Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

It was inevitable

15 (42.9%)

Winners don't do drugs

6 (17.1%)

I'll be back

2 (5.7%)

Drink the Kool Aid

6 (17.1%)

Groovy

3 (8.6%)

Insane in the membrane

3 (8.6%)

Total Members Voted: 35

[Harry Baldman]

"And that's quite good, because I've seen the disaster that you attempting to act diplomatically tends to result in. It is decided, then!"

Alan and I head to the monastery with the troops, Irine and Theri split off, Nik can go either way and Zechariah continues to occupy negative space.

[Lenglon]

"And that's quite good, because I've seen the disaster that you attempting to act diplomatically tends to result in. It is decided, then!"

Alan and I head to the monastery with the troops, Irine and Theri split off, Nik can go either way and Zechariah continues to occupy negative space.

This

[Tiruin]

Times were these in Ike's tone that Theri would like to interject, but she decided that they would come to mutual understanding later on.

This was time for her and Irine though! Much fun with her and learning--maybe she could ask about magic or something along the way!

"And that's quite good, because I've seen the disaster that you attempting to act diplomatically tends to result in. It is decided, then!"

Alan and I head to the monastery with the troops, Irine and Theri split off, Nik can go either way and Zechariah continues to occupy negative space.

This

This, but also get Zech and the others into places where you think are best!
((How are the other folks on our Campaign by the way?))

[Xantalos]

Alan drags Zech along with him as a part of his ongoing quest to un-emoify him, unless there's opposition in which case he's probably easily persuaded out of it.

[NAV]

"Do we have any comwires left to keep in touch?

Going with Ike's group.

[Parisbre56]

Spoiler: Stop running, you knave! (click to show/hide)

Looks like I'm running out of time.

Summon a few pavises to block the bots from shooting me. If that'll drain me too much, try to go for at least three. If even three is a bad idea, just keep running and hope for the best.

Actually, can I summon a large shield already strapped to my back? If so, do that instead.

Keep chasing after John and keep the Blingcannon at the ready. If I catch up, polehammer.

Spoiler: I do what I need to do. (click to show/hide)

Well, that could have gone worse.

Summon some cover and get behind it.  A simple metal plate's all I need.

Bots open fire, full force focusing him down.

If I have any time, check my armor and make sure it's in good shape.

If he charges, stab him with the spear again, preferably from cover.  Summoning the cover in a riot shield shape in this case is probably wise.

Spoiler: Toaster (click to show/hide)

You armour's a bit damaged in places, especially close to the back. A lucky or well-aimed shot could cause more damage there.

Both opponents focus on defense, summoning shields to protect themselves. Saevus summons a fairly sturdy and large metal shield strapped on his back. Despite its weight, it doesn't seem to slow him down at all. John meanwhile has pieces of metal bolt on his mechanical suit's arm, stacking on top of each other until they have formed a shield big enough to conceal him entirely when he hides behind it, which he promptly does. It's a bit heavy though, so it might slow him down a bit.

The bots fire but while their aim is good, they do not manage to cause any significant damage on Saevus. Most of them are blocked by Saevus' shield. Their aim is quite good right now, so John doesn't have to worry about friendly fire, even though they are essentially firing towards him.

Saevus reaches John. Despite being better prepared, John hesitates for one moment before acting. That's all the time Saevus needs, jumping towards him and using his uninjured arm to strike John's shield with his polehammer, smashing him back. The shield is dented by the strike and John is thrown off balance, the impact being felt by John through all of his armour, yet he remains uninjured. Saevus strikes again, aiming to capitalize on his opponent's moment of weakness to break his guard. John manages to keep his shield between himself and the hammer. This time the hammer breaks through more of the shield, getting wedged in it. Saevus pushes, trying to push him down, but John manage to hold his ground, his metal exoskeleton straining as much as his physical body.

<They're both so strong...>

The bots use this momentary distraction and lack of movement to target Saevus' legs. The hit, while not too damaging, is enough to give John the upper hand, allowing him to push the dark knight to the slime-covered ground.

Spoiler: Toaster (click to show/hide)

You're feeling a bit lightheaded.

((You are indeed both quiet strong, so determining a winner might take a while. If this starts taking too long I might just keep rolling until one of you wins. But you're still trying fun things that could tip the scales to your favour, so it's not that time yet.))

