part. tends to do funny things to people.PQ: Does it now? PQ: I have had dishes with nutmeg in them before and never noticed any adverse effects, so I suppose this is a physiological difference between our species. PQ: The rather odd fact that an alien culture has both nutmeg and lasagna aside...BB: trust me. BB: just... i don't think you should try it. BB: certainly can't Be healthy for a young lady like yourself, in any case. BB: provided enough time, i could compile a list of meals i regularly make... made for my lusus, if you are so curious. BB: it would certainly Be more efficient than trying to remember it all off of the top of my head.PQ: Well, I certainly am curious, if you do not mind the effort. PQ: What was your lusus like, actually?BB: large dragon (do you have dragons?) BB: rather lax. she also ate a lot.PQ: Christ's blood, you have dragons? PQ: That is amazing! PQ: They are merely creatures of myth almost culturally universal in our species. Likely because of fossils ancient civilizations found of dinosaurs, as the theory goes. PQ: Dinosaurs being really large reptilian beasts...actually, here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur PQ: It occurs to me I likely should not be as surprised as I am to hear of dragons considering beasts such as those walked the earth before the days of man.BB: er, yes, we have dragons. from time to time. BB: those that are higher in the hemospectrum have a higher chance of getting more... BB: i suppose, monstrous lusii? although that's far from an exact order and simply just a general trend i have experienced. BB: these dinosaurs are all well and interesting... But may i ask who 'christ' is? ...and his Blood, i suppose. that too.PQ: You must be a rather powerful noble to get a dragon, then. Or at least very lucky. PQ: Oh, and Christ is Jesus Christ. The long version, should you wish to know of it, is here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus PQ: The short version is that he is a divine, messianic figure in the largest religion amongst my species (and a prophet in the second-largest). I speak of his blood because the religion, Christianity, goes that he died--shed his own blood in self-sacrifice--for our sins and to give us eternal salvation. PQ: It is a religion I follow PQ: At least, I think so. PQ: I hope so. PQ: I am not sure anymore...BB: this is going to read as incredibly Brusque BB: But what is stopping you from knowing that you Believe in something? i'm afraid i don't understand.PQ: Well, so much of the belief in that religion rested on a belief in one single God, ruler and creator of all the universe, who sent his only begotten son to die for the sins of humanity. PQ: And then I enter this game with the horrorterrors apparently being gods--and not fitting into what I know of religion at all--and Skaia. I simply do not know anymore. I do not know whether I can logically hold these beliefs anymore without contradicting that which is straight in front of my face.BB: why do you Believe in ... christianity? BB: does it teach something?PQ: It is what I was taught from my very early youth. It is what I have always believed. It...gave me hope and a feeling of security. PQ: Look, can we talk about something else?BB: ...i should probably get going anyways.PQ: Oh, all right. Well, it has been a pleasure speaking with you, Feiren!BB: likewise, lorelei. and good luck. -- bismerBiblioclasm [BB] ceased trolling philosopherQueen [PQ] -- Well, that was that. Now to contact Gita, and- -- alethiologyAncress [AA] began trolling philosopherQueen [PQ] -- ...Or not. AA: Hello. I'm Pythia Socrat. AA: You're Khirun's human friend, Lorelei, right? AA: I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time in your timeline. I can talk to you at some other point if you want.PQ: Well! It certainly seems that I am quite popular today. PQ: I am Lorelei Catarina Kurfurstin Von Hayek, yes. It is a pleasure to meet you, Pythia. Khirun has indeed made mention of you before. PQ: And no, you have not caught me at a bad time. How may I help you?AA: Well, in part it's just because I'm trying to at least know of all you humans and find out about you. AA: Mostly, though, it's what Khirun told me about what you told her. AA: About killing, I mean, and your ideas regarding that. I just want to hear about what you think from your own lips. AA: Or text, rather. I'm curious, if you don't mind indulging me. Lorelei's eyebrows raised, and she couldn't help but smile. The first ripple from that stone tossed in the stagnant pond, it seemed. {Spoiler}PQ: Well, of course I do not mind! PQ: I suppose the simplest way to put it is this: a world, a society without killing would be a definite good thing to achieve. PQ: Because we all have our hopes and our dreams, people who care about us, and all that. I do not wish to take any of that from anyone. PQ: Death is utterly final. It is the great end. We all have futures filled with uncertainty but death just stops it, right there. PQ: And we can never know with certainty another's future. What if they have a chance to redeem themselves? That chance should never be robbed of anyone. AA: What if they intend to kill or do harm again? PQ: Then they should be locked up if need be, but killing them harms those who care about them (possibly one who has done no wrong--and may incite a further cycle of vengeance), brings one down to their level, and takes away any chance at redemption. AA: I see... And you wish to start towards a society like this by choosing never to kill again yourself? PQ: One cannot hope to change the world unless one has mastered that change in oneself. PQ: An idealist sees what is, and imagines what could be--and the future is always charted by those who first dare to see a different way forward. By the force of their arguments and their example they change the world. After all, Mahatma Gandhi was once just one man with revolutionary beliefs. PQ: It always starts with one. If that one must be me, then so be it. AA: You really think this is possible? AA: What about the Black King, who you must kill to complete the game? PQ: Of course I believe it is possible! Anything is possible with enough time and toil! PQ: I do not know if you have any examples like this in your own history--your Empire seemed quite tyrannical, if you do not mind me saying--but slavery has been endemic in humanity's history. PQ: At one time it was the natural assumption of all men and women that some humans were slaves by their very nature and could be nothing else. PQ: But then things began to change. One spoke up. Then another, and another, coming together and forming their arguments over time. PQ: But a century after slavery was common and normal throughout the world, it was almost wiped from the face of civilization entirely. A trend from all of humanity's existence, thought once to be unchangeable, was overturned through the power of ideas. PQ: If those men and women could do that, then I can help build towards a world without killing. Even if I do not see my dream occur in my lifetime. PQ: As for the Black King, I refuse to believe that it is impossible to spare him, that we must end his life. I will find a way. If there is no way, I shall make one. AA: ...I see. AA: And everyone, no matter how evil? You'd spare them? Even those who had slaughtered thousands or millions? PQ: As much as I might want to, yes. I would not kill them. Even someone like that could achieve redemption--and very possibly helped by the hypothetical show of mercy. Even someone like that has people who care about them, who I would not wish to take away from them. AA: And what if they escaped and killed again? PQ: That is a risk, yes. First and foremost it would be most important to do all one could to keep them from escaping, and hopefully dodge that possibility at all. PQ: But even so, I would not kill them. I would be a hypocrite if I aimed for a world without killing while refusing to wash my hands of blood. PQ: Besides, people treat killing as if it ends everything. It does not. It just ends one person's life. Those who cared for that person may wish vengeance and create further violence and death. PQ: I know of stories from human history where families were embroiled in conflict and murder across generations, until they had long since forgotten the reason why they fought, simply because they just kept killing each other for vengeance's sake. Death cannot stop those kinds of vicious cycles, only mercy. AA: ...That's something to think about. AA: You know, I... Heh. AA: I haven't told many people this, still wondering if I should, but I figure telling a human won't matter much if you promise not to tell any other trolls besides my matesprit, Lohqua. PQ: On my honor as a Von Hayek, I shall not tell whatever it is you are about to say. AA: You were right, when you said our Empire was tyrannical. It was horrible. A brutal regime that drafted every adult into the army in some function and conquered the galaxy. AA: Those below the age of conscription lived on the homeworld, Alternia. And I...was a rebel. apotropaicAnarchist. At first I just put out my message and tried to help anyone I could, killing none. Then over time I began to kill simply high-ranking targets (at least those I could reach on Alternia) while sparing the ordinary soldiers. Then I began to kill the soldiers in my way too. A one-woman guerrilla war. AA: When Khirun told me of what you said, it made me think upon my own actions. Whether I was right to try and strike fear into those who upheld the Empire's will in that way. AA: I still don't know. PQ: Well, I can hardly know how hard it was to live in such conditions, and I can sympathize with the kind of frustrated anger that must breed. PQ: But I think killing and striking fear was the wrong way to go. PQ: People either do one of two things when afraid: they surrender and run, or lash out and attack. Sometimes, in their fear, people will lash out at the wrong targets--and always, when in the grip of fear, will they close their minds. PQ: Fear is impervious to rational thought. If you do not mind me saying, I think there likely were some people so scared of you that they would not listen to your words. AA: You may be right... AA: You remind me, a bit, of my ancestor, actually. AA: Has one of the other trolls told you what those are? PQ: Ah, yes, I met Feiren Heilos but moments before you contacted me. She was rather nice and told me what ancestors were. AA: Ugh, you've talked to her? PQ: Do not care for her, I take it? AA: She has this strange fetish for burning books containing rebellious material, and a general hatred for the written word. PQ: What?! PQ: I had no idea! She seemed so nice... AA: Yeah, she's like that. Crazy and stupid, but never really comes off that way until you get her started on the evils of books. AA: Anyway, my ancestor, Hipparchia, preached a message of empathy and peace. Incredibly revolutionary in our society. AA: Her first sermon was after she mercy-killed a mass-murderer rather than let the mob burn him to death. Your ideas just made me wonder about how far I've fallen from that ideal. PQ: Even if you have, it is never too late to turn back. PQ: I would very much love to hear about Hipparchia's philosophy, however. And any other good philosophers your culture has produced! AA: Well, I actually have some of her work saved here. AA: And I'd like to hear of any Earth philosophers as well--you mentioned a Gandhi, I think? PQ: Yes, indeed. A wonderful man. For starters... The two of them proceeded to have the greatest philosophy-off in the history of paradox space.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:17:31 GMT -5
It was a few minutes into Page's flight when she realized something that caused her to come to a sudden stop. She had forgotten to ask what this "Bodyguard" person looked like. And while she wouldn't go so far as to say something like "they all look the same to me"-- that'd be kind of racist, maybe...--she sure didn't have enough exposure to this culture and species to recognize who might look like a bodyguard. Was there more than one? Did they have names besides their titles? Page was at a loss, so between her confusion and her shyness at the idea of approaching random people to ask if they knew of a "bodyguard" she largely abandoned the idea of finding Gita's friend. Instead, she decided to engage in one of her favorite activities: people-watching. Besides, what better way to try and find out about this new society she was, right? Thoroughly pleased with her idea, she touched down in what appeared to be a small outdoor cafe and sat amongst the scant few customers. She watched as they passed by, sometimes with others and sometimes alone, looked at their faces and listened to their words. It was a common game she had played in the lonely days spent in the library, when she had had her fill of reading a certain book. Unfortunately for our young Page of Frost, she was no ordinary, forgettable young girl as she had been back on Earth. Here, she was Princess, and a figure most beloved by the populace. No sooner had she sat down than the other customers began to congregate around her, swarming her with greetings and questions. Stuttering, blushing, wanting for all the world not to be the center of attention, she nevertheless tried her best to be nice to these people and answer them. " U-u-um, yes, hello." " Y-yes, I just woke up, I think." " Wait, Zach's being chased by the police, possibly?!!" " I-I think that's who you mean by the prince, maybe." " I, uh, p-p-probably shouldn't t-talk about the war, I guess..." " Th-thank you." Sweet merciful release came from the most unlikely of sources: a loud crashing noise of broken glass. Holding what was apparently a bag full of ill-gotten gains, a tall, lithe Dersite (woman? man? As much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't really tell) had bounded through the broken glass window and into the street, running as if the Devil himself was on his heels. The cafe's owner, a short, fat-looking Dersite with a deep voice shouted behind him. "THIEF! THIEEEEEF! SOMEONE STOP HIM!" Everyone was looking straight at Page. Partly from her own desire to help the cafe owner, partly from simple peer pressure, she took off and flew after the escaping brigand. To his credit, he was phenomenally quick on his feet and supremely agile. A few others had taken off on foot after him but were foiled both by his speed and his ability to make those in his way barriers for those behind him when he pushed them aside, all without slowing down much at all. When he looked over his shoulder and noticed Page flying above the mess after him, he ducked into a crowded alleyway. It didn't really do much to help him. With an extra burst of speed--just how she had done it Page herself couldn't say--she looped over his head and was floating right in front of him. With a frightened yelp, he stumbled to a stop and braced himself to be hit... ...................... " Um, you should really give that back, I think..." Lowering his defenses, the thief--now that he knew he would not be attacked--turned and began running down another alleyway to escape. Page simply flew to cut him off yet again. " I mean it, really. It's not very nice to steal from him like that, I believe..." He turned and ran again, meeting with no better luck. " And why did you have to break his window, really? You could have just used the door, probably. Breaking his window seems excessive, I guess." And again. " You should probably pay for that too when you give him back the money, possibly." And so on and so forth. " If you don't have any you could just work for him for a bit to pay it off, maybe?" " Please give him back the money?" " Are you so poor you have to steal, perhaps?" " Maybe if you give him back the money and explain, he'll give you a job, hopefully? He might listen if I vouch for you, probably. They seem to like me for some reason, I guess.,." " Either way you may have to work off the window, so maybe you can show him how good a worker you are then, and he'll hire you, maybe?" " Please give him back the money, you're not going to get away, I think." " I'm surprised you're determined enough to keep it up this long, really. Just give him the money, please!" " Turn around and give it back!" Slowly but surely Page's temper was beginning to boil. Now, as she stopped the tired, panting thief, she spoke through gritted teeth. " Just give it to me so I can give it back, then!" She held out her hand to the thief, who looked for all the world like he was going to collapse then and there out of exhaustion from their little game of Benny Hill. Yet, whether one call it bullheaded stubbornness or pride, after a bit of a breather the thief swatted away Page's hand and took off running again. She had had quite enough of this. Almost feeling like there was steam coming out of her ears from how angry she was, Page cut the man off again and this time gave him no chance to turn around and run. With all of her strength (which was very considerable when she was this angry), throwing her whole body into it, she uppercut the speedy little thief square on the jaw, sending him flying in an arc towards the pavement, ill-gotten boonbucks soaring everywhere from his bag. "I SAID GIVE IT BACK!!" The thief kissed the pavement hard, and Page, short though she was, seemed to tower over him like a leviathan at that moment. "AND NEVER STEAL ANYTHING FROM ANYONE ELSE EVER AGAIN, DEFINITELY!!!" Silence. The thief, chest heaving, looked as if the fear of God had been put into him. Eyes wide, lip bleeding, he nodded vigorously (and winced from the movement of his jaw). "...O-ok..." Silence. Then suddenly a Dersite in a grey wizard hat and wifebeater, wielding a purple nightstick rounded the corner. "STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCU-..." He halted in mid-charge, small white eyes going first from the thief, to the bag of boonbucks spilled on the ground, then to Page who was still positioned in "looming terror" mode over the culprit (though now, rather than angry, she seemed rather embarrassed of her actions). "...You're one of the princesses, aren't you...?" " Uh..." Page backed off from the downed thief, nodding. " I think that's what they've been calling me since I woke up, yes..." "And you took down this criminal?" " S-sorry, I didn't really mean to punch him so hard, really! He just wouldn't stop running no matter how many times I cut him off and I...kind of...lost my temper, I think..." Page stared at the ground, shuffling her feet like she was a kid being chewed out by the teacher. "Why are you apologizing? This is GREAT! This is just the kind of thing I've been hoping f-" The Dersite noticed that the thief, while his pursuers were speaking, had been attempting to slip away down a nearby alleyway. "I SAID STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!" The Dersite threw his nightstick straight at the fleeing thief. His aim was true and the weapon clonked the ne'erdowell on the back of his head. He kissed the pavement yet again, and this time wasn't going to get back up for a while. The Dersite dusted his hands and turned back to Page. "Like I was saying, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been hoping for!" " Uh...w-why? I mean, can I help you in some way or something, maybe?" "Yes indeed!" The Dersite approached Page and held out a hand, which the girl timidly shook. "I'm an Authority Regulator around here--you can just call me AR--and I want to make you a cop." " ...Wh-what? I mean...why?" "You probably don't know about this if you've woken up recently, but those who live on the moon are second-class citizens compared to those who live on Derse proper. They don't get the kind of resources for ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW that the main planet does. If that wasn't bad enough, the war saps almost all resources from the home front, so the monarchy has nothing but a token force here. I had to take a huge pay cut just to stay here on the moon, because someone has to help these poor people out! CRIME and INJUSTICE are rampant, and THE LAW is heeded by none..." If it was possible to say that last line more dramatically, Page was sure she couldn't imagine it. He had even clenched his fist in RIGHTEOUS JUDGMENT. " That...seems pretty bad, I think. But how can I help, possibly?" AR put an arm around Page's shoulder and pointed up to the sky above (which Page made sure not to follow, just in case the horrorterrors...what was the word? "savagely fondled" her brain. "If you agree, I'm going to deputize you, even though you're just a kid. Because even though you are a kid, you're still a princess of Derse! When people hear that a princess is walking the beat on the moon, they'll pay more attention to the problems around here, and criminals won't be quite so quick to come to the moon to practice their vile behavior! Between my experience and your fame (and great right hook), maybe we can bring JUSTICE and THE LAW back to this LAWLESS TOWN! What do you say?!" Page thought about it. On the one hand, she wasn't sure if she could really help much at all, and the idea of tangling with the criminal underground absolutely terrified her. They wouldn't all just be quick little thieves like the one currently counting sheep on the pavement nearby. Yet on the other hand, AR's experience could help her through that, and if things were really so bad she did want to help... Besides, she just couldn't look in those excited white eyes of his and tell him "no". That would be like booting a puppy straight into the Furthest Ring. " ...O-ok. If you think it'll help, I'll do it." AR let out a triumphant laugh and clenched the fist that had been pointing to the heavens above moments before. " That's the spirit! By the way, I didn't get your name." " It's...Page. Page Caldwell." "Page, I think you and I are going to make a terrifying team." >Page: Try to determine whether you think that's meant appraisingly or literally >Maybe later.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:18:16 GMT -5
"Just let it out, Kid. Your first time's always like this." AR patted the back of a heaving, vomiting Page Caldwell. Her reaction was, after all, hardly surprising given the scene. THE VERY UNLIKELY CASE OF STARS SIMON It was brutal, and AR regretted heavily it being Page's first case. Had he known, he would have taken her elsewhere, but he had only gotten information that there had been a murder in this location and that was it. He had never expected this. The victim lay in the center of a one-room apartment, a black sword stuck through his heart. That wasn't enough, though, the guts had also been spilled and used to write various messages on the wall in blood. Nothing understandable, just a mixed up hodgepodge of letters and symbols that AR didn't recognize. "Cause of death I'd say is bleeding out from the sword-wounds." Page staggered up behind him, looking incredibly ill and wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Nevertheless, in a weak voice she remarked, " A-aren't there...forensic people who test this, possibly?" AR shook his head. "Maybe on the main planet but we don't have enough resources here on the moon. 'S just you and me, Page." He turned his gaze back to the crime scene, adjusting his pointy wizard hat with a sigh. "Been seeing a lot of deaths like this since those damn lights in the sky showed up. Crazy, horrorterror-inspired mumbo jumbo. Makes my-- our--job tougher if the crook's potentially insane and without a motive." " Who-" Page was suddenly caught off guard by another heave at the sight of the gore around her, and had to duck away again to vomit in some place that wouldn't contaminate the crime scene. Even so, when she was finished she staggered back to AR's side and finished her question: " Who is...was...he?" "Stars Simon. A pretty formidable gangster around these parts. As much as I just want to let him rot, even CRIMINAL SCUM like him deserve JUSTICE," Ar stated, accentuating his point by pointing his RIGHTEOUSLY-CLENCHED FIST OF THE LAW into his open palm in a manner that instantly reminded Page of a judge banging a gavel--though whether she thought that because it actually looked the same or more because of AR's apparently fetish for all things law-related, the girl herself couldn't say. " Wait...Stars?" "Yeah." " And you don't know what those points of light in the sky are, perhaps...?" "Never seen 'em in my life." " ...Okay." "Best idea I've got about them is what the Horrorterror churches have been saying about it being because of some horrorterror getting very close. Anyway, let's start searching for clues. I'll handle the body, you search around the room." ===> Some moments later, Page was rummaging through an incredibly purple--just like everything on this planet ever--dresser, marveling at the utter lack of pants worn by anyone and still turning the case over in her mind, searching for alternate possibilities. Mostly the latter. She had a sudden idea around the time she found a note left--at first her heart leapt at the idea of a potential clue or some sort of note that might point to the murderer, but only found that it was a receipt for a pair of pants- Wait, what? Nonono, IDEA! The IDEA was more important! Nevertheless, Page surreptitiously pocketed the receipt for future investigations (she would find this mysterious trouser salesman if her life depended on it!) before speaking up about her question. " Um...AR?" "Found something, partner?" AR asked, no doubt busy doing something to the body that Page didn't want to see, so she kept her attention focused on rummaging through the dresser while speaking. " N-no, but...do others know about the murders being related to the st-...to the points of light, possibly?" AR paused before answering, and Page could almost hear the gears turn in his head as he caught on. "It's been in the news, yes... Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" " Maybe? I mean, you did say that there's been gang activity, I think... And he's a gangster, possibly? Maybe someone's trying to, um, take someone else down and make it look like a crazed killing, possibly? I mean, if he's a gangster, could a madman kill him this easily, perhaps? I don't know, I guess..." "Good point, good point... But it's still a bit of a longshot. Occam's razor is just as important in police work as it is in science. Still...if we had some way to rule it out, it'd be helpful..." A pregnant pause filled the air, until simultaneously they spoke: " The symbols, perhaps?" "THE SYMBOLS!" AR continued on, getting up and pacing wide circles around the body so frantically he reminded Page of a small dog. A small dog crossed with a law textbook, she guessed. "Of course, of course, we can go down to the church! They have a list of all the symbols related to the horrorterrors in their grimoire!" He stopped dead in his tracks, voice quickly changing from excited to positively dismal. "...Which they would never let me see..." A pause, then pacing and excitement returned. "But for you, Princess, they just might!" He detached from his circular movement and walked with a heavy, determined pace towards the door. "Come on, partner, the game is afoot!" ===> The church was at once like something Page had seen many times and like something she had never seen before. Everyone Page could spot bits of architecture or styles that reminded her of some of the churches in her hometown of Dublin, yet the building as a whole seemed to occupy a sort of Uncanny Church Valley in that regard, creating a similar cloying unease in her gut. While she was contemplating this, however, AR had not ceased his quick, purposeful strides (which had not let up in the whole walk here) so she ran to catch up with him before the door shut behind him. The inside was no less uncanny than the outside. It was a tall, sweeping room, almost reminiscent of what Page, were she more educated on the subject, would call a "Gothic" style. Stained glass windows covered the walls to their right and left, showing grotesque, tentacled forms in black and purple glass, surrounded by MORE black and purple glass. A fortunate thing then that Derse was normally quite dark anyway, and no sane Dersite relied on windows for light. Yet there seemed to be hardly any lights at all near the wooden pews that stood in two rows near the entrance. Page wondered if that might be intentional, shrouding the church-goers in darkness in such a manner. The only light in the room came from at the altar, where a tall, shapely Dersite woman (and Page could actually tell this one was a woman!) in a black dress read a massive black book by candlelight. His goal in sight, AR continued his purposeful stroll down the black carpet that separated the two pews, Page half-walking half-jogging along behind. "Excuse me, Priestess, might I have a word for you! It is quite urgent and a matter of the LAW!" AR called out. The priestess looked up from her reading with a sigh. "Authority Regulator, we meet again. I recall that the last three times were ~urgent matters of the LAW~ as well." "Yes, but this time it truly is!" AR stopped in front of the altar and pointed at the book she read. "We need your grimoire!" "Oh it's 'need' not just 'read' now?" the priestess asked in a droll tone. "Regulator, normally people will tone down what they ask if met with rejection." "But we definitely need it now, just for a little bit! We'll return it when we're done!" The priestess sighed yet again and returned to her grimoire. "How many times have I told you that the grimoire is not to be read by the uninitiated? Unless you wish to pledge your soul to the Noble Circle your continued pleas shall go unheard. And why do you keep saying 'we'? You're the only cop who's routinely beaten down my door to try and get a read of my grimoire." "What do you mean?" AR gestured to his left. "My partner's right he-" Only in mid-sentence did his gaze travel to where his hands lead, where no Page Caldwell was to be found. Sighing from realization, he reached around behind himself, picked the small girl up by the collar, and set her down where he had been gesturing before. " Ahem. As I was saying, my partner's right here. She's a little shy, but she's a princess of Derse." That caught the priestess' attention. She looked up from her book and fixed Page with an appraising look. "...Well, so you are. For you, Princess, I shall at least hear you out." After a reaffirming pat on the back by AR, Page managed to stutter out their reason here. " W-we, um... We wanted t-to, I mean, check the symbols associated...with the horrorterrors, I think. Um, because there were some there, probably. And we want...to check if anyone had tried to fake symbols, possibly. To, um, cover up. Something. Kind of." The priestess scowled and thought for a moment. "Well... The idea of someone pretending to be inspired by the Circle is something that sickens me beyond words. I will not show you the grimoire, as I know you would try to stop the Great Cleansing currently going on with the information, Regulator, but for the princess I shall go fetch a complete list of symbols associated with the horrorterrors." The priestess shut the hefty black grimoire with a pronounced THUMP, then picked up the book and disappeared through a doorway into a back room. AR snapped his fingers and exclaimed, "Damn!" " What is it...?" "I was hoping she'd leave that thing behind so I could sneak a look at it." " That...sounds kind of illegal, maybe?" AR held up a finger in a classic teaching gesture. "Page, I am as knowledgeable as they come on all things ILLEGAL, and I assure you there is not a single LAW on THE BOOKS against reading a priestess' grimoire without her permission." " That sounds kind of like you're abusing a loophole, I think..." "Huh?" " N-nothing." ===> "No...no...no..." AR stood before one of the grotesque blood-symbols, flipping through page after page after page of the large book of horrorterror symbols. "No...nope...nadda...not this one... Wait, is tha-? No, nevermind." Page, for her part, was busy continuing to rummage through the crime scene for anything potentially clue-worthy. Already she had collected a few personal notes and effects that, at the very least, told them something about the man Stars Simon. " What if someone directly copied one of the symbols used in another murder, potentially?" "It's possible, but if this avenue doesn't check out then we just gotta go back to Occam's Razor like I said, kid. POLICE WORK isn't like those books and shows where things are always the most complicated possible. Often, the simplest explanation is the one you should go on until you have evidence otherwise. Most likely thing is I just find this symbol in one of the pages of this book--what do you bet it'll be the last one?--and we just have to track ourselves a madman. No...nope...no..." " Oh, ok... Um, what did that priestess woman mean by the 'Great Cleansing', possibly?" "I don't know. I haven't read their damned grimoire, remember? We'd have to ask one of them, but I doubt they'd tell. Sounds bad, though. Just about everything's bad with those lot. Nope...no...not this one either..." " Do you think it has something to do with these killings, perhaps?" "Probably does, given how she talked about it. Sure hope whatever she's hoping for doesn't happen, or our job's going to get a lot tougher. Nope...No... Damn it, see what I mean? Last page. It's on the last pa-..." Page looked up from her current occupation of searching through the deceased's rather meager bookshelf (checking for hidden book passageways despite how cliche the rational part of her knew that was), and found AR, eyes as wide as she'd ever seen them, staring at the final page of this book, then back to the symbol on the wall. " It's not there??" "I must have just missed it..." AR handed off the tome to Page. "Here, you check my work. Let me know if it's in there." Page did as instructed, taking time to get a good look at each symbol in turn and log it away in her photographic memory. Though she took special care not to skip any pages, in the end, it seemed that while the symbol on the wall looked somewhat similar to some of them, none of them fit. " It's not here at all, probably..." AR immediately went into full-blown excited law dog mode, pacing frantically back and forth. "Do you know what this means, Page?! We'll have to check the other murder scenes to see if they fit or don't fit, but if they DO then we've got a potentially huge case on our hands! If it's gang violence then pegging one member for murder could be an in to get at all of them!" He threw an arm over Page's shoulder and, much like he had before, pointed upwards (though this time, instead of stars, it was just the apartment's ceiling. "Partner, I think we're in for a big adventure!" " That's what I'm afraid of, I think..." "Huh?" " N-nothing."
