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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

[Reudh]

"Here... look, uhm... You guys are peasants aren't you? You know what a berry looks like?"

Reudh sighed. The job he was given by Eric was much more complex than simple guard duty.

Kneeling down, he called out to the seven peasants. "Round up, everyone. What berries have you found?"

A small, weakly built and overall inbred-looking young peasant handed him some oozing green berries.

"No, Othob... I don't think those ones are good to eat."
Othob groaned and clutched his stomach.

"Thar berries hurt my ale-pot... they tasted like burning fire in my guts..."
Reudh put his hands on his face. Honestly, how dwarves manage to survive, was beyond Reudh. No wonder new forts are settled, they send all the dregs there.

"Uhm, Othob... go find Gizogin or X. They might be able to help you with your pain."
Othob trundled off to find the medics, almost doubled over in pain.

While waiting for the remaining six peasants to return, Reudh played with the old stone dagger he had made when he first came here. The blade was beginning to degrade and chip away. He doubted it'd be useful in battle at all anymore. The thought was a little depressing, so he put the dagger away and sighed once more.

You really don't know what you're doing, do you, little dwarf?

A voice sounded inside his head. All of a sudden. Sharp, like a voice of purest crystal. It echoed with malice and yet at the same time was warm and welcoming. Such a voice it was... Reudh was enchanted, and for a few seconds he could not shake the strange voice from his head.

"Mister Rude, we found more berries for ya. Where's Othob gone?"

Blinking, Reudh rose from his trance-like state. These peasants wanted his attention... what for... Oh, yes, the berry harvesting.

"Eh... Othob ate some Ngumrashfruit... He's gone to find Gizogin."

[Ngumrashfruit are small, oozing green berries. They cause mild intestinal distress except in exceptionally hardy individuals; which can cause death by virtue of cytokine storming. They are pithy, green berries with a single seed in the centre; surrounding the seed is an oozing watery substance containing all sorts of bacteria that live inside the berry for nutrients and provide defense against predators.
As I said, an elderly dwarf or a child dwarf are less susceptible to the Ngumrash sickness (heh, preonasm; Ngumrash is dwarven for Sickness) due to their weaker immune systems.
Dwarves in their prime of life, like Reudh or some of the other middle aged dwarves stand to suffer in addition to intestinal distress, nausea, sweating, very high fever, swelling and general redness, malaise and extreme fatigue. In some cases, with exceptionally strong dwarves, it kills.]

The other peasants sighed and shook their heads.  Depositing their berries at Reudh's feet; they had collected an assortment of mildly edible beans and berries, and some fruit.
One of the bigger peasants, a strong lass of about sixty-five, clicked her fingers at Reudh. He had gone into a glaze again.
"Oi, Rude! We found this weird smellin' berry near the fort, so I sniffed it and it smelled good enough. I had a taste and i felt like'n I couldn't stop running... So I harvested the whole bush. Did I do good?"

Reudh laughed quietly. A memory, an echo of a memory stirred at the edge of his mind. All he remembered was that he needed to show these green and red berries to the Forumites. Something about them would make them very happy.

The name escaped him, but he remembered part of the word. Cooff... It would make the Forumites happy.

There was some sun berries too. Brilliant alcohol that glistened like the forgotten sun could be made from them. It was a pretty good haul.

Reudh hopped up, and directed the peasants to carry the berries indoors. He set aside the red and green berries to carry inside himself. Maybe Corai could shed some light on them. Maybe Wierd could. Maybe Eric could... Who knows?

Heading back into the fort, Reudh tasted one of the cherries. They had a pungent but delicious taste- the peasant woman was right; he surged with energy.

Staggering backward, Reudh struck the wall. This... This... energy. A gelid touch from that mind that touched his before brushed against him.

You remember, don't you? Ah, but there's so much you have forgotten...
"Who are you!?" he wanted to shout, but he didn't want to appear any more mad than the others thought he was. He thought it as loud as he could.

Who are you, and what do you want from me?
I call merely to greet you, child of mason forbidden.

[Gizogin]

X replaced the crystal in an inner pocket of his coat, then called to the others.  Wierd, Hugo, and Oliolli were still in the room with him, but Lana was nowhere to be seen.  "Everyone, we have a situation.  I just heard from Gizogin that we have company.  Whoever it is, he knocked out Gizogin and headed this way.  Be on your guard."

