I did ask you the number of children to mutate at first, and then the majority voted favorably for a list.
I'm doing as the majority wishes to do, and really, does nobody remember Bernard's words when he was morphed? I have *never* portrayed the mutation as anything less than an extremely painful procedure. Maybe you forgot about that, but mutations *is* painful.
Why anesthetic can't be used is something you can ask Chemista however.
And Incognito in the past post was simply comparing with what he knew of 'Mengele-Incognito'. After all, you (players) gave me a list of mutations to experiment on the children. What does it mean? IT means that Incognito has a perfectly viable reason for why he keeps on doing them.
You didn't write 'If a child dies, stop everything'.
You voted for the experiments in mutation going on if complying. And of course, after all the time Chemista and Cerulean spent with them... that's what happened.
They complied. You are the Evil Overlord. You hold the power. You use the Power. I just portray what happens. If you want to get a nursery going and sacrifice a newborn baby to the SAD system...I'm not going to stop you. It's ultimately your choice. There's no DM-Railing 'Oh nope that's definitively something you can't do'. You want to do it? Be. My. Guest.
Make no mistake, on a logical point of view, 'saving the children from the orphanage' is a Good thing. 'Mutating Them into monsters' is Good too, because you can keep them...and then have soldiers afterwards. The majority saved the children and mutated them with the clear-cut objective of making them into future soldiers.
So, yeah. You aren't saints. Then again, you aren't forcing children into demonic pacts and selling away chunks of their life-force to fight back like the good guys are (Mauve)
Which...definitively makes you the better side of the two.
It doesn't leave your hands clean...but they're cleaner than most.
Splinter Cog doesn't need to be raced into finding the missing child.
He looks at you, then points a finger at
Cerulean.
He doesn't say anything else as he disappears in the shadows with his three-green dots visor.The Goldfish chuckles quietly. "All is falling, all is failing, a castle of madness, a castle of cards...no logic, no reason...no conscience...let go, let go...hero? Where? I see only monsters here. Monsters...monsters in human masks and humans in monsters' masks..."
You swallow.
After all you told Cerulean, she really wouldn't eat a child would she? She liked playing with them. She liked helping them. She wouldn't just eat a child, right?
But the
possibility is there. There is a
Cruelean somewhere in another dimension. The possibility for Cerulean to be cruel exists, and Splinter-Cog wouldn't lie, would he?
Maybe you just need to rest for a bit. It's late, your nerves are frayed, you need to catch your breath and go to sleep.
Yeah. You hand over to Psysquid one of the two 'nerve-relaxers' and then you swallow down the other one once you're in your bed.
You're going to catch some shut-eye, and tomorrow, when the sun will shine up high and bright, everything will be better.
Everything will be fine.
And the missing child will be found.
Yes.
Everything is fine.
You will not freak out in public.
You will hold on to your nerves in public.
Here however, here in your room, you can freak out.
You grip tightly at the pillow, biting onto it as your screams of anger, rage mix with the tears overflowing your eyes. What you did was horrible, but necessary! You feel rage and anger! You will have your revenge on those who forced you to do this!
YOU KNOW YOU ARE RIGHT!
But the guilt is there. What you did was horrible. You had a nice little list, with numbers and checkers, and you used it to see what would happen.
You can't ignore it. It's there. On the side of your bed-desk. The list.
The list. The list. Just like cattle sent to the butcher. A nice little list and off they went into the arms of the chair, tied as the needle came down in.
Doesn't that make it all the better? Now you know what happens when you mix this with that. You just lost some children...but does it matter? They were all complying. They all accepted. They all knew the risks but you were the Overlord, and you made their lives better.
And so they followed you.
How many more will follow you towards their deaths? Haven't you lost so many cogs now? They don't have 'souls' or 'lives' but...had they been human minions, how many? How many corpses and crosses would you need to bury them?
You are fighting a war.
You must win it, for it's the only way to have a better future. Even if...even if you will be the very last Overlord, even if you will pay the price of all you have done of evil along the way...you will bring this to an end.
You grow tired, your breathing slowing down as the Goldfish has apparently stopped floating around your head to simply look at you. You stop biting onto the tattered remains of your pillow and drop down on your bed.