Staging Area

DreamerGhost
You wake up, back in the inn on the staging area.
You feel a bit different, somehow. Like someone went poking through the pages of your mind.
<Rise and shine!> your entity says as he approaches from behind.
You raise your head from the bar and turn to face him. He throws a shotgun at you. You easily catch it out of the air, cock it and point it at him in one fluid motion.
<Good! Ready to kill. Just the way I like it!>

FallacyOfUrist
You wake up, back in your personal section of the staging area.
<Come on! On your feet, soldier! There's work to be done. The elves aren't going to burn themselves!>
Mmmm... You feel stronger! Ready to take on the world!

Zormod
You wake up.

You're sitting on what could best be described as a dentist's chair, although with none of the accompanying tools. Your vortexes are sitting right next to your head, their slow, almost inaudible rumbling accompanying the slow buzz of some distant machine, maybe a ventilation fan.

Around you you, rising out of the metal floor, you can see sleek metal bookcases, perfectly spaced and arranged in rows. The way they are arranged reminds you of a plantation. They are filled with a mix of books, glowing glass tablets and floating geometric objects. They are unlabeled and the placement of objects on them has no apparent pattern.

A few rows away from you, the bookcases stop. There's a small space and then thick panes of glass form a wall, broken by reinforced metal columns. Through them you can see a desolate snowy wasteland. Frost and snow has accumulated on their edges. Though the wind is raging outside, picking up snow and throwing it against the windows, your surroundings are quiet and comfortably warm.

Beirus
You wake up.

You immediately feel the chilly wind hitting your body, like a rain of tiny needles.
You look around while you huddle your knees to keep yourself warm. Someone has dumped you in the middle of an arctic wasteland, half buried in snow with only your undergarments. The snow and clouds is making it hard to tell where the sun is, the sky is just a general whiteness. You can hear little beyond the howling of the wind.

<character>

You wake up.

You are laying on something soft, facing the ceiling. You feel something around your arms and legs.

You open your eyes and immediately close them. There's a pair of fluorescent light tubes in the ceiling right above you and looking straight at it is amplifying your dizziness.

You try once more to get up an look around but end up slamming back on the bed. Something is holding your arms and legs down. You look at your left arm. It's been tied to the bed with one of those medical restraints. The same is true about your other limbs. The one on your right arm feels loose. You could free yourself with a bit of effort.

From what you can see with your limited mobility, you are lying on a simple metal bed with its back on the wall, the kind of thing you would expect to find in a hospital... or a mental institution. Your clothes reinforce this idea, having been replaced by a medical gown. You feel cold.

The room is fairly small, just big enough to fit your bed and for a couple of people to move around it comfortably. The walls are painted a sterile white (even the floor is white tiles) and the room is devoid of objects save for your bed. The brightness is not making your nausea any better. What happened? Did you hit your head or...?

There's only one door out of the room and it's slightly ajar. There's no windows, no nothing. The only other things in the room are some sockets in the wall to your right and a small plastic cabinet with several drawers also on the right wall.

[DreamerGhost]

<Svajoklis, Starting area>

Nothing quite like the feeling of adequate firepower. What do you have for me today?

[Toaster]

John, After the End

"You should know, Saevus.  I never give up.  Ever."

Spoiler: Never. (click to show/hide)

Fall on top of him and pin him to the ground.  Bots grapple down as well, targeting the shield if they must.  Top priority is getting him restrained while I have an advantage.

Technomance the shield so it assists in holding him down, ideally attaching itself to the floor.  Disconnect it from my armor if the seal on Saevus is good.

If and only if it does not interfere with restraining him, loose the spear and stab him; through the shield should be fine since a couple pinholes won't hurt it.  Repeated stabs beat out one deep stab.  Again, this is LAST priority and only if he is good and restrained.

[Hawk132]

Saevus, After the End

"That is admirable of thee. However, I am the same."

Spoiler: Never surrendering. It's been that way for 800 years. And it will keep being that way. (click to show/hide)

Drop my weapons and grab him. I'll settle this now. Full-powered blingcannon at point-blank. Repeatedly. Don't bother firing it 'at' his suit. Target him directly.

[FallacyofUrist]

Kosak Durar: Staging Area

"Well then!"