[Eric Blank]

Othob McDumbass cancels Meet with Doctor: Doctor not in the house.
Othob McDumbass vomits
Othob McDumbass retches

[wierd]

"I saw." Weird said lethargically. The escape of the enigmatic omnicidal maniac, off to future or past unknown to continue its spree of bloodletting, had left him feeling guilty, dumbstruck, and drained.  He tugged the gloves on tighter. The overcharged plasma bolt he had lobbed at the dalek earlier had fatigued him somewhat; he wasn't very practiced with electricity, and the shot had lacked all finess- it was just brute force overcasting. The stress from abusing magic was different than abusing ones body physically, but it left you just as tired. Rather than giving you aches and pains, it left you slightly sick to your stomach, and made you sensitive to every little bit of stimulous. The only real cure was to take a nap for awhile. It was very much like having you electrolytes unbalanced.

He sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and forced clarity. It wouldn't last, but he could drive off the mental fatigue a few times by doing that.

"How are your batteries holding up?" He asked X, slowly opening his eyes after asking.

"Fully charged, and operational." Was the curt reply. "Fully combat ready."

"Good. Let's go see what happened to Lana, and who this intruder is."

[BTW, I'm pretty good at herbalism. While the things i'd bring back may not taste very good, or have a pleasing appearance or texture, I know a *lot* of edible and medicinal plant species, well enough to identify, harvest, and process without a field manual. Most would likely be herbaceous plants though. Wood sorrels, pigweeds, amaranths, oyster plant roots, dandilion, wild grape leaves, etc. Some need to be moderated on intake though, like the wood sorrels. They taste really tangy and sour, and make a great flavor boost to otherwise bitter and flat salads made from pigweeds and dandilion, but they are scary high in oxalic acid, and can give you urnary trouble if frequently eaten, or eaten in large quantities. Other oddball things I might bring back are poppy mallow taproots, black eyed susans, sunflowers, elderberries, sour fox grapes (make passable wine, but too sour to simply eat), honey locust pods, and the like. Avoid letting the dwarves collect locust tree pods. Black locust and honey locust look a good deal alike, and so do the pods they make. Honey locust pods are filled with a sugary pulp like a tamarind. Black locusts are phytotoxic, and will kill you. Honey locust has spines growing from the trunks, and smooth bark. Black locusts are rough, and have small spines on the bifurcated leaf clusters. A combination of the sugars from the honey locust pods and the sour fox grapes will net a flavorful and highly alcoholic beverage. The pods are *really* sugary.]

[Edit: had the names backwards, but not the descriptions. Corrected. The really spiny one is the edible one. The toxic one is much less spiny, and has smaller pods.]

[Eric Blank]

[I'll have to remember that. There's locust trees all over around here. And hemlock. Actually, this place is just chalked full of nasty shit.]

[Reudh]

[I chose the name Othob because it means Stupid in dwarven. ]

Reudh passed Othob... the voice had subsided. Thankfully.

Othob had not found Gizogin... the medic was nowhere to be seen.

"Othob, are you alright?" Reudh asked the thick dwarf through a mouthful of berries.

"Rude... my tummy... aching..." Othob gasped in between retches.

Taken aback, Reudh leaned forward and patted Othob gingerly on the back.
"Have a rest, Othob. You'll need it." Othob crawled on his hands and knees to his tiny hovel of a room. Reudh sighed, as he seemed to be doing a lot these days... and took the remaining berries to the granary.

[wierd]

[he may benefit from eating some neutral clay and charcoal. it will help absorb and then insulate his digestive system from the toxic substances found in his nasty berries.]

[Gizogin]

[That's all well and good, but there's no-one there to tell him that.  Well, except for the G-Bodies...]

[Slooooooow...  I'm waiting on Oliolli right now.  I know mostly where I want to go from here, and it's not too dependent on everyone else, but it can't start until we get back from the tower.]

