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Author Topic: The Forgotten Art: Approaching the Nexus  (Read 271000 times)

lawastooshort

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3225 on: January 05, 2015, 08:04:47 am »

”Aha. Yes. Quite so. Thanks, O God.”

Cast a Potato Vortex and step through it.

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Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3226 on: January 05, 2015, 05:43:48 pm »

Larry, supposing that there's not much more that needs to be said, invites Cal to move as soon as he feels like it.

"Let's go, dude.  Haven't got all day to hang around in Hell."

"Truer words have never been spoken, bro," says Cal, still glowing quite intensely, and together the two leave the ruined office of Finch, leaving the van behind as they move out into a hallway with a conspicuous floral wallpaper and a gray floor, one that stretches out into the far distance, with a great many slightly widened 4-way intersections along the way. Doors of varying quality are placed regularly along the walls, plus a soda machine or two along the way. Shadows move across the hall and down it regularly, their eyes largely some shade of green, although not exclusively so - a few yellow-eyed shadows as well as a single cyan-eyed one are visible along the length of the passage.

"Cripes, it's going to take forever to get anywhere. Screw it, take my hand," says Cal, extending a palm toward Larry. Larry, seeing no reason not to, grabs it, and instantly feels like this may not have been a good idea, as in a single moment he feels like he has been stretched across the length of about five miles, the next moment entailing his body snapping across that length rather uncomfortably, going through the seemingly infinite hallways of this office complex, ten floors down a rather large elevator shaft, spending about a second in a massive thoroughfare, through several places that look like access tunnels, then finally coming to a stop at what may or may not be their destination.

Where they find themselves now is clearly a lounge of some sort - it's reasonably spacious (at least horizontally speaking - the ceiling is only about two meters high), filled with couches and coffee tables, on each of which sit no less that three and no more than eight shadows with eyes of orange or yellow. The tables are all filled with what look like mugs in various states of dirtiness. The place itself, abuzz with conversation, immediately quiets as the two appear. All eyes are on Cal and Larry, and they are about to start feeling a tad uncomfortable, but the public at large then seems to realize that they're not nearly interesting enough to warrant any form of gawking, and then mostly return to their chatting. Some still gawk, granted, but they seem like an unpleasant lot, Larry decides. Meanwhile, the blue-eyed shadows skipping about the place and ensuring a steady flow of full mugs to the tables and empty mugs to regularly-spaced pillars with what look like dumbwaiters installed in them do not seem to have noticed the arrivals in any significant way.

"Right, then. Larry, you know anything about real estate? I'm thinking maybe I should let you take the initiative here."

* * * * *

John is mildly disappointed at the way it seems that no maiming shall be taking place today, making sure the safety's still on for his revolver. Noticing that it doesn't actually have a safety, John is a tad disquieted. Guess he'll just have to try to not cock it by accident. Hm.

"Would you like to go first, Tracey?" he asks.

"No way, man. You're the one with the experience, you go first. I'll be, uh, taking notes," Tracey says, taking a step away from him and the others as if to further affirm the desire to be second in line. John shrugs and decides to get this over with as quickly as possible, and takes up a fighting position along with Stan twenty paces from one another in the backyard of the house, beyond which there is only a sparsely wooded area with no other potential witnesses.

"Okay, you've got one minute to prepare, starting... now," says Pilton, acting as arbiter of the duel. At his signal, Stan immediately works some sort of magic, and in his hand a shape very reminiscent of a longsword begins to form. Pilton stands with his back against the house's back door, and Tracey has sat down right next to him, watching with a very thoughtful expression.

* * * * *

Dave has little to lose now aside from his very existence, and thus he tries to scream out his urgent need to all who may listen.

~GIVE ME ENERGY. I NEED IT TO LIVE!~

Sadly, his psychic voice is of insufficient audibility, his presence too weak and growing weaker still, diffusing into the fabric of the denture plane. He screams for help for as long as he can, past the point where he can recall his name, remember the face of his mother or understand the words of his spells, and with a final inarticulate shriek, Dave fades out entirely, with only Charles even vaguely noticing as the world becomes one unfortunate schlub poorer. Solemnly hanging his head low, Charles holds a moment of silence in Dave's memory before letting his resolve to be the best sequel to his former owner that he possibly can be take hold.

