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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

[WillowLuman]

[Badass pie  . Never seen one cooked on a skillet before, I'll tell you that. We were saddened by the loss of our treasured glass pie dish recently, but we still managed to make an apple pie and a peach pie in the ceramic and metal ones. I am jealous of your peach tree all we got is a lemon one.]

[wierd]

[Mine is a white lady freestone white peach. The peaches it makes ripen later in the year, and are just now getting ripe. They taste great, but they are white peaches and look funny when sliced. (white flesh, with almost blood red flushing that extends into the flesh and around the stone.) It was grown from a seedling from one of my mom's peach trees. It's a selectively bred mutant peach-- it can grow on clay soil, where most peach trees will shrivel up and die sad sad little deaths. It's been so hot and dry this year, I have been having to water the poor thing to keep it healthy. (the lawn is dead. DEAD-dead.) This is the first year I have successfully gotten peaches. Last year it cast its fruit because it was dry then too. This year I was more proactive, and have been giving it some TLC.  I need to spray it with copper sulfate and lime sulfur as soon as all the fruit is picked though.  It's starting to show bleed spots on the trunk which is a sign of a latent peachtree chancre infection. Peachtrees are little premadonnas that need constant care to stay healthy, and get diseases like that from something as trivial as a hail strike. I ate a slice of my pie, and it was every bit as awesome as it looks. NOTHING beats tree-ripened and fresh picked fruit when it comes to pie. I actually love to cook, but like I mentioned earlier, I cook for an army. Pie is one of the few things I can cook in "normal" portions. I have a huge crock on the stove filled with beef and vegetable soup I made earlier today too... I'll probably be eating it for the next 3 days... LOL.]

[Oliolli]

Any chance that you'd know how to make plum pie? We have a plum tree in our backyard. Also an apple tree in our front yard, but the damn apples are so tiny that they're barely worth it.

[wierd]

[Hooray for AC failure. Hooray. 113F outside. AC Run Capacitor is toast. Condenser fan doesnt kick on. Condenser does, but fan does not. Its getting hotter here by the second. Thanks be to global warming! AC is shut off until I get a new run capacitor.]

[I havent ever made a plum pie. Not very partial to plums. I suppose it would be similar to making a sand-cherry pie... (Those are technically plums too...) I've made one of those before. Tasted a bit like blackberries. Peeling the plums sounds like a real PITA though. I spent almost an hour peeling peaches for my pie yesterday.]

[on my way to go visit my sister and her husband. He's an HVAC type guy. He can tell me where to buy a new run capacitor for my cranky old unit. Got a date with their computer; it needs to be reloaded so that their tethering software installs and works properly. It's been given the bad touch by a host of other bits of software, not the least of which was the AOL client which does stupidity to the network stack.]


[Ok, AC fixed. YAY! Yup, run capacitor was blown. replace, good as new.]

[Eric Blank]

[Sounds fun.

I found the nicest person in EVE. Payed me 1.6 million ISK to rpelace my destroyer in a hurry, THEN loaned me their old Coercer and the weapons for it, and they refuse to accept reparations, even though they just blew all their money on their own ship and equipment for it.

Then again, they are a DF player, so even though they insist they aren't crazy enough for these forums, it MUST be getting to their head somehow.]

[I am currently thinking of what to be writing right now...]

[Oliolli]

*grabs cricket spray*

Wait a sec... Eric, do you remember seeing that one in the Swordthunders reclaim thread?

[WillowLuman]

[Slooooow... but I guess I've got us waiting, eh? Sorry.]

[Eric Blank]

*grabs cricket spray*

Wait a sec... Eric, do you remember seeing that one in the Swordthunders reclaim thread?

[Remember what? Cricket spray? I have a can here!]

[Sorry, got distracted by EVE again almost immediately. Then I took a nap, and all memory of my task was erased. I really need to start keeping a schedule.]

[Oliolli]

Nah, I was talking about the cricket. I think it's the one that got away last time the other thread was sprayed.

[WillowLuman]

[Not sure whether we'd want to explore the living quarters first, or go see Central Control. Each door to an apartment would require a lengthy hacking job on the part of Gizogin X.]

