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  • Locked thread
Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

The Trespasser


"I'm afraid I cannot do that, my friends," Trespasser said as it prepared to depart. "Just watch you dwindle further on a futile quest. I shall... Inquire whether some help can be secured."

They hesitated for a moment.

"In the meantime... Perhaps you already have your weapon, in all six of the filaments. If you wish to survive this war, resist the urge to hurt her, directly. Steal her time and stall her down to stillness. For each birth is a change and when no change can occur you have stolen the swing of her sword."

-----

"Wake up princess. Your subjects have need of you," Trespasser squawked from the top of throne's backrest, startling Fa out of her sleep.

"I am Eignach, The Golden Ambassador; they whose feathers shine like the stars," they proclaimed solemnly, leaving a pause for the outrageous statement to sink in. "I have come to speak for the mortals you profess to love so much. I'm sure redecorating this place is necessary, yet I presume nearly a third of all mortals out there dying on your watch could be considered a priority."

"These poor pilgrims from a desolate wasteland bereft of color, joy and love, for whom this scarred frontier might be the only chance to ever experience happiness, are being slaughtered as we speak by who I presume again might be considered our common enemy. I dare you to find a single more desperate being in this universe than these poor souls who have to further risk lives to secure a weapon capable of striking a giant - not for conquest, but their very survival."

"Perhaps it was inevitable in these troubled times that their cry for help has been read as an aggression. Yet we saw that even in the midst of a battlefield that they have worked only in their self-defense, that they could have been reasoned with and bore no ill will towards us. A mistake had been made, but there is no need for it to be continued. We musn't be held slaves to preconceived notions of how this universe or we won't be any better than those we consider our opponents, yes?"

"What I ask... Implore of you is to offer a single gesture of good will towards the mortal life. Use your newfound authority over this Pillar's creation to do away with Eternium's guardians. Close the second front of their war. Prevent needless deaths. Give them the shield they need to protect themselves and all that we have achieved so far, for I have no doubt it is our shared enemy's next target."

"I have known you to be a wise and compassionate god, able to rise above the narrow horizons of self-proclaimed rules and laws. But just in case I overprize you, bear in mind if we share gifts of a foundry under our control, we can ensure said shield won't be forged into a sword later on. If they scrounge and steal and hack whatever they need, there is no telling what their blood might buy."

Trespasser hopped off the throne to the ground, ready to depart and hope their plea will sink in before long. Yet, as it was about to fly off, it turned towards Fa again.

"Truth be told, I do not believe such weapons can win this war. But perhaps they can buy time, until a real solution can be arranged, yes? I wish we could tell them to back off, to persevere while we search for a solution. But then again, how can a besieged nation that only saw hostility and murder be expected to listen, yes?"

Okay. Now we're really ready to depar-

"I know you all still yearn for the past. That which was, that which lived. Understandable, if incorrect. But these are but memories and memories cool down and fade away. You can - and will - find yourselves distractions until one day you're too busy to remember. Yet what you don't know - what you will never know - is how to suffocate in the three shackles of dimensions. In the labyrinth of time as straight as a flying arrow. I know what sacrifice they make with each breath, Custodian."

-----

OOC: What I actually think would work best to handle leftie is to freeze her to stillness, Majakazumi-style, so she can stick her change-powers up straight up her rear end.Though any work on that could probably start in a turn, as we use froggie's info to defreeze our temporal hibernatus, so I'm not sure yet what I'll actually do this turn.

The second step of that plan would be to gently caress up/incapacitate Bugvak, but one thing at a time.

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professor_curly
Mar 4, 2016

There he is!
Siderous
The Star-Heart, Orrery

Siderous gives a great cry as he snaps his arm back into its proper place, a flash of light and heat emitting into the cold, dark universe as he reforms himself in a massive starquake. He is not healed. His wounds still bleed, his visage flickering at the edges as though he were a photograph burning from the outside in. His existence is pain, regret and doubt. He had reached out for answers and instead was consumed in an inferno of even more calamitous questions. He looks at where he is and sees the half-completed skeleton of the stellar nursery.

He grips his fists tight and wills the structure into place, attempting to block out his internal conflicts with action. Gravity bends space and time to his will, moving the vast arcs and structures into place around the City of Regrets. They would filter its eternal winds and collect the dust, converting it into the stuff of new stars that the Universe might be bright once more. It had seemed like a simple goal. Somehow it felt like an eternity ago. Before there were Titans, Outsiders and Timelines. When there was a problem and he could fix it. A goal to which he could advance all his efforts.

Now he stands, his veins burning from the godkilling venom of the tapede-creatures. His divine essence dripping from the wounds like blood before evaporating into nothingness in the universe. He can feel it now. The inexorable march of entropy, so fast now that it makes the wounds all the worse. And for what. To feebly contest the will of a Titan? What was he accomplishing with all of his struggles and all of his pain, what had he actually done that wasn't already being done for him?

He can hear them. He can hear the screams of the Outsiders, their music sending piercing waves of gravity to his ears. He tries to focus on the work. They were vultures, at best. Seeking to pick this corpse-universe clean. At worst invaders that would reform the universe to their whims, erasing everything left that he knew and loved, just as surely as the crash had.

A high pitched burst of gravity shakes him. A young warrior cut down.

Or a child.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqhvIqUPeLo

He clenched his jaw. Why did he care? Or did he care? Was this empathy for those who had come seeking refuge from their universe of horrors, or deep fear of what was set upon them. This Titaness awakened from the dawn of creation. Such power had not walked the Universe in a Quadrillion Generations of stars. This reality was already unstable, and what had they done? As soon as they were released they came in and rewrote the laws of reality seemingly without a thought to the consequences. Did they even investigate the source of the Crash? Did the Lady of the Left Hand even care now that she was free? The only things she had done were to make this reality even more fragile and set off on a crusade against beings that were no more outsiders than she.

Focus.

He tries to concentrate on his work, to build this small thing. A slight gesture to the stability of the world. But the cries through waves of gravity don't disappear. They only seem to grow louder, most desperate. Finally he steps back and with a "pop" vanishes from this region of spacetime, beginning a long voyage out toward what used to be the Cosmos, unable to ignore the pulsing in the back of his mind that echoes in his ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqhvIqUPeLo

----------------------
Starkin
Children of the Sun That Was, Majakazumi's Scrapball
---------------------

With the immediate threat dealt with Starkin moves toward the time-prison of Majakazumi, reading out the list of seemingly random items and their arrangement.

"What in blazes does any of this do? Well alright, I suppose it is worth a shot."

She begins to assemble the list as best she can, helping whoever might be nearby when her head snaps up. She can feel that Siderous has set off at great speed into the darkness, and it makes her bite her lip in worry. Whatever was going on, they needed help and they needed it quickly. Right now, it seemed that this Majakazumi was their best bet in figuring out what was going on before anyone did something foolish, or more likely foolhardy.

"You had best be worth all this effort, honey."

Action 1: I will use Gravity +2 to pull the structure of the Stellar Nursery/Temple of Dust into the correct positions to harvest the winds of Oximil for raw materials to form new stars from.

Action 2: I will use Light +2 and forge the pieces together into one solid structure that it might begin to perform its task. After my actions are done, whether or not it is complete, Siderous is going to fly off where he detects the Gravity Disturbances that the Outsiders make, to try and find some sort of answer to anything that is going on.

Corhort Action: Use Insight +2 to correctly complete and arrange the Mystical Fetch-Quest Mission of Marvak to free Majakazumi, and hopefully find something that will go right in this universe.

Hubris[/u]: 10

Injuries [X] [ ] [ ] [ ]
---Level 2 Heart Injury (Live Scene)
---Level 2 Liver Injury (Live Scene)

Starkin Injuries [X] [X] [X] [ ]
---Level 1 Stomach Injury (Explorationn)

Items/Artifacts
---Ambrosia [0]
---The Cosmic Lasso: Assists in moving objects across great distances in non-combat situations.
---The Crescent Singularity: +1D to Gravity rolls against Servants of the Lady of the Left Hand / the Quartered Goddess
---Divina Hospitium [CHARGED]: User can spend 1 action to reduce their injuries by one level. It must
recharge for a full turn before it can be used again. If a PC doesn't take an injury during a turn they
get 1 segment of their healing clock filled from hereon out.

Green Bean
May 3, 2009

Cat

Cat could see the fighting was dying down, and despite not getting quite the result he wanted from messing with the Guardians, things seemed to be all right, thanks in part (or in whole) to Hello Darkness. Naturally, Cat credits the example he's set up to this point, and since his work is done, he recalls seeing a lot of vermin in the Palace of Structure. This whole 'war' thing was very much not his style - give Cat a place with plenty of nooks, crannies, and edible stuff skittering around, and he would the happiest divinity around.

He evaded the Guardians and the occasional grasping hand of the biomass, making a quick detour to let Hello Darkness know how he could evade the Guardians if he wanted before ascending into orbit with a rainbow contrail. Now that Coyote wasn't there to lead him astray, Cat took the opportunity to explore the building more deeply, looking for bug nests, but also interesting or delicious things that might be stored deep in the structure. Of course, eventually he got bored of that, and switched to what he knew best - hunting and killing. It was a messy, often thankless job, but at least Cat would never go hungry!

***

Action 1: Using Insight to further investigate the Palace of Structure.

Action 2: Using Cat to start 'managing' the vermin population in the Palace of Structure.

Hubris: 7
Ambrosia: 4 (+2 up for grabs)

Ambivalent
Oct 14, 2006

Fa - Palace of Structure

In the stirring after her nap, she paces another hall of the palace - how many halls did this place have? More than half simply seemed to lead to other halls, some with a view, a window, to some other place she didn’t know how to reach yet. The confusing topography, she knows, is her own fault. She hadn’t seen them, but she has a feeling that all of Gogoth’s halls had made sense. The purpose of these corridors seemed to be something that the viewer would have to interpret for themselves, which… Yes, well, that suits her nature, but at the same time, makes trying to puzzle out the flaws and instabilities in the palace and it’s Pillar all that much more frustrating.

Fa rubs at her head, trying to work out her migraine, when her toe catches on a fault line and sends her tumbling into… the plush carpet lining this hallway - hadn’t it just been slate? Like the carpet better anyway. She huffs and turns to examine the fissure she’d found, then spits on her thumb and presses it into the imperfection. The hall rumbles and contorts, the Pillar pulses slightly, and… *there.* Underneath the soft, pastel pink carpet in this hall, the fissure mends itself with a small application of power.

She huffs then climbs to her feet, trudging down the hallway. This is stupid. Why are you fixing this like Gogoth would? Fa runs her hands through her hair. Right. Let’s try something a little more baroque.

Splintering into a form of sound, Fa bounces about the hallways until she returns to the throne room atop the spire, and then just a little higher, to one of the fountain features before reassembling in mortal guise. The custodian dips her toe into the water, wiggling her toe until the water stills, then takes on a shade of purple. Satisfied, she holds out her hand and a stylized silvered, slender sledgehammer manifests in her grip. She swings it with a heave, cracking open the fountain’s basin until the water pours out of the fountain, and down the steps of the throne room, spilling into the hallways and networks of the of the palace - and the pillar - below.

The silvered sledgehammer warps in her grip, writhing like a serpent until it firms back up in the shape of violin cast of glass, the haft becoming a suitable bow. And with a sigh, she takes a few experimental strokes across the strings. The sound rings through the palace, echoing into the bowels of the Pillar. The water flowing down into the steps wobbles and shakes. She takes a few more attempts to warm up, and the flowing purple fluid hisses and winds like a snake.

And then, something very rare happens. She plays. Not some secret song of the Gods of Creation or a hidden chord of the Makers, just a tune, of a mortal devising. She’d only heard it once - but she was Fa, and that was enough. It captured a moment in time, a feeling of the heart, a spirit of an hour. A people who had upended the order of their world, casting aside their monarch for a more democratic taste, who’d torn down their old structures and were busily rediscovering themselves and their identity, erecting new structures on fresh and sturdy foundations. There is bustle and passion and inventiveness, aspiration, a purely mortal drive to build, build things that will last longer than your life. She serves as her own accompaniment, in a way only a god can, fleshing out the sound fully. As her arm draws the bow back and forth, the steady torrent from the great basin dances to the tune, swiftly rushing into the pillar, carrying the vibration of the music down, down, down. Where the flaws are found, where the damage had been done, the purple water fills the gaps, and on the downbeats, calcifies and freezes into violet marble, the flowery sentimental sediment streaking through Gogoth’s Grey Slate.

It had been so long - even before the Crash, Passions rarely performed for their own sake. Fa’s concert carries on for a time, as she pours in her frustration, letting loose her fatigue, trying to shake the discomforting restraint placed on her by Gogoth’s throne. She is more successful at some things than others.

~

Action 1: Passion 3 to continue to work on repairs to the Pillar. I believe more long term this would work like a Construction action for Mooring, so hit me up with what I’ll need?
Action 2: As worked out on Discord, overhauling Rituals into Architecture

Ambivalent fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Aug 20, 2018

Theantero
Nov 6, 2011

...We danced the Mamushka while Nero fiddled, we danced the Mamushka at Waterloo. We danced the Mamushka for Jack the Ripper, and now, Fester Addams, this Mamushka is for you....

VOTH
- Palace of Structure
Hubris: 2
Ambrosia: 4

VOTH stalked the halls of the Palace in silence, the corridors jumbled by foreign influence, the halls being reworked by the new Custodian at this very moment. It was all somewhat confusing, not at all like the regimented, modular design that GOGOTH had once used here as well as he had everywhere.

But still, there was a clear logic to all of it. A difficult, alien logic, but a logic VOTH thought he could navigate. And if he could navigate, he could, perhaps, find the controls for the malfunctioning Guardians and restore a degree of order to them.


OOC:
Action 1: ORDER +3 and Pushing to locate Guardian Controls
Action 2: Meditating

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
Ivadora 8/10 Hubris, lvl 1 heart injury (2/4 healing) - Scrapball and Hello Darkness - Reclamation Station


Tired. So. drat. Tired. Part of the bar's set up is an automated street taco and burrito dispensing machine, one of the perks of having Meat as your domain means, well, you know where the meat is coming from. Downside, its kinda like chewing your own nails, but Iva chewed her to a bloody nub anyways, so w/e. She sits there and cries while eating, wishing there was someone to talk to other than the lovely voices in her head made manifest. The ambrosia goes on like secret sauce. The creation nectar of the universe makes for good imitation cheese.

*MEANWHILE*

"WHOO, WHERE'S EVERYONE GOING? CAT? OH WELL SACRED, LOST KNOWLEDGE, GET MY DRIFT. HOLES OF THE PRECURSORS III: THE LUBED ZIGGARAUT, ETC ETC...Fun Times" HD looks around the place and his eyes light up.

******

Action 1: Mediate and down some ambrosia.
Action 2: More meditating
Action 3: Hello Darkness will start building a temple to his Industry+1, but Iva may nix or hijack that in the future..

Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Aug 19, 2018

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

The Trespasser


Trespasser made their case and flown off to search for the answer on their own - the matter was far too urgent to leave for others to deliberate. Leaving it to others was how they got in this position in the first place, after all. Any help would have to be considered a pleasant surprise.

Yet, it occurred to them this place could hold the solution to the problem at hand. After all, this place was essentially Gogoth's oversized control panel. It could very well mean the palace contains the exact lever to shut them down, or the secret to do so.

And so the bird soared through the shifting corridors of the palace. Cutting from the scarred, cracked halls being infused with new life and a new soul - so to speak, molded by a Pillar's voice, a mystifying song and hives of insect drones skittering around. It's heart beating with new vitality, it's very body reforged, remolded, reborn into something recognizable, yet new. A descendant, as befitting a new universe to govern.

This... Gave Trespasser an idea. The palace was undergoing severe transformation, with several agents at work. No longer a structure beholden to a set of blueprints. That meant if they were inconspicuous enough... Nobody should take note of a few of its minor veins being rerouted, right?

----

Action 1: I pierce through Pillar's maze to find the Key 2 to stopping the guardians of Eternium.

Action 2: With Rebirth 3, I subtly tweak the bug-infested, (now) semi-living, scarred and regenerating Pillar to fit my purposes. I don't really have anything substantial in mind here; it's reconstruction help with coupled with baiting a BIRD moment.


After doing a recount, the previous turn was indeed the point of autoheal kicking in (fourth action after the turn in which Chrysie hit me), so I've adjusted the damage accordingly.

The Unlife Aquatic
Jun 17, 2009

Here in my car
I feel safest of all
I can lock all my doors
It's the only way to live
In cars
Turn 10 - All Along The Watchtower...

FA (6/10H), VOTH (2/10H), Tresspasser and Cat(7/10H) - In An Ever-Changing Palace

High in her throne room, Fa fiddles. The sound waves become waves in the water, spreading across the palace. The emotions bend steel, turn circuits to lily pads - floating in the water, sparking electricity in the diffuse pink light that has begun to spread across the palace. Whether it is the light of dawn or dusk, Cat cannot tell. Either way, it is hunting time. He leaps from pad to pad, listening to the water, to the hummingbirds. They’re all metal, no good for chewing, and armed with sharp beaks.

Instead, he focuses on the little black bugs. They squeal and hiss, skittering along the bottom of the ponds. Some bite, but he barely feels it. It goes on like that for a blissful forever. Tension, the moment before the leap when all the world is sharp - purpose is defined and simple. And release, a single leap, claws buried. A meal well earned. As he goes he maps the inside of the structure, finding all the little nooks and crannies where the creatures try to run and hide. They just become larders for Cat.

Soon, he’s full. So full. It doesn’t take long to find a perfect little nook to groom in, listen to things happen around him. The hummingbirds sing to Fa’s fiddle as they work, songs of love lost and found, great battles, painful sorrows. The stuff of life. Cat listens for a long time, until he feels a familiar presence fly past - black and gold, always the color of prey and annoying things. But this time, Trespasser. They fly through the corridors- sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically. They just had to find the right note, like Fa on her fiddle.

It’s all in the notes, really. That’s what VOTH, fumbling around for the same thing, will never understand. All Trespasser has to do is find the piece that doesn’t fit - if it did, the Guardians would have listened to Fa. So it is something of Gogoth in a sea of FA, with islands of this Lady of the Left Hand arranged like a withering archipelago.

Another wall, closer. So close. He can almost hear the note. It’s the sound of machinery and the feeling of a sword against your hip. Another, and another. There. A room several hummingbirds are chirping at, pecking the door. Trespasser simply flies through, laughter on their beak. The controls are simple once they get there. They simply reach in and pluck the wires, electricity jumping throughout the network. Guardians across the universe listen, and their battles with the Outsiders grind to a halt - they’re torn to shreds by screaming threads and words of grief. So much grief.

Anger. Right behind Trespasser. The bird spins around, a wire still in their beak. VOTH opens his mouth to speak an-

“HEY TIN-MAN, I MIS’D YA! WHERE’S THAT FINE PI-”

Majakazumi, cigarette between her lips, black flower inserted into her baseball cap, steaming coffee in her other hand, tools on her belt, bag over her shoulder. She looks at Trespasser, then back at VOTH.

“Aw poo poo man, did you get married while I was out? I never expected you to be the type to date a bird-god but whatever.” She looks again. “Wait, that ain’t what’s actually happenin’ here, is it?”

She takes a drag of her cigarette, and looks somewhat confused.

OOC: Your efforts have seriously improved the Mooring of the Palace of Structure. Trespasser has found the controls for the Guardians and altered the settings - but has been caught in the act by VOTH. Do as you see fit.

--------------

Ivadora (1/10H) and Starkin - The Scrapball

On a distant garbage ball, under a ring of shattered ships, Ivadora eats between sobbing fits, pouring ambrosia all over the Iva-Meat burritos and swallowing in great gulps. Chased by a brain-eating owl that claims to be a pillar, subjected to a dead dimension, and alternatingly insulted by and flirted with by its last surviving resident. It was not the kind of time her once mortal-mind was ever quite made to comprehend, or process. So she sits, crying, binging, drinking. Her head sloshes around, like the booze sloshes around in the bottle. She stares up at the ceiling, the exposed wiring and meat. If only she could be as mindless.

“HEY LADY! WHAT’S IT TAKE TO GET SOME SERVICE IN THIS JOINT?!” A voice shouts at her.

She takes a seat next to Ivadora - she’s got long, purple hair, smells like motor oil and grease, and a lop-sided smile.

“I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Majakazumi and y’all gentrifiers are gettin’ pretty brazen.” She says, finishing it off with a chuckle. “Can y’all at least serve me some coffee ‘fore you try to kick me outta my house? I gotta get to work real quick.”

-----

A Few Hours Earlier…

Starkin mutters under her breath. Why did this need a five gallon can of mint green paint? An ugly little doll? A broken toy soldier? There’s no logic, none. She’s been in this sweltering, sparking mess for weeks now, chasing down a dozen different baubles. Each has a different emotional resonance. Cherished and lost, hated and found, a wound never forgotten. No connections, just intensity. She almost screams after getting hit by the fourth jar of rotten mayo and month old tuna. (How was it even still rotting?!) For a moment, she wonders if it’s some bizarre security system predicated on grossing out the intruder. It would fit with what she knows about Majakazumi. When she finally has all the items she threads her way towards the heart of the Scrapball, still pulsing with the essence of Trash.

She’s still inside her cramped little apartment, looking at a plate of eggs at a squalid little dinner table - but there’s something new. A single black and gold flower, sitting in a delicate black glass vase. Right next to her. It smells like tears, a promise, a reminder - a smoky, florid scent. Starkin decides not to touch it. Instead, she checks the directions again, and begins arraying the things around Majakazumi. It doesn’t take long, there’s actually a logic to this - a wheel of emotions. A perfect cycle, joy into pain, pain into sorrow, sorrow into joy. None of the items make sense on their own, but together they tell a story.

It’s whispered into the air, filling Starkin’s ears and eyes and heart. It coalesces around Majakazumi’s body, gently, tenderly. The black flower’s smell becomes even stronger. A blink. Majakazumi blinks. Chuckles. A moment later she’s shovelling the eggs in her mouth, grabbing the piece of toast Starkin had been holding onto, and sniffing the flower, seemingly all at once.

“Thanks for the rescue, you’re a fine gal.” She says, wiping off her face.

Majakazumi jumps up, puts on her toolbelt, and grabs the black flower. She takes a long inhale and smiles. A pair of scissors, she clips the stem and slides it into her cap. Duffel bag, cigarettes. (She offers Starkin one, she declines)

“Imma grab some coffee from the new restaurant, then I gotta get to the Pillar. Just trust me on this.”

She says while fumbling with her lighter.

“I’ll give you a proper thankin’ later, I promise.”

And then she’s gone, only country music and cigarette smoke left in her place.

OOC: Majakazumi has been freed, Ivadora has burned seven Hubris and completely healed her heart injury.

--------------

Siderous (10/10H) - Above A Dying World, In The Presence Of The Lady

Siderous’s work is efficient. There is little beauty in this temple, but much utility. An automated creche to birth stars, to raise them, to send them out. The first piece in the puzzle.

But it’s only a beginning, and there are so many questions left that needed answers. Very specific answers. And there was only one woman who had them. A woman with a trail of dead bodies behind her long enough to span the distance between stars, strung out like the carriage of a wedding dress. Outsiders, contorted into poses of horror and pain - being eaten by tapepedes and a dozen different diseases, all designed just for them - harmless to you.

In the distance, there are flashes of gold. Words in a tongue so old there is no way to translate it, the words lodge themselves in your soul, like thorns - the thorns are the meaning, the message and the messenger. Pain that becomes understanding. Ancient songs of battle and fury and hatred. A planet. Covered in Outsiders, mostly dead now. Their sun (perhaps generous, it is a more a diffuse cloud of light and energy) hides something behind it - a shape, no. There is nothing behind it. It is around it. A mass of tapepedes, covered in gold banners, with ruins jutting from it at every angle - a serpent of a scale never seen before it. It swallows the star, and only dark remains.

The Outsiders wail, and another great dragon - coiled blue and green, rises from the surface - but the black serpent dwarfs it. Laughs at it. A bite. The dragon screams. The black serpent is gone, only it’s teeth remain in the wounds. But she is still there, Sideorus can feel her. The weight of life, a cycle that can never end, only repeat itself. A reminder of another age. The sound of a heavy blade in flesh.

A flash of black and gold, streaking across its body - a woman in flowing black and gold robes, with dark skin. She wields a naginata cut of the darkest stone Siderous has ever seen - like obsidian, but darker. It tears through flesh, opening veins that spray lavender blood across the void. The woman is gone, and the serpent returns. It’s jaws clamped over the beast’s neck. A crack.

There is no beast, and a golden-black bird descends into the planet’s atmosphere - plague dropping from every feather - Otherpasser. A consciousness peers into Siderous, ancient, wounded, tired, but mighty. He is not alone.

A moment later, the dark skinned woman appears before him - in flowing black robes, adorned with golden serpents. Her face is lined, tired, almost maternal. The heavy naginata rests upon her back now - it’s haft is pure ambrosia.

“Mistress, I do believe this one attacked Marvak at the Pillar.” It says. It has a smooth, high voice. Almost soothing. Almost.

She nods.

“So it is.”

There is no rush of power, no anger, no flashing eyes. They are like any mortal human’s eyes - only her irises are the sweetest, brightest gold.

“Tell me, young one. Why have you come to see me?” Her voice is deep, steady, rich - almost like the sound of a cello. (Xela’s favorite instrument)

OOC: You are before the Lady of the Left Hand. This is a livescene, talk to me about the best time to run it.

--------------

Hello Darkness - Eternium Reclamation Station

You’ve done it. You’ve beaten all the bad guys. All the robots who wanted to shoot your spiderbot-prize and all the hands that wanted to grab it and that felt icky and disgusting. You were more disgusting than them and you’re taking home the trophy for it.

“SPIDERBOT,” you yell at it. It stands at attention on all fours in the middle of the desert outside. “I COMMAND YOU TO SHOW FEALTY. I AM THE BIGGEST BADDEST MOTHERFUCKING WOLF AROUND AND YOU WATCHED ME RIP AND TEAR ALL THESE LOWLIFES.”

The robot makes no sound.

“CONSTRUCT A MONUMENT IN MY HONOR. MAKE IT SHOW MY FULL SPLENDOUR. AND PUT SOME HOT BABES WATCHING. LIKE THAT TIME LADY. YOU KNOW THE ONE, I THINK. THE DEAD ONE. VOTH’S MOM OR SOMETHING. SHE WAS HOT. SHE WAS TOTALLY WATCHING AND YOU KNOW IT AND I WON’T HEAR OTHERWISE.”

The robot makes a pouncing motion on the ground, the one that furball taught it.

“YES, YOU ARE IMITATING ME! THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I DID! SHOW IT! SHOW ME loving UP SOME LOWLIFES. I’M GOING TO GO DO IMPORTANT THINGS!”

You walk away, leaving the spiderbot to do its duty. You have important things to do. Like eat a bunch of trash and throw it up. And eat it again.

---

One hour or one day later, you’re not sure which, it is time to inspect the spiderbot’s work. You’ll have to lord it over the thing if they have been negligent. Yeah, you gotta put the fear of a god into him. That’s what you are. The spiderbot’s god.
You walk around a large rock and are ready to start yelling at the robot, but they are in the middle of a giant recessed pit, almost a hundred meters wide and a foot deep, cutting up the wrecks of their robot brethren to shape into smaller figures around a battlefield. A great battle of machines and hands, and you. A dark piece of shrubbery has been set out in the middle, with a label and arrow carved in the ground that read ‘Lord of All, Highest Prince, Sexiest Centerfold Model Ever, Hello Darkness’.

In one spot on the furthest sidelines there are several metal stick figures that have two round rocks glued to their torsos. The one with the biggest rocks has its own label and arrow pointing to the figure, reading ‘VOTH’s mom’.

Oil and trash leak out of your pores in ecstasy.

OOC: The temple is 2/4ths done. It’s not clear how this pile of trash laying around is divine, but HD somehow made it work. Maybe the labor itself is representative of the domain of industry.

--------------

Everyone - The Scrapball

Someone outside the bar is running and tripping over bottles. A frantic opening of the door shows a friendly face with fearful eyes - Mhaith.

“I must speak with Golden Emissary. You have the machine weapon our leader sought.”

---

A hundred miles under Eternium’s surface

A panel in the facility that was otherwise innocuous opens up to reveal a staircase deep down in the planet.



A divination shield covered whatever is here from prying eyes. Another invention of GOGOTH’s.

Behind it is a vast cavern of electronics even dwarfing what remains of the reclamation facility itself.



The currents do not appear to serve a purpose in operation, but they continuously flow in what seem to be experiments of their effect on fundamental forces. Gravity and magnetism change around them, strangely similar to the Outsider’s abilities, but controlled. Knobs on machines control the exact effect displayed.

The generator’s output is a powerful thing, radiating energy that none of you have felt before except when traveling to the farthest edges of space: the energy of creation and conversion. It is not pure, having already seeded itself with patterns. It is a Sacred Place, and it echoes the Domains of Science, Magnetism and Gravity.




-------------

Summary:

Ivadora lost 7 Hubris and her heart injury

VOTH lost 2 Hubris

Mhaith needs to talk to Trespasser now.

Siderous is before the Lady of the Left Hand.

Ivadora’s new temple is at 2/4

Trespasser has successfully taken over part of the Pillar of Structure and readjusted the IFF systems for the Guardians - but has been caught in the act by VOTH.

Fa, Cat, VOTH, and Trespasser, have taken serious strides to restoring the Pillar of Structure.

Majakazumi is conscious again.