He turns to the Denture God, the mass of spiraling rows of teeth looking slightly quizzical, calling out for Dave periodically before giving the divine equivalent of a shrug and continuing on. It does not even appear to know what has just transpired. With a loud squeal, Charles petitions for the god's attention, which it readily provides. It is from this point that discussions of the future may begin, and it is quite the future that Charles intends to secure for himself, no doubt.

Dave is completely and utterly dead, killed by overload of elemental divine power.

* * * * *

With a trip to the store seeming like a reasonable enough task for even him not to cock up beyond all repair, THE DUNKER beckons the lawyer woman to follow him on his quest after quickly ascertaining that the store in question seems to be located just off Import Avenue right behind a steak house, the giant fork atop which is apparently rather difficult to miss.

"We'll go there'll then. Come, lawyer person!" he says with a healthy sense of drama, and the lawyer-woman gets up calmly and follows without another word at a brisk pace, seemingly quite eager to keep the fellow out of any trouble. Together they descend the stairs and get right out of the factory, then locate the giant fork, which is indeed clearly visible from the street if one looks carefully enough, and then proceed in that direction, saying nothing to each other. The lawyer-babe appears to have an interesting habit of shooting glances all about, presumably looking for trouble along the way. One wonders if she does that all the time, or she has simply heard something of THE DUNKER's exploits thus far.

In any case, the trip is uneventful, and soon THE DUNKER and his lovely escort enter the store. Inside they see what is definitely a very archetypical mom-and-pop operation. Elderly owners working at the register gossiping about something inane, slightly tacky ambiance, a moment of odd looks devoted at new arrivals, hideously overpriced produce from mildly questionable 'local' sources, store music provided by an old radio, that sort of thing. Now, how would one approach a situation like-

"Hello. I'd like some margarine, please," the lawyer-babe says to the man at the register, striding confidently forward with a smile. The man quickly retrieves the single store-available brand, which seems to cost 3 dollars per package, then asks if she needs anything else. She asks for two more packages, which the man readily provides, then pays for it in cash in a very quick and efficient manner, saying thank you as she turns to to leave. She then walks back to THE DUNKER before he has a chance to react, handing him all three packages and ushering him back out of the store.

"So, now we have margarine. Have you any other urgent needs, or shall we return immediately?" she asks offhandedly, already guiding her companion on a return path, seemingly only even bothering to say anything out of elementary politeness.

* * * * *

Eta realizes that there's no real point to haggling when she has a nigh-infinite supply of trade goods, and simply accepts the shade's deal.

"You drive a hard bargain friend. Consider yourself lucky I am in a hurry. It is agreed."

"Very good," the shade says, accepting the pair of golden shoes and quickly placing them in a small box behind the counter of its kiosk. "Now, what will you have?"

After a moment of deliberation, Eta decides to go with Yummy Umami water and a Saltmint treat, since of the combinations offered (including such wonderful flavors as Bitter Lipid) these seem to offer the most novelty versus likely grossness. The water comes in a very thin plastic cup with a lid and seems to be lukewarm, while the yeast treat is rather warm and packed in very dry paper with a single opening. Pressing the yeast treat seems to let it come through the opening, sort of like pressing on a balloon. Since this seems like it's meant to eat on the go, Eta proceeds to walk with Caradog, taking a bite of the treat and finding that it does indeed seem to be salty and minty at the same time and in equal measure, which is certainly an odd sensation to feel in one's mouth. Washing it down with a bit of umami water works out nicely, even if Eta's slightly unused to water tasting significantly of glutamate.

"So, is this thing we're doing work related? What is your job down here anyway?" she asks of Caradog as they proceed along the moving walkway train.

"Oh, we're essentially doing debt collection. And by that I mean that you're doing debt collection, since the people we're dealing with would pretty easily recognize me. What you're going to have to do is find a particular dumbass with a debt, make sure it's the dumbass I want by having him admit his name, and from there I'll take over. I'm not actually a debt collector, mind you. This is just a favor someone's cashing in, and I figure you can help me out with it very nicely. Speaking of, here's our exit," Clive explains, leading Eta off the walkway into a nearby station, very similar to the one they entered the walkway with, though with slightly fewer staircases. A sign seems to indicate that they are currently in a place called the "AR Cross Station", though Eta doesn't get to examine the place for too long, as Clive quickly leads her up the leftmost staircase and up into what looks like a multi-level street, with catwalks connected by staircases going for what looks like a hundred stories up and a hundred stories down. The rather large structure is flanked by impossibly tall walls on both sides that converge in the distance both in front of her and behind her, hinting at a rather massive length in total. It's slightly surreal to look upon it all, and thus it's probably a good thing that she doesn't get to, as Clive leads her in a rather exhausting trip up, down, then up again several flights of stairs and across several catwalks, and Eta finds herself practically submerged in the foot traffic - the whole network of catwalks is hard to appreciate due to the seemingly millions of shades wandering through it, largely shades of the blue and purple eyed persuasion, it seems, though a few cyans, teals and an occasional green can be found.