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:21:27 GMT -5
Well, that was time-consuming, but extremely informative! With a load of new files saved to her computer for later reading, Lorelei finally set out to do her FRIENDLEADERY DUTIES and contacted Gita. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] began pestering jeremiadMalacophony [JM] -- {Spoiler}PQ: Excuse me, Gita, do you have some time to spare? JM: Sure. Nothing but time. PQ: Well, I had some things I wished to discuss with you in particular, but I guess the first thing I want to ask is this: PQ: How are you doing? JM: So-so. Getting fledging Page her dreamer-wings was a little dicey, but rewarding. Meeting up with Guardian and Zach's Sis....not so sure. PQ: Oh, Page has woken up on Derse? That is wonderful to hear! JM: Nothing like learning to fly for the first time, eh? PQ: Indeed, though my own experience might be different from a dreamer's considering my magic. PQ: What were Guardian and Zach's sister doing on Derse, though? JM: Checking up on Zach, they said. JM: Well, he said. Unsure about her. Same I suppose. PQ: Because of the strange stars on Derse, I take it? JM: ...yeah, I guess? JM: You know what those are, right? PQ: As far as I know they have something to do with the horrorterrors, according to Zach. Is that correct? JM: Horrorterror. Singular. Those are *eyes*, Lorelei. JM: And it's angry. PQ: Well that is not disturbing in the slightest. PQ: Nope, not at all. PQ: ._. JM: No, indeed. JM: Not. JM: At. JM: All. PQ: Mein Gott... PQ: Always more problems to deal with. I shall see what I can learn of this. Perhaps Guardian would best know--Zach said as much. PQ: Any other pressing issues? JM: If Zach's sister insinuates anything at all regarding myself and Zach, you are not to believe her. PQ: ...Ok? PQ: She was teasing, I take it? I shall take your word for it, then, and resist throwing in some of my own :P JM: I'm not actually interested. JM: He's just irrationally good-looking. PQ: Well, he is rather handsome, yes. PQ: I think Peter is cuter, though. PQ: Uh. PQ: You did not hear me say that! PQ: Read. PQ: Read me type that. JM: That's obviously why I'm floating here, giggling madly into my hands? JM: But I won't tease either. JM: Much. PQ: A tease armistice, then! All quiet on the Western Front. PQ: Ahem. Moving on from my frankly rather embarrassing gaffes... PQ: Do you know if there is a way to have Dahlia be Page's server and for Zach to be Dahlia's? To change the coding so that it is such, I mean. PQ: As much as I hate the idea of speaking of "replacing" my friend, I think it would be most expedient to simply insert Dahlia in John's place on the chain. JM: Oh, that? Pretty easy, actually. JM: You'll need to deploy the Intellibeam Laserstation, and that'll let you read the captcha on the back of a card for a SBURB Disk. JM: Fresh installation should let you make a fresh client/server connection, but it'll sever the old one. PQ: Understood. Are you still on Derse? If so, could you and Zach take care of that when you get a chance, please? PQ: He has been borrowing your laptop to server Dahlia and himself in your absence, if I recall correctly. JM: Yeah, didn't wake up yet. JM: I...yeah, we can probably work together to get that done. JM: As long as the kitties don't freak again. PQ: Yes, I do recall him saying that consorts have been giving him problems. PQ: I assume--consistent with my "the entire world is out to ruin Zach's day" hypothesis--that they have not been giving you any trouble, however? I have certainly seen no issues from my own turtles or from Peter's snakes. JM: Now that you mention it...no. Total sweetheart until I brought it into the room with him. JM: Weirdest thing. PQ: As I suspected. I am SURE there is some sort of reason behind this, but poor Zach always seems to have the most terrible luck, does he not? PQ: Speaking of which, his creepers are apparently still multiplying and will gain enough population to detonate his entire world, according to the gentleman himself. PQ: Any ideas on how to handle that? JM: Kill a spider or two for the silk thread to make a bow, and then smash up all your spare gravel and grind at a chicken farm for flint and feathers. Stand on top of your house and snipe them with your bow and arrows. JM: More sustainably, build drowning or lava-traps and lure them in. PQ: Har har har har :P PQ: Then again, given the creepers and healing bread, it is somewhat like we are in the world of Minecraft, is it not? PQ: Though unless you know of a great place to get a large supply of lava or water at Zach's apartment, we might need to brainstorm other options. PQ: Personally, I have not the foggiest clue at the moment. JM: Still. JM: Between alchemy, the client application, and a little ingenuity, it seems like it should be possible to build something, even if only close to the house for now. PQ: I shall leave it to your inestimable ingenuity, then! PQ: Let me know if I can in any way help. PQ: By the way, is Page still on Derse? I was going to contact her next but if she is away from the computer it would perhaps be best to wait until later. JM: Far as I know. Thought I heard her shouting, even. JM: That's not typical, is it? PQ: Oh, dear, did she sound in danger? JM: ...Furious, actually. PQ: ... PQ: Well. PQ: That is indeed not typical, then. PQ: Far better than her potentially being in danger, I suppose! JM: Um. Right. PQ: I shall have to remember to ask her what made such a sweet-mannered and shy girl lose her temper in such a way. PQ: Anyway, I do believe I have exhausted the matters I wished to speak to you about. PQ: Or "official matters" so to speak, at least. PQ: I am going to return to those caverns I said I would never return to once we are finished speaking. JM: Really? JM: With... JM: With Adelle and all that? PQ: Yes. PQ: I am honestly rather terrified at the thought, but... PQ: How can I be a leader of my consorts if I cannot overcome my own fears? And what if this horrifying darkness poses some threat to them? PQ: Never retreat. Never surrender. Never look back. JM: Pumping yourself up to get in there, eh? JM: Storm those dungeon gates. PQ: Hahaha! Something of the sort, yes indeed. PQ: I do not believe I told you, but there are actually angels on my land. I sought them out to learn more of my element and its powers from them. They were who sent me to the caverns. PQ: A test of some sort, I have little doubt. PQ: But training with them may be important to my quest, so that is all the more reason to swallow my fear and try again and again and again until I make it through. JM: Angels? JM: Guardian angels? JM: Wow. That... JM: I guess it'll be worth it, to become that kind of person. PQ: I was as surprised as you are! PQ: I have yet to find out if they have any connection to a sort of religion, but they appear to be constant in Hope player's lands. PQ: Khirun, one of the trolls and a Scout of Hope, first informed me of their existence. PQ: They did mention something about a "transformation process" and becoming a creator or a destroyer of some sort, and the caverns being the first step. No doubt some sort of story-related terminology I shall discover the meaning to later. JM: You're...remarkably blase about something that could be so JM: Augh, what's the word I want? JM: Ominous? JM: No, that's not it. PQ: ...To be honest, I have not given it any thought before now. PQ: At the time I was simply too scared of the angels--it is somewhat difficult to put into words how sheerly imposing they are--and all that happened afterward drove it out of my mind. PQ: But you are right. It is certainly something that... PQ: Well, it denotes a destiny of sorts, for good or ill. PQ: They mentioned that it had already "irrevocably altered my consciousness" but that I was still only human... JM: Brrr. JM: But it isn't a thing you can turn away from, is it? PQ: I do not know... I suppose the only thing for it is to complete whatever I must in the caverns and return to the angels for more answers. PQ: I feel at once somewhat excited and curious about this as well as nervous and frightened. PQ: I wonder if it has something to do with Khirun mentioning my viewport "blacking out" at some point in the future? JM: How am I supposed to know, Lore? JM: And if you 'black out' in the future, whatever that means, why's she so excited about you getting in that cave in the first place? PQ: It was a rhetorical question, apologies. Apparently she just can't see me anymore at a certain point, which does not happen for others. It literally goes black. PQ: As for why she wishes me to go back to the caverns, it is really part that she believes it my destiny and part that she is just curious. JM: Hm. She's not one of the trolls I've really spoken with. JM: I guess that isn't too sketchy. PQ: She is actually quite nice! I would say she has already become my friend. PQ: Though I know not if she feels the same way yet. JM: Hmn. Some of them are a little touchy on 'friendship,' but it's possible. PQ: As for all of these future concerns, well, I suppose I simply must take them as they come and as I gain more information on them. I am quite certain I shall do well in the end! JM: Ha, that'll do it, Lore. JM: Go get 'em, tiger. PQ: Hehe, I certainly shall! PQ: Actually, I think I shall go head for the caverns now, unless you believe we have more to discuss, my friend. JM: Good luck with that, Lorelei. Stay safe. PQ: I will. PQ: Farewell, Gita! JM: Let me know how it goes. Take care. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] ceased pestering jeremiadMalacophony [JM] -- All right, enough putting it off. It is time to go! Lorelei leapt up from her seat and, with a goodbye to her servants, once again left the warm confines of her mansion for the snowy chill of her land. The aforementioned map and compass proved quite useful for pinpointing her to exactly where in the godswood the caverns and the angels' sanctuary were. Destination set, Lorelei took off into the sky.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:21:46 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) Three... Four... Five... At least half a dozen of them. Peter groaned. "Oh this was a bad idea." The enormous monsters surrounding him seemed to agree. One by one they readied what passed for weapons among them. Claws, magic, and what looked like stunguns mounted on lizard tails were aimed at the Seer as the giclopes began to close in. Peter readied his generic scythe, a choice of weapon he was beginning to regret, and sized up the nearest of the brutes. It looked like it didn't have much more than the tail to defend itself with, having gotten unlucky with the selection of random powers it had been given. Peter clutched his weapon and prepared to spring at the monster, but a flash of red distracted him long enough for the monster to serve him a heaping torsofull of weird lizard posterior. As he skidded across the floor, Peter tried to dig the blade of his scythe into the tank's hull to slow himself before he flew over the edge. He succeeded, but just barely, and looked over to see straight down the barrel of an enormous artillery cannon only meters away. "...woah." "Don't... just sit there, you... dumbass! *cough*" "Who-" Peter spun toward the source of the distressingly familiar, pained voice and found himself looking into his own eyes. Or eye. This other Peter didn't look like he was doing so well, with swollen skin concealing shattered bones and blood dripping from torn skin where he'd apparently been dragged across the floor face-down. If he had to guess, Peter would say he looked like he'd been hit by a car. Or crushed like a bug by an angry giclops. "Oh, fuck!" "Just-" "When are you from? What happened?!" Peter II groaned, but the Alpha seer couldn't tell if it was from pain or exasperation. Actually, it was probably both. "Crushed. Just- Look. Get out before... before it happens agai-*HACK*" The injured Peter's sentence was cut off by a fit of violent coughing. He didn't have much time, and both of them knew that. The uninjured Peter got up and sprinted towards him, only to be toppled by a violent tremor as the tank accelerated it's climb up the side of his building. He landed with a grunt by his battered self as the underlings looked on in confusion. SHOW DIALOGLOG ((AT1=Alpha Peter, AT2=Injured Peter)) AT1: Before what happens?!??!??! AT2: What does it look *urk* like? AT1: I get stepped on? AT2: I got stepped on, you don't have t-*HACK cough* AT1: How... AT2: I don't know, none of this even happened before I went back! AT2: I think I *wheeze* split the timeline. AT1: That doesn't sound good AT2: You think? AT1: The timeline thing i mean. AT1: But uh yeah, the being crushed thing too AT2: I KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT. AT2: I'M YO*hack* AAaaagh AT1: Not for long D: AT1: What happens to you? AT2: I don't know. AT2: I guess I'm done. AT2: How about AT2: I keep these fuckers busy and you get rid of the tank. AT1: ... AT1: OkaWOAH At some point during that conversation the minions decided they were tired of waiting and sent a volley of science lasers towards the duo. Peter 1 reacted quickly and scooped up Peter 2, diving out of the way before the white magic left a glob of molten tank hull where they had been seconds before. " Asshole!" "Watch it!!" SHOW DIALOGLOG AT1: Ready? AT2: Ready to die? AT1: ... AT2: I guess. AT2: This is horseshit. AT1: Yeah no kidding. AT2: Get ready...
"Wait, where do I-" "GO!"
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:26:03 GMT -5
Lorelei stood before the simple arching, earthen entrance and cursed her past self for a fool. "Hardly very impressive" she had thought of it back then. Somewhat understandable, really, given the plain and simply look of the entrance. It was by no means a reaction that would be uncommon to any who chanced across this place. Still, Lorelei--rationally or not--cursed her past self, for not knowing the true meaning of the word "fear". Fear. Just looking at that entrance gripped Lorelei's heart with it. She shook like a leaf where she stood, unable to either advance or abscond. Come on, come on, come ON! Get a grip! Her first instinct was to try and banish the fear entirely, but she remembered a conversation that had been but hours ago: PQ: Well, I would like some more context, but...hmm... The role of fear? PQ: Heh, I am reminded of a bit of Earth fiction where the main character would often repeat to himself, "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer." PQ: I do not think that is healthy, though. Fear does have its purpose. It is a vital survival mechanism. PQ: And I do not think it is bravery if you are utterly without fear--more like suicidality. Bravery is not the lack of fear, but conquering fear when it is necessary. PQ: Which I suppose is what it comes down to: fear can be useful, but one must also overcome it when it is necessary. PQ: That was a bit rambly, but does it answer your question?AA: Well-reasoned words, *Miss* Lorelei Von Philosopher Queen. You'll do well to *remember* them!A deep breath. I am scared... I am terrified and I know it. It is normal. Far stranger that I not be scared of what I am about to do. Another deep breath. The shivering didn't stop, but her feelings seemed to shift, somewhat: the fear was not quite so paralyzing, the drive to continue forward stronger. I shall make through this. My fear shall not stop me, neither what awaits me in those caverns... I...I can do this. I will do this. I shall do this. I MUST do this! I have to... Another deep breath. All the mental preparation in the world would be for naught if she did not act to overcome this paralyzing fear. So, she started small, intending to work up towards making her way into the caverns. First, she took out her newly-minted portal gun and shot a large tree nearby. Should she find herself in grave danger and be forced to run for the sake of her own health while in the caverns, it would be a simple matter of creating another portal for it to connect to and she would be free. Some part of her wondered if she wasn't simply just giving herself an excuse to cut and run while in the caverns, but the rest reminded her of the lessons learned the day prior, when storming that factory with Peter: far more dangerous was no escape plan at all. A dead Scion would be useless, and even if she ran she could just try again afterward. Next, she took her drill from her specibus and took a few steps towards the cavern entrance before the paralyzing fear overtook her again. After a few moments cursing her own cowardice, Lorelei reminded herself that she had, after all, promised to contact Khirun at this point. The outside influence would certainly help give her the courage to take the plunge, and Khirun had wanted to know what was in these caverns anyway... So, win-win...right? Right. -- philosopherQueen [PQ] began pestering asterismAscendant [AA] -- PQ: Khirun, do you have...well, quite a few moments, I suppose? PQ: I am here at the caverns and am about to enter. PQ: I figure that you wish to see what is inside and the moral support would be beneficial for my own purposes as well, yes?AA: Aye, I'm here.PQ: Okay... PQ: Okay, thank you. I... PQ: I am going to do this, I shall not run. PQ: ...Tell me, do I look as terrified as I feel?AA: Weell, ah *dinnae*, lass. AA: D'ye feel skeert like realizin' ye’ve jus’ *stolen eggs* fer breakfast from a *frenzied brooddrake*, an’ there’s a rampaging *musclebeast pack* outside th’cavern? AA: Or skeert like ye’re all alone in th’world, an’ his nibs the Imperial Drone is pounding on your hiveblock door?PQ: Uh.Lorelei couldn’t help herself: she started laughing. Partly due to the sheer absurdity of it and partly simply as a coping mechanism for all the nervousness and fear she felt, she laughed until her sides hurt and then laughed some more. All of it, of course, was caught by the speech-to-text program on her glasses. PQ: PFFFFFFTHEEHEEHEEHEEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! PQ: AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA! PQ: AHEHEHE...HEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! PQ: Ahahaha... Aaahhh, I needed that. Thank you.AA: *Krr!* Be welcome, Lorelei. AA: *Glad* to *shine a little light* o’humor inna dark place. PQ: Well, I suppose the answer to your question would be “whichever is the most frightening” but... I am ready. PQ: Heh, I recall the first conversation we had (from my point of view). The meaning of fear and all that... My fear does not make me a coward, but I simply must conquer it...Lorelei took one more deep breath for good measure then took out her drill from her specibus. Holding it in front of her like one might hold a lantern to light the way, she closed her eyes and concentrated. Light shone dimly at first from the weapon, but quickly grew bright enough to light the way through even the darkest of trails--or so Lorelei hoped. PQ: ...Ok. I am ready. Here... PQ: Here goes nothing. PQ: Or rather, here goes everything.> Scion: DescendThe bright light dimmed the very instant she entered the darkness, and Lorelei had to put all her focus into keeping it from going out entirely. The whispers returned--quieter than before, yet still just as omnipresent, like the Scion herself was thinking them. Whether she imagined it or not, Lorelei could not say, but the darkness seemed almost... sentient. It rebuked when she first entered from the light that lit her way, then seemed to surround and attempt to subvert it, like an army laying a fortress to siege. Thump, thump, thump, thump. The same stairs, the same feeling of her knees shaking so terribly she feared she might fall down the remainder of them, yet still just as real and as primal as before. In barely-contained panic she reached out to Khirun again, to have something from without to hold onto as she descended. PQ: Kh-Khirun... a-are you still...still there?AA: *Course I am!* AA: *Krrr* AA: Where else would I be for a friend, Lore?PQ: Okay... Okay, good. PQ: It’s...good to hear you say that. PQ: God, I’m so sorry...AA: Nothin’ to apologize to *me* for!PQ: NononoNO!Lorelei came to a stop and shook her head quickly, as if to shake loose the intruding thoughts. The light coming from her drill waned and flickered like a fire that had burned away all but the last remnant of its fuel. PQ: Fuck. PQ: Don’t PQ: Don’t LISTEN to me when I talk like that, that’s PQ: That’s the darkness, not me. Damn it! It... It...AA: It gets in yer *head!* AA: Aye, aye. I know it too.PQ: R-right, yes... Yeah, I remember that. I remember. I remember. PQ: Just...have to keep going, have to focus on not letting this light go out.One step forward, then another. Forward. Never retreat, never surrender, never look back. She just had to ignore the stray thoughts that entered her mind and the whispers. Ignore it, focus on the light in front of her. The light must stay lit, it cannot go out. If it goes out, all is lost. One step forward, then another. Forward. Never retreat, never surrender, never look back. The light emanating from her drill waxed once again, pushing back the darkness by inches, yet slowly and surely. The whispers only grew louder, the stray thoughts only more insistent. PQ: I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY FORGIVE ME OH GOD I DON’T WANT TO DIE I DONT’ WANT TO DIE I DONT’ WANT TO DIE I DON’T WANT TO DIE I DON’T WANT TO DIE PQ: Merde. PQ: Sorry. PQ: No, fuck, no I’m not!But she kept pressing forward. Never retreat, never surrender, never look back. AA: Lore? AA: No, nevermind it. AA: Don’ worry about me.The light flickered again and some of the progress it had made was reversed betwixt the span of a second. PQ: Wh-what? What? What’s wrong? PQ: You’re just going to worry me more being vague about it!AA: No, no, no. AA: You gotta get through this cave, magic girl. AA: D-dinnae fash yesel’ on my account fer some chills or funny thoughts.PQ: O...Ok. Ok, if you’re sure. Just... ok.And only then did she finally reach the end of the beginning. Her descent finished, Lorelei stood in front of the first branch in the labyrinthine path of these caverns. She was in not-Adelle’s territory now. A wave of fear and disgust crawled on her skin, the light further dimmed to about the brightness of a lit match. GOD FORGIVE ME I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY IT HURTS IT HURTS IT-NO! God damn it, NO!... No no no no NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!PQ: Kh-Khirun, I PQ: Are you PQ: Are you still there? PQ: You’re still there, right?AA: *Still here* AA: Oh, ancestors...I’m hearing it too. AA: Nae goin’ anywhere, yet..PQ: Wh-what? The whispers? PQ: Oh God, you’re hearing the whispers? PQ: How? I don’t... PQ: Look, go ahead and leave i-if you want to, ok?AA: Do ye *wan’* me tae go? AA: Wi’ *light* like tha’ tae hold back darkness, y’doan need a troll like me around, right?PQ: I...No.[/color] A newfound resolve filled her whole being and steeled her will. Her light grew from but embers to a bright bonfire that almost filled the whole of Khirun's viewport of her. Lorelei Von Hayek was never stronger than when others needed her. PQ: No! I...do not want you to go at all. You are the only reason this light has not yet been snuffed out... PQ: If I tell you that it is all right to go if you want to, it is only because I am worried about you... I had no idea that the darkness could affect you simply through a viewport... PQ: But your presence helps. A lot. More than I can truly say.AA: *Krrrr.* Then I’d...I’d better stay, eh? AA: Faugh, tha’s *insidious* stuff ye got there, Lore. I’d ‘ave thought ‘twas more like m’own Nothing. AA: Th’*light* helps, also. AA: *Keep goin’.* *Onwards an’ Inwards*, an’ all tha’.PQ: It helps me, too... All the more reason to keep it going, now, if you are aided as well. PQ: You know, I do not know why I am even here. I was simply told to come to these caverns, but I do not know my objective... PQ: Perhaps I must head to the source of this? PQ: I went right next time, but if this tentative theory of mine is correct, perhaps I should travel the path of most resistance?Lorelei pointed her drill first towards the path to the right, where she had gone the first time she had been here, trying to gauge the difficulty keeping the light shining. Then to the left, where the current of the darkness seemed slightly harder to go against. With another deep breath, she continued. AA: Intae th’maelstrom. *Excelsior!*PQ: Wait...trolls have the word “excelsior”?AA: *Kill It Harder!*, ya usually see it translated. AA: Some piece of Old Alternian they keep around for *namin’ things,* *Krrrr*PQ: Hehehehe. It is an old Latin phrase in my own species--Latin being the now-dead language of an ancient empire--meaning “higher” or “ever upward”. PQ: Really popularized in an old poem from about two hundred years ago. PQ: The shades of night were falling fast, PQ: As through the Alpine village passed PQ: A youth, who bore, ‘mid snow and ice, PQ: A banner with a strange device, PQ: Excelsior! PQ: And so on.Another left, then a right. The whispers always remained, but the simple light of a friend's conversation and presence even in the darkest abyss had chased away the gnawing fear and worry. Stronger the light glowed, pushing back the darkness ever further. AA: Y’know. *Krr.* Isnae yon Land one of blasted awful snow, like the poetry? AA: *Feh* Overthinkin’ it. Wha’ wassit th’ *Angels* expected o’ ye from delving intae this place, agin?PQ: I do not know, to be honest! PQ: It is some sort of test. To determine if I am a “creator” or a “destroyer”. PQ: But beyond that, as to my objective, I remain in the dark. PQ: (Pun entirely intended)AA: *Krrr* AA: Create or destroy *what*, tho’? AA: *Hope?* AA: *Light?*PQ: That is the million dollar question, indeed. PQ: My guess would be “hope” but I suppose I shall have to wait for a definitive answer to th-...Lorelei froze suddenly, eyes wide as saucers. An all too familiar smell of urine and feces, clinging to the pervading stench of death, sent waves of fear and despair down her spine, rolling back her light's progress to its brightness when she had first entered. She turned this way and that in frantic and sudden motions, peering into the darkness for the one who wore her best friend’s face. PQ: Oh God, she’s nearby!...AA: *Who* is *She?