You sleep...but the sleep is not uneventful.
You stand in a room filled with white.
Filled with mechanisms that tick and twirl and swirl in their silvery like presence.
You feel empty, and weightless. It's as if a shallow breathe would be enough to send you flying.
You look around, trying to find a reason for this.
Trying to find what this is, because it's a dream.
The goldfish is now bigger. He is as big as a large dog, and yet he swims around you. He swims and he smiles. How nice, he must have a perfect dental coverage judging by how white and sharp his teeth are.
"Judge, Jury, Executioner," the Goldfish swims lazily. "Judge, Jury, Executioner," he smiles. "You are such a funny little thing," he cackles. "Such a funny little thing," he repeats with a giggle. "Your excuse, obvious really? 'For the Greater Good' bullshit always works. You feel a monster? My dear, you aren't one."
The Goldfish laughs. "You're barely a whelp. A tiny babe sucking his mother's teat for more. You think what you did is evil? That's not evil. That's...barely the tip of the iceberg. True evil knows no shame. It knows no guilt. You feel guilty, oh. Look at you...yes, yes you're trying to use your powers, but do they work? No. We're dreaming child, dreaming..."
The Goldfish chuckles.
"What have you done, I wonder? Are you more or less evil than Cheerie? Are you more or less evil than before? No...you are barely scratching evil. You aren't 'evil'...you're just egoistic. 'Mine' is your soul's scream. 'All is mine' is what you yell. Isn't that right? Cerulean is your daughter. Kill thousands to save her then! Who cares!? The enemy must be defeated, my way is right! Let the innocent suffer then! You knew mutations are painful, you knew! You cannot claim ignorance! You cannot, not after Bernard's words! Not after all you saw. You knew the risks and you proceeded anyway! But you aren't
evil, oh no, make no mistake," the goldfish lazily swims. "You're...misguided, maybe. You're just...a children, who understands 'mine' and 'want', but cannot grasp the rest."
He smiles. The Goldfish smiles. "Pity that our time must come to a short end, right? Pity...pitiful...but you see," the Goldfish continues, "You can always call me back." He starts to leave.
"I am real, not a product of your frail nerves giving away to shock and fear. And if you wish my aid in the path of true evil...then call me, for I will certainly come..."
One last smile as he swims through the white walls. "For I am
Ozymandias, Overlord of Overlords...and all that you use, was
mine to begin with."
You wake up with a thin sheet of sweat over your body, but the goldfish is no longer there.
You are now in UpkeepThe 'children' are all trying out their new powers or strengths. Cerulean is in a corner, looking over them like a vulture waiting for a carcass.
You don't know why that particular allegory strikes you as odd.
But you suppose that if there were a 'Gestapo' of your own troops, Cerulean would be the leader.
Isn't she, after all, fanatically loyal to a fault?
Ragnarok appears mollified, at least a bit. He is reading a book entitled 'The Ultimate Dark Advisor' and appears concentrated in his studies.
Psysquid looks loads better. He yawns, before telepathically grabbing something from the fridge only for the Yellow King Spawn to imitate him to a fault.
Even Ragnarok takes after his 'father' and all three, looking like a sort of happy Squid family, start munching on dried squid tentacles.
Cannibals, the lot of them.
Gamington is happily humming away as he prepares more truckloads of food.
"Your evilness!" he exclaims happily, "I think we might need more supplies...somehow. Not that we risk starving or anything, but well...I'd suggest Hydroponic farms!"
It is a nice day, with a bright shining sun... You are in Upkeep...
So...Fluff.
With who?
Tomcost: Indeed. I am, in fact, experimenting with the emotions of all the readers and posters. You're puppets, dancing to the invisible strings of the plot that slowly advances. I know what makes you tick, what makes you act, what makes you react. I know that, had I merely written off a crude list with simply 'X children mutated successfully, the rest dies' you would not have had the same reaction as the previous post. Had a kidnapping occurred with Squidconda, you wouldn't have rushed as fast as it would have been with Cerulean.
Which...sorts of means I'm doing a good job with the writing, because you all *are* invested in it.