New Mysteries: The Generator underneath Eternium

Current Mysteries: The Six-Fingered Planet, What Does Majakazumi Know?, Gogoth’s Machine in the Temple, Chrys’s Grenades

Thanks to my co-GM NineIronSwingersClub for writing the Hello Darkness, Temple, and Mhaith sections, as well as finding the art and music in this update.

The Unlife Aquatic fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Aug 20, 2018

9IronSwingersClub
May 26, 2017
Livescene 8 - Sickened Thirst/Sickened Thirst/Keeps It Together - Siderous meets Ewerui https://saroleplays420.wordpress.com/livescene-8-sickened-thirst-sickened-thirst-keeps-it-together/


At the same time, Mhaith is in the bar on Scrapball and explaining their visit with Vision of Meidhbhín as their Hand Reached Out from the Grave. There are three summarized points:

1. Vision, the leader of the Outsiders, was critically injured in battle with Ewerui
2. As a result of this and the extreme causalities suffered in this reality, a holy war has been declared against all life of this universe.
3. The depths of the Eternium Reclamation Station are very important to the Outsiders. Before they understood the language of this universe, they recognized from examination of another device that there exists a sort of 'web' of interconnected devices of significance to the physical makeup of the universe. The temple you found Mhaith in contained one such device.

9IronSwingersClub fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Aug 24, 2018

Theantero
Nov 6, 2011

...We danced the Mamushka while Nero fiddled, we danced the Mamushka at Waterloo. We danced the Mamushka for Jack the Ripper, and now, Fester Addams, this Mamushka is for you....

VOTH
- Palace of Structure
Hubris: 0
Ambrosia: 4

VOTH was often thought ponderous. He carried himself with a particular, carefully curated imperious grace that had come to be associated with him during the many years he had functioned as a Pillar, the heavy steps he took and the pointed flourishes that peppered his zealous screeds were a hallmark well known to the Divine. Thus it was often easy to forget that he was not, actually, slow by nature.

Faster than even a god could blink, VOTH's gloved fist was wrapped around the relatively slender neck of the Tresspasser. VOTH pulled him close. He glared at the God he had come to view as an enemy with a scorn only someone who had been in the business of judgment for billions of years could muster.

"...WRETCH", VOTH growled as his fingers squeezed, "A mere TWO possibilities PRESENT THEMSELVES in the face of this VILE TREACHERY, the WORST TREACHERY OF ALL."

"Either you do not KNOW what you do, yet still mingle in that WHICH YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND. Akin to a FOOLISH CHILD who plays with a weapon without KNOWING THE DANGER. A cackling jester who puts us ALL to JEOPARDY due to their SCURRILOUS, MALIGNANT NATURE."

"...Or even worse", VOTH's grip tightened, "You DO KNOW. Of the IMPORT of this PILLAR. Of the ABSOLUTE SIGNIFICANCE IT HOLDS for the STRUCTURE OF ALL REALITY. YET YOU STILL WENT AHEAD ANYWAY."

"Thus are you either A DESTRUCTIVE FOOL, or ACTIVELY MALIGNANT. VERMINOUS FILTH either way. The sort of DIVINITY that I REJECT. The sort of DIVINITY that has NO PLACE AMONG CREATION."

"So NEVER DARE SHOW YOUR FACE HERE AGAIN. Or at ANY OTHER PILLAR. CEDE WHAT YOU HAVE TAKEN, AND DEPART, NOW AND FOREVER."

With a snap, VOTH broke Tresspasser's neck, and threw its limp corpse against a nearby wall. "I would ask you to REFLECT on what you've DONE", VOTH's tone dripped anger and derision, "but I KNOW you INCAPABLE of such, BALEFUL THING."

VOTH turned on his heels, walking past Maja without looking at her. "COME. We have a PILLAR to fix. I shall OVERSEE YOUR WORK."

OOC:
Putting a good ol' First Laws geas on Trespasser to never mess with the Pillars ever again, and also to cede control of the Guardians to Fa
Action 1: ORDER +3 to oversee and help Maja removing the swerd
Action 2: Insight +2 and Pushing to go with the fluff of forcing a geas on Trespasser

Green Bean
May 3, 2009

Cat

Cat felt content for the first time in a while, really getting back to his roots. Back in his home pantheon, he'd fulfilled a lot of roles - psychopomp, sacred animal, adorable pet. It was nice to get back to his roots of hunting down little things that skitter and crawl. That was what he missed most about the old universe, the hosts of greater and lesser powers that left him free to do the important business of being Cat. But alas, with the universe broken, he had to fill in for those above and below him so that he could continue being Cat. It was frustrating, but he was obviously up to the task.

After taking a bit of time to bury his leavings in various points around the Palace to mark his territory, he headed back to the factory. The battle there was essentially over, and Cat knew to simply ignore the Guardians, so he had plenty of space to explore now. He'd heard somewhere there was supposed to be an important spider-web or some such, something that underpinned reality. And whatever strange gods created this place, they'd elected to make their spider-web out of computers? It was rather silly in Cat's opinion, but these forebears of his had made many such decisions and he simply didn't have time to question them all.

***

Action 1: Using Insight to further investigate the Eternium Reclamation Station.

Action 2: Using Cat double investigate the Eternium Reclamation Station!

Hubris: 7
Ambrosia: 4 (+2 up for grabs)

professor_curly
Mar 4, 2016

There he is!
Siderous
The Star-Heart, Orrery

Siderous takes a moment to solidify the star of healing light over the planet when Erewui and her coterie depart. An... informative discussion. He looks down at the mark on his hand and frowns, conjuring a thick glove to hide this particular mark until a more appropriate time. It could only make things more difficult. Still it is with a hope, for the first time in so long that it felt almost foreign to him. Perhaps there was a light at the end of this tunnel.

He warps space so that he can return to visit with Starkin to see if Majakazumi was free and what she knew. He was not expecting to see Mhaith's Ascent there, but it was a happy coincidence. It would greatly expedite this process if he did not need to find the Outsiders himself, but instead had a guide to where they were. He bows his head in greeting, but then reads the mood of the room and begins to scowl.

"I had come bringing tidings of hope and good fortune. It appears that my mood will be brief."

Mhaith's words fill him with a dull, seething sort of rage. The burning unfairness of it all, as though he were trying to climb out of a pit by grasping at the fog around him. Something so clearly there in front of his eyes, but ephemeral against his touch. It was infuriating. He looks around the room and sighs, attempting to maintain his composer for the moment.

"This is madness of the highest order. I have confronted the Black Serpent and convinced her that there is another way. That I, we, could find another way. She constructed this universe, and she has told me that your presence, your manipulation of Time is straining our reality too much. That it is bringing on aftershocks that will cause great destruction, and she has no reason to lie. This is why she has brought her wrath upon you, and she will finish her work should I fail to complete my end of the bargain. We do not have the time to waste in this pointless conflict. If you hope to construct some weapon to end the Titaness then you are seeking a glorious suicide. She took my soul between two fingers and could have crushed me as though I were nothing. Even if you built a weapon that could destroy her, such a conflict would shatter this universe forever."

He stops his rant for a moment, taking a breath and looking to Starkin, "Find this machine and investigate its purpose. See if it can be brought to useful function. I will find this crusade and stop it if I can - or at least buy some time."

In another moment he blinks away. He stops by the hospital, hovering near the machinery that supported Vela's life. Machinery of his creation - that hopefully will become unnecessary shortly. He smiles, giving a somewhat humorless chuckle, "I'm about to do something very foolish. I only hope I live so you can slap me for it later. I know you'll never forgive me if I don't."

-------------------
The Crusade Path
-----------------------------

Siderous doesn't know what he plans to do really. Frankly, he hadn't been thinking straight in some time. He could vaguely sense the Crusade in the distance. Moving toward the others. What would he do? They were coming to wipe them out. It was self defense at this point, on his part. He and the others were blameless in this ongoing farce at the end of all creation. And yet... Here he was. Why was he here? Simply a guilty conscience?

He realizes with a start that he doesn't have an actual plan at all. He truly was just a photon bouncing from wall to wall without direction or guidance. And Erewui had called him Lodestar?

So much for the Guiding Light.

Think. He needed time to think, to process everything that had happened. And there was one thing that always helped him focus, as he took a seat and twisted spacetime into an instrument.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjAuIcV5aes&t=40s

He begins to pluck at invisible strings, sending a message to this approaching army. He wondered how they would respond - probably poorly, if he had any guess. But perhaps that was what he wanted, deep down. For them to make the choice for him, to take his open hand and slap it away. Absolve him of his indecision through their actions.

No. That didn't seem like him. It had never bothered him before, taking the actions that needed to be taken to defend his home and family. Perhaps it was something simpler. Maybe, he just... Pitied them.

As he plays his aspect begins to change, losing its humanoid shell and taking on a truer appearance. The Healing Star, the Sun that Was, as he thought back to simpler days. The formative years when he figured out who he was. He was alone then - the Senate and Court were nowhere in his mind. So far as he knew he was the only being in the Universe. Alone, and directionless.

When mortals were born on one of his planets, it was a miracle. Something that he had never even considered, life, had happened. He had been part of it, through his presence, but he had never imagined anything like that would be possible. They amazed him, and he loved them for existing in a lonely universe.

The Outsiders, when they find him, find a far more serene being than he had been recently. He does not react to any hostile actions other than to acknowledge their presence and see if they have any words for him.

----------------------
Starkin
Children of the Sun That Was, Majakazumi's Scrapball
---------------------

Starkin had been worried about The Sun that Was for some time, but there was never a good way to address that. His actions were increasingly erratic, the stress and enormity of this disaster hitting him flush and leaving him in a constant state of panic. But there was nothing for it at the moment, as armies approach the gates and things seem to be spiraling increasingly out of any sort of control.

She appears in the basement of the Reclemation Station with a step, searching for the basement to figure out what was going on. Maybe Mhaith would follow, maybe not. It was irrelevant. So far as she could tell this machinery was for basic research of some kind, more than anything else. As she looks around she begins to reassemble the magnetic couplings into a new form, one that might be able to channel the energy here into something productive and hopefully provide some bleedoff in case of a surge in power when the inevitable swarm of investigators and construction began.

Action 1: I will Meditate in the path of the encroaching army.

Action 2: I will use Light +2 to take on the appearance of the Healing Star from his past, basically identical to the one he left over that Outsider world. Maybe that will make them think about things, but maybe not.

Corhort Action: Use Gravity +2 to begin construction of a Temple of Magnetism, using the gravitic manipulation to carefully work around the sensitive equipment that is too delicate to touch and generally just see if building a temple is even feasible here/figure out an ingredient list.

Hubris[/u]: 10

Injuries [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Starkin Injuries [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Items/Artifacts
---Ambrosia [0]
---The Cosmic Lasso: Assists in moving objects across great distances in non-combat situations.
---The Crescent Singularity: +1D to Gravity rolls against Servants of the Lady of the Left Hand / the Quartered Goddess
---Divina Hospitium [CHARGED]: User can spend 1 action to reduce their injuries by one level. It must
recharge for a full turn before it can be used again. If a PC doesn't take an injury during a turn they
get 1 segment of their healing clock filled from hereon out.

[/quote]

Ambivalent
Oct 14, 2006

Fa - Palace of Structure

Much better. There’s so much she still needs to do - so much she has planned, outside the confines of this palace. But that unfamiliar shackle of Duty binds her to this Pillar for the moment - she could not move beyond it until it was restored.

The worst part about feeling the pillar right now, is the presence of all these other gods, tooling around in it. Wait, that one didn’t feel so bad. Yeah, that bit there felt like a back rub - metaphorically, at a distance, through the pillar. Kind of. But there’s this fly in the ointment. Or bird.

~

As VOTH and the Trespasser bird engage, the purple veins of marble encroach further on this place in the Pillar that still resembles Gogoth’s work. There is a hum, and a thump. And another thump. A heartbeat. A bass line. The smooth metal facade warps, two depressions forming. Then eighteen. They blink, then shudder and fold back into two eyes once more. More features emerge, and the bass comes to a stop - a face, and then FA steps forth from the wall, the metal like so much liquid that allows her to simply surface out of it.. Her form is silvery and metal until it isn’t, and she shakes her hair back into a mortal-seeming.

She straightens her cuffs and then gives a small huff, blowing a strand of hair from her face. Glancing back over her shoulder, to the heart of the Guardian controls, she mumbles, “Neat toys.”

The architect squints her eyes a little, “Bird. VOTH.” Nod. Nod. Let them settle their… thing. She has work to do. And then she looks toward Majakazumi, relaxing her posture, “Oh, hey, you’re up.” A wry smirk, “You do spec work? Because, listen, we’re kind of short staffed around here, and I’m loving broke, I’m pretty sure.”

Fa beckons Majakazumi with a raised eyebrow, and leads the tinkerer into a wall that opens up and permits them deeper into the Pillar’s structure, "I'll show you what we're working on. It'll be fun."

~

The restoration continues. Music hums through the Palace of Structure, animate forces of sound bound out from the building, paving and soothing the wounds of the Pillar beneath. The heartbeat-bass of the Architect, Fa, thrums stronger, and deeper. A clockwork of rhythm, Gogoth’s design fuels the bass, and Fa the flourish, as light and noise pours out through this corner of space, the Pillar shining like a beacon of renewal in a universe where things only seem to die.

As the Pillar’s wounds are sewn, Fa’s song echoes out defiantly, flying in the face of the entropy and decay weighing down on Reality. There’s no end in sight for us. The softer rules of Structure may cushion the fabric of reality against the harsh ravages of hungry time - where physics could not hold a structure in place, sentiment might could.

That’s the theory the Passion sitting in the Seat of Structure has proposed, anyway.


Nothing could measure, the kind of strength inside our hearts, it’s all connected.
We’re all together in this life, don’t you forget it, we’re all connected in this
I’m yours forever, FA calls out, for that was the promise she made to VOTH on GOGOTH's seat, there’s no end in sight for us.

The universe may still be mostly dark, but the Song of Structure stabs at the silence all the same.

Action 1: Can I use Fleeting Dream to convince Majakazumi that, actually, what would be super awesome is to not just help get this sword free, but actually to stay on to fix Gogoth’s old pillar for the sake of this cool new lady who moved in, right,?
Action 2: Passions 3 and/or Architecture 1 to finally start laying the finishing touches on repair? Structure is the foundation of other, future plans, after all!

Ambivalent fucked around with this message at 14:37 on Aug 27, 2018

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

The Trespasser


That was a close one. Were it not for Majakazumi blurting out her inadvertent warning... Trespasser shuddered at the very thought of perishing, especially in this place. It was a calculated risk of course, but never before has it been so - how to put it? - Corporeal. Tangible. Real.

The bird waited for the two gods to leave before it dared to blow the golden flecks back into their broken body. Discretion appeared necessary, if only not to show how utterly drained of power they have been left by the encounter. A short... Lunch break was in order.

---

Trespasser traced a shining trail of gold up to the very doorstep of the bar. Tiny specks fell of their feathers with each step inside the building, as if the avian body could not contain the color within it.