* AA: Wha’s th’Shade tha’ haunts ye, Lore?PQ: It... PQ: It has her face... PQ: It looks just like her, just like she did when I PQ: when I found PQ: found her body. PQ: Swinging from the noose PQ: A-Adelle... Adelle. PQ: She was my best friend.Slowly she crept down the claustrophobic hallways like a stalked animal. Darkness pressed in, whispers grew louder, and fear tightened its death grip around her heart. AA: But *it’s nae her now!*PQ: I know, but!... PQ: It was all my fault... PQ: All my fault! PQ: I was her only friend and she was horribly abused by her parents, and...and... PQ: I should’ve noticed, should have done something, should’ve stopped her! PQ: I sh-should...Tears welled up in the Scion's eyes. Such was her despair that her pace slowed to but a crawl. PQ: God, I’m such a failure... PQ: What kind of Scion of Hope could I be if I couldn’t keep hope alive in one friend? Keep her from giving up and killing herself like that...AA: *Look,* Lorelei. AA: I cannae ken th’*depth* o’ what tha’ friend meant to ye, AA: but this Scout *kens* a few other things: AA: *Tears* an’ *Mem’ries,* regrets, they all got somefin’ in common! AA: Nae a single pinch o’ worth ‘less they *move you forward!* AA: Adele meant a lot tae ye? AA: Bring *Hope* in her mem’ry!PQ: I...You are right. I know you are right. PQ: Thank you. Ok, I-Just as Lorelei was beginning to recover and the light began to take back what had been lost, the one that wore Adelle’s face formed from the shadows themselves behind her prey. Before the Scion could even realize what was happening, she had invaded even Lorelei’s light and clamped a dead, rotting hand firmly over her mouth, stifling a half-formed cry of terror. Eyes wide, Lorelei dropped her drill and the light vanished entirely. Only whispers remained, emboldened by the darkness’ seeming victory over the Scion of Hope. ===> “ BULLSHIT!” A universe and a half away, a wild-haired troll shakes the screen of her portable computing device, growling imprecations and threats in an accent thickened by indignation. “ *Oi!*, leggera her, ye mouldy black bastard!” Unbeknownst, a distinctive crackle of white light rimmed the scowling troll as she bared fangs at the blackened viewport. ===> The world seemed to erupt in a flash of light, cutting short the whispers and darkness that had been the cry of victory for a great evil all too soon celebrating. In the middle of it all, not even aided by her drill (which still lay at her feet) was one thoroughly livid Scion of Hope. She was sick of it, sick of it all. Sick of the whispers and the darkness and the fear, and her temper had finally reached its long-suffering breaking point. Fortunately, some rational vestige of her realized just how potent this rage was and, rather than let it burn itself out without direction, aimed it towards a singular purpose: destroy the darkness. Lorelei stooped and seized her drill, only further empowering the light, pushing the one that wore Adelle’s face further and further away from her. PQ: YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THAT, DO YOU HEAR ME?! PQ: YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN FEAR! PQ: STEP OUT OF THE SHADOWS AND FIGHT ME!Lorelei yelled to the phantom, now all the more incensed that it took the form of Adelle rather than fearful or depressed. Yet despite Lorelei’s challenges, not-Adelle could not even look at Lorelei, much less accept the challenge. Lorelei smiled that trademark supremely confident, bright smile of hers. PQ: That is what I thought! Naught but fear and shadows, neither of which can stand being dragged into the light for all to see!The light grew and grew, until it had filled, from Khirun’s point of view, the whole of her viewport. The shade that had been plaguing her disappeared entirely from view, back into the darkness from which it came. PQ: Apologies for the scare there, Khirun... PQ: I hope I did not worry you overmuch.AA:*Phwoar!* Nae anna more, Lore! Nae anna more. AA: Was more piss an’ fury tha’ fear, as I’m sure ye ken.PQ: Then that makes two of us! PQ: I am positively sick of this place!AA: There’s a simple solution tae *knotted,* *twisty* passages, if ye ken...PQ: Exactly what I was just thinking! PQ: I do believe a drastic shortcut is in order!True to her words, Lorelei took a moment to sense the direction that the darkness’ (more meager than before--or was it simply getting easier for Lorelei?) resistance was strongest. Which, in fact, turned out to be straight through a nearby wall. Without a second of hesitation, Lorelei pointed her drill at the wall and fired an enormous blast of white magic--easily greater in size than a grown man--through the whole remaining labyrinth. AA: That’s th’troll way tae solve an ‘edge maze. *Krr!*Yet even magic of that great power disappeared entirely when it collided the object at the very center of the caverns. Lorelei had to get much closer before she could see the cause. It was a simple little thing. A small, floating black gem on top of a knee-nigh earthen pedestal. Yet even Lorelei’s powerful light waned somewhat the closer she got to it. AA: *Brrr* Feel th’cold frae here.PQ: This must be the source. It took that entire blast...Lorelei shot a few more testing, small bolts of light at the gem, each one disappearing much like the others. Yet somehow, intuitively, she could sense that it was something of a strain on the gem. PQ: Hmm... I cannot think of any particularly clever ways I could destroy this thing, can you? PQ: I mean, if I somehow took it outside, then it would simply spread its vile contagion elsewhere.Just to test the possibility, Lorelei tried to grab the gem and pull it away from the pedestal, to no avail no matter how much she grunted and strained. An attempt to captchalogue it similarly failed. AA: Jes’ oop an’ walkin’ away wi’ a grim magic rock like tha’ doesnae work, eh?PQ: Indeed. PQ: I can, however, somehow tell that destroying my light is putting a strain on this thing. PQ: Then the trick here is to hit it with more light than it could possibly hope to drain away!Lorelei held her drill in both hands and pointed downward at the core. A deep breath, and then she began to put all of her strength and will into a single beam of white light aimed straight at the core. PQ: My power is limitless, just as long as my heart does not give in!The core resisted. Every inch of magic thrown at it was destroyed and absorbed before it could even reach it, so Lorelei summoned more, and more, and more, with greater and greater power. The light swirled and shifted all around her, brightening almost the whole caverns. Somewhere along the way she started yelling, in defiance and fury and determination. Somewhere along the way, something about her changed--just a little bit. Spirograph shining in golden irises, Lorelei pushed again and again and again and again, until finally...it simply snapped. The world exploded in light, blinding all view both from the viewport of Khirun Kentar, and the view from the console of a Windswept Questant in a dead, deserted world. > I remember this...In a planet of purest gold, a Queen gazed in wonder and awe along with her subjects into the sky, where a pillar of light far in the distance traveled towards the Furthest Ring like a shooting star. > This is where it truly begins, yes?In a land of snow and flame, a young girl roused from her slumber and looked out of the window of a simple thatch-roofed crocodile house. Even through the land’s aurora skies, she could see a beam of light travelling through the sky towards the Furthest Ring. > Where you truly begin to become a hero.On the moon of a planet of darkest purple, a priestess of the horrorterrors traced long, slender fingers across the pages of a grimoire with ill-disguised glee. There was a simplified picture in its pages of a woman with black hair and glasses (and no other shown distinguishing features aside) wreathed in white light, pointing upwards and sending a powerful beam of light towards a dark, tentacled mass above her. Below were written these words: And so the one called “Savior” of the Waking World smote the eye of our lord. Filled with righteous fury, He decreed:
Twice you have smote me and in so doing unleashed the Devourer upon all! Willingly, as well, have you harbored the Vile One in your midst! For your sins I decree a Great Cleansing upon all, and the land of creation shall return to dreaming death.
And the Noble Circle heard His words, and saw that they were good. > I shall leave you to your rightly-earned celebrations, then, Lorelei.Winter wind howled past Lorelei, sending a chill racing down her spine. All around her not a single trace of what had been remained, for the great blast of white magic had torn away the ground that covered the underground caverns, and banished all of the darkness within. For the first time, snow began to fall softly onto the ground below her feet. > Or should I say, “Savior of the Waking World”? I do hope so...Stumbling and light-headed, Lorelei nevertheless raised a triumphant fist. PQ: WE DID IT!
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:26:54 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===>
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:31:31 GMT -5
AA: Nae, Lore. *Ye* did it. Amidst the lightly-falling snow and the ruins of a cavern that once held a great evil, Lorelei Von Hayek, unconquered Scion of Hope, fell straight onto her butt. The whole ordeal had taken a great deal out of her, after all. Her eyelids drooped and exhaustion consumed her in adrenaline’s wake. Though fearful of what surrendering to the exhaustion might bring, she nevertheless leaned against the lower half of what had once been one of the cavern’s many twisting, turning labyrinth walls. She just had to stay awake... Fortunately, there was a conversation here to continue, something to distract from her own exhaustion. PQ: Nonsense! PQ: I would have given up hope and run away more than once in there without you, Khirun. PQ: Do not underestimate your role here. I could not have done this without you. PQ: Thank you.AA: Crivvens, Lor, ye’re turnin’ me yellow here... AA: *Krrr* Nae much used tae *teamwork*, ‘cepting wi’ me lusus. AA: Gettin’ better’n’better, I s’pose. PQ: Indeed! PQ: I would say that this whole ordeal was quite a good object lesson in teamwork, actually. PQ: You supported me when I was close to giving up, and I in turn did the same for you. PQ: That is part of what teamwork is all about!AA: ‘Tis..krrr..*useful,* I’ll give. AA: Wouldnae get tae far in this quest wi’out it. Come to think of it, now was as good as time as any to do something Lorelei had wanted to do: learn more about Khirun. Besides simply being a normal part of a growing friendship, Lorelei had always had an abounding curiosity about other people, their lives, their beliefs, etc. Her friends-- God rest their souls.--had sometimes teased her for just what she was about to show: a tendency to be somewhat blunt when asking about it. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}PQ: Oh, by the by. PQ: You know, this whole time our conversations have largely seemed to revolve around me and what I happen to be doing at the time, save for that bit with your own Nothing. PQ: I must say that I am quite curious about you. PQ: Would you mind indulging said curiosity? AA: *Krr* Eh. Ach. What is there tae ken more abou’? AA: Ye know tha’ sketches an’ basics. PQ: Indeed, but I do wish to know more about you, if that is all right. PQ: What was your life like back on your home world? AA: I was hiveless, an’ *proud* o’ it. PQ: You mentioned that you were attacked in your hive when you were young, correct? PQ: And that was when you first killed. PQ: Did you hiveless nature have something to do with that? AA: Aye an’ nay. AA: I mean, aye, tha’s what did *thrash* up my shoddy wiggler’s excuse fer a hive. AA: But a wee--or *not-so-wee* hole in m’ tiled and slanted external solar radiation shields isnae enou’ for abandonin’ one’s hive, ye ken? PQ: Sorry, the slanted what-now? AA: Sorreh. I forgot ye’re high-up agin. Th’*roof.* PQ: Ohhh. Why the longer, more complicated name, though? If you have the term “roof”, why not use that? AA: ‘Cos it’s posh highblood architectural-speak, an’ I’m common as mud an’ cholerbears? PQ: Oh, I see. The longer word is slang amongst the lower classes, I take it? PQ: Fascinating that you consider what in English is a normal term to be posh and sophisticated... PQ: But I am sorry, I am interrupting your tale. By all means, do continue. AA: Little *more* snooty no tae use th’word tha’ plainly describes a thing an’ it’s purpose, isnae? Haulin’ on. AA: It was verra isolated, up th’ highlands. Ye wait a long time fer *anythin’*. Tha’s good, ‘cos no need to be scared o’ th’neighbors. Tha’s bad, ‘cos ye’ve got monstrous beasts frae neighbor instead. AA: An’ *they’ll* mug th’postal droid instead, an’ leave yon new few perigee’s o’ stipend supply strewn across th’wastelands. PQ: That sounds... PQ: Well, considerably less peaceful than even many poor humans had to deal with... PQ: Neighbors were threats, not...well, if not allies and friends, then at least not someone you had to worry about being harmed by? AA: Khirun Kentar, three sweeps, wouldnae ha’ been th’furst nae th’last wiggler tae be raided by someone bigger or more dangerous or more desp’rate. AA: After th’first *mess*, Ma Faol scooped me by th’ scruff o’ th’shirt an’ out we went intae th’hills. Found a ravine her wild an’ brown kin slept in. AA: *Krrrrr* Slimeless. An’ after the fight’? AA: *Worst* daymares of my life. AA: ‘Twas canny of Ma, though. PQ: Sorry again, but a couple of questions. PQ: “Faol”. Is that the name of your lusus or her species? PQ: And what do you mean by “slimeless”? AA: Lusus *aren’t* a species. They’re a...*krr*, I dinnae ken th’ way o’ it. Nae have th’science. AA: Somethin’ happens to a beast an’ it gets born funny or *changes* as it grows an’ it goes and finds th’ right grub in th’Trial Caverns. Now it’s a lusus. AA: Ma was a big hairy maned thing wif a long snout an’ pointed ears. Could run all night. AA: Her darker-haired kin hunted in pairs. Maned Howlers. PQ: Certainly not a species that we humans have. Or rather, had. We did have wolves, though, which also had long snouts and pointy ears. AA: Close enough. AA: So Ma was canny right tae hie me away from th’hive, e’en withou’ a pause tae scoop up some sopor slime in a sack. Without any sedation tae absorb thru th’skin, trolls get bad, *bad* dreams. AA: *Several days o’ the **shittiest** sleep o’ my wigglerhood aside,* ‘twere worth Ma’s efforts tae keep me from headin’ hive, in th’ end. PQ: I see... I do wonder if that might have something to do with the Hobbesian war of all against all that seemed to be raging on your planet, but that is just an idle thought. Please, continue. AA: Tha’ week was when I really started to come into my own, as a psychic. AA: Not much of a talent--too much green in my blood. AA: But learnin’I couldnae just talk ta Faol, but the other Howlers? Tae commune any beast in eyeshot? Changed everythin’. PQ: Wow... PQ: Felett did mention psychic powers when I spoke with him, but I was not aware it could get more specialized than that. PQ: Hehe, I am reminded of numerous fictional superheroes in our culture that possessed some ability to speak with animals and have them do what the speaker willed. Is it the same with you? >Lorelei: Resist the urge to imagine Khirun as Aquama-nevermind, it's too late. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}AA: Ach, there’s fairy stories and legends about powerful psychics, usually sympathetic rebels, summoning the beasts of the while to aid the oppressed. AA: I gen’rally have to win the argument rather than just curbstomp their will, though. PQ: I see. Quite fascinating indeed, then. PQ: I am actually somewhat jealous, I must admit! AA: An’ I’m jealous tha’ ye get tae fly aroun’ an’ learn magic. AA: So we’re even, neh? PQ: Heehee. I suppose so! PQ: Though it shall remain to be seen if you possess the same potential that I do. PQ: Anyway, I believe I have interrupted your tale long enough. Please, continue. AA: Yeh dinnae need th’details of how Ma an’ I established our place wi’ th’local pack. AA: Or how we set ourselves upon th’band o’ squatters what tried tae occupy m’hive, *howlin’* an’ burning brands carried high, drivin’ them out o’ my lawnring an’ intae the ravine maze they hunted in. Faol an’ I retook home, an’ th’ howlers ‘thanked’ us for th’ good hunting. AA: Wasnae as afright tae leave home after all tha’. PQ: I cannot help but feel sorry for those squatters...but I suppose that was simply the way things were where you lived, yes? PQ: I am very thankful for my own peaceful upbringing, now more than ever. AA: Ah dinnae begrudge it tae ye, Lor’. AA: So hiveless. AA: It were a gradual thing. Faring out farther an’ farther from th’hive, huntin’ frae supply drops tha’ went astray tae re-fortify me hive. Learning tae carry sopor inna sack or portable recoon in th’ ‘dex an’ shelter out of the sun. Always, always, working tae ken the ways o’ the local beasts, makin’ their secrets my own wisdom. AA: When Dark Season came, I planned a long overland journey across tha’ subcontinent tae visit anuther troll. AA: An’ I didnae go back much a’ all after tha’. PQ: It certainly sounds like an interesting life. You must have seen a great deal wandering about. PQ: Hehe, my own life up to this point is much less interesting. AA: We cannae *all* be monster-hunters. AA: Tell me. What are ye proud of in your former life? PQ: Wait, you hunted monsters too? AA: Just a *wee bit*. AA: Nae so foolhardy as tae do it for fun, ye ken. AA: But when ye knew ‘em so well, what seemed like a big problem worth a great big sack o’ caegars an’ beetles tae some *other* troll, looked like easy money an’ bragging right tae *me*. PQ: I see! PQ: Well, to answer your question... ‘tis somewhat difficult. PQ: I suppose it would either be being able to live up to the standards of a lady set for me, or getting into and becoming fairly knowledgeable about (political) philosophy and economics, particularly given how few of my peers in my age group grasp or even care about such topics. AA: *Standards of a lady?* AA: What’s expected o’ human bluebloods? Yer aspiration, ‘pon coming of age an’ leaving your hive, what was it? Here was a question Lorelei knew the answer to by heart, by this point. It had been drilled into her head over and over and over again growing up. Funny, though, that the West had the term "blueblood" for nobility as well, though for a somewhat different reason involving Spanish reconquista. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}PQ: A lady must be kind, courteous, ever polite, never raising her voice or speaking in anger. She must be a good hostess, have perfect manners, know all the standards of decorum, carry herself with poise and grace. PQ: Etc., etc., and so on. All lessons taught to me from a very young age. I even had to do the old cliche (in human cultures, at least--I know not if it is the same with you) of learning to walk while balancing books upon my head, to help my posture and grace. AA: Those are...some verra diff’rent highblood standards. *Krr.* PQ: Indeed. Though I would take a guess that nobles in an earlier part of our time had similar standards as to your own, being often warlords. Yet even then, such standards were for males. The standards for a lady have almost always been similar to what I described. PQ: For most of human history, the females were subservient to males. Even now, ‘tis males who would do most of the fighting in armies and such. It does not seem like it was that way for you trolls. AA: Nay, ‘twern’t. AA: When’s th’gain for all that nonsense? An army tha’ willnae use it’s *best* she-generals will be routed. PQ: Well, it is...hmm... PQ: Patriarchy was a nigh culturally universal trait amongst humanity, you see. PQ: I read a bit about this, and the best theory I have come across has to do with reproductive factors. Women bear the children, you see. PQ: So, evolutionarily, keeping women safe was much more important than keeping men safe for the continued existence of a tribe or culture. If a group lost most of its men, it could reasonably bounce back in terms of population growth. If it lost most of its women, it was a far tougher question. PQ: The men ended up being the soldiers, largely, because only they, in an evolutionary sense, were “expendable” enough for it. It would be like...bringing the mother grub onto the field of battle, for you. An unnecessary risk, yes? AA: Why cannae a man learn how tae tend human grubs in yon breeding caverns, or whatever humans use? Drones an’ jades are male an’ female. AA: If ye need half a population frae such duties, it must be *verra* time-consuming. PQ: Ah...aheh. In your travels did you happen to come across any animals who gave live birth to young? PQ: Humans are like that. The women grow the child within them and give birth. Awkward, talking about human reproduction like it was some sort of scientific topic.. She felt bad for pestering Felett with twenty questions about his own quadrants yesterday. AA: Ye’re *mammals?* AA: Ach. *Krrr.* Lorelei couldn't help but feel that Khirun found the finer points of mammalian reproduction as disgusting as Lorelei likely would for trolls and their slime and grubs and breeding caverns. Well, I can hardly hold it against her... It is a messy affair, to be sure. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}PQ: Indeed. I was a tad surprised to learn trolls were not earlier, but such is the way of things, yes? We always assume similarity to ourselves unless shown otherwise. Particularly considering adult trolls and humans look rather alike. PQ: Anyway, you asked what my aspiration upon growing up was, yes? PQ: Well, I wished to study economics further, eventually win the Nobel Prize in it (which is a sort of worldwide award for people who excel or contribute a great deal to various fields). PQ: And I wished to change things in the world, for the better. I wished to protect liberty in whatever way I could with my knowledge and whatever oratorical skill I may possess. AA: Aye, tha’ sounds like ye. Nevar stopping the helping o’ folk. *Krrr* AA: Tha’ second part, tho’. It’ still halfway somethin’ ye can do, isnae it? PQ: Indeed. ‘Tis exactly what i hope to accomplish here on my land! PQ: Only, now it seems I have more than words and ideas on my side. PQ: What about you, though? What did you want to do when you grew up? Continue traveling? AA: Oh, aye! As a diplomatador, if I polished up well enou’ in fleet training. AA: Or an’ infiltrooper, what gets to work closely with ‘em. AA: Archeradicators hae it *nice*, but tha’s a blueblood *secret clubhive*, ye ken? AA: Get tae be th’ *first* Alternian dropped on some alien planet, make *furst contact*, report back on’ th’ politics, resources, geography, an’ make things ready for th’ vanguardominator expeditionary force what follows. Tha’ can be as much as a few sweeps later, soo... AA: It’s an *important job to do,* an’ someone who can *survive alone* for a long time, and gather information in nontraditional ways, tha’s useful. PQ: I see... I take it entering some part of the military was common in your society? AA: *Nigh*-mandatory. AA: Ye kin put in a request fer somethin’ civic tae do after a while. Ye may no’ get it. AA: Or if ye be *verra* persuasive abou’ it when th’Fleet ships come, but nae cullworthy for weakness. AA: An’ isnae *all* galactic imperial conquest. Space is *big*, an’ voyages *long* AA: When would we find time tae make movies, else? PQ: That... PQ: Well, I shall be honest, as much as I might broach cultural insensitivity here, that does sound rather horrid. Both for the conquerors being forced into something they might not want to do and the conquered for obvious reasons... I feel quite sorry for both. PQ: I suppose not having to worry about that is a silver lining to this game, hmm? PQ: I must say, though, I would very much love to see what troll movies are like, and how they might be different from humanity’s. AA: *Krrrr* Ask aroun’, see who’s got ‘em in hive or sylladex. AA: What are human film like? PQ: Well... PQ: ...Hmm. PQ: How does one sum up an entire mode of storytelling...? PQ: I confess myself at a loss. PQ: Stories of...well, humanity, I guess. Romance, adventure, strife, war, politics, interpersonal relationships, tragedies, comedies, science fiction, fantasy... It runs the gamut of everything conceivable. I imagine for trolls it must be the same, save for whatever quirks arise from the differences in our cultures? AA: Oh, aye, I suppose. AA: Film’s jes’ *really* importan’, culturally, tae most trolls. AA: ‘M a wee bit barbarian for not watching much o’ it, telling the truth. PQ: Do you have television shows, actually? PQ: Those are basically...hmm. I guess you could call them “small movies” where the story comes in chunks of usually thirty minutes. AA: *’Course* we do. Havenae had ‘em as long, so th’ move towards descriptive nomenclature hasnae set in yet. PQ: You mean like with your ceilings, where it describes everything about it rather than using a single word? AA: *In Which a callow youth (working as an agricultural hand) on a desert planet is thrust intae a galactic civil war between imperial and insurrectionary forces by the arrival of two droids carrying sensitive military information regarding a world-destroying space station that was intended to be delivered tae a desert hermit and mystic living near by..., etc, etc. Contains minor tae moderate romantic tension, one established moirallegiance, one ‘rescue the kidnapped highblood’ subplot, revelation and development of latent psychic potential in an adult troll as a major plot point, two noteable space battles, one delimbing by laser sword, and one exploding fully operational battle station...* AA: Like tha’. AA: *Series,* on th’other claw, are shorter. *Survivortroll,* or *Feral Lusus Hunter.