Kosak stands, flexes his muscles, then pauses.

"Who are you, anyway?"

[Zormod]

Brian stands and walks to the window. After a moment, he moves to examine a book.

Take a look at one of the books.

[wipeout1024]

Honora, Staging Area

Honora looks around in confusion, eventually shouting into the air.

"Where am I? Dios mio, What is this!?

Try to break free of my restraints.

[Parisbre56]

Alan drags Zech along with him as a part of his ongoing quest to un-emoify him, unless there's opposition in which case he's probably easily persuaded out of it.

"Do we have any comwires left to keep in touch?

Going with Ike's group.

You do, but unless you Tsar them or otherwise empower them, their range is limited. Normally they've got the range of an OK quality radio, enough to let you talk from one side of a small town to another when the signal is good. Then again, you haven't tested them in this mostly flat and empty terrain, maybe they'll have a better range here, especially if you can get to high ground.

Alan, Linguist

Just general knowledge is fine, I'm interested in seeing how Rickman responds to those questions.

"So, Rickman, can you tell our audience a bit more about yourself?"
Rickman makes a questioning squawk.
"Let's start with a little bit about your origins. Where are you from?"
Rickman considers this for a second before answering "WarmHere."
"Well, yes, I can see that you're here. I meant where is your home planet?"
He takes a bit longer, but eventually answers.
"WarmThere. HomeNest."
You somehow know the general direction he is speaking about. Roughly towards the west, where you came from.
"Ah, good, good. Is it nice there?"
Rickman just stares at you. Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it?
"Ah, I see. A sensitive subject then? Is it bad there? Are you the last of your kind, like superman?"
"AlienRickman!" he states decisively.
"Well, yes, I know you're not SuperMan. But really, can you tell me about what went wrong in your home?"
It takes a while for him to answer and when he does he sounds quite... thoughtful, maybe?
"TeethMouths. CrushFoots. NestChompers. EggDrillers."
"Oh, I see. That doesn't sound pleasant at all. I can see why you left. But there must have been some good things about it."
"HumanFood." he says in response.
"Ah, I hope that means that you enjoyed human delicacies on your home and not that you actually eat humans." you say jokingly.
"RareHuman." Rickman responds seriously.
"See, now this could be interpreted as you liking your humans cooked rare or humans being rare in your diet."
"FewHuman. FlyingHuman. BurriedHuman. ManyFood. PlantFood. AnimalFood. FireFood." Rickman clarifies.
"Aha. So you enjoy spicy foods then? I've known to enjoy some Indian myself. Although the ones around me never seemed to enjoy me eating it for some reason."
Rickman makes a displeased squawk.
"Haha. Yeah, that's usually the reaction I get."
Rickman makes a small jump back, just in case, making sure to keep himself between you and his nest.
"So, have any family back there?"
Rickman makes a sad negatory squawk.
"Oh. But there was one or...?"
"NestMate." he responds sadly.
"And... what happened to her, if you don't mind me asking?"
"BigAir-BadAir-MonsterAir. SnatchClaw-CrushWind-CutClaw. Un-nestMate." he says rythmically. It kinda sounds like rapping, in a way.
"StrongPull. MateUn-help."
"Oh. That sounds terrible. I'm so sorry for your loss."
Rickman stares at you.
"Well, then. Moving on to a more pleasant subject. Night life. What's the most in place for a dashing young alien this time of year."
"NestSleep."
"Wow. That's a pretty strict bedtime schedule you got there. Surely there must be some nights that you just go out and have a wild time, eh?"
"NestSleep.  RickmanSleep."
"Oh, I get it! You're diurnal! That makes total sense. So, tell me, what sort of exciting adventures do you have during your day?"
"FoodSearch. FearRun. NestFight. NestClean."
"How interesting. Now, for my next question..."
...

Harry Baldman
While on the road, one of the men comes to warn you that Alan might have gone crazy and started squawking at a bird. Hm. That's strange. It doesn't sound like squawking to you. Anyway, you reassure him that it's perfectly normal because Xan can talk to certain animals, apparently. Besides, he's done talking to Rickman for now. Now he's just addressing the men, telling them what a wonderful audience they've been and how this is going to be the last giveaway for one of those juicy G6s and how- Wait a second... You know where this is going!
"Emergency Ike Tackle Attack! Go!"
*thump*

...

