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It was fun for a long time but towards the end it just started to drag

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I wish I could have joined in.

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Total Members Voted: 28

[wierd]

Curious as the "will" and the stack of completed carvings were, the NC console itself was of greater immediate interest.  It had been powered down, and left inactive, but the tartup proceedure was affixed to the front on a highly yellowed adhesive note in what was once possibly blue ink. The power in the room was on, and the system was undisturbed, save for the heavy layer of dusty detritus it had accumulated over the years.  Throwing its breaker, and carefully initiating its startup routine as printed on the note, it slinked back to life in a small puff of blown dust contamination from the cooling fan kicking on.

That was the beauty of industrial equipment. Most of the storage was solid-state, and the electronics were designed to operate for years in very harsh and often hot and moist conditions. A little dust wasn't gonna hurt the controller portion of the mill. The actual spindle and table carriage assembly was frosty with rust and neglect-- but the NC control station simply needed the switch toggled.  It flashed its red-light, indicating serious hardware fault, but he wasn't expecting to actually cut anything anyway.

The workstation was at once familiar looking, and at the same time frustratingly alien. It's funny how you get used to things being a certain way, when things could be equally implemented in another.  Irritibly, he attempted to browse the collection of NC programs stored in the control center to get a more complete picture of the purpose and typical activity of this room.  If it was used to cut the stone releif in this curious structure, it may contain programs for things that are now physically mounted on walls that are out of reach due to the security lockdown. Things like fire escape plans, and "you are here" signs. The interface was very unfamiliar, and the naming convention for the programs appeared more the result of a computer controlled filing system, rather than a human readable one. Still, he plugged on. Surely it would bear some fruit...

The unit itself was your typical horizontal gantry-type design, sort of like a Haas, but it was noteworthy for being 5 axis capable, with a wristed spindle on the gantry, and a rotary axis to the table; in addition to moving forward, backward, up and down the unit could tilt the cutter's angle, and could rotate the table. It was a fairly clever design, but there was no way it was going to be cutting anything any time soon.  A heavily corroded 4 flute end-mill had rusted in place inside its tool holder, itself encrusted in rust as the annodization had succumbed to environmental moisture and oxygen, and the lack of lubricant integrity. The table itself was frosted in white aluminum oxide, and red fuzzy rust clung like mold from the table's rotary axis drive motor. The unit was basically scrap metal.

A faint smile crept on his face.  He had found a program to cut a map of the building, colored approach, retract, and concentric cutter tool paths creating a familiar mosaic on the ancient and dusty display.

[I imagine something like this, only instead of a fixed platform, it has a rotary table underneath. The gantry moves the spindle, and the wrist lets the cutter be angled for optimal multi-axis flanking. Z axis movement is limited, because it's designed for use with stone slabs, but X, Y, J, and K are quite accomodating.]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[As for what the displayed toolpath representation for the map would look like, here's an image of what toolpaths look like.]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Gizogin]

[Hugo, what's this thing that needs to happen before X can finish?  Until then, my hands are tied.]

Lana watched X work on the scanner for a while, but quickly became bored of that.  She teleported over to the workshop, where wierd was messing around with some complicated piece of machinery.  He was completely wrapped up in whatever he was doing, and didn't notice her sudden arrival at all.  She toyed with the idea of shouting at him or doing something to make him jump, but decided against it.  She didn't really know him that well, after all, and he might not take kindly to being interrupted.  There had to be something for her to do in this place.

[wierd]

[She could always look at the pile of carved, but not yet installed carved tiles. Go chat with the great sparrow's ghost (who is off doing who knows what....) or get chatty with Hugo the not so magic dragon. But... here: I'll give her something to do..]

"You know... it's kinda distracting when you do that..." weird said, still engrossed in the mill-plot of the building's layout. He turned his head and arched an eyebrow at Lana. "How DO you do that anyway? I tried to transport physical material once, and it didn't quite work the way I wanted. I don't mean any offense, but it rings wrong in my head when you do that...."

[Gizogin]

[Funnily enough, I was already thinking a bit more about what abilities my characters actually have and how they work.  Lana is an accomplished teleport, with a few other space- and warp-related talents.  She doesn't have to worry about trapping herself inside a solid object or anything like that; she actually switches places with whatever's at her destination.  Of course, she could still suffocate or drown or whatever, and the sensation of switching with a bunch of rock is unpleasant, so she still prefers to have a line of sight.  There's also a bit of trouble with borders.  She can't teleport into a home or across running water without difficulty, and she can't force someone else to teleport (Cog was different; she sent him to his home dimension with her learned magic, rather than her innate teleportation).  She can, as has been established, create portals, but it's more difficult for her than just teleporting.  Basically, whenever those black shadows show up, it's her learned magic.  Were she to find herself in a combat situation, her fighting style would be completely erratic, relying on rapid teleportation to confuse and disorient her opponent(s).