"And another success for the power of friendship and the reason of diplomacy, Mhaith. The metal beasts placated and the nemesis contained. You should count yourself lucky I'm so good at this..."

Oh dear. That was not at all what the Trespasser hoped to hear in return.

"I... See. That is hardly fortunate, yet there is little need to panic. For certain... Contingencies are well in place. And right now, I need you lucid and brilliant."

"Come, Mhaith. We can't just leave a weapon of mass destruction lying around, yes?"

---

"I'd rather have you touch the controls, just in case. It's... It''s a long story."

"Anyway, while there's some... Details I would like to confirm in practice, there's something you need to remember as precisely as possible. See, back at the home I found you in, when you went about repurposing a certain computer..."

-----

Action 1: The mysterious machine deep within the Eternium station might be crucial to untangling this mess - and more importantly, getting back on the track of the Grand Design. It is Key 2 to understand exactly what it's capable of. Add a push to that.
Action 2: As the knots of mystery untangle into mere points, I connect them through my Insight 2, to whatever was going on with Gogoth's machine at the Temple of Prism. It would be silly to focus on a single strand of an intricate web, just because it can dazzle fools with its blue.

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
Ivadora 1/10 Hubris, 3 Ambrosia) - Scrapball and Hello Darkness - Reclamation Station


Oh hey, what'serface is awake. Iva may have to face an eviction notice, again, sometime in the near future. In the meantime, there was the peal the lady there wanted her to do? 'Zumi, can I call you that? What if I told you about an idea I had for a community...we may need to get technical. The squishy bits most mortals used to have don't do it for me."

*MEANWHILE*

"WE AIN'T DONE YET. WHERE'S THE SOUND SYSTEM?" A broken bot nearby makes an earsplitting trilling noice and then falls off a cliff into a vat of boiling metal. "SICK DROP"

******

Action 1: Talking with Majakazumi and getting plans for building The Body Shop, a facility for the biomechanical modification and creation of beings. Let's get the mortal train started again. Not sure if Insight+2 or Metal and Meat+3 is more appropriate here. Using Carve the Beast for the dead outsiders/mourners we carved up awhile ago for spare parts.
Action 2: Metal and Meat+3 and Gangrene's increase Effect as a result of an action using it to continue to work on it.
Action 3: Hello Darkness will continue to build a temple to his Industry+1

Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Aug 28, 2018

9IronSwingersClub
May 26, 2017
Turn 11 - All Alone In The Night


Ivadora (1/10H) - Scrapball



Majakazumi offers you a prefab bunker on the Scrapball, once intended for some war or another. It was intended to be a self-contained factory that would be able to produce vehicles and homes after the fighting cleared, to restarted civilization. It is more than enough workspace for your plans.

Corpses are gathered, of stray Outsider corpses and of beings who did not survive the Crash or who came back as Mourners. Gangrene bids you to simply lay it on the pile of gore and it will aid you. With the pull of a lever and a divine connection to both the facility and its meaty occupants, you thread random parts together and merge them.

The grinding of gears accompany the expansion and contraction of mounds of flesh. A few moments later and a disgusting impish thing, just three feet high, walks out of the pile and sits in front of you to await your orders.



OOC: The Body Shop is complete and already on the way to churning out its first mortals, who are (2/4) complete.

-------------

Cat (7/10H), Trespasser(2/10H), and Starkin - Constant Control And Storage

The facility's lights blink, shudder, shake. Something moves above. And each feels it. Then the bright blue is back. It’s the sharpest, richest blue you’ve ever seen - radiating from tape racks, optic cabling, and even a rare hard drive or two. Machines tick, click, and chatter with one another. In one alcove Starkin assembles figurines. Father, Mother (annoying as she she deserves to be here), and all the pieces of themselves they can remember - names engraved.

They are held in place by webs of magnets - in a dance, a memory of the life that was. They know others are starting to make life again, and that meant Starkin would die soon - taken apart to make a civilization again. They will miss life like this, but they do not regret it. And so they place figurines together, a little memory - a monument to the life before, and their life too. They worry about Siderous, always carrying too much weight on his shoulders. A sigh, they hope they aren’t lonely.

A crashing sound. Starkin wheels around, blazing for a fight. There’s just a guilty looking Mhaith, an innocent cat, and bird clicking their beak.

“Sorry, sorry. Your laws are still a little difficult for me.”

Cat bats their tail, pretends nothing happened. Let Mhaith take the blame, things are easier that way. They start off again, towards a large console at the end of a bank of computers. It demands a password.

“Ah, I believe I know this one.” Trespasser says.

They flutter down, lean their head against the plastic casing of the board. This game was fun. You see, the computer has to know what it’s looking for - the password has to be somewhere in the memory. Remembered so it can be remembered. That was always the weakness. Their beak dips into the case, moves along circuit boards - towards the computers mind. The beak flits among the pieces of data, like fish in a stream. One byte here, another there, a music, yes. Music. A little bit of salt. No trouble.

Yes, there it is. They squawk in triumph as they peck the keys from the inside of the computer.

pre:
STATION UNLOCKED, WELCOME USER BEAUTYQUEENRED98.

> Constant Status
> Constant Historical Data
> Constant Backup Files
> Solitaire 
“What’s solitaire?” Mhaith says.

Cat jumps on the server rack near the keyboard, bats his tail.

“Boring, mostly.” Trespasser says.

It might be the first complete truth Trespasser has uttered in weeks. They’re disgusted with themselves, their form is slipping. They peck on the keyboard, reading menu after menu. This facility calculates and stores various cosmological constants, then enforces them in reality - all designed to bolster an aging pillar by GOGOTH.

Interestingly, it has backups of the constants before Ewerui meddled with them - and can remotely alter constants across the universe - temporarily, or one single locations. The machine in the temple helps proof them. Trespasser’s mind swirls with the uses, must keep this from the others.

OOC: A superb roll means you now understand this facility maintains universal constants in conjunction with the Pillar of Structure. Starkin’s shrine here is also at 2/4.

-------------

FA (6/10H), VOTH (4/10H) and Majakazumi - The Palace of Structure, The Architect’s Garden

“Tin-man, hand me the wrench.”

He does. She closes a valve, steam spreads across the surface. There is a clicking sound.

“OK, that’s good. Now we gotta take her down nice and slow.”

Majakazumi cracks her neck, steps back.


“How in the hell did a sword even get in this thing?” She says to VOTH, then shrugs. “Whatever. Marv told me I had to fix it.”

She lights a cigarette, offers it to the both of them. They decline. The section of the Pillar begins to dim. The blade’s handle stops humming.

“Oh and hey lady, I like you and all but can you play some country tunes? Maybe cut the mind-altering stuff?” She takes a long drag. “What? I’m a trickster. I’m supposed to know this poo poo.”

Another drag.

“Now, Tin-Man I’m thinking…” Majakazumi’s eyebrows crunch. “I had you depressurize the secondary val-”

A spark. The spark screams. Silence. There’s a shard of a circuit board embedded in VOTH’s face. The whole room is covered in crackling, burning bits of machine.

“Well uh...least the swords out, (it is infact harmlessly embedded in a far wall now, easily picked up) and this whole section is isolated anyway so uh, no damage to reality but wow dude you look like that fuckin’...drat.”

She pats VOTH on the shoulder.

“I uh...good luck with that dude. I gotta run a final systems check and uh...I promised I’d meet Marv for dinner. Don’t wait up bro-in-law.” She coughs. “Oh, and there’s another shard embedded in like...your lungs I think? Looks real wicked.”

She cleans up her tools, throws them in a pocket dimension.

“Gonna go run the last systems check in uh, the secondary control room.”

She hops through a manhole cover (where did she get that?) before VOTH can say anything. At least Fa can sense she’s right - everything is as it should be, and the Pillar begins to strengthen again.

OOC: Majakazumi is immune to a Fleeting Dream, and VOTH has taken a Level 2 Lung wound. The Pillar of Structure is back to normal, well as normal as it can be under the circumstances.

-------------

Siderous (8/10H) - Against All Odds

Siderous plucks the strings. He remembers Vela, his fingers find a song they danced to. He remembers a smile, a laugh - that haughty laugh that always finished with a giggle - it told you she was about to cause a scandal. Until another song drowns his, made of a million dead children, lost spouses, paradise tasted - and stolen. It is the bitterest sound in the whole universe. He doesn’t sing against it, no, that wouldn’t work. Accompaniment. He sings of loneliness. They ignore it, scream, cry. Something brushes his skin, he’s not sure what it is until he opens his eyes again.

Thousands of luminous strings rest against his skin, held by a million hands, eyes - all weeping, all staring - some bloodstained, some without pupils or irises - gouged, burned out. They scream again. The universe is small now. So small. Smaller than his skin, smaller than his heart. He is bursting, choking. Parts of himself leak away, he is not sure where. He is not sure how long it goes on, but he sings. Listens to their pain and their agony and does his best to ease it. But there is always more, more and more and more un-

A scream. Mhaith. Their strings, furious and clear, pull against the rest - and they all recoil in shock.

“YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” They scream.

An argument erupts in Outsider-tongue, too fast for a wounded Siderous to keep track of. More screaming, a whole choir of it. Mhaith blocks another strike. A higher voice, clearer. It rings like a bell, and a being in a long, loose blue robe steps out - it has a sharp, marble-like face framed by long, deep ink purple hair. They argue with Mhaith, tower over them, point at Siderous. A long silence, staring. They blink, Mhaith doesn’t.

Their shoulders relax and they turn to Siderous.

“You’ve got one chance. Don’t waste it.”

Before he can say anything he hears a familiar voice.

“DARLING!? DARLING?! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?!”

Vela, she almost collides with him - wearing her human ego-mask, long blue-silver hair cascading down her shoulders onto a gown that shines like the stars.

“I came as soon as I could, oh stars oh stars are you alright?”

OOC: Your display has gotten you an audience with Vision of Meidhbhín as their Hand Reached Out from the Grave, and a Level 2 Stomach injury. Vela is also entirely healed, as Ewerui promised.

-------------

Hello Darkness - Eternium Reclamation Station

Your hands drip oil and rotten custard over the battlefield model as you go walk to each figurine, fondling them and admiring the craftsmanship of your spiderbot friend. Or pal. Or minion. Whatever it is. You’re sure it will approve of the modifications you make just by your presence. What a loyal piece of trash it is! It will surely be rewarded in the spiderbot-afterlife you have in store for it. At least, when you can think of one.

Ah, the Cat figurine! You kiss the tiny stone kitty on the head and paint it the color of garbage. Oh what dear memories you have of sharing the battlefield with him - “OH MY, SOMEONE HELP ME, I’M JUST A FICKLE KITTY AND I NEED MY NAPPIES,” you accurately quote Cat in the most babyish voice you can make. That’s exactly what he sounded like and you remember it clear as day. And then you leapt to his rescue, which you show with the piece of shrubbery named in your honor. Kapow! You smack the robot figurines out of the way with your own likeness. Grrr! How dare they threaten your dear best friend Kitty-Cat!

“OUT OF MY WAY YOU FIENDS! THAT’S MY BESTEST AND MOST LOYALEST SERVANT! GRR!”

One by one, the robots take a righteous beating. Some are broken by the assault and join their fallen comrades in the trash pile. When one of them is hit so hard that it flies out of the battlefield, you celebrate your victory by running in a circle around the field and crying tears of mayonnaise.

While the battle rages on for you and the figures, the spiderbot is still busy with the other parts of the model. A miniature Reclamation Station stands in the middle of the circle. You jump back when it comes alive - pulsing lights and churning gears, in some mysterious magic. What is this! Why does it interrupt your moment of glory?

A good kick will show it what for! Hii-yaa!

The metal structure doesn’t budge. But you do.

The spiderbot looks at you in confusion while you hop around on one foot and holding the other, yelling.

OOC: The temple is complete. Hello Darkness suffers no injury but will claim he is owed rest & recuperation time for his battle wounds. It’s a lie and he’ll do whatever you tell him.

-------------




Summary:

Siderous loses 2 Hubris and gains a Level 2 Stomach Injury. Vela is healed

VOTH gains a Level 2 Lung Injury

Starkin’s temple is at (2/4)

Siderous is allowed to meet with the Outsider leader

Ivadora’s Industry temple is complete. The Body Shop is also constructed and will allow Ivadora to make mortals. 2/4 completion on the first set. Other players may use it if Ivadora allows, but not more than one player per turn

The Pillar of Structure is healed

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
Ivadora 1/10 Hubris, 3 Ambrosia) - Scrapball and Hello Darkness - Reclamation Station


Well, that's certainly a horrible little abomination. Ivadora was reminded why she was always hesitant to do this creation goddess bullshit. "Okay...sit. Stay? Also, I'm not your mom, think of my as uh, your aunt. A crazy absentee aunt who accepts no responsibility for anything ever is a lot better tolerated than moms pulling the same poo poo. Iva squints. "Where the hell am I going to put you folks?"

*MEANWHILE*

"What's the point of a temple, if there's no one here besides the congregation to tell me how awesome I am?!" Heaps of trash, metal, and excreta pile high as Hello Darkness tunnels deep and begins throwing up walls and enclosures.

******

Action 1: Finishing up the mortals with Metal and Meat+3
Action 2: If they're not done, doing it again, otherwise, Working on a city on Reclamation Station with Madness and Melancholy+2, It'll be a cheery place.
Action 3: Hello Darkness will also work on building the city on the Station with his Industry+2

Green Bean
May 3, 2009

Cat

Cat found a functional machine and hopped up on top of it, curling up into a little wheel of fur. Most of these strange 'computers' were irritating, but this one had a pleasant hum, and blew out hot air for him to warm himself by. He spent a time just snuggled up there, letting himself relax. His keen feline senses told him that the vermin situation was managed and the Palace was safe, but he could stay on guard for a little while, right? Maybe release some of that divine strain that had been bunching up in his haunches for too long.

Eventually, though, a combination of duty and boredom woke him up, and a bit refreshed, he left the Palace for less stable pastures. From the snippets of conversation he picked up from the ether, it seemed that these Outsiders were becoming an issue. Honestly, it reminded him of his early days, when he was arranging for his own birth. The other animal gods had been afraid of the gods of Man - they had imposed names and individuality upon the animal gods, and no one was sure what else they were capable of. Some fought, some fled, a few were taken and broken, but alone of all of them Cat had chosen to make himself a part of their existence, to share himself across the two pantheons willingly. It was a path Cat was willing to entertain once more.

He headed for the one place he knew there were bound to be Outsiders, that strange planet he'd been so rudely ejected from. This time he'd approach a little more quietly, so they couldn't just throw him away!


***

Action 1: Meditate to reduce hubris.

Action 2: Heading for "???" to investigate. Insight or Cat as appropriate for passive observation (for now).

Hubris: 7-1d6
Ambrosia: 4 (+2 up for grabs)

Theantero
Nov 6, 2011

...We danced the Mamushka while Nero fiddled, we danced the Mamushka at Waterloo. We danced the Mamushka for Jack the Ripper, and now, Fester Addams, this Mamushka is for you....