"And that's quite good, because I've seen the disaster that you attempting to act diplomatically tends to result in. It is decided, then!"

Alan and I head to the monastery with the troops, Irine and Theri split off, Nik can go either way and Zechariah continues to occupy negative space.

"-telling you, they would have really enjoyed their new cars. I could see the joy building. They-"
"Ssshhh.
"But I think you really hurt my head and I-"
"No, I want to listen. We're here.
"Oh. Cool."

The "monastery" looks more like a castle or fort. The entire thing appears to be made out of a great monolithic pillar rising out of the ground. Close to the ground the rock is barren and dark grey, but higher up the rock gets covered by vines and shrubs while the top is obscured by thick fog. Part of the fog appears to be coming from a small stream falling off the top of the pillar, the water almost completely dispersing in the wind and the face of the rock before it reaches the ground. The rock has been barely dug by the flowing water, leading you to think that either magic is involved or the flow formed quite recently.

Close to the ground the stone has been carved into the walls of the monastery, tall and imposing, decorated by statues of old important-looking men as well as smaller colourful carvings that shine golden in the dying light. You can see holes with points of dim light flickering in them in the stone, signs that its at least partially dug out. The faint orange glow on the stone pillar hints on fires being alight in the courtyard beyond the wall as well.

The only way through the walls is a small (compared to the walls) gate, maybe wide enough to fit two wagons side by side. It is currently closed, with only a small wicket gate left open. The area around the monastery is muddy and slick, with water pools forming where the water has not drained or evaporated. You have no idea where all that water came from and neither do the men. From what they know, the monastery always had a bit of water around it, but never this much. Luckily, the stone road is still in a good enough condition that your wagons can keep going for most of it a while without risking getting stuck. Closer to the gate, wooden boards and stones have been placed to indicate a safe area partially covered in water, some sort of plaza just outside the main gate from the looks of it. While it's safe to walk on, it's not pleasant. The water has already started to cool and you bet in the night it could get quite chilly.

As you approach, a middle aged man, his clothes as worn as his face and hands, comes out to meet you.
"Greetings travelers. The monastery of Chizra welcomes you, as it does all people of all races. If it pleases you, you may enter and seek the blessings of the holy water. However, we must insist that you leave any weapons you may be carrying outside. This is a place of peace and meditation and we ask that you respect that."

You can hear people walking and speaking inside, most of them curious to know who the strangers are, what are they doing here and why are they armed. You can also hear the sounds of water running and firewood cracking.

"I'm following Irine on this--however if we can spare the time, and I don't believe this may take longer than a couple of days stay to hinder our progress, I'm all for taking this as something we can go with.

"But for practicality, we can split the party for this. I can stick with Irine and scout with her ahead, you can lead those who agree with you over there. Given that note, we can cover more ground."

Vote to split the party; alongside that, arrange a way we can signal each other.

Hmmm... How would you signal each other? Well, I suppose you can make fire. So let's say you agree on some sort of smoke signal to indicate that you are in danger or that danger is going towards your friends or that you have a new Pope.

"Actually, Irine said the entity is avoiding River. If we entrust his soulstone to you in that meantime, and scout in that direction (alongside the perimeter following a curve anyway), that'll fulfill both tasks alongside giving us an idea of what's around here. I'm also wanting to check out the area San (the kid back there, playing with one of your spearmen) mentioned as it's along our route. Also let me test out something--I don't want anyone being pressured by time so...I'll check out that soulstone.

"Besides that, I can go alongside Irine alone and we can take care of ourselves unless you have people there who would like...extreme survival training. I'm protecting the kid anyway, so he's tagging along unless the location is nearer to your path."

Test integrity--how 'stable' is it and knowing my connection with River, approximate how stable we can last out here in regards to it.

I'm sorry, I'm not certain about what it is. If you mean your connection with River, not that stable. It's just a feeling, a very weak sensation that comes and goes. Then again, River has been hurt pretty badly and transformed into a soulsphere, so maybe that's why you're feeling the way you're feeling. Maybe if you asked Irine to give you River's soulsphere for a while you could create a more stable link.

Times were these in Ike's tone that Theri would like to interject, but she decided that they would come to mutual understanding later on.