* PQ: You know, that sort of reminds me of a movie we humans have, but I am sure it must simply be a coincidence... PQ: All of our movies, books, and tv shows are named like the series in your culture are. Are you not worried about being spoiled? AA: How will ye know if you’ll like a film without knowing what’s in it? AA: An’ one clever titlescribe can lay it all out in such a way that keeps th’suprise. PQ: Well, there are trailers and word of mouth and critics, I suppose. It just seems like quite a mouthful when discussing it with friends! AA: Th’furst sentence usually works. Or *Let’s go see that one, with Troll Harrison Ford and Troll Mark Hamil.* PQ: Wait. PQ: What? PQ: That is... PQ: You have a Harrison Ford and Mark Hamil?? PQ: I KNEW that movie premise sounded similar! Are you saying you have a troll version of Star Wars with similar actors? A story about a boy growing to become a Jedi--or, well, I suppose that is simple telekinesis to you trolls--who has a lightsaber (a sword of green or blue light), who fights the Empire, and the Emperor’s second-in-command, Darth Vader, is his father? She completely forgot in her excitement, of course, that trolls have no concept of "father". That didn't matter now! Other species had STAR WARS!! {Spoiler}{Spoiler} AA: *...* AA: Actually he purges the higher ranks o’ th’Imperial machine o’corruption an’ goes on tae restore justice an’ order tae the galaxy. AA: But th’tale was startlingly sympathetic tae th’rebellion’s perspective, as films o’ th’period goes. AA: Universal constants aside, tha’s *damned* uncanny.PQ: Indeed! I mean, it makes sense that the version of the tale arising from the West (that is a term for a general group of cultures on Earth) would focus more on the rebellion and liberty, given that it ended the presence of monarchy in the early 20th century, as opposed to troll society with its Empire. PQ: That is amazing, though... PQ: Oh, oh, do you perchance have a version of Gurren Lagann?? PQ: It is my favorite tv show, one to which I am very indebted for my strength of will, considering that the protagonists of the show inspired me to emulate them in that regard. PQ: It is basically about a group of people who have lived underground their whole lives, yet by a series of accidents come up to the surface and have to fight off a race of beastmen who seek to destroy all humans who go there. PQ: They pilot giant anthropomorphic machines to fight, and power it through pure strength of will (spiral power). PQ: Actually, here is a link to it: www.youtube.com/show?p=1GGORwgVQSw&tracker=show_avAA: *Krrrr*. Quite a bit o’ this tae watch. AA: But thank ye. If I’m ever in need o’ time tae kill... AA: Ye found it *inspirational*?PQ: Indeed! PQ: I mentioned to you, amidst all that, how...how Adelle, my best friend, committed suicide, yes? PQ: I fell into a deep depression after that. Honestly, I SHOULD have simply gone to therapy, but I did not. PQ: Gurren Lagann ended up being what broke me out of it. PQ: If I have shown any courage today, it is because I am trying my best to emulate the heroes of that show. It has very strong themes of never giving in, courage in the face of tough odds, resilience through hardship, and hope. That wasn't entirely true, of course. She gave the show too much credit and her own strength of will far too little. Yet the heart of it was, indeed, the truth. {Spoiler}{Spoiler}AA: Krrrr. AA: Mayhaps I kin watch it *sooner* rather *later.* PQ: Well, I certainly recommend it highly! PQ: You know, speaking of hope, it occurs to me... PQ: Our whole meeting was rather serendipitous, do you not think? PQ: Two heroes of hope in two different sessions finding each other and supporting each other and such. AA: *Kkrrr.* Ah. Aye. AA: ...It’s an *awfully unexpected* thing, I’ll give ye, Lore. AA: The *diff’rent* sessions, an’ all. *Krrr* AA: An’ *support.* Mebbe I’d been lacking somethin’, an’ I won’ deny we’ve helped each other, a *lot,* AA: But *serendipity,* Lor’? *Krrrr* PQ: I am sorry...? PQ: I do hope I have not offended you in some way... AA: *Nae,* nae, no’t’all, Lore! PQ: Oh...all right. I was just afraid that I had somehow said something that I did not know was offensive or taboo with trolls for a moment there. AA: Nay, it’s no’ that. Not anything like a bucket thing. PQ: Ahaha...yes, I was informed of the...role that buckets play in your society earlier. I am glad I have not committed a similar unwitting foible. PQ: *Ahem*... Lorelei couldn't help but blush a bit there. The thought of discussing the finer points of troll reproduction left her more than a little bit flustered. AA: Lorelei, how many times do I have to tell ye *dinnae fash ye’self* abou’ it? AA: We’re *friends.* Iffen ye’d truly offended me, I’d say-so, Lore.PQ: Well, I am certainly glad to hear it.AA: An’ I’m glad tha’ ye’re glad. AA: Well, if nothin’ else is urgent, Lore, I’ve got to get. AA: Decatur wants a *squad* o’ us up on th’Battlefield frae somethin’, and I ‘kin talk down those big Knights.PQ: Very well. Good luck, Khirun, and thank you once again.AA: *Krrrr*. Anytime. -- asterismAscendant [AA] ceased trolling philosopherQueen [PQ] -- By now, after such a long conversation, the falling snow had already lightly covered the ground. It is so peaceful here, now... Lorelei brushed some from her shoulders and stood up, now no longer as fatigued as she had been before. Hard to believe that this was once a place I had so feared... Smiling lightly, Lorelei pushed together and scooped up the thin layer of snow that had collected on the ground, forming a haphazard snowball. The cold bit at her fingers, but it was a good cold--not like the chill of death that had pervaded the place before. She tossed the snowball back and forth in her hands and rose into the air to get a better look at what was left. This must be what it was like for conquerors to look over a land they had taken, or a builder over a great work they had created... Everywhere the walls had been reduced to only knee-height--about the height of the pedestal which had held the core, Lorelei noted. In an amazingly wide circle around the core, all above her own knee level had been absolutely vaporized. Gone even were the very stairs she had descended from! Gazing upon that from above, Lorelei felt a profound feeling of accomplishment, of victory. Even the greatest darkness can be dragged out into the light, it seems... " ...Heh." Lorelei caught the snowball in her hand one last time, captchaloguing it as she did so. She turned and flew off towards the Godswood once again, to the home of the Angels.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:33:30 GMT -5
Aweful and numinous were the angels that floated below Lorelei, though not quite as much so as before. Though she felt an innate sort of nervousness at their mere presence and the power that seemed to radiate from their very beings, she was not wholly and completely focused on them that she could not look around at the scenery in their meadow clearing. More than a few things that had failed to register the first time she now noticed. The first and most obvious, of course, was a great golden temple near the "back" of the clearing, farthest away from the cave that had been her entrance the first time here. It was built in something similar to the Aztec style, with a long series of golden steps up the temple leading to a smaller "room" at the top, the inside of which she could not see from where she was. Other than that, there was a small pond to the far left of the cave entrance, and a ring of cylindrical stones that tapered to a smooth point at the top, each twice as large as a grown man, to the right. Other than that, save for the flock-- Would one call them a flock...?--of angels that was now watching her descend, heads moving in perfect unison. " She returns," one stated as she landed in front of them, and what Lorelei could only assume was the five angels from before gathered around her, white glowing not-eyes all analyzing her intently. " Creator." " The fire in her eyes" " that was gone before" " has returned." " So...that was why you sent me to the caverns?" Lorelei asked, moving her eyes from angel to angel as she spoke--partly because she did not know who to focus on, partly because it was unnerving to look into one single set of white, glowing eyes for too long. " So I would...be more determined than before?" " Partly." " Mostly for the reason we gave." " Creator or destroyer?" " Creator, it seems." " For now." " The paths can change at any time." " A more powerful display than most, though." " Not unexpected." " The transformation process proceeds." " That is part of what I wished to ask about!" Lorelei interjected, lest the angels continue on with their talking amongst themselves and she could not get a word in edge-wise for her questions. " You mentioned the transformation process before, and how I was still 'only human'. What do you mean by that...? Are you saying I am going to become more than human, like some sort of..." Lorelei waved her arms about to accentuate her confusion, " weird...hopey goddess...thing?" " You will learn" " in time." " But what if I do not wish to...'transform'? " Lorelei could almost swear that the angels smirked at that. " You will." " You already have." " You always have." " You would never make another choice," " even if you knew." " Better to learn the answer yourself than to be told." " Patience." Lorelei folded her arms, frowning. " You said you would answer my questions when I got back... If not about that, then will you at least further explain what you mean by creator and destroyer?" One angel summoned a ball of magical light in front of it. Much like Lorelei's own, she felt a sense of comfort and resolve from it. " Create." The angel right next to it summoned an identical ball of light, but this one felt... off. It exuded an aura of fear and desperation that, Lorelei realized, skin crawling, reminded her all too much of the very caverns she had just cleansed. " Destroy." " Physically identical," another said, "" but you can sense it, correct?" Lorelei nodded. " Like the caverns..." " Alone among the aspects" " Hope is defined by choice." " To create hope," the angel that had summoned the first light continued, banishing the light he had summoned from earlier. " Or destroy," the second concluded, doing the same for his own destroyer magic. " Destinies are not set by the first part of the title." " Even the Prince of Hope may create." " Each chooses their own way when facing the darkness." " And I chose to create by standing up against the darkness and destroying it?" Again, Lorelei almost got the sense they were amused, though nothing in their voices or facial features (as stoic as ever) betrayed it. " Yes." " Creators fight." " Even against long odds." " Even against impossible ones." " Creators use their light to drive the darkness back and light the way for others." " They do not surrender." " Destroyers surrender." " The only hope, to a destroyer, lies in joining the darkness, not fighting it." " They become tools of it" " and by doing so destroy Hope wherever they find it." " Those not of the aspect cannot tell the difference between destroyer's and creator's light." " That is...horrible, why would anyone ever do something like that?" " Easier." " Far more difficult is the creator's path." " And it takes a certain mindset to see beyond what the darkness wishes them to see." " You know this." Lorelei nodded slowly and deliberately. How could she forget the first time she had come across that wraith that wore Adelle's face? " When you are surrounded by it, it is hard to see any possibility of resistance... It attacks at your most vulnerable points as well..." She snapped her fingers in realization. " So, when Ade-...when the darkness was saying 'come with me', it was wanting me to become a destroyer?" All five angels nodded in tandem. " Yes." " You escaped." " For one who desires to be a creator, escape is preferable to submission." " But one cannot escape forever." " The Choice must be made eventually." Lorelei crossed her arms once again and glanced down, pondering what was said for a few moments. " I returned and cleansed the caverns, though, so I am set on the creator's path, correct?" " Not set." " Perpetually in flux." " Even the brightest may fall," " even the darkest may shine again." " Your choice has begun your journey down a path, however." " Whether you stay to it or not," " we shall not judge." " You are ready to begin your training." That, of course, dragged Lorelei from her thoughtful reverie quite quickly. " Training? How do you mean?" " You shall learn the secrets of your magic," " which you have rightly learned to be from within yourself, not from Skaia." " You shall learn control." " Refinement." " Then you shall meet the Mother of Angels, who shall complete your training." " The Mother of Angels...?" She could practically hear the capital letters, such was the reverence the angels spoke that name in. " Do you mean, like, your creator? A...a goddess of some kind?" After all, if the angels had a mother they revered, maybe Christianity was not so far off, if one overlooked the plainly masculine sex of God. After all, that could just be human misinterpretation...right? Right. " Patience." " So much to do..." " so little time." " Take your time." " Your victory has weakened the darkness, for the moment." " There is time to take things slowly." The five angels flew over to the circular formation of rocks, and spoke as one: "Let us begin!" Lorelei smiled that trademark confident, exuberant grin. END ACT 2 CHARACTER ARC -- LORELEI VON HAYEK --
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 19:40:56 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) " Oi, I'm up,"Gita announced to the house as she sat up from the floor, stretching and shifting to work out the soreness at this body's most-indignant collapse. Now where was that Zach? She rose, and looked for him. Ah, and there he is. At the computer. { }-- inaneFixation [ IF] started pestering spiraMirabilis [ SM] -- IF: hi IF: i had better be spelling this thing right. :T IF: dahlia if this is you i'm building on your house.SM: Nothing, huh? SM: Man, I really do have all the luck. SM: Guess it's for the best since our mutual friend has placed my humble abode at your mercy. IF: not my fault she's out cold. IF: well IF: okay maybe a little. and i wouldn't call her a friend, i barely know her and i'm pretty sure she hates my guts. :I IF: anyway that hole is fixed and i think i've played enough minecraft to make it to your second gate without imploding your house.SM: I hope it doesn't come to open violence too soon. I was kind of looking forward to stabbing you all myself, instead. SM: That was a joke. You'll have to forgive my mood. I just spent far longer than I wanted to listening to idiot lizards rambling about pancakes, and before that SM: Well, anyway. So long as I'm in the capable hands of a seasoned veteran of the electronic construction business, could you try to keep it minimalist? I'd like to keep the roof as clear as possible. IF: your house has a weird shape, i could probably just copypaste the entire top half a bunch of times without throwing anything off. :P IF: so your roof will be clear and maybe technically in orbit eventually. IF: why? you using it to practice your stabs? 'cause that's what it looks like happened here. :/ SM: If orbit's your goal, an elevator might be a nice addition. SM: And yes. Something like that. SM: That's where I go to talk with my SM: with the Professor. IF: okay IF: i have no idea who that is but she sounds kind of insane! IF: i'm almost tempted to just make a ring or something so you don't wreck the building.SM: I'm a little busy here, so just do what you think is best. The gates are relevant to our mission, so whatever we can do to get to them as-- SM: son of a bitch get back here! IF: uh IF: okay then. IF: on an unrelated note you use swords right?SM: Yes. SM: No. SM: Damn it I lost him! IF: not swords?SM: I don't know why people keep trying to throw swords at me. SM: I mean I know why she did, she was trying to kill me. IF: maybe she was apologizing for something? <_< IF: but seriously what was your strife specibus again?SM: Oh, not her, she's fine. SM: I meant my mother. IF: uh IF: who's the she here? IF: do you mean the professor is your mom or what is even going on?SM: If you're going to insist on making me spell it out, yes, that is a fair assessment of my parentage. SM: At least, insofar as that sort of thing is applicable, anyway. IF: ... IF: what?SM: This is a rather more complex conversation than I'd like to be having while standing in the middle of a pitch-black cave after spending the past ten minutes stalking a larcenous robot. SM: What I'd really like to do is go home and stop thinking about this idiocy altogether. SM: Guardian had said something about frogs, and as I understand it, you're to be my accomplice in the matter. So what say we start thinking about that idiocy instead? IF: something about what IF: hey how about we don't think about frogs! IF: or anything that may have to do with them!SM: Under any other circumstances I'd probably enjoy interrogating you at length about the particulars of you and frogs. But right now I'm in the rare mood to get things done and actually take all this ridiculousness seriously. SM: From the explanations I've been given thus far, I need my server to provide some sort of cloning equipment for dealing with frogs, because I'm supposed to make a genesis frog. SM: Go ahead and ask me what that is. IF: oh yeah, i'm actually supposed to be your server now. IF: well there's a holopad, an apperafier, and some tanks here. i guess i just put them wherever?SM: If there's anything that hasn't been deployed yet, do so. SM: Wholesale slaughter of anything that bleeds black and explodes into grist is the only thing that's been keeping me entertained lately, so resources shouldn't be a problem. If they are... SM: Well, I did say I was going to kill everything. I'm still in the process of it. IF: well have fun with that. :/ IF: you still haven't told me what it is you're killing them with by the waySM: Rocks. Scrap metal. Scenery. Each other. SM: Have you ever tried tricking the magic ones into blowing each other up? That's pretty much never going to stop being funny. SM: Mostly knives though. Don't really understand the fascination with my specibus, but there you have it. IF: thanks. IF: makin' shit for christmas. everyone gets new weapons because that's really all i can think of now that we're stuck here. :/ IF: i have a pretty good idea for the knives thoughSM: ...Huh. Downright responsible of you, to try and help speed this along by making sure we're well-equipped. We may be stuck here, but only until we beat this game, so it's a good idea to do whatever we can to make that happen faster. SM: ... SM: Wait. Christmas is SM: huh SM: So it is. Yesterday was my birthday, so tomorrow's Christmas. Almost lost track of time in all this SM: well, all the stuff we've been up to. Sorry, I'm a little out of sorts. Come to think of it, in Lorelei-time, it's probably only a few hours to Christmas -- it was Lorelei's idea, wasn't it? IF: no, i just feel like doing something useful for a change. IF: last i heard from lorelei she was busy flying around being IF: well being lorelei. XDSM: I mean, Christmas. Not the holiday itself, though if it didn't yet exist she's exactly the sort of person I'd expect to make it, but the get-together that nobody's had the courtesy to inform me of yet. SM: That's what's going on here, right? IF: i hadn't heard of one, i was just going to track everyone down and hand them their crap. :P IF: but i'm willing to bet there will be something like that, so...SM: Heh. Typical Dahlia, assuming the worst as usual. SM: Well, not even "usual". Just lately. Just today, really. SM: Apocalypses don't even cramp my style. But being saved from them has thrown something of a wrench in the works, I guess. SM: Anyway, enough of that. I need to make the proverbial rounds, maybe apologize to Lorelei for being unreasonable earlier -- maybe not, it's not like being a decent person is anywhere on my resume anyway -- and you've got some building to do, and some crazy devices to drop. The living room's nice and open, and I'm not expecting guests anytime soon. Or ever. IF: yeah i'm looking around n IF: is that a lab IF: that's a lab. IF: welp. IF: i'm IF: i'm going to have to check that out later. IF: like IF: ignore you if you say not to and just kind of break into your house so i can geek out for several hours IF: oh man that is awesomeSM: That is one way to describe it. In any case, it's all yours if you want it; I've spent quite enough years of my life in there already. IF: you make stuff too? IF: or do i not want to know?SM: If at some point I'm given the choice between clawing my heart out and telling you that story, I'll tell you all about it. Don't hold your breath though. IF: k IF: gtg, i think she's waking up -- inaneFixation [ IF] ceased pestering spiraMirabilis [ SM] -- " Who're ya talking to?" She leaned over his shoulder. "AAH" "Oh. Uh..." "Dahlia." " Huh. Tell her 'hi' for me." Zach's personal space is being further invaded. " Is that...a giant one-armed pancake flipper? Tell me that's not what your shitty art is actually depicting here, Lombardi. "That one's actually a coilgun..." He looks just a little bit terrified. "it's a christmas gift for page..." " ...a coilgun." " Are you sure that's not just an excuse to make such a thing in the first place?" "Well it is, but she really needs a better weapon than paperclips. And since that's not how strife specibi work, I'm making the only thing I know can shoot paperclips and hoping that her deck accepts really dumb technicalities. And, uh, also making some stuff for everyone else." Gita looked at Zach. She looked at his [strk]sweet bro and hella jeff fancomic[/strk] blueprints. She looked back at Zach. " ...I'm getting you off my planet so you don't blow up my house trying to make any of this." Zach breathed a sigh of relief. "THANK YOU. No offense but the cats are worse than the thunder." Also, you terrify me. " Right. Whatever. It's a pain to have you around getting attacked all the time, Lombardi. Okay, let's see: primary victory condition is 'Getting Your Ass Out Of Here,' secondary 'Getting You Home.'" She pulled back from the computer screen, and tapped chin in thought. " And we can't do this the easy way; your Gate is all-the-way-up in the 'Terror-damned stratosphere. So what've we got to work with?" "Well... I think my planet might be closer but we'd still have to fly. And I can't exactly do much right now..." He held up his broken hand. "So... " So we're building something that flies." "Alchemizing but yeah, unless you have a better idea." " It's not as if we're just going to find an airship lying around we can steal. So let's get to it." "Alright." And then she shoved Zach out of the chair. " Get. Need t'use the client application fer a minute. Open up the Alchemy Excursis and lessee..." There was a brief pause as she scanned the Excursus: a catalogue of items previously alchemized by her fellow players in the session, their components, and costs in grist." " ..." " Dahlia, how the hell did you get a rocket pack so quickly? The fuck did you get a rare opal drop so fast?" " But we've got the captcha for it, and...hey, Zach, what's the code on those bat-shit dangerous hand/foot rockets you made?" > Gita and Zach: Alchemy Montage. ===> They make: BRIXCALIBUR " Gods Zach this is like a tiny prop sword what the heck. How did you make anything dangerous with -Minecraft-" "Hah! Now I wanna' make one." Instead of adding minecraft to the sword, he adds Halo and creates a TYPE ONE ENERGY SWORD. ===> "...If you turn that on inside the house I will cut you. And you will die a slow, pixelated death of shame." "Uh... Right. Moving on." By combining his SHITTY ROBOT LEGS and DUMB POINTY ANIME SHADES, Zach makes.... Squarewave? ===> For some reason this dumb thing cost a boatload of grist. "AW SNAP THAT WAS SOME CRAZY SHIZ D WHERE'RE WE-" "Uh..." "What..." "YO YOU AIN'T DIRK" ===> "AW WHAT" ===> "THAT SHIT'S WHACK DOGG" " ...Okay. Maybe I have a pack of sociopathically violent consorts after all. I concede. "Man. I almost feel bad for him." "...Who's Dirk?" " Fuck if I know. Sounds like a porn star or something." [EVENTUALLY] > Zach and Gita: Just shove the rockets on a bucket or something. You make the ABLUTION DEATHTRAP " ...There is no way we're flying in that." "Would you rather walk?" " It's a fucking bathtub with your hand-and-foot rockets attached! How you going to control it?" Think, Lombardi. This is what you do. "Uh... Reins." " Reins? Really, Zach? Reins?" "Can you come up with something better?" " Not that we could afford it after you spent all the grist we can't get back on that dumb rapping robot." "Reins it is! But, ah..." " Yeah?" Zach held up his broken hand. "...Gonna' need some help." "Flying it, you mean?" "Yyyyeah. I can attach the reins but not a whole lot else. So... I guess just blow the rest of your grist while I do that or something?" " So I have to drive you home, huh? Okay. Sure. Got a few ideas on what I might make." This alchemy session needed a little more estrogen, anyway. > Gita: combine BIRD MASK with ANTIQUE GEOM You make the FLIGHTY BROADSWORD. " Yesssss. And for now for easy to move in, yet classy..." > Gita: combine STAR MAP with LACEY WHITE DRESS to create STARS SHINE BRIGHT BABYDOLL content.screencast.com/users/RipcordZero/folders/Jing/media/87caef94-1fde-4e16-894b-8db53e0176d8/00000830.png[/img] Niiiiiice. ===> Cut short like that, this'll be a lot easier to fight with. I wonder if Zach...? >Zach: Boggle vacantly. oh no. oh shit oh shit he noticed. wait. Didn't I want that? Uh. Whatever this is awesome and I look great in it. Keeping it on for now.And with that, Gita, pretending they haven't both been blushing furiously or checking eachother out, asks, " Hey, how's that hook-up coming? With the rockets." Zach nearly dropped the belts he'd tied together to make the reins. NO. stay calm. she is very pretty but that does not mean you have to get distracted. saving humanity, remember? "It..." but for the love of god don't say anything stupid. "...should work fine as long as it doesn't get too hot. The rockets look pretty powerful and there should be enough thrust to move us both." ...wait. There was a briefest pause of awkward silence, before Gita realized that acknowledging said awkard was absolutely the last thing she wanted to do, ever. " ...So you think you've got a good grip on this?" what thefuck, Gita Naresh. Aren't we gay? Stop that. Stop saying such stupid things right now to the cute boy. "Well it's not gonna' break if that's what you mean. You're going to need a good grip to handle it, though. The rockets are very responsive." if i survive this, i will do everything in my power to make myself forget this conversation ever happened. " ...are we seriously doing this? Just hop on and go?" Beat. FACEPALM. "I wish I had a better idea." " This is intensely stupid. And going to get us all killed. And I am not kissing your dying ass awake if it does, because you'll have deserved it.." You're probably kidding yourself. No man should look that sharp in a suit. She grabbed a pillow or two for seat cushions, and stepped into ABLUTION DEATHTRAP. " So just get in already. I want this over with." Zach flipped a switch and the twin gloves engines roared sputtered to life. It was about when the tub plowed through his legs and knocked him over into the basin that he realized there was no way to turn them off safely from inside. STUPID. DUMB. "This could be bad!" he yelled to Gita... who he had nearly landed on top of. " You're wonderfully clever to have worked that out so soon!" she shouted over the sputter of engine-gloves, attempting to angle the stiff straps and reins to point the vector of rocket thrust away from the ground. " Ah! Ahh! Hot!" And away from Zach and Gita. To slow to seem sustainable, then suddenly entirely too fast to be safe, [strk]the good ship[/strk] ABLUTION DEATHTRAP leapt upward, rising for the skies like a retarded salmon climbing a waterfall. " Zach you've still got one hand free! Help me keep this steady!" Perhaps this was more terrible involuntary innuendo. Pulled along to a spiralling peak by two raging, nearly out-of-control thrusters, Gita found she had other, more pressing, concerns. Zach groaned and took one rein from her. His right hand wasn't broken, but in the state it was in there was a nonzero chance it would end up a bloody mess if the belts slipped out. Of course that was still better than ending up a flaming smear on the ground somewhere. He pretended to ignore the latest bit of innuendo and focused on getting their vehicle flying coffin to his h- why is that planet glowing? Glowing wasn't the right word. 