Gizo X has incredibly fine control over his magic, even if he doesn't have an undue amount of raw power.  He excels in redirecting energy, such as transferring heat.  Illusions are easy for him, because they're just projecting an image, and there's nothing physical going on.  Furthermore, since he can remember and recreate images in immaculate detail, his illusions are especially potent.  Theoretically, he could learn almost any type of magic, barring those that have odd restrictions (necromancy's requirement of a soul, for example).  His usage would be limited by his magic reserves, but he can squeeze the most use out of what he has.

Gizogin, sadly, can't use any magic at all.  At least, not consciously; some might argue that his clockwork creations are completely impossible within purely mundane laws, and are actually partially magical themselves.  He would say that he just exploited several flaws in the physical laws of the DF universe.  The counter-argument there is that manipulating physics is pretty much the definition of magic.

Anyway.]

"Oh, it's not difficult," Lana answered.  "At least, not for me.  I've always had trouble staying in one place, and my magic is really just a reflection of that.  I just picture myself somewhere else, and bam-" she appeared right next to wierd "-I'm there.  If you want to get a bit more technical, I'm..." she trailed off.  "Huh.  Y'know, I haven't the slightest idea how it works.  I was never really big on magical theory."

Wierd frowned.  He didn't look impressed.  "Surely you must know something about it," he stressed.  "How did you get your abilities in the first place?"

"I don't really know, I just sort of had them one day," Lana replied vaguely.  She looked a little distressed.  Why couldn't she remember?  The sudden ability to teleport didn't seem the sort of the thing she'd forget about.  The truth was, she'd hardly ever thought about it at all, but now that she was, all kinds of questions were cropping up in her head.  No other magic she knew of worked the same way as her teleportation, just running on instinct; most spells had to be researched and developed over time, taking immense dedication to learn.  Even her portal magic had taken her months to figure out, and it took a lot of concentration and willpower.

[Wow, that's quite the wall of text.  Sorry.  Anyway, I'm done for tonight.  See you in the morning (or, much more likely, late afternoon).]

[wierd]

"Well.. I mean.." started weird.... "here. I'll show you."

He hunted around on the floor, and grabbed a few chips of ancient marble left over from when this room was in active use, and scribbled one of his modified summoning circles on the floor, walked to the other side of the room and made another. He returned to the first one, and pushed an empty stone slab into its center.

"Watch. I can send incorporeal things, like ghosts and haunts, but physical things...."

He reached down, and lit the circle.  A dischordant chime rebounded in the room as a bright flash consumed the block, followed by a loud bang, and the sudden appearance of charred rubble and dust at the destination.

"Physical things just don't make it."

The loud bang illicited the sudden and intense attention of everyone in the group, who either rushed in to investigate, or turned to scowl at him.

"....sorry...." he muttered sheepishly... perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to demonstrate, given the environment....

[Oliolli]

One guard. Not sure about combat talents - could be difficult. Human. Male. A malus. Look around tower. Hard to enter without using door. Guard coming out! Almosts spotted him. Hid just in time. Leaving post, going for a walk? Bad guard. Too easy.

Oliolli entered the tower with a smug smile. He would have to search the tower.

[WillowLuman]

[Damn, left this alone for far too long XD
Anyway, it is very surprising that the NC machine would still work, not having been maintained by the bots. This place has been abandoned for quite a while. Besides, the tool-bearing machinery has fallen into the workspace.]

HugoLuman put his front legs up on the table, trying to pull the slab off. With a screech, the workspace bent and snapped. Wierd gave the dragon an acid glare. "Um... sorry."

Oliolli was checking around the room. He noticed there was a recessed cubby in the wall, ringed with broken glass. Shards of glass littered the floor in front. He peered in. Inside, there were four shaped depressions in the stone, designed to hold certain objects. Only one of them was filled; with a fire extinguisher. The shape next to it seemed shaped to hold a fireaxe, and the other two seemed distinctly shaped like a rifle and a pistol of some sort.

HugoLuman began to read the slab.


The Final Testament of SRM

I write this in the hope that should our last plan fail, someone, hopefully the next victims, will find this and maybe it will help save them. There is no hope for us. Succeed or fail in our revenge, we will die. My only hope can be to warn the next batch of that cocksucker.