VOTH
- The Edge of All Things
Hubris: 4
Ambrosia: 4
Injury Clock: 1/4

"It is DONE."

VOTH spoke with a stoic tone, managing to remain remarkably unfaltering despite the sizeable chunk of divine machinery lodged in his divine being.

"We will RECONVENE later, but for now I must deal with my WOUNDS. Until we meet next. FAREWELL."

Without further word, VOTH turned around and walked out of the Palace of Structure.

OOC:
Action 1: Going to the Hospice to deal with this lvl 2 Lung Wound
Action 2: Meditating

Theantero fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Sep 3, 2018

Ambivalent
Oct 14, 2006

Fa - Palace of Structure

Fa settles back into the throne at the top of the Palace, resting her weary self. With the aid of VOTH and Majakzumi and the others, the Pillar of Structure can begin to flex its influence again. It was dumb to try and pull in the scrap goddess like that. The old Fa wouldn’t have tried but…

She huffs and twists to lay sideways across the armrests of the seat, head lolled back. Watching the garden features of the Palace, dialing in to the Pillar’s imperceptible hum. Fa closes her eyes, contemplating the gift VOTH had given her. Magnanimous to be sure, but… even changed as she is, this new Fa still can’t find a place in her heart for an army.

Maybe… With a little golden touch, she could repurpose them.

~

Later, at the Eternium Reclamation Station…

The silver arc of light carrying the Architect plinks into rusting crane, and Fa manifests neatly sitting atop it, feet swinging in the wind as she looks down at the industrial scape below. She hums to herself, feeling out the old furrows of Gogoth’s work here, and the more recent trails of the other visitors.

Elsewhere, out in the rubble, a tinny speaker tower crackles to life, the pops and static carrying Fa’s humming in low fidelity. Somewhere below that, a battalion of hulking, steel Guardians creaks to life. They trundle and stomp, falling out of formation as they move to join up with other Guardians already in mid-migration. The metallic sentinels gather at one of the station’s open surfaces, huddled together in a massive crowd around an open stage. Antenna flit and wobble, more comm channels open and the tune emits from the Guardians themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOGIby96iak

The Pillar’s new resonance reaches these creations of Gogoth, and the blinking lights and diodes dotting the darkness cycle through a rainbow of colors, unable to settle on any one uniform. The mechanical Guardians begin to sway with the rhythm of the tune - manipulators and grappling claws, gauss rifles and miniguns, gatling cannons and rail launchers all are raised upward in reverie.

The sea of sentinels continue to sway with the song, until one steps forward from the crowd, taking stage in the middle of the assembly, and stops it’s swaying.. Several other Guardians move in closer and raise their instruments to their comrade. There is a pounding clang, and whirr of a saw - showers of sparks fly from welding. The legion of Guardians watching continue to sway around their brother.

When the work is done, the first Reclaimer steps from the spotlight and returns to the crowd. The song continues, and another Guardian steps forward, submitting to the ministrations of its brethren. Guns and weapons are sheared away, repurposed into mining lasers or assemblers. One by one, swords are beaten into ploughshares, one by one, a Guardian becomes a Reclaimer, all while the Architect watches from her perch on the crane, humming to herself.



Action 1: Meditatin’!
Action 2: I’d like to spend an Ambrosia to fully appropriate the Guardians as… I dunno, either a Cohort or an Artifact? Not sure what would be more appropriate. They would be creatures of the Architecture domain. Will talk about this in Discord?

edit:
Reclaimers
Domains:
Architecture 2
Stats: Insight 1, Prowess 2, Resolve 1 (Gnosis 1)

Ambivalent fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Sep 3, 2018

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

The Trespasser


While the Trespasser remained convinced the very notion of linking time to gravity and velocity must have been a result of some drunken bet during the Age of Creation, they grew to enjoy some... Tricks that could be used. Say, for example, lifting your anchor with disregard to the center of this universe and it's ever-expanding void. Let the slow outward drift be just that - movement. Be ever so slightly static than all around you, speed ever so slightly up, have your plans ever so slightly more complete. Sure, it's not even close to տուն, but we all gotta start somewhere.

And if that mechanized blue could be harnessed, what else was possible? Could negative velocity be possible? Could all the gods get this place stable enough for it to be able to sustain time being ripped away in its entirety? That certainly would be - no, probably just greedy.

Were all of this to fail, could a deft hand hide an island of subjugated physics within the smooth tapestry two-headed snake is weaving?

We'll find it out sooner than we'd like to if a decisive action isn't taken right now, yes?

---

Trespasser sighed at the macabre site of Siderous' valiant stand. It perched on Vision of Meidhbhín's arm, trembling in their death throes.

"It appears at this rate my days of trying to stick to one body are numbered, yes? You keep talking, I don't have the time nor inclination to explain. Not that there ever was a point in assuming someone of this world could...", they muttered, as the beak carefully inspected the links between the divine heart and the dying body. It was hard to tell which part was meant for Mhaith, which for Siderous and which for the bird itself.

"This, this is exactly why nobody else can handle this place. All so anxiously tethered to their memories and expectations, desperately jury-rigging all they know together. Unable to accept a new body is needed to breathe in a new world. To let life grow anew."

"But a life always has to be bought... In life."

With a swift move of the beak and a terrible crack, the bird pierced through the being's head.

"There. That should do it."

------
Yes, this terrible misunderstanding of time relativity is quite useless. It's the bird version of a speedrunner proudly inventing an intricate glitch to shave a milisecond.

Action 1: I help fix Vision of Meidhbhín with Rebirth and pushing it
Action 2: I meditate scheme some more

Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Sep 4, 2018

professor_curly
Mar 4, 2016

There he is!
Siderous
The Star-Heart, Crusade Path

He could feel his being bending, bowing to the pressure from every direction. But he did not break. Even as they tried to erase him from reality he refused to shift, an Immovable Object in their path that did not comply with their desire for wanton destruction. It was fortunate that Mhaith's Ascent intervened when they did - because Siderous was not a saint. He was giving them an opportunity to end this peacefully, but he was not going to simply die for their satisfaction. The once regal, yellow star had taken on a deep, angry crimson hue as the Outsiders retreated and their leader approached.

The color faded away as Siderous assumed a more humanoid form and began to approach the leader, his mind spinning with ideas of what to actually do. That's when he heard Vela, rather than sensed her approach. She was near, but the gulf of space between them seemed to stretch on forever. As though he were looking at a memory, a vision. It took time for him to recognize that this was not a hallucination or mirage, but that she was healed, returned to her normal spirits. It was as though a part of himself that had been missing was returned.

That is when a plan finally entered his mind. It made him smile, in that mysterious way he did. She was going to hate him for this. He would likely never hear the end of it.

But at least she would be there to speak, and he would be there to listen.

He turned back to Vision of Meidhbhín, and began to speak.

"Hark, for I bring a message of salvation to you weary and injured travelers from afar. You have come from a realm of gloom and shadow, seeking joy and for that I place no blame upon you. However I will speak to you the truth, that your Time and our Time are in conflict deep in the soul of this universe, and this conflict threatens a second Calamity even greater than the first, from which there will be no recovery or survival.

It is for this reason that the Mother of this Universe, the Creator who built this reality which became her prison, has struck a blow so grievous against you and your kin.
"

He begins to float forward, reaching out a hand which glows with the warm light of spring's first dawn. A light that has not forgotten winter's bitter chill, but brings hope and renewal to the world. The light fills the wounds of the Vision of Meidhbhin, beginning to heal them and as many of the others as he can.

"I am but a simple god, a survivor clinging to live in this ruination of reality. I can heal you wounds, but I cannot heal the memories or the hatred which you now feel. I do not ask that you set aside your anger or offer forgiveness to the one who has dealt you such a blow. But I ask that you think also of your children, your children's children and all your descendants which might make this universe home. That might know the joy that you have sought and paid such a dear price for.

If you would put aside this conflict for now, that future generations might know peace then I beseech you - travel to the great Palace that gives Structure to this universe. There you will meet many gods and goddesses, some of which are known to you, many of which are not. Seek out VOTH and FA, unto whom has been given power. They will help you into our universe, that your people and ours will live in harmony into the future.
"

He tries to hide the pain of this action, but it is clear that he struggles as he reaches to his chest and bring out a bright, incandescent blue flame. The fire melds itself into a sort of bandage, which wraps around the Vision's wounds and glows with the seals of the Metatron's Cube. A healing artifact, to help their wounds recover.

"T-take this, a gift, that you might know the pain in your heart is the pain of my heart. Follow its call, and it will lead you to my Children, and they will know you by it. Go in peace, and be friend to us and we will do everything we can to help you."

Siderous turns and walks to Vela, but stops just short and turns back. His eyes, which normally glowed with the light of a sun are black - blacker than black, a depth from which there is no return as he issues a warning, "But if you scorn this offer of friendship know that it was made in faith, an offer of trust freely given. Know that if you raise a sword against my clan and kin then I will show you the terrible wonders of this reality. This universe holds happiness and treasures beyond your dreams, that I would share with you. But if you choose the path of the conqueror I will give you a personal education in horrors unimagined in your darkest nightmares, beyond anything you could hope to comprehend."

Another step and he warps with Vela away.

A moment after that, he collapses.

----------------------
Starkin
Children of the Sun That Was, Temple of Magnetism
---------------------

Unaware of the goings on outside of the Reclemation Engine, the Starkin continue to use their remaining time as a deity to complete their investigations into magnetism, a great wealth of knowledge and power that the Sun that Was could use in his actions.

Action 1: I will take a Level 2 Heart injury to create a Bandage of Light that will help the big wounds on their leader heal over time, using Immaculate Designer

Action 2: I will use Light +2 to attempt to Heal the wounds of these people, I will Push for an extra dice.

Corhort Action: Use Gravity +2 to continue the construction of a Temple of Magnetism, using the gravitic manipulation to carefully work around the sensitive equipment that is too delicate to touch and generally just see if building a temple is even feasible here/figure out an ingredient list.

Hubris[/u]: 10

Injuries [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
---Level 2 Stomach Injury
---Level 2 Heart Injury

Starkin Injuries [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]

Items/Artifacts
---Ambrosia [0]
---The Cosmic Lasso: Assists in moving objects across great distances in non-combat situations.
---The Crescent Singularity: +1D to Gravity rolls against Servants of the Lady of the Left Hand / the Quartered Goddess
---Divina Hospitium [CHARGED]: User can spend 1 action to reduce their injuries by one level. It must
recharge for a full turn before it can be used again. If a PC doesn't take an injury during a turn they
get 1 segment of their healing clock filled from hereon out.

9IronSwingersClub
May 26, 2017
Turn 12 - The Quality of Mercy

Siderous (10/10H), Trespasser(2/10H) and Vela - Outsider Planet

Your arrival on the planet is less strange than Trespasser’s previous or Cat’s first contact. The passage into hard time weighs heavily on your forms but does not pull you in any direction. You are free to travel as you wish.

The Outsiders have developed architecture at least rivaling the complexity and styles of Pre-Crash mortals. Sharp angles combine with radial symmetry across the fields of what used to be black and blue goo. A clear blue sky hangs above.

The screaming has ceased. Whether because their vocalizers got tired or out of sorrow for their casualties, you cannot tell.

The Outsider who met Trespasser before is on the bridge preceding Vision’s chamber and claims to speak on behalf of their leader. They guide you across and inside.



Vision’s chamber is less luxurious than would be assumed to fit such a beautiful people. A wide stone room with vibrant drapes of many colors line the edges. Androgynous guards in gold armor and sharp weapons stand in a double line formation in front of the throne and make way only when your escort waves them away.

---

Vision of Meidhbhín barely stirs during Siderous’s speech - they lay sullen and pale on a simple metal throne, slightly raised off the floor. When Siderous is finished and wraps their burnt and scarred torso with the wrappings, the handler bows in graciousness.

“We will thank you for your contentedness with us and will ponder your words. We confer upon you the name of Radiant Healer. There will be no dancing between our peoples.”

---

Vela reaches out to Siderous with a soft hand.

“You know something has to change, right? You have children who need you and you want to destroy yourself!”

---

Trespasser does not leave the chamber with Siderous and Vela. But not even a few moments after the forming of the ceasefire, Trespasser leaps on the Outsider leader’s pale face and digs into it with his beak. A whole side of their face is torn off.



Guards leap towards Trespasser with hooked spears and rapiers barbed with teeth. And then the meekest voice whispers, “No. Leave them.”

OOC: What happens to Vision? They seem to have survived and even improved from the strange attack, but how? Siderous succeeds in healing the Outsiders of their anger and grief but takes a Level 3 Lung Injury in the process. Another Level 2 or higher Injury will cause death.


VOTH (1/10H) - In A Hospital Bed

This is one of the quietest places in the universe - the nurses and doctors move without sound, wearing simple masks over hollow bodies. The shadows are long and wide. They invite lesser minds to see darkness, hear whispers - because lesser minds are desperate for things to fill the space.

Not VOTH’s. He is content in the silence, only rarely broken by a realignment event from the Orrery. It lets him focus on his inner spaces. Clear out his mind, so much had happened in these past few days. Majakazumi was engaged to the woman claiming to be his sister, Trespasser’s attempts to subvert the Pillar. The silence helps him clear it out.

Until it’s broken. The sound of a spinning clock, the tinkling of a bell.

“Hello again...brother.”

Marvak. He opens his eyes to see her before him, sitting in a chair with a nervous smile. She waves.

“This uh, isn’t like the visit I paid to Sid at Ewerui’s behest. I’ll leave if you want.”

She sighs.

“I just...wanted to talk to you about things going forward. Clear the air.”

OOC: This is an optional livescene. You can simply dismiss Marvak if you like. You lost 3 Hubris and healed your lung injury down to level 1.

---------------

FA, Ivadora (1/10H), Hello Darkness and Starkin - Hell City Above; The Station Below

All around Ivadora, there is screaming. The screams of newborn life that understands pain and misery better than anything else. It speaks a language of pestilence and curses, swears and jeers. They skitter nervously, biting and nipping one another.

They’re perfect.

She grabs Hello Darkness from his temple, carrying him by the nape of his neck while he curses.

“I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF SEDUCIN’ VOTH’S MOM, GODS YOU ARE THE MOST WOMAN EVER!” He shouts.

She throws him in a wide, empty field. He looks around, steam and ash coming from the little smokestacks that jut from his greasy skin.

“Oh, I get it boss! This is one of those mystical p-” She kicks him in the head. “OK OK I GET IT! I’LL GET WORKING!”

“Working” would be a generous term for what he does. He mostly lectures his pet-pet (He’s Ivadora’s pet in a hosed up way, does that make the spiderbot her pet or his pet-pet? It’s the kind of question people not named Ivadora might find interesting.) about “PROPER FUCKIN’ WORK ETHIC” while Ivadora starts to raise a city - well what she remembers of one. A bombed out war-zone, a filthy metropolis, a curse. It spreads across the horizon like an infection, vomiting ash and oil across an innocent landscape.