Hell's pretty bad if one doesn't like crowds, it seems. It's also a place where one is in a constant rush to get somewhere, or is it just Clive who's trying to take Eta somewhere at a mildly feverish pace to the point where she quickly loses track of where she's going, where she came from and even how far she seems to have gone. In any case, they manage to land in front of a doorway eventually after she manages to lose track of time as well in a final surge of helplessness.

"Right, we're here. Now, you go in here and look for the Toe Pine Seven block. Might take a while, but make sure to consult the map that's in the lobby. I'll be going off to do something else for the moment. The shithead you're looking for is Zigward Bonzo. He's got purple eyes and he's living on a block of people with purple eyes. You need him to admit his name, and then say my name three times. It's like serving a subpoena. Don't tell him you're here to collect a debt, just come up with some bullshit, you know. Any questions? Make it quick, I shouldn't linger," he says in a rushed manner, pointing at the doorway, which Eta can vaguely perceive as the shades keep streaming past the two of them.

* * * * *

Halesey, struck by inspiration as God points him in the most obvious of directions, tries to cast a potato vortex on the nearby area.

[Halesey's affinity roll: 5+1]

The vortex, unsurprisingly, appears without issue seemingly without heed to Halesey's currently absent (or, rather, vortexed) arms and legs, and Halesey tries to get himself free to swim toward it and out into freedom.

[Halesey's body roll: 6-->1]

He pulls all of his limbs out simultaneously with the minimum necessary number of joint dislocations (that is to say three of them) and tries to set all three of them in place simultaneously for the sake of symmetry - he succeeds, of course, but not without an amount of screaming and flailing that is sufficiently untoward that he feels the need to clear his throat politely for a few moments before proceeding to the vortex he just made, his limbs a little wobbly from the ridiculous abuse he just put them through.

However, he does manage to flop out on the other end, feeling very strange inside as the vortex on his torso goes inside out during the transition. Flopping around like a disfigured fish for a few seconds, he stands up and looks around the place he's in.

Huh. Looks like he's back at that factory where the fat dude who gave him magic resides. Who would've thunk it?
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Xantalos

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3227 on: January 05, 2015, 06:48:18 pm »

No, I think we're wait one second.

Check donut stash. If it's 5 or under, amble up to the counter and inquire if they have donuts. If they do, purchase the necessary amount to have 10 in total. Then head back to the factory. If they don't have any, then just head back.
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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3228 on: January 05, 2015, 08:19:29 pm »

"Why is it always fucking real estate?  I threatened an agent topside into helping me, does that count?"
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Parisbre56

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3229 on: January 06, 2015, 04:51:47 am »

Ah, OK, that doesn't sound that bad. I was afraid it was going to be something bad. But I'm just here to see justice done.
"That's good, I can do that. Just want to ask three things first:" Eta said as she wrote down the name and location of the... person she was looking for.
"One, is there any way to identify him by my senses, or am I going to have to use other means?
Two, any way to contact you? Can I use this thing"
Eta raised her palm to show him the mark he had given her "to talk to you, like a cell phone?
And three, is there any way to get out of here quickly, in case you, for some reason, can't help?"


EDIT: Now that I mention it, has that mark in my hand done anything weird at all since I came down here?
« Last Edit: January 06, 2015, 04:54:00 am by Parisbre56 »
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Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3230 on: January 06, 2015, 05:44:14 am »

"Why is it always fucking real estate?  I threatened an agent topside into helping me, does that count?"

"It's more experience than I have. And hey, if you've got a better idea on who'd be more of an expert of what to do with a planet, you're welcome to guess."

Ah, OK, that doesn't sound that bad. I was afraid it was going to be something bad. But I'm just here to see justice done.
"That's good, I can do that. Just want to ask three things first:" Eta said as she wrote down the name and location of the... person she was looking for.
"One, is there any way to identify him by my senses, or am I going to have to use other means?
Two, any way to contact you? Can I use this thing"
Eta raised her palm to show him the mark he had given her "to talk to you, like a cell phone?
And three, is there any way to get out of here quickly, in case you, for some reason, can't help?"