[wierd]

[Held up similarly. I have monopolized the story lately, and that is no fun for anyone. I want to take a less active and more reactive position for my character. He's too much of an ass to spend time in the limelight. (He really isn't much of a people person. Really. It should be pretty obvious.) You need some magic muscle? If he hasn't been abusing his powers that day, he's your dwarf. Just mind his physical shortcomings, and somewhat ascorbic personality. Try not to have him force a door open with his bare hands, because it won't be happenin. His strengths are almost all mental, but in that realm are borderline superdwarven. Just remember that he does make mistakes, and often makes an ass of himself. While he shows signs of a violent temper, he really isn't a violent person. The temper is inherited, and the mental fortitude came from learning the self control to suppress it. He can actually take a lot of shit, but refuses to whenever possible. Feel free to make use of him, should I not be on to drive. Just keep his seemingly dischordant personality in mind. He isn't an ass because he revels in being one; he's an ass because he refuses to cater to what he considers to be bullshit. Bullshit in his case includes but is not limited to: how somebody "feels" about a demonstrable fact or harsh reality (you can't wish reality away, and pretending you can by being 'supportive' is only encouraging more emotional distress later, when the grim specter of reality pays another visit. He's an ass because he wants people to realize that they can choose to stop being victims by embracing the undesirable reality. He has very harsh words to say about things like "battered wife syndrome", for instance. In short, he does *NOT* sugar coat things. Ever.), people pretending they are better than others or having absurd expectations of entitlement, outright liars, people who revel in violence (a personal issue, related to his own inner conflict and demons concerning his temper, and his own acknowledgement that he does enjoy causing pain, but does not want to. It is a part of his suppressed dark side. If he went bad, he would make thari look like a brownie scout. The thing people invariable hate the most in others is the fault they see in themselves, and he is no exception. Part of the reason he likes Hugo so much, is the genuine philanthropy he exhibits. Weird aspires to be a better being in that direction.) People who wastefully destroy things pointlessly and the very act of same, and a host of other things.]

[I am gonna be rather busy at work. Spirit tulsa has deeply displeased me by being lazy, and shoving work onto other people by being willfully incompetent (add that to the list of things he will lash out about! LOL!) And requiring me to make extensive modifications to programming data to meet their acceptance requirements. They are litterally giving engineering data for something of a certain size, then pencil whipping it to be radically smaller, while maintaining wall thicknesses. This means changing walls on a shitload of pockets, with a bunch of different sized offsets. Basically, "here's engineering for X, but we want Y." It is time consuming, and shouldn't be necessary, and it is kicking my ass. That kind of thing makes me super hostile. Might explain why my char has been so assholey lately.]

[OREOSOME]

[I've mostly been waiting to the rest of the forumites to return so then i can have more exposition for Corvus and The merfolk brigade.]

[Gizogin]

[I need a bit of help with the TVTropes pages for this.  I think I did an okay job with wierd's character description and tropes, but I don't know how to describe Oliolli or MrHappyFace.  Besides Clockwork Hugo, what major antagonists do we have?  Also, we're probably missing a bunch of tropes for the main page.]

[Reudh]

[Well, I guess he could go find the other Gizos. Though they're a lot worse at medicine than X and Gizogin, aren't they?]

[Oliolli]

Besides Clockwork Hugo, what major antagonists do we have?

Oliolli, perhaps.

Vemini, Ironblood and Jerry (Crippling Overspecialization, anyone?) could perhaps fit into "Supporting characters".

Also, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable telling what the entire group does. Oliolli is there basically just in case physical strenght is required.

[wierd]

Joykill also exhibits Good Is Not Nice, Intelligence Equals Isolation and The problem with fighting death.

He suffers all the potential dangers listed on the "intelligence equals isolation" trope description, and risks becoming evil Sue, or Mr Knowall.

For completeness, he does suffer "spell my name with an S". The confusion is caused by well meaning auto correction. A good rhyme to remember the correct spelling is "I before E, when referring to Me. E before I, when describing the guy." It is a wordplay, in that it is a weird way to spell weird, which exemplifies his character.

Other tropes missing are "xanatos gambit", and "magnificent bastard."

Adversaries missing include "enigmatic figure"; the cause of their exile to DF land.

The other G-bodies are "technically flawless" surgical helpers and nurses, but have all the bedside manner of a fridgid spinster with a corncob pessary. "Brusk" is an understatement. They are efficient, humorless, and uncaring robots. X is unique in actually having artificial personality, and is Gizogin's crowning achievement.  Earlier G-bodies were little more than service robots. These later ones have limited autonomy, but are deep in the uncanny valley.

[Talvieno]

Saw your mention of me in TVTropes - awesome. Not sure who did that, and I didn't really expect it, but thanks. I didn't discover this thread was here until it was over 150+ pages in (surprise - that didn't take long), and I haven't really read much of it - kept me from posting, in the end. Still, I'm more surprised (and somewhat horrified) that manamaids made it in there. Lol