This was time for her and Irine though! Much fun with her and learning--maybe she could ask about magic or something along the way!

"And that's quite good, because I've seen the disaster that you attempting to act diplomatically tends to result in. It is decided, then!"

Alan and I head to the monastery with the troops, Irine and Theri split off, Nik can go either way and Zechariah continues to occupy negative space.

This

This, but also get Zech and the others into places where you think are best!
((How are the other folks on our Campaign by the way?))

Do you mean what happens to inactive characters? I assume they help around with manual labor and other simple stuff or background actions, but I tend not to involve them in combat or make choices for them if I can help it. Obviously if they are in combat or some other life and death situation I'll have them act to save their lives. And if someone else wants to take an action in their stead, I'm fine with that.

"And that's quite good, because I've seen the disaster that you attempting to act diplomatically tends to result in. It is decided, then!"

Alan and I head to the monastery with the troops, Irine and Theri split off, Nik can go either way and Zechariah continues to occupy negative space.

This

You get as much supplies as you can comfortably carry and set off towards the east.

Me and my foxgirl
With a dream and a sword
I'm hoping my foxgirl don't point that sword at no human
Me and my foxgirl
Like Butch and the Sundance Kid
Trying to understand why she did what she did
Why she did what she did

...

We went forward exploring. Kept getting two and three.
Couldn't help notice this wolfman just staring at me.
Or was it my foxgirl? I couldn't be sure.
It's not like you've never seen a foxgirl with a flamesword and three fluffy tails before.
Now don't test my patience, cause we're not about to run.
That's a bad ass foxgirl boy and she wields fire for fun.
'My name is Rrriver.' he says with death in his eyes.
'I've been chasing you for a long time amigas, and now your foxgirl's gonna die!'

Me and my foxgirl
left in search of the sun
Now me and my foxgirl
We don't wanna kill no warewolf-man
But we've got four twitchy tails
and one thing to declare
When the foxgirl is angry
you do not stare, you do not stare
you do not stare...

...

Your little group stays on the road in order to move faster. You travel until the sun sets and then travel a bit more until you are too tired to keep going. The ride is fairly uninteresting. All you find is signs of a former campsite on the side of the road. The remains of a fire, the depressions made by stakes being driven into the ground and a bag half-buried in the sand, filled with some clothes, some food and a few golden coins, probably forgotten by one of the camp's inhabitants.

Unless you want to keep going through the night despite your tiredness and sleepiness, now would be a good time to rest. Do you make any special arrangements for the night? Or just find a secluded spot where the three of you can camp and sleep?

[Lenglon]

they left gold on the ground.
that's some rather large currency to just leave behind.
examine coins, no touching until sword says its clear. take them if no threat is found.
secluded area is a good campsite. who are the three? Irine, Theri, and the sword? Irine, Theri, and Zech? (I thought Alan wanted Zech with him) Irine, Theri, and D? ((quit it D!)) Irine, Theri, and River? Irine, Theri, and BATMAN?

[Parisbre56]

John, After the End

"You should know, Saevus.  I never give up.  Ever."

Spoiler: Never. (click to show/hide)

Fall on top of him and pin him to the ground.  Bots grapple down as well, targeting the shield if they must.  Top priority is getting him restrained while I have an advantage.

Technomance the shield so it assists in holding him down, ideally attaching itself to the floor.  Disconnect it from my armor if the seal on Saevus is good.

If and only if it does not interfere with restraining him, loose the spear and stab him; through the shield should be fine since a couple pinholes won't hurt it.  Repeated stabs beat out one deep stab.  Again, this is LAST priority and only if he is good and restrained.

Saevus, After the End

"That is admirable of thee. However, I am the same."

Spoiler: Never surrendering. It's been that way for 800 years. And it will keep being that way. (click to show/hide)

Drop my weapons and grab him. I'll settle this now. Full-powered blingcannon at point-blank. Repeatedly. Don't bother firing it 'at' his suit. Target him directly.

John jumps on Saevus, covering him with his shield like he's a fire he's trying to extinguish. Mechanized stakes appear along the edge of the shield and then their backs explode, driving them into the concrete, securing the shield in place. The shield immediately explodes with telekinetic force, pushing John off it and nearly ripping it off the ground.