"Let's see, the fucker's about average height, shadowy and has purple eyes, or maybe more of a dark violet if he hasn't been paid in a while, exactly like everyone else in block Toe Pine Seven, which is entirely deliberate on his part, I assure you. As for contacting me, don't flash the mark in there. It identifies you as my associate, and nobody's gonna talk to you if they get even a whiff of it. And if you wanna get out, and it doesn't look like I'm about to help, give the law a few persuasive shouts, and someone will come along in a moment and help you out. Like 'help, police', for instance."
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Parisbre56

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3231 on: January 06, 2015, 05:54:53 am »

"Hmm.... All right, I think I know what to do then. I've searched for people who don't want to be found before. One final thing. Got any gloves lying around, something to help with my mark? Perhaps one of those fingerless leather ones?"

Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3232 on: January 06, 2015, 05:59:07 am »

"Hmm.... All right, I think I know what to do then. I've searched for people who don't want to be found before. One final thing. Got any gloves lying around, something to help with my mark? Perhaps one of those fingerless leather ones?"

"Not on hand I don't. You might wanna ask somebody on one of the other blocks. Maybe trade for a golden shoe or two."
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lawastooshort

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3233 on: January 06, 2015, 06:08:26 am »

Hmm. Hmmmm. Hmm. The leyline? Is that round here? Did I already get it? Before I got religion? Hmm. Am I still a vortex? Am I potato?

Wander around, looking for the leyline, or people. Try to move quietly. Take a look in any possible sources of reflections to check my current physical status.

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Parisbre56

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3234 on: January 06, 2015, 07:02:35 am »

"Ha! Yes, I see." Eta said, unsure if the pun was intentional.
"Okay then, thanks for the tip. When we talk again, I'll make sure to have your friend's defaulter... on hand."
Unless there's something else Caradog wants to say, get in and have a look around. Hold my notepad in such a way that it conceals my mark.

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3235 on: January 06, 2015, 09:35:14 am »

"Bah, whatever.  Which one do we need to talk to, or do I just start yelling our offer?"
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HMR stands for Hazardous Materials Requisition, not Horrible Massive Ruination, though I can understand how one could get confused.
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Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3236 on: January 06, 2015, 12:01:36 pm »

"Bah, whatever.  Which one do we need to talk to, or do I just start yelling our offer?"

"To be perfectly honest, they all look alike to me."
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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3237 on: January 06, 2015, 12:57:21 pm »

"Yeah, whatever." Larry rolled his eyes and faced the assemblage.  "So hey dudes, I got a buddy up in Mercury with a problem.  See, he's got this awesome crib, but there's no electricity and he can't get it hot enough to work metal.  He needs some power or a furnace or something to get it all started.  Anyone here interested in work?"
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HMR stands for Hazardous Materials Requisition, not Horrible Massive Ruination, though I can understand how one could get confused.
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Pancaek

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3238 on: January 07, 2015, 06:16:46 pm »

"IS that a sword, Stan? I thought we were supposed to keep this civil like, without too many injuries. Swords injure people, Stan!"

Cast yellow pademelon shield between me and Stan

Spoiler: John (click to show/hide)
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Harry Baldman

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Re: The Forgotten Art: Disgust and Confusion On The Wizardly Way
« Reply #3239 on: January 17, 2015, 08:56:07 am »

THE DUNKER is about to just go with whatever the pretty lady is telling him to do, but then realizes that it's been a while since he last checked his donut inventory. He takes a look inside his donut box, and for a moment is aghast! There's only four left! Has someone been sneaking them under his nose? Was it him, perhaps? In his sleep?

Wait, no, he has no new spells. Unless he can't research spells in his sleep. That would be good to know, as then he'd presumably know to secure his donut box before going to sleep, maybe with some kind of childproof lock.

But that's a problem for a later date! Right now, the important thing is that he has far too few donuts for his plans. This must be corrected. He ambles up to the counter and asks the elderly man with a conspicuously tiny nose if he has any donuts. The man says yes, and produces some bagels. THE DUNKER, slightly impatient, takes them anyway, as even if they're a tad stale, they're really quite cheap in comparison to the actual donuts he got, the six bagels he needs costing him about three bucks, and so he takes them, pays up and wanders off with his companion back to the factory.

"Adventure has been successfully averted," his new friend tells him, handing him the three packets of margarine. "Now then, get to business, if you will. With the margarine and such."