'Coruscating' might be closer. So there they were, thousands of feet up in the air and climbing, when the explosion hit. The explosion of light. The shockwave. The goddamn towering pillar of light that erupted from the surface of a white planetoid. " What the--?" Gita took one hand off the reins, shielding her eyes from the blinding actinic glare. " Is that--" she squinted, blocking out the light to attempt focus on the Land hosting the flare. " Is that Lorelei's?" Unnoticed, ABLUTION DEATHTRAP veered gently off-course, cleanly edging further away from it's intended Gate destination. "I think..." Thanks to his DUMB POINTY ANIME SHADES, Zach had a better view of the world than his ... friend? He still had to squint to make anything out, but the beam was definitely coming from Lorelei's planet. "Yeah, it's hers. What the hell's she doing?" " I...I have no idea. Going nova?" Gita follows the line of light up into the sky, wondering how far it extended into the darkness....before spotting the faint silhouetted shadow of a tentacled mass, and deciding she didn't need to know. " Fuck it, go ask her yourself when we're done not dying." "Right. Um... You're still steering, aren't you?" From where they were now, Zach couldn't even see her gates. He did, however, have a pretty decent view of what appeared to be a smoky ball, streaked with the occasional flash of blue or yellow. "...that works." " Steering? Yeah, I--fuck, I wasn't going to take the long way around!" Gita scowled, and fussed with the reins and rockets again, pointing it toward the smoky ball. " So. How do we slow this thing down and land it?" Zach looked over at the engines. oh, shit."...Land just means 'stop flying', right?" Gita turned around to look Zach right in the shades. " Would you like to crash into the ground at terminal velocity?" " Emphasis on terminal." right now, that would almost be welcome. Off in the distance, Zach saw his apartment building and the crude tower Gita had built on top of it. "No, but I'd settle for a lake or something... Hey, sprites are like, telekinetic, right?" " Ye~es..." " If you're going somewhere with this, please get there before we 'stop flying'." Zach pointed her towards his house. If she were to look back, she would see him preparing to bail out of the deathtrap. "Well mine's over there and I think he might be able to catch us." " Have you, say, contacted him about this?!?" Gita's voice grew increasingly shrill, as she adjusted the deathtrap's angle of contact with the ground to something more shallow, and its vector of approach to 'towards the building tower.' They were getting worrisomely close to the surface: she could make out the shapes and dots of colour of consorts and underlings. " If not, I hope you enjoy chunky salsa." "Um" >Zach: Contact sprite "HEADS UP, STEVEN ===> " That's it!? And now we're just going to bail!?" "Yep! Get ready!" " What, NOW?" "NOW!!" >Knight and Duchess Dame: Descend ===> ===> "...That wasn't so bad." " I expected more...discomfort." She looked away, and poked the glowing, floating, bed experimentally. It felt exactly like the regular kind. "I expected burning." Hey! How dare he--oh. right. " And blood?" "That, too." Zach removed his shades and stared at them for a moment before tossing them off the roof. Why had he let them anywhere near his face, again? "I think I might have to add some..." oh yeah, the tub's gone. "...brakes. Or not." Gita watched ABLUTION DEATHTRAP rocket away into the Medium. " And there it goes. Good riddance! I am never flying with you again." Zach laughed. "Aw. That was kind of fun." no it wasn't She gave him A Look, and then rolled her eyes. " Right. Just keep telling yourself that. Does it help you sleep at night?" "I'm about to pass out. Does that count?" " All that excitement, and now you're going to sleep?" A pause. A longer pause. " Did I really just say that?" ===> " Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Gita considered waking him. " On the other hand...I'd probably rather have that conversation not-in-person." She looked about. Wasn't his land supposed to be infested with creepers? Er. And where the heck was his sprite? " Uh, Steve? Was that your name?" Nothing. And " Damn your ungrateful, idiotic, ass. I don't care how hot you are, you goddamn wires-crosser. This is not worth anything." And she dragged Zach inside, and took his second Gate back to her own Land. Ablution Deathtrap: Level up for transporting heroes. The DEATHTRAP surges heroically and surpasses the rung: ARCHIMEDES' AQUACRADLE, proceeding directly to vaunted rung: TAFT-JAMMER. The tub makes off with a cool 490 BOONDOLLARS. The tub's BASIN CAPACITY remains unaffected.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:44:45 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) ===> ===> "Go what?!" "GAH. Fuck nevermind, I'll do it. ===> "Do what?" ===> ===> ===> "Do what?!?" ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===>
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:45:21 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) >Zach: Dream ===> Your dreamself is comatose. Whatever's going on, he'll be out for a few more hours. >Zach: Black out ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===>
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:46:09 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) >Knight: Rise up. SHOW SPRITELOG ZACH: aw what the hell!? ZACH: is this beer? what the fuck?? ZACH: why would you do that?! STEVENSPRITE: T' wake you up. STEVENSPRITE: You got crap to do, bub. Get to it. ZACH: what crap? ZACH: i wasn't aware of any crap doing i was supposed to be involved in. ZACH: unless you mean making stabbing things for my frien- ZACH: oh, this is the denizen exposition isn't it STEVENSPRITE: Bingo. ZACH: about time :/ STEVENSPRITE: Stuff it. First things first, your hand. Let me see it. ZACH: the broken one? okay but AAAAAH ZACH: WOAH. ZACH: that was weird ZACH: did you just fix my hand? STEVENSPRITE: Yep. Sprites can do that. STEVENSPRITE: Anyway. Apollo. ===> SHOW SPRITELOG STEVENSPRITE: Real mean son of a bitch. Lives in a palace, guarded by underlings, all that shit. STEVENSPRITE: Anyway you've seen those towers the salamanders crowd around. Those keep the storms a' the land from wrecking their homes. STEVENSPRITE: Apollo wants whatever's powering them to keep his palace running while he naps. STEVENSPRITE: (And he's gonna' be napping until you get to the seventh gate, so take yer' time with that. You WILL have to face him.) ZACH: and by 'face' you mean...? STEVENSPRITE: Up to you. ZACH: what? STEVENSPRITE: You'll see what I mean. Whatever you choose to do, ya've gotta' get to his grist hoard. STEVENSPRITE: That's the important thing here. You need it all for the Ultimate Alchemy.
===> SHOW SPRITELOG ZACH: that being the universe, right? STEVENSPRITE: Can't say. Spoilers. ZACH: like it isn't already obvious :P ZACH: (man i liked that suit :/) STEVENSPRITE: I think your friend liked it, too. STEVENSPRITE: Wink wink nudge nudge and all that shit. ZACH: wha- ZACH: shit. STEVENSPRITE: Heheh STEVENSPRITE: Don't worry, I ain't gonna' bug you about that. STEVENSPRITE: You'll have plenty a' that when your sister gets back. ZACH: oh god. STEVENSPRITE: I'll be telling her everything, though. ZACH: you son of a bitch. STEVENSPRITE: She used the words 'hot wires-crosser' STEVENSPRITE: Rachel's gonna' have a feild day with this. ZACH: GOING NOW. STEVENSPRITE: Hahahahaha STEVENSPRITE: 'Fore you do that, take this. ===> ZACH: what's this? STEVENSPRITE: Use that to summon me if you ever start getting yer' ass kicked. ZACH: oh. nice. ZACH: alright i guess i'll be back later to work on the weapons and shit. don't tell sis where i am i don't want her following me. :/ ZACH: i get the feeling this will be exhausting enough without her. STEVENSPRITE: Later. >Zach: Back to adventurin' STEVENSPRITE: Wait, should've told him to use the gate. Oh well.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:50:35 GMT -5
" Ok, um, here's your...five...rabbit rear-ends...possibly..." As she pulled out a formerly brown, now stained red sack full of rabbit ass from her modus, Page Caldwell ruminated for the eighteenth time on how she probably shouldn't have accepted this quest. It was a really bad idea to accept this quest. In analyzing herself and her choices up to this point, Page regretted everything. Yet when she had come walking into the small little town, she had been immediately accosted by a crocodile with an open book on his head, claiming to be an all-powerful wizard. Fear and desperation in his tiny crocodilian eyes, he had claimed that he needed the butts--specifically the butts--of five rabbits for his spell or everything ever would be ruined. "Ruined" was a word he seemed to like, considering he used it about as much as he used "nak", which was quite a feat to behold. Suffice it to say, Page hadn't been able to say no to him, so off she went into a nearby snow-covered forest to hunt rabbits. The whole ordeal had taken far longer than it really should have. Page was by no means a hunter, especially limited as she was by having no form of long-range attack. Though the game was plentiful, she often found that her plodding, indiscreet footsteps and other noises scared any off before she could get close enough to attack. Yet, oddly, because of all this the whole thing had the unique flavor of a learning experience. First she learned stealth, much as Gita had told her to try and learn a day before when she had been hunted by ogres. She learned to wear white clothing to blend in, to keep low and use terrain, wind, etc. to her advantage. Even when she had mastered these concepts to the point where she could sneak up on rabbits fairly easily, she found herself hesitating long enough for them to discover her and flee. She could not bring herself to harm them. She reminded herself that whatever he was going to do was no worse than killing and eating them, and that people killed and ate animals all the time. She reminded herself that she had eaten meat, accused herself of hypocrisy if she wasn't able to hit a simple rabbit over the head with a large stick. She reminded herself that she had given her word. In the end, this zany Sburban quest had begun to teach her how to kill. As she handed over the bag of rabbit posterior, she thought once again that she didn't really want to learn that lesson. The crocodile seemed pleased. He began to babble on how the ruination had been averted and nak profusely. Without giving Page any sort of reward--though she hadn't really expected one, not being a player of RPGs of any sort--the book-wearing crocodile trudged away, dragging his bloody bag of rabbit ass through the snow and leaving a trail plain as day in his wake. Page really hoped that no one thought someone had been murdered there... Once again regretting her whole decision to harvest rabbit posteriors for some strange wizard lizard, she promptly about-faced and walked as quickly as she could towards this town's exit. The sooner she was out, the better. Maybe the next town would have some more sane quests less involving murdering small adorable creatures. On the way, however, she could at least resolve her curiosity over a certain matter: the large beam of light that looked like it had come from Lorelei's world. She would have contacted Lorelei immediately, but she figured that whatever Lorelei was doing was important and she shouldn't be disturbed. Now, after some time spent rabbit-hunting, Page hoped that Lorelei had enough free time to talk to her. Even if she was still busy, Page hoped she'd just ignore the message until she wasn't. -- unsettledBookworm [UB] began pestering philosopherQueen [PQ] -- {Spoiler}UB: Hey, Lorelei. UB: Do you have a moment, possibly? PQ: I was just now taking a break, actually. What can I do for you, my friend? UB: A break from what, if you don't mind me asking? PQ: I am currently training my magic with the angels in my land. It is surprisingly tiring work, all things considered! PQ: Mentally, not physically. More akin to how one feels after studying a great deal for a difficult test than after a long day of physical exertion. PQ: I end up needing time to simply sit and think of absolutely nothing. UB: ...You have angels?? PQ: ...Huh. I never told you that? PQ: Odd that they seem so commonplace now that I would be surprised by your reaction. The human capacity to adapt, even to bizarre situations, will never cease to amaze me. PQ: Anyway, yes, I do in fact have angels! They are, to use Khirun's words, "numinous and aweful". Krrr. Heehee! PQ: Ahem. PQ: Sorry, little in-joke there. UB: Is she one of the trolls, perhaps? I got contacted by one, I think. UB: Her name was Feiren, maybe. PQ: Yes, she is one of the trolls. asterismAscendant. A good friend and a fellow Hero of Hope! PQ: Ah, yes. I was contacted by Feiren as well. Do you know if she has a bizarre hatred of books? Another troll, Pythia, said she did. UB: Yes, actually. She wanted to burn all my books for me, definitely! UB: Dahlia sort of helped me out with her, I guess... PQ: Ahaha! That sounds like a recipe for disaster if I have ever heard one. How did it go? A while in and she still hadn't managed to ask about the very reason she had contacted Lorelei in the first place. Truth be told, she had forgotten. UB: Well, she was asking if Dahlia and I were...matesprites, I think it was?PQ: "Matesprits" I believe. Like mate and esprit, the French word for spirit. That is how I remember it.UB: Oh, ok. Thank you! Anyway, Dahlia told me to basically ask if she was projecting on me or something, perhaps. UB: I didn't really do very well at it, I think. I didn't want to be mean, not really. And Dahlia told me to use a line from some book but all I could think of was "Methinks the lady doth protest too much" on the spot, sort of. It kind of fit but not really, I guess.PQ: Ahahaha! It sounds like I would have quite enjoyed being a fly on the wall there. PQ: Well, assuming there were walls nearby to be on. Aaaaaand finally she remembered. UB: Oh! UB: I forgot the entire reason I bothered you, Lorelei. UB: I was wondering: was that huge blast of light coming from your world something you did, maybe? PQ: ...Wait, you saw thaft? All the way from your world?UB: Yes, definitely. PQ: My, my. Seems that little explosion did more than I expected... I do hope no one was potentially hurt by it. UB: Explosion...?PQ: Yes. I suppose it would be best to begin at the beginning, as it were... Lorelei then regaled her with the tale of all that had happened to her after the angels first sent her to the caverns. Barely paying attention to where she was going in her journey, she read with wide eyes and amazement. UB: That...that is amazing, really! It sounds like something out of a book, I think.PQ: Ahaha, it kind of does, does it not? PQ: But considering this is a game given tangible form, I am not terribly surprised. Nor would I suspect that other lands are bereft of stories like my own. PQ: What has your land been like, anyway? Smoke and the smell of burning bodies choked the air. In her distraction, Page had strode, without realizing it until that very moment, close to a disaster site. She could only stare at the small puddles of water where great ice walls had once been. She could only stare at the town, once standing far above her, now leveled to nothing but ash and burning bodies, nothing remaining that even reached her knee-height. Nothing save one, for what had caused this tragedy was still there, standing amongst the rubble it had wrought. Death turned its eyes on the Page. PQ: Page?
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 19:51:13 GMT -5
Death was tall, taller than any structure the crocodiles had built. Death was lean, like a man days bereft of food. Death was wreathed in and composed of pure flame, shifting oranges and--most bizarrely--blacks, with a facsimile of a face composed of two ever-shifting spots of black flame for eyes and one below for its mouth. Death smelled of smoke, flame, sickness, and--above all else--itself. But most of all, Death was terrifying. Every movement, every sight of it, begat a terror within the Page of Frost more intense than even one such as she had ever felt before. She was rooted to the spot Ahriman the Soul-Eater, Death Incarnate, gazed upon his supposed Bane--the small, weak, pathetic girl who cowered and shook before him--and smiled a vicious, shifting flame-smile. PQ: Page, what is the matter? Are you ok? >Page: Abscond It was the beep from her own glasses-computer that saved her life. The sudden outside sound jolted her out of her frozen shock long enough for her to notice Ahriman pointing at her. It took no leap of logic to guess that that might be a bad thing, so she immediately bolted to the side, narrowly dodging a blast of black flame aimed straight for her. Heart pounding, sweat pouring, mind racing, Page ran as fast as she could for the nearest shelter she could find--an old, stately forest--dodging and weaving all the way. UB: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PQ: Oh, no. What is wrong? Do I need to head over there? Page did not respond, for even were she not too busy attempting to dodge blasts of flames as Ahriman followed her in a slow, calm walk, she did not truly NOTICE the messages Lorelei was sending. Fear blinded her to everything but the immediate. A gout of flame narrowly missed her to the right, then to the left. Flames ate at the shoulder of her jacket, souvenirs from one of the many close calls, but she gave the heat and burning no heed, for greater danger bade her attention. As great as the pain may have been otherwise, she did not even notice it then. The world erupted into black flame just in front of her, blocking her escape into a forest just a stone's throw away. She tried to run to the right, but found her way blocked. To the left, blocked again. Even advance towards her foe was impossible, for she found herself surrounded in a great ring of fire. Only now, caged and unable to flee further, did she notice the oppressive heat sapping her willpower and her strength, making the edges of the world fade and blur. And only then, as Ahriman strolled as casually as a giant fire demon could towards her, did she realize one thing: He was toying with her, much as a cat plays to death with a mouse. There was no escape. Ahriman flashed one of his malicious, shifting black fire-smiles, and Page knew that there was no escape. Not without running straight into the very flames she had been trying to escape from. Ahriman raised his hand and formed a sword, larger than Page herself, from the same orange-and-black flame which composed the demon that held it, and Page knew there was no escape. Not without running into the fire itself. So, Page did it. Whether by the noblest bravery or the meanest cowardice--or some combination thereof--Page turned from her pursuer and ran straight through the ring of fire it had created. Yet, rather than the expected burns and abject pain, she felt...nothing. As she passed through the demon's fire, it felt like a normal winter day on the land that was her own--quite in contrast to the oppressive heat which had been sapping her will and strength but moment's before. She did not stop to think about it. She ran into the forest as quickly as her legs could carry her--unburned and without any flames burning her clothing as before--and disappeared within. All of what she had learned chasing rabbits some time before came back in an instant, and the Page of Frost eluded the watchful eyes of the Soul-Eater. She laid low, and for a time thought she had managed to escape danger. Yet Ahriman the Destroyer would not give up the chase simply because a forest occluded his sight. With one sweep of his hands, a massive gout of flame set the whole forest ablaze. Page's sanctuary in an instant became a prison of smoke and flame. UB: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!PQ: Hold on, Page! I am coming! Just tell me where you are and I shall be there soon! Staying within was death. Turning and fleeing towards Ahriman was death. Therefore, only one option presented itself: head further in, so as to leave the forest from a point far away from the Soul-Eater. A desperate move, but desperate times oft beget desperate measures. Page sprinted as quickly as she could further into the inferno raging around her, dodging fallen trees here and leaping over burning bramble there. Much as when braving Ahriman's fire, the heat was not quite so impressive as it seemed to be. She felt hot, unlike before, but it was more that of a summer's day than the depths of a burning forest. But there was no escape. Ahriman's searching eyes inexorably found her as she raced further inward. Ahriman wasted no time leaping from a standing position, sailing over Page's head, and landing right in her path, back turned. Page skidded to a halt, yelping in terror, with such suddenness she fell onto her back. That was enough. It was clear that Ahriman meant no more to play his sadistic games with her. He wasted no time turning towards her, raising that terrible orange and black flame-sword above his head, and bringing it down on her like an executioner's axe. The Page of Frost closed her eyes and prepared for death's coming embrace. But it never came. Tentatively, slowly Page opened her eyes and found...nothing. Where once a great demon of flame had been, nothing remained. Where once a blazing forest had been, only its charred remnants stood. Shaking like a leaf but barely believing her luck, Page stood up and looked all around, seeing no signs of her pursuer, only the results of his work. Only then, as the adrenaline in her veins was beginning to dial itself back, did she finally notice Lorelei's messages. PQ: Page, answer me, please! I cannot help you if I do not know where you are!! Are you still there, are you alive??UB: I'm... UB: I'm fine...I think...PQ: Oh, thank Jesus! PQ: What happened? Are you hurt? UB: N-n-n-no, I don't th-think so. UB: Th-th-there was this big fire demon thing and-and-and-and it was attacking me and I'm in this burned out forest but it's gone now and-and-and-and-and UB: I feel UB: so UB: very UB: faint UB: ...maybe... Page's eyes rolled upward and she fell flat onto her face. Naptime. END ACT 2 CHARACTER ARC -- Page Caldwell --
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SW
Mustardblood
Posts: 106
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 19:55:20 GMT -5
When last we saw our intrepid hero, Dahlia... ...Actually who are we kidding? The word "hero" is a thing that has only ever been applied to Dahlia Asher in the official sense (that is, as the Hero of Space), and while we cannot accurately number them, the amount of fucks nobody gives about what Dahlia's been up to between here and there could be fairly described as "astronomical". If one were feeling particularly puckish. Which we are. ==>-- inaneFixation [IF] started pestering spiraMirabilis [SM] -- IF: hi IF: i had better be spelling this thing right. :T IF: dahlia if this is you i'm building on your house. SM: Nothing, huh? SM: Man, I really do have all the luck.For once, she wasn't just doomsaying. ...Actually let's be honest with ourselves here: in the span of something under twenty-four hours, Dahlia Asher has gone from the safety of her daily routine, to the sudden meteor apocalypse, to chasing what may or may not be a robot dinosaur through a subterranean tunnel network on a planet populated by talking blue iguanas in search of their missing Victorian-era building materials. In the meanwhile, the following had happened, in no particular order: - Got her ass handed to her by her mother. Rather handily, even. This was such a common occurrence that it wasn't even worthy of noting, and she would have even been thankful for it since it was pretty much the only way the two of them ever really "communicated" anymore, except for the fact that said inglorious ass-kicking occurred in front of...