<Svajoklis, Starting area>

Nothing quite like the feeling of adequate firepower. What do you have for me today?

"Nothing yet. Charlie's pushing for a mission that could be quite interesting. Quite out of the ordinary. We'll vote on it once the last two fighters return, since they're the ones he really wants to have there. Of course, I really want you there, so I'm voting yes."

Kosak Durar: Staging Area

"Well then!"

Kosak stands, flexes his muscles, then pauses.

"Who are you, anyway?"

"Did you hit your head or something? I am The Captain!"

Brian stands and walks to the window. After a moment, he moves to examine a book.

Take a look at one of the books.

You take a look at a few of the titles of the books that have titles. Some of them are in a language you can't understand, but the rest are legible. 'Being of a plain Being', 'Principia Mathematica', 'Slaves of the Void: A study of Soul Security', 'The Metaphysics of Christianity and Buddhism', 'Dracula', 'A brief history of Brief Histories', 'Chariots of the Gods', 'Failure of Reality: Why Simulations are better', 'Veridis Quo', 'The Abjur of Bazur', 'Who is this god person anyway?', 'Mix and Match', 'Death and the Human'...

You select one at random (a small but thick blue booklet, like a pocket dictionary) and start reading.

and the explanation is that it was, in fact, his hand. While this may be obvious to a contemporary reader, one must keep in mind that these events transpired well over a hundred years ago, when knowledge of the material was still concentrated and practitioners often hoarded and seldom shared knowledge.

While even today many feel the need to prove their superiority to others, the desire to hoard knowledge has been curbed by the need for collaboration in order to achieve a breakthrough in a reasonable timeframe. Many also state that ready access to the Library has helped reduce the need for competition and encourage sharing, but in the opinion of the writer this claim is dubious at best^[1]. However, while knowledge is shared more readily than it was in the past, competition is still a major problem. It is quite often that I have come across an experiment gone wrong, examine the remains and come to the conclusion that the problem was lack of cooperation. Most often one of the participants has decided to show off by producing more, unfortunately more than the System could tolerate, unbalancing it and destroying it in the process.

Often, in my position as a teacher in the Academy my most difficult job was to get people to talk with each other, to communicate and cooperate. Intelligent people often despise being wrong. The are a multiple of reasons for this^[2]. This often leads to stagnation, to lack of experimentation, to a desire to limit their exposure to others or overcompensate when forced to work with others. They will often stick to what they know best, choosing to perform the same task over and

^[1] An excellent essay over the matter is Kvor Tolios' 'Science in the Library'.
^[2] See chapter 5 for a more thorough explanation of the phenomenon.

Honora, Staging Area

Honora looks around in confusion, eventually shouting into the air.

"Where am I? Dios mio, What is this!?

Try to break free of my restraints.

You tug on the loose restraint until you can get your hand free. You then use your freed hand to free the rest of your limbs. You jump out of bed on unsteady legs and slowly and quietly approach the door.

You look through the slightly ajar door. You hear a *ding* and the sound of elevator doors sliding open, followed by the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, echoing in the silence. You duck into cover behind the wall but whoever it was merely passes by. You look through the crack in the door just in time to see the back of a man in a white lab coat, quickly moving towards the left.

they left gold on the ground.
that's some rather large currency to just leave behind.
examine coins, no touching until sword says its clear. take them if no threat is found.
secluded area is a good campsite. who are the three? Irine, Theri, and the sword? Irine, Theri, and Zech? (I thought Alan wanted Zech with him) Irine, Theri, and D? ((quit it D!)) Irine, Theri, and River? Irine, Theri, and BATMAN?

The sword says there are faint signs of wind and dark magic nearby, but they are more of an echo, an old marker most likely placed to mark the territory of some magical beast. The coins themselves are clean. Maybe the had to pack up in a hurry because they were attacked by a predator? You shrug and loot the coins out of the bag.

I meant the 3 people with legs in the group. Irine, Theri and that kid she has with her. If you count the people without legs (regardless of whether or not you consider them to be alive), then that would be 5. If you start counting fragments of people or assign different values to people based on how much of person you consider them to currently be, then you'll probably start getting some weird fractions.

Batman is always with you during the night. He is the night. The dark knight of the night. But I don't count people that are with you and are not part of the group.