Just then, THE DUNKER becomes conspicuously aware of a fellow standing next to what looks like a portal to an alternate dimension not too far away on the ground floor of the factory - a fellow with the same kind of portal on his chest, hungrily pulling at THE DUNKER and his companion  seems to be standing next to them, looking rather confused.

* * * * *

Halesey is rather confused. Has anything he has experienced in the last few days actually happened? Is this real life, or merely some sort of potato-induced vision? It seems rather strange to him for a moment that the potato can be so central to the universe at large, and that this fact may, more than anything, be an indication of the possibly illusory nature of this universe. But then he looks at the vortex on his chest and feels calmed, as there is nothing like the swirl of potatoes in an infinite plane where God's will is made manifest to calm and reassure the mind that there is no way all this can be some form of extended psychotic break.

As he stops his moment of introspection (or extraspection, considering he's looking into a different plane of existence even if he's technically staring at his own chest), he then turns to his surroundings. Something's different here. A new paint job, he realizes as he looks closely. It smells different, like body lotion, cigarette smoke, broken dreams. The area is warmer than he recalls, and the floor is much softer. Looking down on it, he notices a lightly leathery texture to it interrupted by regular dark marks arranged in a shape reminiscent of a road map. A few soft hairs are jutting up from the ground, and the entire place seems to be breathing softly, with a distant noise here and there that reminds Halesey of a cough. As the entirety of these impressions hits Halesey, he starts to feel mildly disturbed, as other than these details the layout is the exact same, giving him a feeling reminiscent of stepping into some form of parallel otherworld. He looks back at the vortex, and feels the impulse to step back in.

Then he looks away from it and notices two people entering through a fleshy door, more like a fold of flesh they push open than a door like the one he kicked through when first entering. One of them's a fat untrustworthy-looking fellow in a suit. Next to him is a very familiar-looking woman. It's that beautiful Jo-derived lawyer person. Halesey can't quite remember if she has a name of her own. He walks up to the two, and they look at him wordlessly for a moment, their eyes drawn to the vortex on Halesey's chest.

* * * * *

Eta, upon getting no further input from Caradog, gets on with her mission, heading into the building past a steady stream of exiting shades, and immediately it becomes apparent that claustrophobia probably isn't all that common in hell, considering that the "lobby" is a hallway with a ceiling about two meters tall, two meters wide and about a hundred meters long, with what look like elevators placed along the sides every two meters or so. She wanders down the hall, looking at the signs next to each elevator, but finding seemingly no rhyme or reason in relation to where they go - for example, one elevator leads to blocks Skull Fjord Five, Cloud Cat Nineteen, Gem Fox One, Train Chair Five and a couple more, and the next one leads to three of the same ones, one of which, Cloud Cat Nineteen, spontaneously blinks out on both of them, getting replaced by Arm Trough Two. A few purple-eyed shades then emerge from the elevator, rapidly moving past Eta before she can even bid them some form of polite linguistic filler and disappearing off into the distance.

Intrigued, she steps up against one of the nearby walls and observes for a moment to see what happens with the elevators. Occasionally the blocks an elevator leads to seem to change - each time this happens, Eta notices, it is soon followed by shades exiting it. Around this end of the hallway shades exit every few moments, while at the other end (which is similarly connected to what she assumes is a street of hell) shades enter every few minutes, so there is a sort of gradient of traffic. Around the middle are elevators (or, rather, Eta assumed them to be elevators - they appear to be a lot more like tubes that shades are sucked into or spat out of. Whether there's floor selection of any kind remains a mystery. In addition, it's unclear whether there's any way she could possibly find block Toe Pine Seven without extensive guesswork.

* * * * *

Larry faces the honorable assemblage of demons he was only... yesterday? The day before yesterday? Well, the demons he only recently was busy violently sabotaging. Hopefully they won't remember that part.

"So hey dudes, I got a buddy up in Mercury with a prob-" he begins, but is interrupted when the entire mass of shades pounces upon the two, with one in particular leading the way as it takes a different shape midway, its body switching to quadruped and furry, its slavering jaws opening and reddish-orange eyes glowing as it leaps forth and touches both Larry and Cal, and then everything goes dark as the shades wash over the two like a tidal wave.

In an instant, Larry and Cal are elsewhere, in a different, greener place - it is a cube-shaped room, each side an unusually spacious 6 meters, and absolutely filled with greenery, vines crawling along the walls. About three meters up on the wall opposite them is a shelf, on which currently lounges that thing they saw before - a dog with a short, sandy coat of fur and a slightly wolfish manner, chewing on a bone with very sharp teeth. Looking down on the two arrivals from above, the dog speaks, though its mouth does not move to match the words fully, making it look like a slightly low-quality dub.