[wierd]

[central control would give us a better understanding of what areas of the fortress are currently under lockdown, and if any of the sensors are still hot, what conditions are like inside.  You dont want to open the door to a section filled with water, for instance, from a failed sump pump.]

[OREOSOME]

[i agree, the control room might give more clues as to what exactly happened, and hopefully you will find out who "Prometheus" was, and why he was chained up. Also, i would make something happen but i have no good ideas to keep things moving back at the base, or what Corvus' team should do.

[WillowLuman]

[Alrighty then.]

Oliolli came back up the stairs."I found something you guys should come see," he said, then saw the door to the living quarters open. "What's this?"

"Oh, I've got the door open," said X. "What is it? We were about to look at these people's quarters. Look at these plaques, they've got Guerilla Medic here, and Sankis over there. Such unusual names, don't you think?"

"Yeah, the slab said they were the Boatmurdered people. But I've found the central control room, just around the corner from SRM's workshop. I think we should stick together, though, and let Sparrow open the door."

Wierd was intrigued. The main computer, since there had to be one to direct these machines, was almost certainly in there. "Alright, then." Turning to Sparrow, he spoke in the man's language. "We've found the center of this place, where all the secrets must be. We need you to go in first."

"Rod dacap. My pleasure"

So they descended back into the hallway, Gizogin X coming with them, and came to the door. It was a double door, made of metal, and in contrast to the spartan simplicity of the rest of this place, decorated. With a nod from Wierd, The Great Sparrow approached the door and slowly pushed it open. He took a big step into the room. Nothing happened, so the rest of the group tentatively filed into the vast blackness.

Clank. Clank. Clank. Electric floodlights powered on as they entered, momentarily blinding them with the sudden contrast. The room was enormous, nearly the size of an aircraft hangar.Thick metal beams arched across the vast ceiling, supporting both it and the glaring white lights that illuminated the huge chamber. They stood on a balcony, stairs on either side descending to the floor 20 feet below, the ceiling another 15 feet above. The floor had rows of terminals and tables covered with computers, in various states of disrepair. Walkways lined the side of the room, with doors on the two levels leading off down unknown corridors. On the right wall was a slight bulge (which, thinking about it, Hugoluman guessed to be adjacent to the inner cylinder) that had what could only be described as a small blast door at the bottom. This was marked "Project FTW Maintenance Access"

A ladder led from the floor a catwalk on the side of the bulge. This was covered by a plexiglass box and had a large terminal of some sort on it an a window looking into the cylinder, but the tint made it impossible to look through from afar. Wierd walked along the balcony to get a closer look at the catwalk. Through the plexiglass he could see something lying on the metal surface. A shirt and trousers of some sort, well preserved, but the occupant evidently was not. A film of dust extended out from the ends of the sleeves and head-hole of the shirt. The clothes were flat. The outfit looked face-down, the left sleeve extended, as if someone had been reaching when they fell over. Past the end of the sleeve lay a key, with jagged teeth like one for an automobile. Besides the clothes lay two black shapes; a shotgun and an automatic pistol. The back of the shirt had an enormous tear, as if it had been hit with a large, cleaving strike. Wierd looked at the console. It was uncomplicated, mostly blank space, containing only a key slot and a big, red button.

At the far end of the room, 200 feet away, the wall was taken up by a massive metal box. Open panels revealed stacks upon stacks of computational equipment inside, through which a few of the mini-bots scurried. In front of this was a much smaller box, a box of cyan metal. Adamantine. "PROMETHEUS" was imprinted on the front of it in blocky letters.

[wierd]

"Hmm.. Looks like StarkRavingMad was not the one responsible for the eruption that destroyed the metropolis in our basement...." he said, pointing down from the catwalk. "Bastard's DoA just over there."

He continued talking, as he descended the stair of the catwalk. "The central shaft of the tower is part of project "FTW", probably 'fuck the world', given the people involved here... its a good thing you did not succeed in breaching the inner tower Sparrow... it would most certainly have not ended well...."

"Whatever do you mean by that? Do you mean you know about the ancient ones?" The hook-nosed and greasy black haired specter intoned with a raised eyebrow.

"More or less. I know *OF* them. They're from were I'm from." Weird said dismissively, dropping off the side of the banister to get down the last 4 or 5 steps of the flight.