Through the buildings she can hear a song, a song that digs into circuits and changes them into something else. Guns are shed like skin (and promptly picked up by Ivadora’s screaming mortals to use on one another) and welding torches grow in their place. They listen eagerly, so eagerly. When all is quiet and still again, one floats forward.



“I am Reclaimer ABX-212, Architect. They have selected me from many to represent us. What is your wish, Architect?”

Far, far below...Starkin misses the music. She keeps working, and her thoughts of morality begin to turn sour. She was a separate being, made of the souls of a species, but more than the sum of them. What would happen to her thoughts, her memories, her feelings? Would they each carry a piece? Would she just be lost in the shattering? It slows her work, especially when she has to stop for crying fits.

And above again, in the dismal metropolis streets, and from the ruined crane, both Ivadora and Fa can feel a weight on their souls. A dismal hunger, ever so close.

Something is stalking them.

OOC: FA and Ivadora are being hunted by the Pillar of Mind. They are on planet and actively attempting to hunt and kill you so they can feast on your yummy brain-meat. Ivadora’s city is at ¾, as is Starkin’s shrine. Fa has wiped out her hubris.

---------------

Cat (2/10H) - On A Dead Planet

Oh this is so warm. Cat doesn’t want to leave. He takes a long nap, dreaming of days before. Wide open skies, a warm hearth, lots of servants. Life is so hard now sometimes, and it is good to remember easier days. But he awakes, as he always does. A good stretch, a yawn. He ignores the crying star-deity and jumps outside - across the surface of stars towards the planet where those nice servants gave him pets.

It’s empty now, quiet. Oddly quiet. Why?

Another leap forward. It takes a second for his eyes to adjust, and then understands. Someone has wrapped this planet in strange golden and black magic, cutting it off from everything else. A box. A mystery. Cat loves boxes (and mysteries). He sneaks up, watches it for a moment, and pounces through a thin spot.

Into a maelstrom of death.

All around him are dying Outsiders, mostly children, the elderly. The ones that couldn’t fight. Plagues spread across the planet surface, on black and golden feathers. There’s laughter above.Birdly laughter. A bird? Food? Cat whips his tail around. He darts from corpse to corpse. The laughter changes, grows deeper, sharper, crueler. Again.

“YOU JACKASSES SHOULDN’T HAVE SQUATTED!”

Trespasser? No. Otherpasser. He lands on one particularly bloated Outsider, crying and whimpering.

“Awwwww the little vulture feeling under the weather? You’re ruining my plans you know, but we’ll fix that. We’ll fix all of it my friend.”

Otherpasser alights again. Cat knows that type, the boaster. They’ll be on the ground again, and soon.

OOC: You have discovered Otherpasser is not respecting the truce and lost five hubris.


---



Summary:

Trespasser lost 7 Hubris (down to 0)

Cat lost 5 Hubris (down to 2)

VOTH lost 3 Hubris (down to 1) and their injury has been reduced to Level 1

Starkin’s shrine and Ivadora’s city are both at 3/4

Vision has been healed and the pact begun - for now

The Pillar of Mind Ivadora previously encountered outside the universe has been noticed in this universe

Otherpasser is not respecting the truce

VOTH has an optional livescene with Marvak

Thank you to Complexity of Light for the VOTH, FA, Ivadora and Cat sections!

professor_curly
Mar 4, 2016

There he is!
Siderous and Vela

"No Vela... Right now I have a child that needs me..." he reaches up a weak hand to caress her cheek. The cracks and scares from millennia weigh down on him, his rage, his pride, his heart having been desperately thrown onto a fire to keep the light burning in this creation for another day, week, month, year... Now he can feel it, the silent cry of a child lost in a world too big for them to understand. A desperate plea, unspoken, that he should have heard but pushed aside for the sake of the disaster of the moment. For all his moralizing and preaching he was failing at his first duty. The most important one.

He looks at the BIRD attacking the leader of the Outsiders, and can't bring himself to care anymore. He turns back and pulls Vela in for a weak hug, whispering, "My part in this farce is at an end. Will you... help me? Take me to her... I kn-" a cough, that sets his core ablaze in pain, breathless, timeless agony.

Shallow breathes, trying to maintain his composure, "I know you like, parties. It's... going to be a birthday today."

-------------------------

The Starkin sit among half-finished experiments, curled into a ball trying to contain their tears. But they are failing. She seems to be at war with herself, the component parts of her eager to reassert themselves as individuals... but she was scared. Angry. It seemed like she was a sacrifice, a temporary, disposable thing to be cast aside when things returned to 'normal.' A normal that didn't include her. When he looked at her, did he even see her? Or just snapshots of a billion faces, of children he longed to see again?

She tried. She tried to tell herself it wasn't so bad, that she could get through this. She had to be strong and bear her pain, like he did his.

But she was going to die. And that was the singularity. The inescapable truth that bent all other thoughts back upon it. She had barely begun to live, and now she was going to die, and it didn't seem that anyone cared. The whole universe seemed to be darkness and it didn't seem like there was any escape.

"I'm sorry."

The sudden noise made her gasp and stand up. Instinctively she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, compose herself - but his hands stopped her. He was weak. Grievously injured, she could tell. So weak she didn't even sense him arrive. She knew that mortal children would expect to see themselves grow, while their parents would fade away. That was not so for gods and the divine. She had never seen Siderous like this. Old. Sputtering. Weighed down by millennia. Even the star-core he had been, his funeral tomb, had glowed more brightly than he did now.

A child's reaction. She immediately felt guilt welling up inside, blaming herself for this. She had driven him to this somehow, but before she could open her mouth to speak he pulled her close. Hugging her as tightly as he could, but his strength flickered like a low flame. Sometimes strong, sometimes weak. But still warm.

"I have been such a fool. Trespasser has been right all along, I was just too blind to see it. I've been so focused on returning things to the way they were, I missed the wonders of the new. The blessings I have been given even in this tragedy. Oh, dear daughter will you ever be able to forgive me for being so cruel to you?"

Daughter.

The word echoed around in her mind, her heart, her soul. Singular. Not his children, sons and daughters. A new wave of tears, as she clamped onto him like a vice. He gave a soft gasp of pain but did not pull away, stroking her hair and she felt his tears as well. She wouldn't let go. She refused to let this fade away like a dream. It had to be real. It had to be.

After a while he kissed the top of her head and moved to sit down, leaning against the wall of this laboratory. She sat in his lap, face still buried in his chest.

"I have failed you as a father. I was so devoted to my 'duty' that I didn't see you growing before my eyes. I have missed so many things. Your first words, your first thoughts. When you opened your eyes and for the first time were truly you."

Vela was watching, a respectful distance away. She blinked, and in that moment she saw the gestalt of the starkin change. She took on the appearance of a young girl, a child. The truth, now revealed.

"Dad... I don't wanna to go. Not now, please... Just a little longer, please, just let me be me a little longer."

He held her, and used his powers to relieve the pressure upon her. He nuzzled his cheek against the top of her head and cradled her close.

"You aren't going anywhere."

She looked up at him, confused... but now with a flicker of hope. The kind of hope only a child could have in a parent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cIxF4Ex7a4

"You are not just a collection of souls. Those souls aren't you at all, my sweet child. You are the glue between them, the bonds of family, love and hope. You held tightly to your brothers and sisters and kept them safe through all of this, and thoughts of you held me together in the darkest moments of this end of times. You are the attractive force that kept our family together... You saved us all. Now it is our turn."

He reaches a hand out and summons a familiar shape, although surprising in its sudden appearance. For a brief moment all other feelings are replaced with shock as a Metatron's Cube, a perfect copy of the vessel from so long ago appears in the air, "An echo from another time, a potential time, collapsed now into certainty. With this, my children found me. Not the atoms or molecules, the physical matter - the light, the soul and heart, released from a dying prison and given new form. Now I will do the same for you. My youngest, and my eldest. The mediator between father and your siblings, for you have walked both paths. My precious princess of bonds..."

"You are not Starkin. You are one of them, but apart from them also," he leans in to whisper the ancient language of the kin of the stars, that language shared between parent and children, "You are Baand kee Raajakumaree... Maree. You don't need to be afraid any more."

He looks back up to Vela. He is smiling, "Your family is with you now."

----------------------------------
----------------------------------
Starkin is now named "Baand kee Raajakumaree" - or Maree.

Action 1: Use Insight +2 to try and finish the Magnetism temple. Finish the connections that were built and the work that Maree already put into it.

Action 2: Use Gravity +2 to begin preparing the Alt-Timeline Metatron's Cube to make Maree a more permanent being/creating a new cohort.

Cohort Action: Have a family moment.

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

The Trespasser


The swift, piercing motion cut the thread of Vision's life in an instant. Good thing someone had their beak ready to catch the last sparks of life as they were about to depart the deceased body.

But an end is nothing else than a beginning observed in reverse. A thread needs an end to tie a knot. And so it was time to weave a life anew. Wrap thin filaments of gold tightly around the black strands and stringy blueness that was known as an Outsider. A nearly imperceptible sinew to link body and mind to the soul again.

Then, all that was left was to breathe the spark back to the system and hope it ignites the still heart to beat again.

"Vision of Meidhbhín, you and your people have been tried by much misfortune and grief. One could not, in honesty, blame you or your people for the many mistakes you’ve made. For, with all due respect, majesty, many of the choices that had been made shall be remembered as wrong. Enough so that it had brought us here - where I had to make a right one for you.”

“Consider it equal parts a gift and a lesson, your majesty. A gift of life and a lesson on death. Just as you had to change to survive this ordeal, so must your kind. Change to survive in this place and reap all of its fruits. You can see it clearly now, that the time you have known is tearing apart the reality whose scars have not yet mended. That is but an indisputable fact - it is one part of your past you simply have to discard, lest all of creation shall perish. I understand some would scoff, saying your kind would die anyway with life no longer being born. And this brings us to the lesson of death.”

“For while your wombs- actually, could I kill you again? I think I’d like to change one thi- okay, nevermind then.”

“For while your wombs shall indeed become barren, you will be able to see through the superficial finality of death. Soon, you shall discover that in the universe where passions can bend reality itself to its will, so your passions will transcend the empty husks of your deceased bodies. As you mourn over your loved ones seeping back into the earth, you shall find three eggs coalesce from the deathly goo: one of black pure as the void, one blue like the time itself and one gold, shining like your newfound hope. Each ready to spring a new being into this world, each holding a third of your passions, memories, joys and regrets.”

“Know that from now on, when you close your eyes to eternally dream, the work of your life shall carry on to expand and improve beyond what you ever could hope to achieve alone. Forever.”

“Oh, and uh...”, Trespasser added meekly. “As a personal favor... Could you perhaps omit the part where I messed your face up? Just… Just tell Mhaith and everyone it’s a battle scar or something? I’m rather sorry about that, see, we didn’t exactly have surgical tools around and...”

“Yeah, I’ll be going. Your majesty.”

-----

The god stopped by Divina Hospitium looking for the recuperating Siderous, who really should have been left alone with his family.

"Hi. Just wanted to make sure I don't have to put one between your earlobes too", they - hopefully - joked. "But you seem to be getting better on your own. Have that healthy colors again and, uh-"

"I suppose I wanted to say I'm really glad you went so far to help my little pet project with no goading necessary. Especially given how... Out of control the whole endeavor proved to be. I suppose I'm not very good at taking care of others," they chuckled.

"Honestly, I'm rather close to admitting that caring is indeed not quite worth the effort."

Green Bean
May 3, 2009

Cat

Cat alighted amidst the carnage, instinctively dropping low and cloaking himself in the gold and black light that had enveloped the planet. He felt the irritation of a plan gone awry - the sickened and dying Outsiders would be much less able to pamper and feed him as he should be. He let out a low hiss as he saw the source of death before him. He disliked plagues on general principle; they were associated with the vermin he hunted so relentlessly, to the point where in some cities he'd been associated with healing, or at least cleanliness. He stalked forward, completely silent.

He found himself reminded of Raven - a clever animal, a smart god, and a carrion eater. Raven was a bit of a trickster, but rather than going after the haughty or the self-obsessed like Coyote, Raven liked toying with the weak. That didn't bother Cat, really, who also played with his food, but Cat's children liked to prey on Raven's children so they'd never been close. But he had hunted birds on a number of occasions, and despite the divinity and plagues following in the Otherpasser's wake, the fundamentals remained the same. Certainly, they were superior in the air, but Cat had never met a bird that didn't land eventually. And when they did, stealth and speed were key, because all they had to do was take off when they saw your approach. Hunting birds was high risk, high reward; they were hard to get close to, but if you did, all it would take was a swipe or two at their wings to snap their brittle bones. A bird that couldn't fly was out of its element, and even the bigger ones couldn't fend off a determined cat forever...

This Otherpasser was cruel, seemed to enjoy inflicting pain. Cat knew he'd be back down to witness more of it. Listening carefully, he found a likely target - a cluster of young Outsiders, huddled together in fear. It seemed the Outsider minding them had hidden them away inside one of the few crude structures that were on the planet and they'd been spared the first wave of plague. But Cat could hear them quite clearly with his superior senses, and that meant Otherpasser would as well. Cat slipped inside, quieter than a shadow. The building that would trap the children in with Otherpasser would trap Otherpasser in here with him.

He heard the flapping of wings, and the muffled, distorted sounds that he understood as the Outsider version of screaming. He slipped through the crowd of young children, giving them a moment of fuzzy reassurance in the darkness. And then he saw feathers and leapt, claws outstretched!


***

Action 1: Assaulting Otherpasser with Cat domain, Pushing for an extra die (plus bonus die/effect for Desperate Action)

Action 2: Assaulting Otherpasser with Prowess, Pushing for an extra die (plus bonus die/effect for Desperate Action)

Hubris: 2+2+2 (6)
Ambrosia: 4 (+2 up for grabs)

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

The Trespasser

[After livescene]

And so it was done. Better than expected, given Trespasser was still in one piece. Roped the very Titaness into doing the vulgar part of the job for them, leaving merely the artistry. The bird cackled to the void, exhilarated. This will be so worth it.

---
Action 1 & 2: I start seeding the patterns for mortal life of the unique BIRD design. Willing to pay all necessary costs in ambrosia and whatnot. Moreover, I'd like to suggest that for this particular kind of being my few remaining histories of Omixil and bricks of soulsnuff would make some drat useful materials.
Maintenance Actions 1&2: Templing up that sea of mechanized blue at Eternium station. After all, Science is the original Key to knowledge.

9IronSwingersClub
May 26, 2017
Reserved for livescene

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
Ivadora 1/10 Hubris, 3 Ambrosia) and Hello Darkness - Reclamation Station


"If the pillar wants to rumble, we do it, but on OUR terms, I ain't waiting for it." Iva decides to greet the horrible brain eating entity from another dimension by tastefully decorating for her guest, by which she means dumping a sea of horrific psychic miasma over the emerging form of Keep Moving, a sort of welcome party for the mortals already killing each other in the street just to feel something.