"Hey now, I was wondering when these two would be up. It's a bit distressing to see people pass out for fourteen minutes just from that. Don't they teach them in heaven that when they're about to be trampled by executives, they group their limbs together and hold their breath? Demon sweat can be toxic to the uninitiated, they ought to know!" it says, clearly attempting to grin with its entire toothy mouth. "So then, I heard them say they had some kind of thing I could help with on Mercury! I had started running for them a little earlier, of course, since I did realize they clearly had something of value to bring up regardless of the actual content of their message, but that's how much I heard before I tackled these two like the bunch of marks they clearly are. They're lucky I did, too! If I hadn't claimed them first, the other shysters over at the Establishment would have screwed them over so hard, they'd be lucky they had a single dimension of real estate left by the end of it! The people there are real fine-print types, you see. And even then they should not think it didn't take a fight to hold on to you! Had to bite down on the doughy one and dig my claws into the glowing one to hold on in the end!"

Larry becomes aware of a bandaged shoulder when a sharp pain runs through it almost in response to the dog's words.

"But I get ahead of myself, or at least them! How can I help these two enterprising heavenly gentlemen, I wonder? Their problem is not clear to me just yet, though I know it in my pith that they do want to tell me all about it so that I can mobilize my vast resources to help them to the best of my ability!"

* * * * *

John is starting to feel like there may be some unforeseen risks in this duel.

"IS that a sword, Stan? I thought we were supposed to keep this civil like, without too many injuries. Swords injure people, Stan!"

The blade in Stan's hands fully materializes - it's an odd, slightly curved thing covered in brown feathers, giving it the shape of an albatross wing. The guard and hilt are black and oddly shaped, and when the guard proceeds to emit a half-melodic quack, it becomes clear to John that things may get weird in a moment. Stan makes a practice swing at the air, and another set of melodic quacks accompanies its passage.

"It's a singing duck blade, sir. I haven't been able to hurt myself with it just yet, and I will be as gentle as I can. And only use the flat side, too."

Since that sounds like it might be painful anyway, John tries to deploy a countermeasure.

[John's affinity roll: 2]

However, he, not being quite sure what a yellow pademelon looks like in the first place (probably not quite like Uzbek melons, he suspects), can't quite manage to put enough conviction in a shield either. He feels a tad unsafe suddenly.

"You still have about forty seconds left, sir," Stan points out. "And I am just about done already," he adds, giving the blade another swing. "Um, if I manage to down you and put the tip of the blade to your neck, will you concede defeat automatically? I really wouldn't want to hesitate if you are just going to hit me with something while I wait for you to surrender."

* * * * *

There is magic everywhere in our world now, and not the shitty kind of magic like the live birth of a human being anymore. Real, honest-to-goodness magic. Reactions to this have been mixed. There's denial, excitement, apathy, wild fear of the end times, all manner of interesting emotions to be had out of people one asks about this kind of thing. These are all relatively ordinary people. Then there's people like the Observer, whose reaction to magic being a thing now appears to have been to don a highly concealing robe-hood combo and a pointy hat on top of it for good measure and go out in search of chaos, destruction and additional means with which he can bring about either or both. After a less than fortuitous run-in with some seemingly unstoppable beavers seems to have demonstrated that perhaps he doesn't want to find chaos and destruction all that badly, he has turned his attention to the pursuit of magic.

Right now, his pursuit of magic largely constitutes aimless wandering along the outskirts of town, as this is where his intuition tells him magic might possibly be found. Wizards don't like people, right? And this place is absolutely desolate in the mid-afternoon, so logically there has to be more than meets the eye here.

This train of thought has seemed progressively more stupid to the Observer along the course of the last two hours he's been farting around the area, but then! A sound! A most out-of-place sound, followed by another one, then a final one. Sounds like a singing duck, he thinks. Most unorthodox.

But should he investigate? A singing duck it may indeed be, but who is to say that it, much like an angry beaver, does not mean him grievous bodily harm? There is only one way to find out, of course, but the Observer's already had a few brushes with death today (if an awkward move past a fearful large dinosaur can be considered a brush with death - knowing dinosaurs, though, he is tempted to say it can be).

Spoiler: GM Note (click to show/hide)
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