- Page, who holds the rare distinction of being one of three people who changed the course of her life, and the only of them who completely forgot about her afterward. Also some odd confusing feelings of attachment which just made life all the more difficult. Par for the course, given Dahlia's opinion of her own luck, but rather overshadowed by...
- The fact that Dahlia is not Dahlia, but in fact something called Subject Delta, which to her present knowledge was a secret project to create some manner of pseudo-cloned artificial life. Also there were meteors involved, and apparently it was the source of Sburb? Seriously there was no part of that which made it any less confusing than it already was, and her understanding of it all was certainly not aided by the fragmentary presentation of what sparse historical records there were. It was almost like someone was explicitly trying to mess with her for dramatic effect.
- Told she was the replacement for some other guy everyone liked (or at least tolerated), which according to Guardian was unusual enough (the replacing, that is, not the tolerating), except that apparently she was supposed to have been in that spot all along, evinced clearly by the fact that her clock was already there. Except she's not aware of that, given that said clock is back in her home universe somewhere, and she had long since accepted that her chances of seeing that place again were roughly on par with the average person's chances of being killed by a falling star.
- More Page stuff. Really didn't want to think about that anymore. For... reasons.
- Got sent off to chase a/some dinosaur/s by a bunch of overexcited lizards of questionable intellect and grasp of English vocabulary, which is where she finds herself now.
- Destroyer's Apostle. Yeah, we're just gonna leave that whole thing alone. Crazy goddamn lizard cultists is what's up. Preparing the world for a change? The only change this world needs is to stop sucking
Given all this, it was understandable that Dahlia gave as few fucks as humanly (or otherwise) possible about any portion of what was going on right now. Including the conversation, which she once again found herself only barely paying attention to as she sprinted through dimly-lit caverns in pursuit of a dinosaur and/or dinosaurs and/or armored dinosaurs and/or a factory and/or robots and/or quite possibly an armored robot dinosaur factory, because between paying attention a conversation which drew attention to her failed trolling attempts and doing whatever ridiculous thing she was doing at the moment, Dahlia Asher vastly preferred the option that was only privately shameful. Armo-dino-robo-factory-saurs it is, then. And also conversation. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she cursed her ability to multitask. For the sake of our readers' sanity, however, we'll do our best to keep it to the relevant snippets. After all, you've all read this before, haven't you? SM: I hope it doesn't come to open violence too soon. I was kind of looking forward to stabbing you all myself, instead. SM: That was a joke. You'll have to forgive my mood. I just spent far longer than I wanted to listening to idiot lizards rambling about pancakes, and before thatand before that I was doing all those things I said above that I really don't want to be thinking about right now so can we change the subject, please and fuck you.
And try not to take those last four words as a clustered literal sentiment. That would be lame and unfunny.And so she changed the subject. Mostly by swearing loudly in a way that was absolutely guaranteed to ruin whatever element of surprise she may have had in pursuit of her quarry, but damn it, she almost got the little bastard. Thing. Robot? She was definitely thinking robot now. At first it was just the clanking noise that made her suspect -- perhaps there was a factory down here or something, who knows, crazier things have happened -- but now she was quite certain that the shiny metal thing she was pursuing was most definitely either a robot, or something doing its very best to impersonate a robot. Chasing a steam-belching robot through a maze of twisty little passages on a planet populated by Victorian English talking blue iguanas and the entire cast of The Land Before Time. This was her life. And it was ending one stupid non sequitur at a time. SM: I don't know why people keep trying to throw swords at me. SM: I mean I know why she did, she was trying to kill me. IF: maybe she was apologizing for something? <_<Were she feeling a bit more introspective, Dahlia might have pondered at this point just what it said about her, that the company she kept (that being Gita, whom Zach was clearly referring to) were the sort of people who could chuck swords at you and not even seem out of the ordinary. Instead she vaguely pondered the question of just how long it had been since she was actually introspective, rather than just snarking and kicking her own ass without ever really learning anything. She then decided that the fucks she didn't give-- oh you heard this one already? Alright then. Somewhere around there, the clanking little monster had well and truly given its pursuer the slip, leaving Dahlia groping around in the darkness at what seemed to be a dead end. To nobody's surprise, she immediately and correctly surmised that there was some manner of trap door in the rock wall which had enabled the imp-sized robot to make its escape, because it's not like that wasn't tremendously obvious or anything. Finding the latch, however, proved rather more difficult -- impossible, in fact, and eventually she gave up on clawing uselessly at the wall. Perhaps they had some sort of emitter that allowed them passage, rather than relying on such hackneyed literary devices as secret switches. So much for that idea. Blowing up the wall was one possibility. A rocket pack (like the one presently residing in her sylladex) rigged properly would probably suffice for explosives. The problem there, being underground, would be the potential of triggering a cave-in in ways that she hadn't planned for, and while running around doing quests for retarded blue lizards was not especially high on the list of Things Dahlia Wants To Do Today Or Ever, it ranked rather higher than spending the remainder of her relatively short life trapped underneath a ton of rock. So that one was out too. As the adrenaline filtered out of her system, it suddenly dawned on Dahlia that on top of all the running around she'd done lately, she also hadn't slept in something very nearly approaching forever and a day, give or take an eternity. She slumped against the cave wall, catching her breath as she finished the remainder of her conversation with Zach. There was nothing more to accomplish here; she would return with a plan, or at least a stick of dynamite. Perhaps both. Concluding the equally-exhausting exchange with her longtime victim, Dahlia pushed off the wall and began trudging out of the cave, bidding farewell to her new victim-to-be. Next time, door.
Next time.===>Some time later, Dahlia returned to her house, which was now equipped thanks to Zach with several new devices which she spent some time toying with (most of which just ended up making a green ectoplasmic mess on the floor), and a substantial cache of grist which she would put to use in an alchemy montage which would put all her prior wastefulness to shame. There would be time for sleep in a few hours, but for now, she would scour the house for anything and everything that might potentially make interesting tools, weapons, or outfits. She would conclude the venture with a sylladex stuffed full of useful gadgets, fully equipped to handle whatever challenge came her way. And it would all be set to a thoroughly appropriate soundtrack for getting shit done, just like she said. > [S] DA: Alchemy montage
Nope screw that. END ACT 2 CHARACTER ARC -- Subject Delta -- -- God's Favorite Chew Toy -- -- Destroyer's Apostle -- -- Dahlia Asher--
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 20:00:12 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) >Peter: Survey wreckage Well that went well. You'd say that apart from the whole 'being exploded off of a tank' and 'almost dying' and probably also 'actually dying sort of' thing, that plan that may or may not be considered yours was a success! The tank is gone, your house is safe and aw who are you kidding that whole thing was an embarassing clusterfuck. You wonder how other you is doing. Maybe there's a chance he'll make it. ===> ...Oh. That was sudden. You'd expected him to at least have something to say before kicking the purely metaphorical bucket. Some last words, maybe something funny? But no. You... he just went and died. Nobody even noticed it happening. And now you have to deal with your own corpse. You've never really disposed of a body before. Hell, you just stuck your aunt in the closet when she bit it. But you think someone here has, and you think you might need help. And you also think you're going to regret this. SHOW PESTERLOG -- absoluteTranquility [AT] started pestering guardianGrognard [GG] -- AT: How do you get rid of your own body without permanently scarring anyone? GG: What I do is captchalogue 'em and get rid of the card. GG: Found your first dead you, eh? Best get used to it. AT: Not really found AT: He kinda saved my ass. AT: And I don't think the satchel modus will hold him. AT: Me. GG: Have any rivers you could hide the body in or someplace you could burn it? GG: All else fails, an unmarked grave in the middle of fuckoff nowhere, your land, isn't bound to be somethin' your friends notice. AT: There's no dirt here, just a bunch of skyscrapers. AT: I'd throw him off but that basically guarantees i'll find the body later. :/ AT: ... AT: So far this is basically the worst conversation. GG: I'm used to it by now, but I bet it is for you. GG: Hmm. GG: Any chance you can alchemize something to burn the body with, and just burn it in some desolate alleyway of your land where no one'll notice? AT: I guess. AT: That might freak out the snakes if they see me though. AT: Say where the hell did randy and that other guy go? AT: god what is it with people popping up and disappearing like that GG: Yeah, 's another thing t'get used to. GG: Who's Randy, though? AT: Snake. AT: He's kind of a moron. AT: I don't think he'll turn up again though. if he does i probably won't be able to tell it's him anyway. AT: Anyway AT: Disposing of my own body without letting anyone notice. AT: Should I just throw him on the exploded tank? GG: Maybe bury him under some of th'debris? GG: Prob'ly best not to devote too much effort to gettin' rid of your body anyway. GG: That can get morbid. AT: ... AT: Fine. >Peter: Dispose of corpse. You place one portal next to the wreckage and the other on the wall next to you. ===> ===> ===> ===> Stupid normal people and their stupid depth perception. ===> In you go, buddy. ===> ===> SHOW PESTERLOG GG: Stare at 'em all ya want, that blood's not comin' off without soap and water. AT: Yeah. AT: New subject. Who's this douchebag in the polo shirt? He punched me in the face earlier. :/ AT: Lorelei says he wasn't one of her servants. GG: All right, understandable if y'don't want to talk about it. GG: Polo shirt, though? GG: Don't know anyone with a polo shirt. GG: I'm not omniscient when it comes to your session, just know most of th'big events. GG: Maybe one of the other kids' guardians? GG: Ask around if anyone has a dad or uncle who's a mike tyson wannabe with horrible fashion sense. AT: Hah. AT: K I'll try that. AT: First things first though. >Peter: Replace jacket It was a coat but okay. SHOW PESTERLOG AT: Heeee GG: What GG: THE FUCK GG: are you wearing? AT: Blinky computerjacket. AT: It's surprisingly comfy. GG: Do you have ANY fuckin' idea JUST WHAT THAT THING I-... GG: No. GG: No, 'course you don't. You're just some kid. GG: Protip, kid: GG: That jacket you're wearing? GG: Looks just fucking like a jacket worn by a universe-devouring demon that just LOOOOOOVES to fuck with people all 'cross the multiverse. AT: Sweeeet. AT: I think. AT: Yeah it's sweet. AT: Hey do you think I should stick with the scythe or... GG: GOD DAMN IT, IT'S NOT SWEET. GG: Do you have any idea how many lives I've seen ruined because of English?! GG: Take that stupid shit off or I swear to God I will be there five seconds ago to rip it from your CORPSE! AT: My corpse wasn't wearing one. GG: Oh HA-FUCKING-HA AT: And I'm keeping it. :/ [/b] GG: ........Ugh. GG: Fine, dumbass kid. Wear some gaudy piece of shit that's associated with the hugest fucking murderer to ever exist. GG: You're a kid. You're SUPPOSED to be fucking stupid. It's been so long since my child-rearing days I forgot that. GG: Whatever. GG: Also, scythes are garbage weapons, but I've seen worse. AT: Well up yours too, jackass. AT: Halberd it is. AT: I think is what you call this.[/spoiler] ===> SHOW PESTERLOG GG: What IS your specibus? AT: Polekind AT: Not my best choice but OH WELL. GG: 'Least it seems ripe for loophole abuse, since you can use halberds and scythes and shit. GG: Think spears fall under it too? AT: Yeah but I have a pretty shit throwing arm. :/ AT: This is better 'cause it has an axe and a pointy tip. AT: (not like it matters, i'm terrible at using poles anyway) GG: Spears are primarily melee weapons, really. GG: Actually, I can teach you how to fight, if you want. Not just normally, but how to use your Time powers as a weapon. GG: Few people are as tough as a Hero of Time who knows what he's doin'. AT: I think i can figure it out. GG: Kid, I've been at this for millenia. Plural. GG: You really don't think I could teach ya somethin' useful? AT: ... AT: Well you really haven't so far. :/ GG: What chance have I had? AT: >hiding body AT: >dealing with own corpses AT: >finding polo shirt douchebag AT: >??? GG: I gave you plenty of ideas for corpse disposal. GG: If by the second one you mean "dealing with the emotional ramifications of finding my own body" then it's really hard to help anyone with that--it's usually something you just have to come to terms with yourself--and you didn't want t'talk about it besides. GG: The third isn't teaching, it's finding someone, and I DID help you with that. GG: You're 0 for 3, there, at least from where I'm standin'. AT: From where you're standing kids throwing out their own bodies is normal and a green blinky jacket is the physical embodiment of ultimate evil. AT: And that really doesn't seem helpful to me. :/ AT: Look I can figure this shit out, except maybe the polearms thing but I'll worry about that if i ever even need to attack someone directly. AT: And that doesn't happen a lot. GG: Fine, wh GG: AUGH, WHAT THE FUCK GG: ALDKHGAKJDHG;AJGBHJGAHF;LFH GG: LAHGAOIETUPOAINOKBN;IUAGHIAJBGAJGNAJKGBAG GG: GET OFF ME, WHAT THEAKHGOSUFHGOIAHJTOAHNUG GG: Ahem. AT: Hey, you ARE crazy! AT: Called it. 1 for 4. GG: No, see, this is future Temujin. I was just kicking current me, the one you're talking to, off. GG: So...fuck, I guess you're still right. GG: Whatever. GG: Point is, he's going to be sorry for blowing up at you over the jacket thing eventually. GG: That's retarded and you're retarded. GG: FUCK OFF GG: Start acting like the old man you claim to be! GG: YEAH, THAT SOUNDS GOOD. LEMME JUST GO GRAB A PAIR OF DEPENDS AND A WALKER AND WE CAN YELL AT PEOPLE ON OUR LAWN GG: JACKASS GG: Whatever. GG: Point is, sorry. GG: Ok, I'll let the asshole you were talking to have the computer back. AT: I think my aunt had a condition like this. AT: I could get you her pills if you need them GG: If time travel could be fixed by medicine, woulda taken those pills sweeps ago. GG: Ugh. GG: You'll be lucky if your past and future selves have the fuckin' sense to leave you alone. AT: Sweeps=asshole years right? AT: Cause the trolls keep using that word. GG: 2.16 years roughly, yeah. GG: Lived with trolls a long time, so I started picking up their lingo. GG: Never realized how weird it might be before I started having to interact with humans again. AT: I think the depressing thing is it's not weird to me anymore. AT: I'm covered in blood and torn between suffusing my hands in the metacarpal decontamination unit, having a dip in the ablution trap, or blowing the fuck out of Lohqua's goddamn husktop before she trolls me again. GG: Did you just make all that shit up? GG: 'Cause those are spot-on terms for troll shit. AT: No, I did not make them up. >_____< AT: Have you ever tried getting her to stop talking? AT: IT'S NOT FUCKING EASY GG: Ehehehe. Got a bad case of hatefriends, eh? AT: APPARENTLYGG: Normally I'd say just ignore 'em until they gave up. "Don't feed the trolls" and all that. AT: That's harder than it sounds. She feeds mostly on fish and misery. AT: Did you know spine-backed gillreapers are delicious? AT: Apparently.GG: So I've heard as well. GG: Anyway, this is Lohqua. GG: You're basically fucked. GG: Sorry to say it, but it's true. AT: Yeah I figured. AT: On the bright side I'm practically trilingual after sifting through her rants. GG: Don'tcha feel all warm and fuzzy from the cultural awareness all over the place? AT: "Warm and fuzzy" means moldy, right? AT: Like, some kind of smelly blue alien fuzz is growing on my worldly culture bread? AT: If so, yes. GG: And about the same capacity to make ya nauseous and vomit, yep. AT: mlkshk.com/r/2HUV GG: Heh. GG: Anyway, have anything else you need to ask me about or do you want to go futz about with your time shit and probably end up five hundred years in the past, worshipped as a god by the primeval forms of the consorts or what-the-hell-ever? AT: Nah, you can go yell at Page from a lawn chair. AT: I've got something I just realized I need to work on. GG: Not sure even I could yell at her. GG: 'll give it the old college try, I gues. GG: See you. -- guardianGrognard [ GG] ceased pestering absoluteTranquility [ AT] -- ===> Life is short. You, the Seer of Time, of all people, should know this. Surely you've heard the saying, seen proof in the form of your dead parents, but you've never actually let yourself believe it. Now, you're not so sure. In the blink of an eye, your life was ended. One false step, not even yours, was enough to finish you. If your double hadn't acted in his last seconds, that could have been permanent. Bam. No more Seer. No more papercraft, no more portals. No more bold text or good-natured snark. (You said good-natured.) If that was just a moment of carelessness, you wonder how many times everyone else will fall to their mistakes. Considering how many you've all made so far... If and when they die, it's your job to make sure it doesn't happen again. You'll need to be ready for the inevitable at all times, prepared to throw yourself back through the folds of time before that reality becomes the reality. And when you do, you'll need to be ready to give your life. After all, you're their Seer. You're the boy with all the time in the world. ===> And no time at all. ((Screw you guys I'm not doing the end of arc thing))
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 20:01:12 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) -- inaneFixation [ IF] started pestering guardianGrognard[ GG] -- IF: hey IF: quick question. what does it mean if you're knocked out and your dreamself doesn't wake up?GG: Well, if it ain't flyboy. SHOW PESTERLOG GG: Usually? Means he's dead. GG: Yours is fine, though. I personally decked th'guy trying to haul you off to the slammer. GG: (the slammer being what you call prison when you're mad at criminals, I hear) GG: But y'didn't wake up on Derse at all? IF: nope. IF: it was more like IF: some weird black void. IF: there was a guy there but i didn't get a good look at him.GG: Well, I think y'might have taken a trip to the dream bubbles, possibly. GG: (One crack about me sounding like that Page kid and I will end you) GG: Long story short, they function as both the afterlife and what players with dead dream selves dream of. Hard t'explain, you kinda have to experience it to really get what they are. Kinda formed of your memories, but you can also interact with other dream bubbles as well. IF: so he was dead? :/ IF: god i am never taking my derseshades off again. IF: will i go back there if i try sleeping now?GG: Dead or dreamin' like you. Likely the former if he was a human you don't recognize. GG: And to answer your question, I don't rightly fuckin' know. Your session just loves to throw curveballs at me like this. GG: It's like I'm the star hitter of a team and this session has put its best pitcher to take me down, but I stumbled onto the diamond drunk and clearly high on at least five kinds of drugs, so I'm just swinging ineffectually at the balls while yelling shit about space aliens and anal probing and everyone else just kinda sighs and watches as a cultural icon defaces himself in front of a crowd. GG: ...Yeah, I kinda lost my handle on that one. GG: Point is. GG: Hell if I know. GG: Never seen a case where someone can get ta the dreaming bubbles without a dead dream self! IF: tinyurl.com/bmusvyf IF: so there's no point worrying because nobody can do jack, huh. XD GG: Hehehahahaha GG: Oh god that fits way too much. GG: Man, earth lost a fucking LUMINARY when that guy got a faceful of meteor for breakfast. GG: But yeah, I don't know whether your dream self will "wake back up" again or not. Just gotta wait 'n see. IF: welp. IF: not gonna' check, i actually have to get stuff done. why i put this off for nearly two days, nobody will ever know. GG: Put off what for two days? IF: land shit. going to go do IF: denizen things i think. IF: that sounds pretty dumb though i mean denizens are like huge bosses right? IF: steven was very vague and... didn't actually tell me what i'm supposed to be doing right now.GG: There's a reason for that. Best if you find out yourself, I've found. Though I'm here if you're absolutely stumped as to what ya need to be doing. IF: well i think i was supposed to go through the gate. IF: y/n GG: hy IF: :I IF: ... IF: well excersize is good right?GG: You're gonna sleep well tonight, that's sure as shit. IF: yaaaaaay more dead people! :D :D :D :D IF: (shoot me now please)GG: Pbbt, like it'd change anything. GG: I'd have to either smooch your corpse to revive you or let your dreamself die, and either way you'd STILL have to deal with dead people. IF: ...FMD? IF: just in case i have to go back though what's proper dead person etiquette? IF: if it's just a void it's like IF: "what's up?" "standing in nothing for eternity" "that's cool" "there's a sword in my chest. that's how i died." "...i see" IF: unless that doesn't happen but still there've gotta' be some rules here.GG: Just treat 'em like you would any stranger. GG: If they've been outright seeking you out, they'll get ta talking about why soon enough. GG: If they just stumbled across you then, well, whatever. GG: Normally, though, you'll probably only interact via shared memories. You'll spend the first bit reliving a memory with someone until one of you realizes that they're asleep or dead or whatever. Then I guess you can chat about what the fuck ever. Can even go through in your dream bubbles places and people you've seen. GG: 'S how I show my wife what I've been up to, for example. IF: doesn't that mean i know this guy? GG: Were you involved with a memory that you shared? If not, then he prob'bly just chanced across your dream bubble. GG: Given how paradox space works I'm inclined to wonder if he's important in some way, but if ya didn't get a good look at him guess there's no way to know. IF: nope just black. IF: oh well. maybe i'll find out later. GG: Knowin' paradox space, you're probably right. GG: Never doubt its capacity to make the most insignificant, minor shit be SUPER IMPORTANT later. IF: how's that- IF: fuck hold on. -- cerbericCommando [CC] began trolling inaneFixation [IF] -- CC: YOU MOTHERFUCKERIF: excuse me?===> SHOW PESTERLOG CC: THE TABS CC: THEY'RE EVERYWHERE CC: NOTHING BUT TABS ABOUT ALL THE INANE HUMAN BULLSHIT EVERYWHERE CC: HOW DID I GET TO SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR DEAD ALIEN LEADER HAVING TRAPPED HIMSELF IN THE ABLUTION TRAP DUE TO HIS CORPULENT GIRTH CC: THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULTIF: now those are some familiar words IF: wikipedia right? IF: yeah felett said pretty much the same thing when i gave him a link to tvtropes.org IF: and then he smashed my face into my keyboard with his mind and told me never to link human garbage to anyone ever again. IF: i think he might have had the right idea though. :/CC: FUCK YOU, I AM NOT CLICKING THAT LINK CC: NO CC: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO CC: I AM HAVING A CRISIS HERE AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT ANY WORSE IF: oh man. IF: um IF: hold on it's here somewhere IF: i made a program to keep this exact thing from happening to me but eventually grew out of it and buried it somewhere. IF: ah, here it is. --inaneFixation sent file BRICKIPEDIA.exe-- CC: OK FINE IF: i should probably warn -- cerbericCommando's computer exploded! -- IF: you IF: uh. -- cerbericCommando [CC] began trolling inaneFixation [IF] -- CC: so. CC: my computer's sudden detonation forced me to go through the process of alchemizing a new one. the effort gave me some time to reflect. CC: my apologies for lashing out at you, human.IF: jesus christ. IF: how many tabs did you have open?! IF: that thing was supposed to slow your computer down with each one until it overheated but it always just crashed at sixty for me :/CC: i would rather not think about the whole experience. CC: suffice it to say it was a lot. CC: this is just after my computer exploded from your point of view, correct? these sliders are tricky business.IF: yeah. i stopped messing with them after i looked at guardian's timeline IF: luckily my computer survived that IF: (sorry)CC: far preferable that i lose a replaceable item than continue in that hell. CC: anyway CC: i see the female isn't with you. you parted ways?IF: 'the female'? IF: dude come on she has a name. IF: ...i probably shouldn't tell you though she's a little weird about it. IF: call her jm i guess? IF: but yeah.CC: out of curiosity, are you able to fare against the monsters Sgrub throws at you at all? CC: i'm curious as to how a less martially adept species handles it.IF: less adept? IF: i get that i'm not as psychic as you guys but i can still beat up some ogres. :/ IF: and sis is like a blackbelt or somethingCC: your sister may be different (though i'm not sure what the color of her belt has to do with it), but don't most humans not see any combat growing up? CC: that was what i was led to believe in my time spend on that infernal site. IF: (blackbelt is like a high martial arts rank. i'm not sure of the details but she's a really good kickboxer.) IF: most don't but we're doing fine. except maybe page, i haven't talked to her about them. IF: but that's what the gun is for. :VCC: i see. i wonder if the game is less difficult for species such as yours or if the difficulty is kept the same...?IF: i don't know anything about your session so i can't say. IF: but i think you might be underestimating us. IF: like a lot.CC: i hardly think it's odd to imply you're weaker than a species like mine bred for war and conquest. CC: you may be quite competent, indeed. i just doubt you're as martially competent as trolls. IF: well no shit you guys have psychic powers and a (probably evil) space empire. :/ IF: of course some of you will end up tougher, you get killed if you don't. IF: and now WE get killed if we suck so we don't get to do that anymore. :V CC: i hardly expect an alien to respect our Empire. CC: seems you agree with what i said, though, so no reason to get testy about it. good luck with your trial by fire, though. CC: i don't suppose you want me to go and start telling timeline spoilers about how it all turns out. CC: not that i could find out, either way... IF: yeah i black out, i remember. :I IF: not even going to ask about that. CC: if it helps to know, your highblood leader blacks out sooner than the rest of you. CC: you might want to look out for that in the future. IF: i'd look out for it now but a crocodile took my omnishades. IF: should i warn her about that? IF: (the blackout, not the croc. i kind of doubt he's the problem here.) CC: up to you. you know her better than i do. IF: okay i guess i probably IF: woah. that's IF: kind of a lot of lizards. :I ===> CC: that's a quest hook if i ever saw one. IF: they look scared. IF: i don't see any monsters though. IF: ... IF: wait. ===> IF: they're right behind me aren't they. IF: yeah that figures. IF: i don't think they know i see them though. CC: in my experience, few enemies are more vulnerable than those who falsely believe they have the drop on you. IF: heheheh IF: weaker species, you said? IF: start a timer. ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===> ===>