I remember when this all started, 2 decades ago. One day, 16 poor schmucks just woke up in this world. The world of Dwarf Fortress. The world of our nightmare. I recognized them, after we'd realized what we had in common, and I found their handles. There can be no names here. We all lived together for 20 years, and now we'll all die, without ever telling each other our own motherfucking names. It seems so long ago, now, since we all met on Something Awful. We might have built the Internet again. I guess we just never thought about it. What with all the help we've had from Prometheus.

That cocksucker that brought us here, to play his sick game. I'll write nothing more about that sick fuck, since those hooplehead gobbos will find all mention of the name and destroy it, with their fucking religion that makes it the foulest curse in their language. How fucking ironic and subtle. We were damn fools. For the longest time, no one dared fuck with us, until the goddamn eruption. With that volcano, all the people we'd armed and made our most loyal, devoted allies were wiped out, and all the guns with them. We've got some here, but now that they're in our gates, these guns will never be enough. Perhaps we should have kept more. It was only a matter of time before the gobbos tried their luck. Now that our friends are gone.

We found out the Plan, the plan to play a twisted game of fuckery with our lives. We found out who was behind it, and why. We made a plan to stop it. And we found out the next target; the Bay 12 Forums. So the endgame was unleashed, to kill us once and for all.

The Opponent has a sick sense of irony. That's how it fights, with the smallest events. Sankis was working on upgrades for the security system when shit went to hell. Then it showed up, out of gods-know-the-fuck-where, that motherfucking butterfly. Flew right into the cores and short-circuiting the whole system. The door was left wide open. System will repair and reset automatically in 48 hours, but the hoopleheads are already at our door. TouretteDog was the first to die, followed by Bremen. Sankis managed to get into the powered exoskeleton. He's buying me the time to type this. The machine will finish carving it even without me, I just need to finish the text. So there is something to remember us by.

I managed to trip the only security protocol that still worked. The compound will flood with neurotoxic gas and kill everything inside soon. I'm going to make a run for it, got 2 guns right here. Maybe I can activate project Fuck The World before I die. If we break the game board, then the game can't be played. Maybe then the cycle will be broken.

On reflection, perhaps my time here has truly made me a little stark raving mad. At least I'll be true to my name. I regret a little that we can't unchain Prometheus to let him out of here, but maybe it's best for him to die too. My guns are loaded, I've got the Key, this is it.

All burn.
Gizogin X almost felt like smirking. He'd done it. The technology had been far more advanced than he'd expected, but with great effort came great results. The door slid upwards into the ceiling, the swoosh of gas exchange as the seal broke. It had been closed for a long time.

[wierd]

[The NC part of the NC machine still works. Those things are made of really heavy duty electronics. Think "wow, its made of really thick copper wire!" kind of heavy duty.  They have to be, because they are used in a humid, hot, contaminant laden, and possibly corrosive environment. Cutters require constant exposure to coolant spray to avoid overheating and losing their tempering when in operation. This is done with either flood, spray, or "through tool" coolant systems. These systems make the CNC machine itself the source of the humidity, and it will condense on surfaces inside the work envelope, and outside too. I had all the actual guts of the NC machine seized up, but had the controller survive. With it just sitting derelict, the worst that would happen to the controller is that it would develop tin whiskers. The components are large, beefy, and made to handle abusive environments, so the solder junctions will be durable, heavy, and far spaced. Tin whisker formation would  make it more prone to errors during operation, but since the machine isnt cutting anything, it should be fine. There's no real reason for it to fail sitting derelict, when it doesnt fail after decades of hard use.]

__________


"Pretty screwed up, huh?" wierd asked.  He wore a pensive and apprehensive expression. "only thing I can think of, is just dont throw any giant levers... and we should try to find out as much about this enigmatic abductor as we can."

Then he smiled. It was pure mischief.  "we also need to discover the rules, and what our abductor desires. if we break the rules really heavily and make the game no fun..."

He heard the seal pop on the living quarters, and his eyes got big. He sucked a breath, dashed to the hall, and shouted.

"X! Is there any neurotoxin in there?"

"I dont understand--- why would.."

"Just check."

[WillowLuman]

[It's just that it might have been longer than a few decades. Think about it. This place was contemporaneous with the city that was buried in ash.]

Gizogin X was surprised by the huge metal wreck lying right behind the door. Strange. It looked vaguely humanoid. In fact, it looked certainly humanoid. A framework cage with some motors and artificial muscle on the back. Rusted and decrepit beyond repair. There were several spearheads sitting in the cockpit of the suit, and three embedded in what probably used to be the pilot's harness. Curious.