*MEANWHILE, completely ignoring everything going on*

"I AM KING OF THE MOUNTAIN (OF poo poo)"

******

Action 1: Setting the stage for the Pillar's arrival with Madness and Melancholy+2
Action 2: If I succeed in drawing it out and/or sneaking up, stabbing with Metal and Meat+3 , with Gangrene boosting the effect.
Action 3: Hello Darkness will finish up the city with his Industry+2

Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Sep 10, 2018

Ambivalent
Oct 14, 2006

Fa - Eternium Reclamation Station

She barely has time to get to know ABX-212 when that survival instinct kicks in, that preserving hackle rising on her neck. She whispers a hushed command to the friendly, floating sphere, giving her first directive. The Reclaimers promptly skitter and bob about the station and then... depart, fleeing.

And without another word, Fa disperses into nine separate bursts of light and sound, scattering across the ruins. Watching, waiting. And what she sees is Ivadora - cunning in her own way. Going to fight? That is not how Fa does, not her style, not usually. But maybe she can help.

These mortals of Ivadora’s make - crude, rough, mechanical in their way - create a cacophony of noise and energy. In another moment, she would treasure them and puzzle over them, and explore with them, but now… For now, they could be an effective mask. They are loud. Fa’s silver motes ping about the ruins of the station, pushing beams and rubble into a stage, an arena, a maze, a venue, for these rampaging mortals. The radio towers and loudspeakers emit a thumping, pounding bass like the heartbeat felt in every single one of those mortals. And then a wicked, screaming riff cuts through the din, a peeling guitar splitting the air then descending to drive the mayhem to new heights.

The music, the arena, all designed to inflame the passions of the mortals, mask her and Ivadora’s presence. The violence and revelry hang heavy in the air - a tangible fog of mortal musk for those entities that can feel such a thing. Fa hides in the corners of the mortals’ minds, waiting.

~

Meanwhile, in the Shattering Cities of Omixil...

The silence of the ruins is peppered with tiny impacts from a rain of meteorites. A storm of debris collides with the dilapidated structures and desolate paths. From the crater of some forgotten boulevard, the crown of ABX-212's orb emerges. The other Reclaimers stir from their impact and set upon the city, repairing facades, reworking the streets, beginning construction.


Hubris: 0, Ambrosia: 0
Action 1: Architecture +1 to Set The Stage.
Action 2: Passion +3 to help the hiding action of Iva’s Madness & Melancholy, and crank it up to 11.
Reclaimers are not built for fighting, so they are gonna go and rehabilitate the Dust aspect of Omixil into an Architecture Temple, plz dont get hurt babies

Ambivalent fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Sep 10, 2018

Theantero
Nov 6, 2011

...We danced the Mamushka while Nero fiddled, we danced the Mamushka at Waterloo. We danced the Mamushka for Jack the Ripper, and now, Fester Addams, this Mamushka is for you....

VOTH
- Heart's Ease
Hubris: 1
Ambrosia: 4
Injury Clock: 2/4
Injuries: lvl 1 injury on Lung

VOTH merely laid still after Marvak left. The revelations of the near past had given him a lot to think about. About the nature of their Creation. About its place in the grander multiverse. What they hadn't done, however, was shake his faith in his mission. Indeed, with the knowledge that other Creations in fact existed, and could pose a threat to his own, his resolve to protect his home realm grew more resolute more than anything.

Yes. This was no time for idleness. VOTH felt the wound on his chest. It was not yet fully sealed, but most of it had dissipated. More than enough.

VOTH made his way out of the Hospitium in silence, drifting through the void towards the broken prison world of Heart's Ease. The architecture that already existed there, as well as the lingering aura of the place made it ideal for a bastion. A metaphysical linchpin for the defense of Creation. A worthy headquarters for the knights, after they had been properly anointed.

Yes. It was a workable plan. One that VOTH didn't see reason to delay.


OOC:
Action 1: Using ORDER +3 to build a Fortress Monastery at Heart's Ease for the Knights Tenebrae (it's a City)
Action 2: Also using Light +2 on the Fortress Monastery to make it properly sacrosanct

9IronSwingersClub
May 26, 2017
Turn 13 - Rules of Nature

Cat (6/10H) - On A Mostly Dead Planet

Cat is still. Cat is silent. Otherpasser screams again.

“YOU’RE ALL FILTH. ALL OF YOU, AND I KNOW FILTH! YOU’RE KNIT FROM IT, WHY DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE TO CRAWL TO A BETTER U-”

Cat flies through the air. At a small black and gold bird. Otherpasser screams. Darkness.

“HEY HAIRBALL, LICK YOUR rear end LATELY?!”

A thousand infections race through the air. Strains beyond comprehension. Every nearby Outsider is dead within seconds. Screaming, wing flaps. Cat pounces. Flesh. Feathers. He shakes. Bones pop from their sockets.

“YOU’RE JUST GONNA VOMIT IT UP LATER, YA KNOW!”

Tearing. The sound of limping. Cat chases it - straight into a door.

“DUMBASS! STOP HITTING YOURSELF!”

Silence. Cat listens to his whiskers. Air moving. Behind him. He spins around, claws extended. Pain. Stomach. A beak twists through his guts. He feels something burning. He can hear again, but only the sound of Otherpasser vomiting. Cat curls, hoping to catch the creature.

He does.

His hind paws tear into the bird’s body, and it lets out a scream of pain.

“OH YOU LIT-”

A snapping sound. Gurgling. Cat can see. He looks down to find the broken, headless body of Otherpasser limping away, towards a door. Cat tries to give chase. Too much pain. Necrosis spreading through his stomach. Otherpasser’s head laughs.

“FEELING UNDER THE WEATHER?”

The keyhole expands. Gold light streams from it. The body jumps through it.

The keyhole shrinks. When Cat looks through it he sees a strange place on the other side -



Opening the door with a turn of the paw reveals nothing, and the image in the keyhole disappears.

“GOOD JOB rear end in a top hat, I HOPE YOU LIKE YOUR TURBO-GANGRENE!” The head screeches at Cat. from the floor.

OOC: Otherpasser is critically injured (5/6) and their health clock will regenerate one portion every turn. You have gained a Level 3 Stomach Wound due to absolutely massive necrosis.

---------------

FA (0/10H) and Ivadora (1/10H) - In The Bowels Of Hell City Keep Moving

Fa touches the minds around her. Tries to lose herself in the moving bodies, the dancing notes. It doesn’t work. The Pillar is already in every sound, every breath. All of them are twisted into the music of another dimension. It finds her out and chases her down, forcing her back into her body with bleeding ears.

“Ho ho ho! look at this! Another pillar-mind. Such rich brain-me-”

Metal in flesh. A scream. Gangrene’s Touch explodes through the front of the Pillar’s chest. An explosion of sparks. Talons fly towards Ivadora, streaming a million colors that could never be named. Two flaming, angry eyes. Ivadora meets them.

They blink. Fa can feel a wave, a great and terrible screaming that tears itself free of Ivadora’s mind. It slams into the Pillar, and there is another storm of feathers that fall across the city. They turn to Ambrosia as they touch the streets.

The owl falls to the ground, writhing and crying. Ivadora leans down, whispers in an ear hole.

“That was just yesterday.”

OOC: The Pillar of Mind is at your mercy. Fa has taken a Level 1 Heart Wound unless it is resisted.

---------------

HD, Siderous (10/10H), Trespasser (0/0H) - Eternium Reclamation Station / Keep Moving

Hello Darkness is completely oblivious to the battle taking place elsewhere. The new minions, the germs, are a fun new toy to gross him out. Look at the disgusting ooze they leave as they waddle on the ground, and hear the squishy noises their appendages make! They do whatever he wants, so he wants them to do random and pointless things. “YOU, LAY ON THE GROUND. NOW… FLAP YOUR ARMS AND LEGS! NOW BARK! BARK LIKE CAT!”

It’s not clear what he’s doing to help, but the presence of an overlord gets the things moving around instead of congregating in the piles of gore.

Underneath the den of villainy and behind a divining shield where no one can see them, Trespasser and Siderous hear each other’s toiling and can sense nothing outside. Like a sensory deprivation chamber for mortals, the deep basement of the Station doesn’t allow in the background noise of the universe.

Trespasser watches code in arcane languages stream down a computer monitor and makes subtle adjustments to them with an invisible motion. Someone watching over his shoulder would be unable to tell what is going on, but to Trespasser it is just a little fine-tuning of the thought process patterns of mortal minds based on data previously recorded. Trespasser is observing and learning and setting puzzles. Much in the same way as the scientific method. And somehow just the act of observing is changing variables in the station itself - it reaches out to Trespasser’s mind to be attuned, to direct its energy towards him.

Siderous cradles a swirling ball of spirits and energy in one metaphorical arm while watching gauges in a new attachment to the reactor. Being a father is hard work and there’s no doubt the amoral bird in the other room would try something if he weren’t at full attention. He has his own goals and ideas just as alien as the Outsiders and Ewerui. A hand in every cookie jar, as the mortals would have said. Or in Trespasser’s case, a beak in every face.

Maree senses a change your aura at the thought and starts to shudder. “Shh,” you whisper and give a soft rocking. She’s going to be so big and strong when she comes out of this, but right now she’s a chrysalis. And she still makes you proud.

OOC: The mortal city on Eternium Reclamation Station is complete, as is Siderous’s Temple of Magnetism. Trespasser’s mortals are at (3/4) and the Temple of Science is at (2/4). Maree is at (2/4)

---------------

VOTH (1/10H) - Asteroids of Heart’s Ease

Heart’s Ease is an entirely unseemly place for a new base of operations, regardless of how sophisticated it used to be or how frightened people were of its presence.

Well, it’s still a frightening place now, but that is because it is a belt of asteroids that still fizzle and pop in purple explosions with what atmosphere each piece still carries.

But it’s the thought that counts, and there may still be some interesting pieces of divine power and technology in the fragments. It will just take a little bit of doing to put something together.

You pull several pieces together and stitch them along new seams. They are quite malleable from the high heat still present, the lava and explosive chemicals serving as glue. Order and Light decontaminate the atmosphere after new tectonic plates settle next to a makeshift core.



OOC: City is (2/4) complete. Heart’s Ease is relatively safe to explore again.

---------------



Summary: Otherpasser’s head is lying on the floor, as is the Pillar of Mind. Heart’s Ease is safe to explore again.

Injuries: Cat gained a Level 3 Heart Injury, Fa gained a Level 1 Heart Injury

Hubris: No changes

Buildings: Ivadora’s City is complete, Siderous’s Temple of Magnetism is complete. Trespasser’s mortals are (3/4) complete, his Temple of Science is (2/4) complete, and VOTH’s City is (2/4) complete.

Everyone who hasn't taken 2 free maintenance actions (construction or meditation in any combination) may still do so in their actions

Thank you to Complexity of Light for writing sections for Cat, Iva and Fa!

9IronSwingersClub fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Sep 11, 2018

Ambivalent
Oct 14, 2006

Fa - Eternium Reclamation Station

Fa writhes in anguish from the owl’s assault, blood dripping from her ears - and then she bursts into a puff of silver powder that dissipates in the wind. Gone.

After Ivadora has struck true, Fa steps out from around a corner of some manufactory, unfazed, unharmed, adjusting her cuffs habitually, nodding to the other goddess, “That was slick.” Closing the distance, she crosses her arms and looks down at the Pillar, addressing it tartly, “You missed.

“We’re doing you a favor anyway,” Dropping to rest on the balls of her feet, Fa looks up to Iva, then chews her lip thoughtfully, “My brain-meat’s a little overcooked.” She peers down the being’s beak, “Yours, on the other-hand…”

~

Omixil

She’d passed through Heart’s Ease, admiring the Pillar of Justice’s work, and had half a mind to stop and pitch in. But the echoes of that place were ill-suited to her aims, and the Pillar of Justice was maybe a little too straightforward for what she’d had planned.

When Fa’s barefoot touches down at the top of the tallest spire still standing in the ruins of Omixil, the Reclaimers are already well underway.

The robots shuffle and scoot here or there, silver, heated arc emitters spot-welding beams or jets of pressurized wet masonry splattering sealed great fissures. That’s the little stuff. Fa walks along the rooftops, the will of the Architect herself settling the larger works - whole spires set back upright, massive arcologies or tenements meant to house thousands reassembled, boulevards or infrastructure pulled back into some working order. ABX-212 follows in her wake, taking cues and instructions.

The sprawling metropolis set adrift looks less like an archaeology project and more like an urban center by the moment. Block by block, street by street, the bright lights come back on, read for mortals to return, to take up their short lives and livelihoods, interests and pursuits. Everything is new, and also old. Fresh, but crumbling. Untouched, and yet lived in. The Dream Theater, that soul bank, that cache of mortal minds, sits packed in one corner of Omixil still - ready to disseminate mortal grist into this metropolis, a vault of souls, a well of would-be citizens once clothed in proper flesh.



Part of this, of course, is a self-serving interest of Fa - the Passion in her wants nothing more than to hear that sweet song of life once again.

But the Architect, the Custodian of the Pillar of Structure, she has her hand in this too. It’s a simple hypothesis. Structure being tangled and touched by emotion now as it is, mortal minds, mortal passions would help stabilize the structure of reality - stave off the rapid entropy trying to consume this universe, a sort of constant regeneration to stem the decay. Emotional consensus could strengthen and change a place like Omixil from crumbling ruins to a pillar - lower-case p - of this reality.

The city that starts to take shape is amorphous, bending - it will be less so once settled and colonized by mortals. For now though, it is a creature of chaos - a highly-advanced urban hive in one place, a more rustic, post-industrial slum the next. It sprawls seemingly perpetually, shrouded in an everlasting night - with a pale orange or purple dusk whenever one of Siderous’s creations’ drifts close enough. It is simply a city, a city in the form of a city - of all cities. When enough work is done, it will be less Omixil, and more Polis, built atop Omixil.

Fa resisted but picked up 3 Hubris for it. Picked apart the Pillar of Mind for +1 to Architecture.

Hubris: 3, Ambrosia: 2

This is sort of a major push by Fa - the idea is that more ‘normal’, expansive mortal populous can be used with the new spongy Reality Structure to reinforce Reality wholesale.
Action 1: Architecture +2 to help the Reclaimers with reclaiming Omixil’s ‘Dust’ domain into Architecture by making a Temple, started last turn. This would be the center of the Guardians-turned-Reclaimers.
Action 2: Starting work on Polis, an expansive urban area that will continue to sprawl til it consumes Omixil. Unless that is not okay! The Temple would be the administrative heart of Polis.
Maintenance Actions: Assisting in first the Temple’s construction, then City with both Maintenance actions. I’ll Push or offer up Ambrosia as necessary.
Reclaimers: If the Temple is completed, they will be moving on to construct Polis.

professor_curly
Mar 4, 2016

There he is!
Siderous

A Magnetar is Born

Pain, barely blocked out by complete focus. The ritual was ready, as it had been prepared for him so long ago. The Cube was humming with quantum harmonics, singing with the same harmony as Maree's being, her soul. They called to one another, but now was the dreaded part. The most dangerous step, the final moments of uncertainty. Too far forward to stop, but so many things that could still go wrong.