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 20:01:51 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) ===> ===> ZACH: oh yeah? ZACH: i can do that too!===> Warning. ===> Battery at four hundred percent maximum capacity. ZACH: that works! ===> ===> SHOW PESTERLOG CC: just under three minutes. CC: not bad. CC: points for style too. IF: that was kind of fun. i think i broke a tooth though. IF: where'd my sword go? i dropped it right here. >:/ CC: i can't see it so it must have flown off somewhere outside my viewport's view. CC: i'm afraid you get demerits for losing your weapon. that's a big no-no in the military here. don't know if it's the same for you humans. IF: yeah... IF: if anyone asks it was stolen by crocodiles. IF: that totally didn't just happen. :I CC: is losing your weapon to a retarded lizard really less embarrassing to you than losing it in the heat of battle? IF: no but let's face it, it's more believable. CC: that kind of thing's par for the course for you, i take it? IF: just talk to any of my friends and ask what they think happened. that should answer your question. CC: it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy if you only further validate that belief in them, isn't it? IF: you think i want to be the guy who gets beaten up by kittens? >:/ IF: shit happens, and i think they noticed it happens to me a lot. CC: you were beaten up by kittens? CC: kittens. IF: the one that did it tackled a robot out a window minutes later. not my fault. :I CC: that CC: is a remarkably badass feline. IF: all of them were like that. ._. IF: ALL OF THEM. CC: ...huh. CC: mine just seem to be remarkably retarded wolves. IF: the rest of them are idiots too, it's really weird. IF: except they give me these weird looks kind of like they're trying to plan something but can't because they're distracted by something shiny. CC: that's probably just your imagination. you've come to expect bad things to happen, so it's no surprise you interpret what could be completely innocuous as potential to do you harm. CC: ...then again, the cats did attack you... IF: yeah you're probably right. these salamander guys look pretty harmless. IF: and they're definitely not glaring at me like i'm hellspawn. :I CC: good luck, all the same, zach. CC: by the way, did you need anything else from me for your engineering projects? IF: no thanks IF: if i really need something i think i can ask guardian, he's got a shitload of stuff in- IF: wait IF: fuck. GG: Sure. GG: Whatever, you're taking forever, just gonna assume you're busy. Contact me again if you have anything else you wanna say. -- guardianGrognard [GG] ceased pestering inaneFixation [IF] -- IF: whoops. SHOW PESTERLOG IF: uh IF: yeah. no thanks. CC: what was that all about?IF: i was talking to him about weird afterlife bullshit and then you started flipping out. IF: do you know how any of that works? :/CC: uh, sorry about that. CC: afterlife bullshit, though? CC: i...wasn't aware there was any afterlife bullshit at all. CC: i mean, i had hopes that there was, but...IF: well there is and apparently it's based on memories? IF: i was only asking him about it 'cause apparently that's where you go when your dreamself is either dead or IF: i dunno corrupted i guess. IF: tinyurl.com/bmusvyf IF: (i don't think that thing will ever not be useful.)CC: that CC: is CC: quite the head of hair that human has. CC: is that normal hair fashion for your species...?IF: nah this guy's just kind of IF: off.CC: good to hear. CC: i'm sure the use of that image is some terribly hilarious joke in your culture. CC: though some of the humor value is retained for me thanks to his hair. CC: by God, what was he thinking when he woke up that evening?IF: "damn, i can't find my tinfoil hat!" IF: but yeah horrorterrors and clusterfucks and dead people. IF: do you happen to know any short guys with pointy hair?CC: felett?IF: oh IF: ...duh IF: problem solved i guess. XD IF: did his dreamself die or something?CC: not to my knowledge. CC: i wonder if that really matters, though. is an afterlife connected to our own perceptions of linear time? i mean, i effectively exist parallel to your own timeline. i could view a time when you're dead, if i had the handle of someone who lived beyond you, just as easily as i'm looking at you now. CC: in the long run, we're ALL dead. IF: man talk to temujin that crap hurts my head. :I IF: all i know was IF: nothing. IF: hell he might not have even been dead his dreamself could just be horrorterrorized like mine.CC: "horrorterrorized"? IF: shut up. IF: you know what i mean. IF: did he stare at the giant wads of tentacle for too long?CC: no? CC: he's still asleep. i wasn't aware that was something you could do. IF: prospit or derse?CC: me? prospit. IF: ah. IF: well yeah you can definitely do that on derse. IF: usually it doesn't do much but like i said this session is apparently all kinds of messed up.CC: i'll let you know if felett ever finds himself...knocked out by a horrorterror or something. CC: i should probably let you see to whatever those lizards of yours need, though. IF: oh yeah. IF: later dude -- inaneFixation [ IF] ceased pestering cerbericCommando [CC] -- ===> They still look scared for some reason. Dammit, what did you do this time? You calmly tell them that you're not going to hurt anyone except maybe some monsters you guess. They tell you they're not even worried about monsters anymore and that what's in the tower is much worse than any underling you've seen. You say you can handle it. They say their janitors wouldn't like to see you try. You ask what is it, anyway? They all start yelling nigh indecipherable gibberish and blowing spit bubbles. You start sneaking towards the stone tower. One of them says wait, it's dangerous to go alone. He says take this. >Zach: Take thing. This is absolutely ridiculous and probably several kinds of useless. Where did he even find this thing? You say thanks you think and back away slowly because they're all staring at you. One of them tries to be all sneaky and whispers something about getting the grave ready but you can totally hear him. ===> ===> You admit you're a little worried about all of this. You were able to pick out some of what the crowd said, and none of it sounded too good. Apparently their friend lost his mind and attacked? Left the whole tower in ruins by the looks of... ===> Oh. Oh wow.
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 20:02:40 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) >Zach: Ask friend about thing. -- inaneFixation [ IF] started pestering philosopherQueen [ PQ] -- SHOW PESTERLOG {Spoiler}IF: hey IF: i'm a bit late but what was with that giant beam earlier? was that you? PQ: Oh! Hello, Zach. PQ: That was actually me, yes. PQ: 'Tis quite a long story behind that, but I shall tell it if you wish. All I am doing right now is flying Page back to her library. IF: i think i have time to hear it IF: there's not much going on down here so whatever spooked everyone probably left? IF: also is page okay PQ: She is fine, bizarrely enough. PQ: I mean, a while ago she was apprently being chased by some huge fire demon! PQ: But it just disappeared right before it could potentially end her life. PQ: I simply found her passed out--likely from fright--here in a burned forest. PQ: Yet there is no fire around and Page does not seem hurt or the least bit burnt at all. IF: well IF: that is some pretty spooky shit. :I IF: did she ever wake up on derse by the way? i mean that's like IF: the third time she's passed out in the last two days? (i'm one to talk) IF: that's gotta' do something. PQ: ...You know, I do not know! PQ: Perhaps she has. Then everyone would be awake! PQ: Except Dahlia. Something tells me she shall be tough to wake up. IF: ice water IF: shock therapy IF: loud noises IF: hit her with a car IF: i don't know. XD PQ: Alas, we are distressingly short on motor vehicles, and I have the sneaking suspicion that would be what it would take! PQ: Anyway PQ: You wanted to hear the whole story behind the giant beam of light, right? PQ: I am actually quite surprised that you and Page could see it from your planets... IF: i wasn't exactly on my planet. :/ IF: gita and i were flying a rocket bathtub with no steering mechanism when we saw it. IF: and THEN we (crash)landed on my planet and pretty much lost sight of everything that wasn't clouds. IF: it was somewhere between almost fun and completely horrible. PQ: A rocket bathtub. IF: with hotrod flames, yes. PQ: A rocket bathtub. IF: admittedly not my best idea. IF: she agreed and then went along with it anyway for some reason. :I PQ: Ahahahahaaaa... I do not know whether that sounds horrible or amazing or what. PQ: Perhaps a little from column A, a little from column B. PQ: At least flitting about on a deathtrap like that is marginally better than the two of you fighting again. It implies some level of teamwork. PQ: ANYWAY PQ: We keep getting off-track here! PQ: Florian can just eat his heart out, because 'tis storytime here, and I have quite a tale to spin. PQ: (Florian being a servant of mine who has a big knack for telling stories). PQ: To recount it in full would take as many hours as actually living through it, but the abridged version is thus: PQ: One of the trolls, a new friend of mine and fellow Hope player, Khirun Kentar, directed me, shortly after I lost a battle against a Dersite who has the bizarre ability to direct the legions of monsters to his own will, towards the angels. PQ: Have I told you about the angels yet? I honestly have forgotten just who I have talked with this about. IF: i don't think so? PQ: 'Tis apparently their duty to teach those who embody the element of Hope to master their powers. I was training with them before I flew off to Page's world. PQ: When I first arrived there, I was told to venture to some nearby caverns, where I would be tested and would take my first steps down a path. PQ: The caverns were...well, horrible. PQ: An unnatural darkness filled them, twisting one's thoughts, breeding fear and depression and a feeling of surrender. The whispers were the worst. Always there, gnawing at the edges of my mind. Nothing intelligible, but somehow that made it worse. PQ: My magic did not work when I first entered, and to add to it all I saw...things. PQ: It would be for the best, I think, that I not drag up the skeletons in my closet right now, but suffice it to say what I saw only served to further that feeling of depression, fear, and surrender. It was trying to break my will. PQ: It succeeded. PQ: ...I ended up just barely being able to run before I was...I do not truly know. PQ: Consumed? PQ: That feels like the correct word. PQ: It was after that that I ended up embarking on the train of events that involved taking those three lives that I mentioned in our last conversation. IF: holy shit. IF: i uh IF: i walked around in the rain for like eight hours and crashed into some things today. now i'm underground. IF: but yeah. IF: sorry to hear all that. PQ: Haha. It is fine, Zach. But thank you. PQ: Honestly, I would probably prefer your adventures to my own. PQ: But I get the feeling that the game is...I do not know, grooming me for something? PQ: The angels keep mentioning a "transformation process" that I will inevitably choose--even though it seems odd to me that something can both be inevitable and a choice. PQ: Still, better that I bear whatever burden may come than any of you. That is what friendleaders do, after all! IF: bullshit. IF: there's no way in hell we're letting you deal with everything all by yourself. :P PQ: Hehehe. Thank you, Zach. PQ: Anyway. PQ: After that last conversation I had with you, I went off to return to the caverns to try once again, armed with the newfound knowledge that my magic was derived from no external source, but my own strength of will, and a concomitant newfound will to overcome the challenges ahead. PQ: I contacted Khirun before entering once again, for moral support. This time I was able to keep the light shining as I entered. PQ: Strangely enough, the darkness actually affected Khirun, even though she's off in...wherever the trolls are, simply due to her viewing me. The stronger my light was, the less it would affect her. PQ: I suppose that is a testament to its rather eldritch power. PQ: Anyway, with her help, I managed to get to the lower reaches of the caverns. PQ: Then, at a moment when my will was beginning to flag from the constant psychological and emotional stress of simply being in the darkness, Ad-... PQ: Well, the darkness had taken a form, you see. Human. Ish. Related to the aforementioned bones in my wardrobe. PQ: Point is, it grabbed me, and in my panic and fear, I dropped my drill. The light went out entirely. PQ: But I resolved not to let it win, not when I had come so far! PQ: Without my drill as an aid and focus, I nevertheless managed to conjure up the light once again, stronger than ever. PQ: I was--understandably so, I imagine--utterly sick of the place by that point. I could...sense, funnily enough, the direction of the darkness'...core, I guess you could say? PQ: I took a gordian knot solution to the problem and shot a rather large beam of light through the walls blocking my path to the core. IF: and that's what we saw? PQ: No, actually, it was not. PQ: The light, massive as it was, was utterly...well, devoured by the core when it hit it. PQ: The core was this sort of small, black crystalline figure sitting on an unassuming pedestal about knee-height. For me, at least. For someone as tall as you I imagine it would be only up to your ankles! :P PQ: I could think of no better way, after a bit of messing around, to destroy the thing. So I simply directed as much of my magic as I could into the thing. PQ: It kept devouring it and devouring it, but I simply kept on the pressure. PQ: Then the world just...turned white. PQ: Next thing I knew, the caverns were gone. Just gone. Utterly blown to pieces. There was a hole in the clouds above! PQ: And I was very, very tired. PQ: I do imagine that the beam of light you saw while riding your little deathtrap was the beam of light that destroyed the caverns when the core "overloaded". IF: i have to say, that is pretty awesome. IF: fifteen boonbucks says that if i had done the same thing, thousands would have died and the planet would be torn in half. XD IF: but i don't have magic so you're all safe for now. i do however have MOTHERFUCKING LIGHTNING PUNCHES under certain conditions. PQ: Haha! Well, thank you. I am certainly glad to have gotten through it all right. PQ: Lightning punches, though? Well, that definitely sound amazing! Related to the environment in your land, I take it? IF: yep. apparently everyone else is using the storms to their advantage too, i was just slow to catch on. IF: like down here they convert the electricity from the lightning into power for the shields keeping the ceiling up. which is pretty impressive for a bunch of retarded lizards. IF: and my denizen is trying to take that power. IF: and i guess their insane friend is just blowing all of the towers that collect the lightning because he's a dick? PQ: The consorts have struck me as somewhat savant, if you ask me. As daft as my little turtles mostly are, with the odd exception, they MUST possess some level of skill to create things like that and the towering factory complexes, churches, walls, and other gold buildings of my own land. PQ: Who is the "insane friend", though? I mean, do you know what it might be or the name? Somewhat odd that there is another antagonist besides the denizen. PQ: ...Of course, I say that, forgetting that I have something like that too. Hurr hurr :B IF: it's hard to say. ===> SHOW PESTERLOG {Spoiler}IF: they were all panicking when i asked about it but i think i heard a name? IF: they called him 'serris' PQ: ...Hmm. Well, if that is a mythological reference, 'tis one outside my knowledge. IF: i think he's a boss from metroid. :/ PQ: What, really? IF: that or the bad guy from galaxy quest. IF: but not a mythological thing. google said no. PQ: Huh. It just seems...odd. PQ: Odd that a game revolving around the creation and destruction of worlds would borrow a name from some Earth game. PQ: It is likely just a coincidence, though. Just as much one as the antagonist from galaxy quest and the boss from metroid sharing a name. IF: maybe it's a fluke. IF: i mean, guardian keeps going on and on about how fucked up our session is. maybe this thing is supposed to be unimportant but isn't this time. PQ: Perhaps so. I suppose time shall tell, much as it likely shall for the many mysteries that plague my OWN land. IF: oh well, i'll worry about that when it shows up. IF: which might be sooner than i want. IF: *will definitely PQ: Something tells me it shall be so for the both of us. IF: don't get me wrong, i want this guy to hurry up and do whatever. IF: tbh i'm pretty bored with walking in circles. :I IF: and the gilded bowels of losas are only slightly better because nobody's around to give me quests right now. PQ: "Gilded bowels"? Do tell! IF: that is literally what they named this place. IF: there is a big sign right above me letting me know this. :/ IF: but i guess it fits. i wish i had a camera. XD PQ: Well, what is it like? Besides being recesses decorated with gold, I mean. IF: kinda' like something you would see in an indiana jones movie only less old i guess? IF: it's this big quiet fancy city and there aren't many monsters that i can see so this is probably what the solace part means. PQ: Sounds like an interesting place to explore, then. PQ: Try not to get crushed by any large boulders! (Hahahaha, terrible joke) IF: SHHH IF: i'm underground and there's a psycho here and you do NOT say things like that. >:I PQ: Right, sorry. PQ: I hope you alchemized a whip, at least. PQ: (Ok, I should just stop while I'm only REALLY behind) IF: i should probably do that actually IF: i need like IF: some kind of kickass multitool or something because i don't get any cool powers. :/ PQ: To be honest, I am somewhat surprised to learn that you never tried to create something like that before this game, given your engineering prowess. IF: i did try. it works great but i only have like a tenth of it done. XD IF: you know iron man? (of course you do) IF: that's what i would have done with tons of money if i had it. :P PQ: You know, I had always planned, upon inheriting the Von Hayek empire, to give you a very sizeable grant just to see what you would do with it. PQ: I wanted it to be a surprise when it happened. PQ: But I suppose that is just one of the many things that shan't be occurring thanks to this game. "So it goes" as Guardian would say. IF: pfff IF: on that note do you know what booncash does? PQ: Well, they seem, at least in my world, to be the form of currency used amongst the consorts. Peter and I invested some of ours into an underground stock market on my own land. PQ: Reminds me that I need to check up on that at some point. PQ: Anyway, considering we receive them from levelling up, I imagine we are meant to buy things from the consorts at some point. PQ: New gear would seem redundant given the process of alchemy. IF: if the consorts are selling it then it's probably something like IF: i dunno, bug stew or mushroom hats. IF: or sand. IF: i bet sand goes for a lot around here. PQ: I actually had some of the local cuisine today. The less I think about what it contained the better, truly... PQ: Sand is everywhere in your land, though, right? PQ: There is no way it would be pricey! The laws of supply and demand would deem that something in such great supply, absent a concomitant high demand, would be rather low in price. IF: i think you might be overestimating these guys just a little. PQ: I hardly think it is overestimating them to believe they follow the simple laws of praxeology. PQ: Shall we wager on this, then? PQ: Boondollars, likely, given the hoard of gold and other currency in my mansion's basement seems like it is largely useless here. IF: haha, yes. IF: and then when you lose you can just sell that hoard of gold to make it all back. PQ: Which would actually not amount to very much on my own land, given the abundance of gold to the point it is used as a building material leads to a LOWER PRICE. PQ: So, it is YOU who shall be losing, trust me. I am an economist. PQ: How much shall we bet, then? IF: how about five boonbucks? PQ: Five million boondollars, yes? Quite the sum. I accept. PQ: You win if you find some hawker selling sand at obtuse prices and has customers. PQ: That last bit is important, as any two-bit snakeoil salesman could TRY to sell sand at your land for high prices. PQ: I win if, within...shall we say two weeks' time, you have not found such a merchant? IF: what if i can sell the sand? IF: but you're on either way. :P PQ: Well, I do not know. You are the hero within your land after all, so you would likely be more trusted as a salesman, and thus could easily fool consorts into thinking the sand has some special benefit due to its relation to you. PQ: I suppose an acceptable compromise is asking a consort to sell his sand at a high price, so long as the customers do not know you are involved. IF: K thx 4 the free boonbucksPQ: Likewise, my friend. Likewise.IF: hehehehe-SHIT ===> IF: BRB FISH --inaneFixation [ IF] is now an idle chum! -- PQ: Oh, my. Good luck! ===> ===> ===> >Serris: Use Hyperbeam ===> ===>
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Naevius
Mustardblood
Posts: 201
Identifies as: Male
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Post by Naevius on Jul 9, 2015 20:03:29 GMT -5
((Ripcord's post)) >ZL: Ride. >NO. >HELL NO. >HELL >FUCKING >OW. ===> -- inaneFixation [ IF] started pestering guardianGrognard [ GG] -- IF: serris just kicked my ass. ===> IF: i think that might be all there is to say on the matter. SHOW PESTERLOG GG: Wait...Serris? GG: Are we talkin' about a giant snake-fish thing? IF: yeah the big purple one that shoots lightning from his face. IF: he popped right the fuck out of nowhere and started wrecking everything. :/ GG: *sigh* GG: I honestly don't fuckin' know if I should be surprised or not that he's in your session. GG: Somethin' must've pissed it off good. You say it just showed up and took your ass out to a nice seafood dinner with a side of pain? Ya didn't provoke it at all? IF: well it might've been pissy because of the giant piece of debris lodged in it's head IF: that seems pretty reasonable to me so let's go with it. GG: Seems 'bout right. At least th'Serris *I* knew was kind of a lazy-ass fish thing until you got it mad. GG: Which Taylor inevitably did, because he was a dumbass. GG: Miss him, though... GG: Anyway, yeah, prob'bly should either run like hell or try to get the debris out. GG: Actually, first option is probably bad considering that thing's deceptively fast, if I remember correctly. Kept up with Taylor, and that kid was like a rat on PCP. GG: Lemme know if y'need any help, and I'll be there two seconds ago. IF: hah IF: nope i'm fine. or as close as i'm going to get until i can limp home. :/ IF: he already flew off though. GG: Guess you're safe for now. Sure y'don't need my help with anything? I could get you a healing item or somethin' if you don't have one. IF: i have one IF: somewhere IF: just IF: i IF: jesus fuck why did i ever get this modus. IF: fuck this i need pockets is what i need. :I GG: I could give you a spare wallet modus off one of my dead alternates. GG: I'd have to find a safe place t'unload its contents because I make the most obsessive of packrats cry tears of blood as they gaze upon the clusterfuck that is my modus. GG: Anyway, I'm gonna show up right....now. True to his word, at that very moment Guardian appeared in front of Zach with a flash of red light, two shields hovering to his right and left. In his hand he held the most appetizing-looking piece of bread that Zach had ever laid eyes on, and knelt down beside the fallen Knight to offer it. SHOW DIALOGLOG ZACH: did you bring the pockets? GUARDIAN: No, but I brought one of th'wallet modi. Better than pockets. GUARDIAN: Discarded its contents out in th'Furthest Ring. Can't help but think the horrorterrors might get a tad pissy about that, but I never liked 'em anyways. ZACH: because we totally need more pissed off tentacle gods right now. :/ ZACH: but thanks. GUARDIAN: Yeah, mighta been kinda stupid, but I actually already did it, so I had to do it. GUARDIAN: Weird time shit. Watch it be crucial for somethin' later on. That's usually how this works. ZACH: didn't you mention enormous bombs? ZACH: i already have a bad feeling about this. you did make sure they weren't in the way of like ZACH: our orbit or whatever these sessions do, right? :P GUARDIAN: They don't really orbit, just kinda...sit there. But honestly, with how fucked up time and space is out there, that shit could end up back here or in another session or just stayin' how it is. GUARDIAN: Hands were kinda tied with the weird time shit, though. ZACH: baaad feeling. ZACH: anyway. ZACH: i think i should try getting home now. i have a lot to make before tomorrow and i don't think i can keep adventuring for much longer. :/ GUARDIAN: Stuff to make? For what? ZACH: weapons ZACH: things that go zap or boom. ZACH: or both. GUARDIAN: I'd just use alchemy for stuff like that, but whatever floats your Titanic, Kid. ZACH: (i would laugh if that wasn't so accurate) ZACH: screw alchemy though. at least this way i know what's going to come out. GUARDIAN: True enough. Pity ya ain't Time and with all the time in th'world to mess with experiments like that. GUARDIAN: Then again, y'might end up taking that to unhealthy limits if you did. ZACH: man i already do that. :P ZACH: i'll pass out sometimes and then start a project on derse and before you know it my microwave's on fire and the queen has a supergauntlet. GUARDIAN: Heh. Well, try to take care of yourself anyway, Kid. You lot are the last chance to succeed where I failed. Human race is dependin' on you. GUARDIAN: But no pressure. ZACH: oh yeah. ZACH: the gods are mad at us, we've all nearly died today, two of us did die, there's a giant laser fish flying around, the bad guys have even more superpowers than usual and one of them is space, evil magic trees (?) and we're standing on what is probably going to become a giant sinkhole in a few hours ZACH: but no pressure. GUARDIAN: No pressure at all. GUARDIAN: Heh. Paradox space has a queer sense of fate, y'know, and the hotter the fire the stronger the iron. GUARDIAN: Somethin' tells me you kids are going to either fuck up horribly or become the greatest heroes (or villains) paradox space has ever seen. GUARDIAN: 'n I'm just here to try and make sure it's the latter. GUARDIAN: Heroes, preferably. ZACH: hah ZACH: "PQ: Surrender your nuclear weapons please! I do not want to have to make my friend here hurt you." ZACH: "UB: PAGE SMASH! PAGE STRONGEST THERE IS!!" GUARIDIAN: AHAHAHAHA! GUARDIAN: Forgot to throw in the "maybe"s 'n "possibly"s in there, though. ZACH: "UB: MAYBE BREAK ONLY ONE LEG IF YOU LUCKY POSSIBLY" GUARDIAN: Seems legit. I can't tell the goddamn difference! You might want to look into a career in ventriloquism or somethin' when you get to your new universe. ZACH: haha yes. ZACH: first i need a dummy. is there one in your wallet? GUARDIAN: I had a lotta jobs, but ventriloquism wasn't one of 'em. GUARDIAN: Can't ya just use Peter? IF: pf IF: no i don't think so IF: dummies are mute and weird looking and peter is only one of those. IF: (it's not mute.) GUARDIAN: Sure as shit ain't mute. GUARDIAN: Anyway, Kid, I think I need to get goin'. Still tryin' to figure out what those lights in the sky are. Haven't had too much luck. GUARDIAN: Lemme know if you need any help or any questions answered. ZACH: just one ZACH: is my sister home or is it safe to go back? GUARDIAN: "or"? GUARDIAN: I took her to your home, though. We actually saw you 'n that girl make that fucking stupid rocket bathtub. GUARDIAN: I believe I described the flame decals to her as "the shortbus icing on the triple-layer cake of retarded". GUARDIAN: Dunno where she is now, though. ZACH: suffice it to say that i will never hear the end of something. ZACH: like, ever. ZACH: and i don't want to hear the beginning for a while. :I ZACH: so can you like ZACH: timeaport me there or whatever? GUARDIAN: If you're lookin' to instantaneously be there, you're wanting space. GUARDIAN: All I could do is take you back in time to this moment after you arrived. Not sure what the point of that'd be. ZACH: flying machine, then? GUARDIAN: Hmm... Well, I got somethin'. GUARDIAN: Used to belong to an old friend. GUARDIAN: Y'can borrow it for the rest of the session so long as you return it whenever you're done with it. GUARDIAN: Hope you know how to surf. ===> SHOW PESTERLOG ZACH: oh what the hell?? ZACH: i designed this thing! ZACH: or uh ZACH: something just like it i guess. GUARDIAN: Huh. My friend bought it from someone, I think. GUARDIAN: I honestly don't know if there would be a pre-scratch version of you, though. GUARDIAN: Your session defies all logic anyway, six players replacing four. For all I fuckin' know you're going to make this thing and it'll somehow go back to the guy who my friend bought it from. ZACH: did your friend work at a post office? GUARDIAN: Yeah. Y'might've met the version of him here. Name's Taylor. ZACH: i never met him, he just commissioned me through my sister. :/ ZACH: i was going to start it after finishing lorelei's drill and then i'd have enough money when i was done to finish my thing. ZACH: buuut now that's not going to happen. GUARDIAN: Sburb's like that. Cuts all your dreams short. GUARDIAN: Unless you were like me, and didn't have 'em anymore. But you don't need to hear an old codger's reminiscing. ZACH: i mean i'm still going to finish the thing, but there's basically no reason to anymore. ZACH: none of our houses are connected to any power grid anymore anyway so it'd be completely redundant ZACH: i guess i could use it to power things away from the houses but alchemy probably makes that moot too ZACH: so it's basically a phone charger, which is stupid ZACH: i think maybe- GUARDIAN: Jesus, Kid, take a breath! ZACH: huh? ZACH: oh shit sorry. ZACH: distracted. :/ ZACH: anyway. rocketboard. ZACH: finally it's something i know how to fly. GUARDIAN: Good to hear. And I don't mind the rambling. GUARDIAN: 'Round a millenium of parenting will give even the most short-tempered asshole the patience of god. GUARDIAN: Y'good to go, though? ZACH: pretty much ZACH: wait ZACH: yep see this right here? LBRD? ZACH: this is definitely mine. :P ZACH: designways. ZACH: still your board. ZACH: yeah. ZACH: time to go. GUARDIAN: The LBRD? I swear I've seen that before, but I can't remember where... GUARDIAN: Guh. Get as old as I am and your memories start blurring together a bit. GUARDIAN: Whatever. Good luck, Kid. ZACH: thanks. later. >Zach: End Arc You don't know what means. Even if you had an 'arc', which would be silly, you don't think it would be over yet. As far as you're concerned, you've just left the starting gate. And after a quick break to get your bearings straight and finish an old project, you don't plan on slowing down any time soon. No, it's not over. Far from it. You think you're just getting started. ===> ===> ===> "Hold still, will you?" ===> "You and me..." ===> "Are going to make a hell of a mess." "nak."