He stepped past the derelict exoskeleton and tasted the air with his sensors. No neurotoxin, but very minute, trace amounts of compounds that may have been left behind by one.
While the others ran to check on Gizogin, Oliolli followed the trail. So... broke the emergency glass to get 2 guns and a fire-axe. To make a run for it to activate project Fuck The World? He must have been blocking the door with that cabinet, and shoved it aside to get out. That door was pretty beaten up, so there must have been goblins right outside. Oliolli stepped out. Sure enough, there seemed to be spots in the wall across the hall that were chipped. Bullet marks? SRM probably came out guns blazing and ran... which way? Back up to systems? Maybe. That's where the enemy had come from, so probably not. He could check back up there later if need be. For now, he took the turn in the hallway that led deeper into the center. The passage was very long, but at the end he could see a double-door, slightly ajar, and a sign above it that read "Central Control"

[Gizogin]

[Ooh, someone's sneaking in?  I guess Gizogin's not cut out for guard work.  He did say he'd "stand guard, or whatever," so he must be off "whatever"-ing.

Anyway, this is my last night before I leave for a week.  I'll be back next Saturday, ready to read the fifty pages that crop up as soon as I go.]

"No neurotoxin," X called out.  Wierd let his breath out in a whoosh, as did Lana and Hugo, who were just behind him.  "Why, did you need some?"

"Ha, no thanks," wierd responded drily.  "Not that I couldn't brew some up myself if I did.  No, it's just that we found some rather disturbing clues as to what happened to the owners of this place."  He filled X in on what had been written on the slab, up to the final two words.

"Clearly the work of a man rooted firmly in the land of sanity," X quipped.  "This must be that 'powered exoskeleton' he referred to.  It certainly seems to have been through a war."  He looked around.  "Where is Oliolli?"

It was Lana who answered.  "He didn't follow us.  I think he was back in the workshop."

[EDIT: Just realized that I made X a bit extra-snarky this time.  I should write him like this more often; it works well with him, I think.]

[wierd]

[I always envisioned him as the "dry, acidic, and mirthless humor" type, like spock from TOS. Heavy use of dry irony, carefully planned understatement, and relentless logic that clearly proves your inferiority. He's otherwise fairly unassuming, with little need to prove anything. Not a narcisist, just cerebrially crass. Loves mysteries, puzzles and challenges. Dislikes illogical or unnecessary behavior.  That's what I get from him anyway. The real gizogin is an aloof jokester with a wry sense of humor, who I suspect enjoys dirty jokes, if he smoked would probably like flavored cigars, and likes flavorful and smooth malt liquor. Brilliant, but unpredictable and with a hint of shamelessness. ]

[Eric Blank]

[Where the hell do you get these concepts from, anyway?]

[Gizogin]

[That's a good question.  It wasn't what I was going for when I was writing the characters, but I could definitely see (and begin to write) them in that light. 
Brilliant?  :ohstopityou: ]

[WillowLuman]

There were a few more bullet-chips in the walls leading up to the central control door. Oliolli was about to open the door and enter the room, but decided that if there were still traps anywhere in this place, they'd be in there. Better to go get the whole group, and send Sparrow in first.

[wierd]

[Where the hell do you get these concepts from, anyway?]

[I have a very strong and vivid imagination, and have met lots of people. I see X in the "slightly rebellious child" light, despite being behaviorally adult. His "dad" is aloof, but he is cerebral; etc.  Your character I see as the "Is it over yet (irony)?" type. If the fortress fell in... again... he would suck a deep breath, groan, and start over. has grown quite weary of my character's acid sense of humor.  Wierd's exploration of magic has actually put him off of it himself-- and now focuses more on building and designing elaborate systems, and training horrible creatures. I should make Peepers adore him, just to make things more funny. As for where I get these concepts? More... impressions on how the characters have been behaving.  Hugo is totally a social worker. making shoes for orphans, and running soup kitchens. he'd love it. Rikod is about the only other character I can speak definitively about. He is a ceramicist-- yes. But, he's also a total rake. DOES enjoy dirty jokes, likes BBQ hamhocks, beer and ale. He's the kind that would make "racy" ceramic craft goods about tentacle demons and elf wenches. Loves women-- (he's a total rake, remember?) and thinks female company is the way to spend a day off. Stark contrast to the consumate non-sexuality of my character. I intend to have him try to hook wierd up a couple times as the story cooks along.]

[Also, I made a pie today. Totally from scratch. The peaches even came from my peach tree in the back yard. I couldnt find my pie-pan, so I used a cast iron skillet instead. Looks kinda cool that way. Now, take one look at this lovely pie, and tell me you wouldnt rather have me in the kitchen than Urist McTallowCook. I dare ya. ]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)