The ghost blinked a few times, then transfixed him with a hungry, blinkless stare. "Explain."

explain indeed. Then again, he supposed an explanation was in order.

"Look..." he started. "Myself, the dragon over there, the pretty lady with the hyperkinesis problem, the MPD suffering swordswarf over there, and the doctor outside--- none of us are from "here".." he waved a hand around in general.

"Of course you aren't from 'here'--" snarked the ghost irritably. "You would have to be centuries older than I am."

Weird put a hand to his forehead.

"No. "Here", as in this world-- this universe. We don't belong here."

The look of incredulity on the ghost's face was almost comical.

"The people who made this place, these 'ancients'-- we came from the same world they did. We know of these people, and they way they did business from their notorious exploits in our world of origin. They created and managed a fortress called "kognassusun", or, "boatmurdered"..."

"THAT'S WHAT IT WAS!" Exclaimed the ghost. "Of COURSE it would take a dwarf to know such a thing! I should have known!!" The great sparrow tugged at his lank, straight, jet-black hair and grimmaced.

"Don't look at me. I didn't know either..." weird said, trying to be comforting. "Hugo over there's the one that put that bit of fun together.."

"The dragon?"

"Yes. The dragon."

"I might have known.." the ghost groaned sarcastically.

"Anyway-- the lot of us have at the very least some inclination as to what all this stuff does..."

"Uhm.. Weird?" Interjected Hugo. He had snuck up on him while he had been talking to the ghost, and was now just behind his right shoulder, startling him slightly from the sudden intrusion. Hugo never needed to compltely close the gap on somebody, as his neck was long enough to just swoop in from a fairly long distance, which always threw weird off. "Could you.. uhm.. not talk to the ghost like that? Nobody knows what you two are talking about, and it's creeping us out."

"I was just telling him about boatmurdered.."

"Yeah. We caught that part. That's enough to spook anyone."

"I was TRYING to explain why it was a good thing he hadn't breached the inner tower, ----and now he's looking at us with a rather angry expression."

The great sparrow indeed looked quite cross. Being interrupted by somebody talking in a foriegn language in mid conversation wasn't something polite in normal situations, and the ghost was not lost to such social courtesies.

"They're worried about what we're talking about." Weird said to the cross ghost, talking past Hugo's suspended head. The great sparrow snarked a half-sneer/half-smirk, and crossed his arms, turned sideways and tapped his boot on the concrete.

"What's that all about?" Asked hugo, turning his outstretched head and neck to survey the phantasm.

"It's rude to interrupt a conversation..." he consoled gently. "Especially when the other person doesn't understand what you are saying."

"OH! Right!... Sorry!" Blurted hugo, realizing the faux-pas. "Sorry!--sorry!"  He retracted his head and made an embarassed expression as he huddled his long neck close.

"Just find out what you can about "project Prometheus" while I fill sparrow here in on what's going on." Weird said. "Anything with a big ass metal box like that... made by THESE jokers, has GOT to be bad news."

"On it.." said hugo, shuffling around to get busy.

"Sorry about that..." he said to the impatient ghost. "Now.. where were we?"

[WillowLuman]

[Except SRM never made it to the console. He was killed before he could put the key in. The eruption wiped out the city, which they had armed with guns, and relied on for protection from hostile armies. There is something worse in the central shaft.]

Gizogin X looked through the gap in the panels into the computer bank. "This does not make sense. These are not any kind of electronics that I recognize. They do not appear to be conventional silicon transistors. I wonder how they built all this in just a decade or two?"

"USING MY KNOWLEDGE" A deep, harsh, synthesized voice resonated through the chamber.

Everyone whipped their heads towards the source of the sound. It came from the box. HugoLuman felt a pit in his stomach. "That voice... it sounds like... no, it can't be."

The 3 walls of the box pushed out from the center, then slid into the floor. A platform began to rise from the hole within, a blue pinpoint emerging from the darkness below. The platform rose up into the light and revealed what sat upon it. A dalek bound in adamantine chains.

"FOR NINE THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND FORTY YEARS, I HAVE SLEPT IN THIS PLACE," screeched the electronic voice. "AND NOW, AS FORETOLD, YOU HAVE ARRIVED"