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SW
Mustardblood
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Post by SW on Jul 9, 2015 20:22:41 GMT -5
((Zuki's post)) Gita was home, and, as might be expected, in a sulky sort of mood. Just....just...fuck all this shit. Zach, and the trolls, and her weird planet full of cats and ash, and starry terror-eyes, and...just screw this. Hadn't she helped to program this game? She was a goddamn developer, for Skaia's sake! Type /credits into the Server Player command line, and her name was right there. Gita Naresh. And yet, in the grander scheme of things, what had that meant? Jack. All For as much as she knew about the mechanicisms of the Sburb application, for as long as she'd been awake on Derse (and for all that those two things had to two with each-other), she'd been just as blind-sided as the other players in the face of meteors, sprites, baffling coming-of-age quests, and other such interpersonal shenanigans. Fortunately, there was someone else who understood what a collossal dick Paradox Space could be at times. --- jeremiadMalcophony [JM] began pestering spiraMirabilis [SM] ---
JM: hey JM: so this is the part of our day JM: where we talk about how wonderful things are JM: and how terribly unfortunate it is JM: to be people that aren't us. SM: You'd think that, and under a vast array of normal circumstances you'd be right. Today's about as far from normal as possible, though -- and coming from me, that's really saying something -- so the list of people I'd rather be right now is getting pretty long. SM: But it'd be rude of me to whine without at least offering a proper greeting. How goes your second-going-on-third day in this fresh and fascinating hell we've been dropped in, Gita? JM: Well, I'm going to have to reset my winning streak under "Days Since Last Electrocuted by Robot Minder" SM: Right, robot sprite. Almost forgot about that in all this. You know, when you first told me that, I thought it was perhaps the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard. SM: Now? Now it seems downright normal. I'm really not sure what that says about me, or this situation. SM: I probably don't want to know. JM: Look, I've been dreaming of this sort of shit most of my life, and it's still weird and ridiculous. SM: Weird as it may be, I sort of envy that, in a way. I don't think I've ever dreamed of SM: well SM: anything. SM: Ever. JM: This is the part where I'd say, "Huh, you sure you're just not remembering them?" natural part of REM sleep blah blah blah JM: 'cept that we've done that before so MOVING ON. JM: It turns out being a purple moon princess with sky gods in your head doesn't actually prepare you for real life very well. JM: or even for becoming that crazy cat lady who has to keep an eye on stab-happy green demons with claws for fingers SM: I'd say I resent that remark, but even I can only carry a dumb joke so far. So, consort troubles? SM: Mine are mostly just excruciatingly stupid, obsessed with waffles, gullible beyond all mortal comprehension, and utterly incapable of getting something so simple as their hero's gender correct. JM: Eh. Well, they might like me at least a little better than they like, say, Zach, at least. They think you're a man? SM: They think... well, they think a lot of dumb stuff. Obviously none of them are looking at me and saying "that's a dude", because then I'd have to take offense, and I'd really like to limit today's stabbings to imps. SM: But there was this one going on about "the one they're expecting", to bring a change to the world, and about some Destroyer, and calling that one "he", and just calling me Harbinger. Not really sure what's up with all that business just yet. Crazy goddamn lizard cultists is what's up, if you ask me. JM: Hnf. Speaking of gender confusion... JM: I'm gay, right? SM: I dunno, do you still have the inexplicable hots for my mom? JM: Nothing 'inexplicable' about it. But, anyways. JM: This is, and has been, a thing. A thing I was pretty damn sure about. JM: ...so why the fuck does Zach give me a boner. JM: it is the most inexplicable thing. JM: Makes him no less aggravating, to boot. SM: Nothing 'inexplicable' about-- SM: Okay I couldn't even manage that with a straight face. Straight-up fucking baffling is what it is. SM: ...*sigh*. SM: Sorry, I'm just not into it today. I can't properly mock your misfortune right now, however desperately I may want to. So I guess it's time for a rare bout of Dahlia sincerity. SM: Look, I don't pretend to understand human attraction on any level whatsoever. The sole extent of my interactions with other people have been the Professor, her tutors, the legions of hapless morons I mercilessly troll, and the few friends I keep at arms' length. At any given point in time I can barely resist punching myself in the face, I'm sure as hell not giving someone else a better opportunity. SM: But from what I've seen, I think people don't really get a say in who or what they're attracted to. They just get to decide what they do about it. And it's entirely possible that your brain's seeing things about him that you're not letting yourself see, for whatever reason, labels or no. Not that he's not also a colossal dork. SM: But I guess he's got a decent personality, and he's probably not bad looking. SM: I mean, he's certainly no Dahlia, but who is? JM: Yeah, but it's Lorelei I'm hung up on. JM: One of these people makes me happy and keeps me sane; the other pisses me off. JM: s'pose that's the 'what you do about it' angle. SM: Afraid I probably won't be much help in that department. It's times like this I'm glad I find humanity so fundamentally loathsome, so I don't have to worry about things like that. But if you really want the advice of the resident pretty hate machine, cold harsh reality included, here's how I'm seeing it. SM: Lorelei? Way not interested. It's not your fault, she's just religious. And old-fashioned. And I think she's got a thing for that Peter kid. Short version is, look but don't touch. You try to horn in on that and you'll just have both of them mad at you, and that does nobody any good, least of all you. SM: Zach? Fuck if I know, really. I have dedicated at least two years of my life to trolling him within an inch of his miserable cortex, and then he shows up at my place earlier today like it was nothing -- like he doesn't even remember, being all friendly and personable. It's like he's trying to be a decent fucking human being or something, and it is outright baffling. Anyone who does that is either being completely disingenuous, or completely honest, and honestly I don't think he's devious enough for the former. Sad truth there? Means he's probably a good guy -- a good person. A lot more in common with Lorelei than with me. SM: And you? I'm not gonna tell you what you are, because that's none of my business. But I do know there's probably some dumb ancient proverb about not seeing something that's right in front of you because you're too busy staring at something distant. SM: I'm not saying "you kiss that boy this instant" or anything, because that's awful advice even from me, and furthermore I'm pretty sure that's not a mental image any of us wants right now, least of all me. I'm just saying a whole lot just changed in everyone's life right now, and maybe we should all just step back a little, and keep open minds. SM: But don't wait too long or like... I dunno... Page is gonna snatch him up or something. SM: (That was a joke.) JM: Hnaaagghfl. I'll figure it out. One way or another. JM: Can't keep sitting on this forever, I'm crazy enough as it is. SM: Could be worse. You could be an alien science baby. JM: Could I now? SM: Well, no, probably not. I suspect it's a unique condition, unless you also recently discovered you spent the first three years of your life as a science experiment. JM: Shit. As if you weren't fucked up enough. SM: Ha, you're telling me. Or I guess I'm telling you. SM: I already went on and on about this to Lorelei, so stop me if it gets whiny, but I figure you deserve to know now that I'm adequately cooled off about the whole thing. SM: Long story short, I came to Earth on a meteor from who-knows-where, crash-landed on an island in the middle of nowhere. The Professor and her team of socially dysfunctional rock stars (ha ha, astrogeology joke, get it?) were studying something on that island which, turns out, was the first stuttering step on the long hard road to Sburb. Good for them. SM: From what I can gather, at first they were afraid I might have some sort of space virus, so they stuck me in a sealed, sterile environment to study, and called me Subject Delta. And eventually they figured I was safe but I didn't have resistance to Earth viruses, so they kept me in there while they brought in a doctor to grow some synthetic antibodies, which is apparently a time-consuming process -- I wouldn't know, I don't watch shitty medical dramas (much). And then eventually the Professor took me home, named me for a flower whose sole distinguishing characteristic is its fucked-up Lego genetics, and became the terrible parent you've heard so much about. SM: So, yeah. Alien science baby. JM: Alien science baby. Looks pretty human, though. JM: Can it learn to love? JM: Or will it instead take the worst parts of humanity for its own? JM: Only time will tell. JM: Is it better if I am flippant or comforting here Ash I need a hint. I'm not *that* much better at social lives than you. SM: Honestly? Whatever you're more comfortable with. I've already flipped my proverbial shit over this whole thing, so now I'm sort of at the morose, darkly comic acceptance phase. SM: I mean how the heck do you even react to a situation like this? I'm either Superman or alien conquerer, and being as the only thing I've conquered lately is the sparing intellects of a planet full of mentally deficient lizards, I think that means I'm at least one of the good guys. SM: Sort of lacking in flight and eye-lasers though. Especially the eye-lasers. JM: Alien conqueror? JM: THE METEORS ARE YOUR FAULT JM: More seriously, who needs eye-lasers when you have knives. JM: I think Lorelei dibs'd flight, anyhow. JM: Bleh, I'm babbling. SM: Not entirely unwelcome. Refreshing, even. I vented to Lorelei earlier and she was all perfect Miss Hero Messiah, and yeah it was cathartic but... SM: Man, I just can't handle being pitied. I can hardly stand even the extremely minimal amount of "oh poor me" I've been pulling lately myself; hearing it from someone else is about a million times worse. Y'know, within a certain margin of error. SM: Sort of rough, though, running facefirst into literally all the things I never actually was prepared for despite spending the vast majority of my life in the Professor's demented impromptu training courses. How are you holding up, as far as that goes? JM: Did you know that ostensibly programming the interface that took us here gives you no, if any, context or preparation for what actually happens? JM: Well I can tell you an awful lot about how the encryption hash for captcha codes work. JM: Or how I can use a computer interfact to smash a toilet into an ogre's face. JM: I'm somewhat more at a loss for magical ressurections, cute animals, and whatever the hell a 'Dame of Heart' is supposed to be doing. SM: Hanging out with shady mobster sorts and/or hard-boiled detectives? SM: All joking aside (shock and awe), I'm thinking there's a substantial possibility the titles are bullshit. I'm the Bard of Space, and I don't foresee myself singing for entertainment or storytelling purposes anytime soon, and by soon I mean ever. Or having too many skill points and no useful talents, depending on whose definition of bard we're going with. SM: Wait no that second one sounds exactly like me. Never mind, I take back all the snarky things I said and will now commence being completely credulous and having total faith in this thing that destroyed our planet. JM: Our planet, and the only hope we'll ever get more human interaction beyond the chucklefucks we're stuck with. Or we could just continue to skim through the dead internet, but noone will ever talk back. JM: Or, in theory, playing the game will answer our questions. I mean, what else is there to do? SM: Christmas parties, apparently. JM: oh god, christmas parties. JM: Does it seem bizarre to you? Like we're desperately reaching out for something mundane that can't possibly be so? SM: I dunno about you, but I don't think I've ever even seen a "mundane" Christmas in order to know what one might look like. Apparently people actually bring gifts for each other. Never mind the space baby business, I don't even have any experience with it as a human. JM: It's probably normal for Lorelei. It's...I've never been to a Christmas party that wasn't kind of a sad and silly pathetic flop, and in general, lately, I've never been to a party, period. JM: ...what the hell are we supposed to gift these people with. I feel like I barely know most of them. SM: You and me both. I mean, I knew you, and Lorelei, and I sort of knew Zach. SM: But I would inevitably suck at gift-giving even with full knowledge of everyone's personalities, and I don't have anywhere near that. Best idea I've got so far is to get everyone the most trollish thing I can think of -- surprise surprise, I know. JM: Empty boxes. Exquisitely wrapped. JM: Put another box in the box. JM: Third box in the box. JM: A shiny new penny or an orange or a lump of coal in the last one, or something. SM: I'd like to think, however bad I am at gifts, that I'm at least a little bit better than that. SM: Gonna hafta remember the box-in-box thing though. Never let a good opportunity for messing with people pass me by. SM: I'll figure something out, I guess. Probably ought to get on that sometime soon, I don't really want to be up all night coming up with gifts for people when I'm just doing it to mess with them anyway. JM: You'd think the magic of punchcard alchemy would make this easier. JM: I guess I've got a few ideas, though. SM: One step better than me. Oh well, I'll figure it out. How hard could it be? SM: (Spoilers: pretty fucking hard.) SM: Which means I should probably stop talking to you and actually get to it, despite vastly preferring the talk to the work. SM: (Man I would be such a shitty alien conqueror, with a work ethic like that. I really hope they weren't depending on me to subjugate any planets or anything.) JM: At this point you'd be conquering planets of little dopey animals or even tinier planets of black-and-white dopey carapaces. Beat Jack Noir in a knife fight and the Medium is yours, really. JM: Suppose I'd better fuss around and do the same. SM: Jack Noir? Knife fights? Well, at least now I've got a few things on my to-do list that I'm actually looking forward to. SM: ...Man. All this crazy stuff, and who woulda thought Christmas gifts would be the most baffling part? SM: Anyway, I'll let you get to that, and likewise myself, before I fall over. Haven't slept since my birthday. JM: Shit, I haven't had a normal nap in...right I don't have normal naps any more. JM: Well, I'll have a freaky-and-stupid nap first, and see if that's worth any insight on 'What The Hell Do I Give Peter' or 'Why Doesn't My Life Make Sense' JM: See you at the party, Asher.Fortunately, there was still one place in the Incipisphere, perhaps, that made sense. ~ Gita awoke on Derse, in a familiar bed, in a familiar pair of comfy purple pyjamas. As easily as a hundred times before, she vaulted the windowsill, and flew down, looking for a familiar sword-wielding carapace. >BP: Arrest Mutineer With nobody around to guard him, the prince is easy enough to get to. You hope the poor idiot is ready to do time... ===> ((ZACH IS UNDER HOUSE ARREST)) IN HIS TOWER. Because all you can do right now is put him under house arrest. ===> Seriously you aren't sure why everyone was so riled up earlier. She landed next to him. " Heya, Baldy." ===> ((LOL HAI GITA)) And they're ba- Oh. "Oh, hey. Startled me, I thought you were his sister for a minute. Is his whole family that tenacious?" " I've only met her, and she's plenty batshit enough, you ask me." "She was bad enough, then her boyfriend showed up and- he's not still here, is he?" " The tightass with the gear on his shirt? Don't think so, no." "Alright, good. Anyway. What's up? Please tell me you're not here to 'break him out'." She stared at BP, incredulous. " What? No! Hell no! Do you have any idea what I had to do to get away from that idiot?" She leans over the bodyguard's shoulder, hovering to gain the extra altitude to do so. " He gonna be okay?" The dersite took another look at the unconscious boy and shrugged. "No idea about either of those. Worried?" She touched her feet to the ground again, and shrugged. " Eh. Not really." Sure whatever Gita, you just -asked- after him. If I drew him with a mouth, he would be smirking. "Sure you're not. Well, he got knocked out looking at those 'stars' or whatever you guys call them. The little white things." " Lights in the sky are stars, yes. Except that those aren't stars, remember? They're eyes Gita risked a careful glance upwards, and shivvered. As if her little problem wasn't bad enough during normal dreams... The bodyguard stepped between Gita and the window to get a better look at the sky. "...No, I don't remember. I haven't gotten a good look since the telescope... blew up." Gita sighs, relieved to have her line of sight broken. She stares at the opposite wall. " One of the monsters that swims out there in the dark is angry. It's coming closer. Those are eyes." "Wait, what?" He stuck his head out of the window, craning his neck for a better look at the monstrous creature looming over them. "Oh, man. That's..." The dersite retreated back into the tower, seemingly unaffected. "...not good. Are you okay? I know they've been giving you trouble for a while... " It's not really a problem unless it's an eclipse, you know. I'll be fine, Baldy." But she was still studiously avoiding eye contact with the window. "If you say so. I'd try staying indoors if I were you, though. Look what happened to him." As if on cue, Zach's dreamself stretched out as if he was waking up, and promptly fell face first onto the floor at Gita's feet. Gita nudged Zach with a foot. Best to keep the drool away from the lil' purple slippers. "...To answer your question, I think he'll be fine." " Yeah, yeah. He'll live to derp another day." "snork" " It isn't fair is it? Lorelei and the others get happy fluffy prophet-clouds. We, on the other hand, get a bureaucracy full of stab-happy jazz musicians and a god in the sky that skull-fucks you." "I like jazz..." " No jazz is great. But it makes for bad paper-pushers. Do you really think Jack is supposed to be in charge of anything?" "I guess not?" " Exactly. He is Stabmaster of Derse, Archagent Jack Noir." Gita grimaces and bares her teeth in a terrible imitation of the infamous dersite's scowl. The bodyguard laughed. While he didn't mind most of Derse's government, he had to agree that whoever had put Jack Noir in charge of, well, anything must have been either really bored or really crazy. Probably both. "Okay, yes. He's a pain, but aside from that and them..." He gestured out the window. "...it's not too bad." This time, she didn't flinch from the sights of purple spikes and spires just outside. Derse. Her second home. " Yeah, it isn't." " Also, I've suddenly gotten way, way, off topic. Probably because I'm stalling." She turned to face the carapace. " Baldy, can you do something for me?" "'Course. What is it?" " Catch me when I fall." Gita leapt for the window, pushed back the shutters as she flew out, and ascended, staring directly into the starry-eyed blackness of the sky above Derse. "Wh-" He dashed after her, stopping himself on the edge of the windowsill before he fell from the tower. "This is a terrible idea!" This is a terrible idea, Gita thought, and stared unflinching into the gleaming eyes of the monster.
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