A hand on his shoulder. He sighed, and nodded, then released the gravity he had been holding back.

An explosion, powerful enough to throw him back in his weakened state. Vela has to catch him before he slams hard into the walls of their small workshop in the bottom of the reclamation station. It took all his strength to keep it from tearing this section of the structure apart, leaving himself vulnerable.

"Typical..." he distantly hears.

But he isn't listening. He is frozen, in a moment of terror as he searches for his child. The eternal second.

"Dad!"

Time unfreezes, as he slumps against the wall. Tension was the only thing holding him up, and his relief takes the last of his strength. She is there. He can see her now, a most unusual star in this unusual universe. He closes his mask's eyes and feels her presence as a star. Feeling the gravity, a dense stellar remnant. Her magnetic field danced and tangled with his as she hugged him, and he hugged her back. He would have hugged her forever, but she jumped away, full of new life and purpose. Freed of the weight of her siblings and her father's foolish expectations.

He opens his eyes and sees her there, flying around the room. Around her are a swarm of millions, billions of tiny motes of light. She dances through them, pulling them close for a moment then dancing away as she sees her siblings, the souls that once made up her, for the first time. Siderous watches his children play.

Then faster than was expected, he grabs Vela's hand. She had been moving away, but he pulled her back, "Where are you going?"

"Oh you know, I don't want to interrupt your moment with your children. It's always been a bit of sore point, hasn't it darling?"

A mysterious smile as he stands up, moving behind Vela so he can guide her vision over her shoulder, "Look again. Do you think her eyes are silver because of me? Do my eyes twinkle mischievously? She even has your field lines, if you let them grow stronger. I think you passed the event horizon of 'my' children, and are well toward 'our' child, at least. Why I'll have you know that Maree was scarcely awake before she started poking about old ruins with that Bird - sounds more like a certain hellion I've met, 'Lady of Chaos.'"

"You're part of this cluster. If you wish to be, that is. Will you be my binary?"

------------------

Father and Daughter worked now to build a home for the rest of the Kin of the Stars. High above Oximil, the dust-collection spires had formed a great cloud. Already some protostars were forming, but it would be many thousands of years for things to progress naturally. They concentrated their gravity to the center, and pulled the dust into a new star over Oximil - a dull, reddish yellow that would give Light to the newly formed Polis below. Then they began to build a series of moonlets. Tiny beads of matter that would circle the star like a necklace, and in them raw materials for a civilization to forge itself anew.

A Dyson swarm forming a halo around the new star takes shape, the cradle for the Kin of the Stars.

Action 1: I will use Gravity +2 to help complete the ritual for Maree

Corhort Action: Vela will use Light +1 to help complete the ritual for Maree.

Action 2: Siderous will Meditate.

Housekeeping Actions:

1. Siderous will use Gravity +2 to build a stellar habitat for the Kin of the Stars around a new sun over Oximil, using the dust collection from that thing he built a while back.

2. Maree will use Gravity +1 to also help build a stellar habitat/city 'above' Oximil, but for game purposes on Oximil.

Hubris[/u]: 10

Injuries [X] [ ] [ ] [ ]
---Level 3 Lung Injury

Starkin Injuries [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]


Items/Artifacts
---Ambrosia [0]
---The Cosmic Lasso: Assists in moving objects across great distances in non-combat situations.
---The Crescent Singularity: +1D to Gravity rolls against Servants of the Lady of the Left Hand / the Quartered Goddess
---Divina Hospitium [CHARGED]: User can spend 1 action to reduce their injuries by one level. It must
recharge for a full turn before it can be used again. If a PC doesn't take an injury during a turn they
get 1 segment of their healing clock filled from hereon out.
---Stellar Nursery
---Temple of Magnetism

Ronwayne
Nov 20, 2007

That warm and fuzzy feeling.
Ivadora 1/10 Hubris, 3 Ambrosia)- Heart's Fury and Hello Darkness - Reclamation Station


Iva's eye twitches. Another broken, twitching body, albiet one that had tried to kill her. Then again, so had that lady? Then again, that lady was at least halfway apologetic about it, and that fight kinda just happened, this rear end in a top hat had gone out of his way to track her down. Well, he had found her. Fa's there watching, Iva's not sure what she's going to do but, you know, what did those normal people always go on about? Oh yeah, "Poetic justice". Maybe behaving normally would make Fa think more highly over her.

Having sawn the Pillar's skull open (not Fa, the other one), Iva chows down on raw brain matter like a starving dog. "HORK GLORK, SLRUP, GLUK". She raises her arms and smiles triumphantly at Fa. "That's Irony!" :ironicat:

...

Later, after probably much confusion and awkwardness, Iva pays another visit to Heart's Ease. VOTH appeared to have patched it up pretty well but, you know, nothing good came from here in the first place. And the request to help up with his own clique of mortals, some variant of cops as well, well that wasn't pleasent, but she thought at least she had a say in how they went about it.

Iva sighs when she sees the set up, she's going to have to completely rework the change and rebirth thing to work with Order. Oh well, nothing for it. She unironically tries to do the job as best she can, albeit with some caveats. She had no doubt VOTH would give them tons of commandments, so a few more wouldn't hurt. As she works and forms and moulds them into good little goons, she pulls out Grangrene and uses it to saw through a bundle of sticks around an axe before tossing it into the mix.

In short:

-Sensitive and slightly introverted, these creatures prefer finding consensus to dominating others
-If seeking to use force to control the actions of others, they immediately have extreme empathy for that person. Dehumanizing (or depersonizing or whatever) others or sociopathy, learned or natural, is impossible.
-Incapable of taking an action they believe is immoral even if a higher authority commands it, and will attempt to overthrow an authority they believe is corrupt or authoritarian
-If someone asks if they're a cop, they have to say "Yes."

*Meanwhile*

Across the known remaining universe, spires of oil and fumes sprout. "I'M PROUD TO HELP. It's my job to help those less brilliant than myself spread the good word of Civilization. THE GREASE MAN'S BURDEN and all." A throbbing pustule, the size of a city block erupts, festooned with noodle shops, loan shark offices and Cash 4 Gold set ups. "Never forget who brough you."

******

Taking +1 to Madness and Melancholy from the pillar
Action 1: Finishing the Mantis men with a two parter, using both Metal and Meat+3 for the forms and then
Action 2: Mucking with their empathy levels with Madness and Melancholy+3 , with Gangrene boosting the effect, again.

---
Action 3 and both Maintenance Rolls: Hello Darkness will travel about the map helping others complete his projects his Industry+2, starting with Fa's planet city. Heads up, this might result in your projects having a very...Hello Darkness feel. 3 rolls total.

Ronwayne fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Sep 16, 2018

Theantero
Nov 6, 2011

...We danced the Mamushka while Nero fiddled, we danced the Mamushka at Waterloo. We danced the Mamushka for Jack the Ripper, and now, Fester Addams, this Mamushka is for you....

VOTH
- Heart's Ease
Hubris: 1
Ambrosia: 4
Injury Clock: 3/4
Injuries: lvl 1 injury on Lung

VOTH spoke little other than giving a curt 'thank you' as Ivadora showed up to help him on his project as per his earlier request, instead resolving to work with her in silence. Only when she started making her own modifications, did VOTH speak up.

"I see what you DO, Ivadora", he spoke, his voice as overpowering as always, but there was a tinge of amusement to it, "And perhaps you THINK that you SUBVERT me."

"But you are MISTAKEN. For I am VOTH, THE PILLAR OF JUSTICE. Not THE PILLAR OF TYRANNY. Not THE PILLAR OF OPPRESSION. The empathy you REQUIRE of these KNIGHTS is not against my own WILL. Indeed, it is a THING I would ask of them MYSELF."

VOTH weaved some of his power into the mantis-creatures, tying his power to prayer-like chants for easy invocation.

"The KNIGHTS TENEBREA were always built upon a FOUNDATION of EMPATHY, Ivadora", VOTH's tone had taken a drier, more matter-of-factly tone, "They were ALWAYS a gathering of the FORSAKEN. The maligned DRUDGES and PARIAHS of CREATION that others would spit upon. Those marked for FAILURE from the beginning due to their SPECIES or the circumstances of their BIRTH. The KNIGHTS TENEBRAE stand as my total and utter CONDEMNATION of ANY such sentiment."

"Thus I do not mind these first two of your so-called COMMANDMENTS. Indeed, all they SAY is that you MISTRUST ME, and think me UNWORTHY of my MASK and my PILLAR."

"This SADDENS me, but you are ALLOWED such thoughts."

"HOWEVER", the mood darkened, VOTH's words gaining a hint of menace, "Your last two COMMANDMENTS I cannot allow. WILL NOT ALLOW. Not NOW. Not EVER. For whilst you CAN gift the KNIGHTS with EMPATHY, what you CANNOT DO is force their WILLS to any particular action. Not even the ones YOU would like. As sentient, ensouled INHABITANTS of this CREATION, the FREEDOM of their WILL and their MIND is to be ABSOLUTE at all times. They have a RIGHT to their own DECISIONS. And to their own MISTAKES."

VOTH crossed his arms.

"ON THIS I STAND FIRM."

OOC:
VOTH will deny the last two Commandments that Iva is trying to force upon them since they're weird Mind Control Puppeteer poo poo. The Knights are free beings, and they will be allowed to make their own decisions always.
Action 1: Using ORDER +3 to further organize the Knights Tenebrae
Action 2: Also using Light +2 and pushing to buff up their smiting powers and their whole look

Maintenance 1: ORDER +3 to build up my Fortress Monastery city at Heart's Ease
Maintenance 2: Light +2 to build up my Fortress Monastery city at Heart's Ease

Lichtenstein
May 31, 2012

It'll make sense, eventually.

The Trespasser


Sorry for dropping this without fluff - it's a humble little clock-finishing turn and I'm just too worn today to go on a proper BIRD ramble about pretty much plotting behind a console.

---
Action 1: Finishing the matrix for mortal life. It's okay if their actual seeding gets delayed.
Action 2: Finishing the temple of Science, to incorporate into the Key.

Green Bean
May 3, 2009


Cat could feel the blood dripping from his gut - it reminded him of the rare times he'd had to fight Tiger, getting clawed up like this. Except this was also the worst excesses of Rat, her diseases that were far deadlier than her bite. He slumped down, Otherpasser's head's taunting ringing in his ears. If he weren't Cat, this would be a serious situation. But, unfortunately for Otherpasser, he was Cat, and Cat had access to several pieces of ambrosia, which speckled in his fur like diamonds. He licked them up, and took them into his godhead.

It was...rather anticlimactic, all things considered. There was no sparkling light or massive explosion or screech of reality twisting. It was the formless stuff of potential creation, and it simply asked Cat what he wanted, and what he wanted was Grace. Grace was elegance, perfection, immaculacy, everything that Cat embodied, and for an instant Cat channelled the force of raw universe through that. For that instant, Cat was the most Graceful thing that existed, and the divine gangrene simply shrivelling away from a place that could no longer sustain even the idea of its existence. And then the moment ended, leaving Cat as...well, still probably the most Graceful thing that existed, but on a different scale.

He got to his feet, meowing in irritation when he noticed he hadn't completely fixed the actual physical wound to his gut. Ah well, it would heal with time. He looked over at the Otherpasser's head. "Why would I feel under the weather? Your body just scratched me, I've been scratched before." He picked up the head with his teeth, and stuck it in his fur where he kept all of his possessions. From there, he'd be able to hear the head (something he was sure he'd tire of soon), but no one else would, so he didn't have to worry about sneaking up on people.

He regarded the keyhole Otherpasser had escaped through. Cat had a bit of a reputation among the gods for getting into places he wasn't supposed to, but only some of those were from him deliberately trying to break in. For the most part, he found them while he was chasing vermin - and he was almost as good at squeezing into tight spaces as Rat. He just had to squeeze through the lock, and then track down the headless Otherpasser. His prey was wounded, but he intended to finish it for good!

***

Action 1: Using Prowess to crawl through the keyhole after the vermin that got away!

Action 2: Using Insight to scout for prey and/or ambushes.

Maintenance 1: Spending 2 Ambrosia for 4 spaces on the wound clock, healing the level 3 wound and filling in 1/3 spaces on the level 2 wound clock.

Maintenance 2: Spending 2 Ambrosia for 4 spaces on the wound clock, healing the level 2 wound and filling in 2/3 spaces on the level 1 wound clock.

Hubris: 6
Ambrosia: 0 (+2 up for grabs)

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9IronSwingersClub
May 26, 2017
Turn 14 - It’s Raining In Polis; Understanding In Starshine



Fa (3/10H), Siderous (10/10H), Hello Darkness and Maree[/b] - The Isle Of Starkin Above; Polis Below

Maree opens her eyes. She slept. She thinks. That’s what happens when your eyes close and you forget to think, right? Yes, she slept. Being alone in her body is strange, there is no churn of consciousness to run her body while the others rest. No choir she always has to listen to. When she thinks, she thinks in her voice. Not a million borrowed voices. When she looks out at the stars she sees Siderous and Vela deep in a kiss, whispering sweet-nothings to one another. It makes her feel better, and she gives them a minute before bouncing up.

Maree hugs Siderous again. Vela smirks at her, arms still wrapped around Siderous.

“You little gremlin. You’re just going to steal his heart away, aren’t you?”

Maree giggles, rolls her eyes theatrically.

“I can’t steal what you never owned.”

Vela huffs and crosses her arm.

“Silver-haired goblin.”

“Hellion.”

They both giggle.

“I believe I’m going to have to punish you, little knee-biter.” Vela says, flipping her hair.

“Oh?”

A grin.

“Yes, by forcing you to spend time me.” Vela says wearing a faux-cruel grin.

Maree doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed. She and Vela dash off into the sky. Maree raises worlds with her magnetism. Vela stitches them together with light and dance.

Far below the dancing stars Fa and the Reclaimers weave together a dream, the dream of a city. Fa always loved them. So many ideas, significant glances, bits and pieces of half-formed songs. The way neon lights caught fresh rain on old concrete. The Reclaimers weld it all into place under her careful watch, and later with the “help” of a screaming Hello Darkness who adds “AUTHENTIC TOUCHES” such as food trucks that always give you nausea, but always feel vaguely worth it. There’s raunchy signs doing contortions of anatomy that the poor Reclaimers aren’t quite ready to see. Fa covers their eyes, but must admit those touches do add a...certain something.

-----------

Trespasser(0/10H) - Underneath Eternium

Working on the new life sequence continues to draw out power from the generator, making it more amenable to your presence. Your problem-solving abilities become stronger. It was already quite easy with the power of Key, but that only showed a limited perspective: finding the right path and hitting the correct tumblrs. Key gave you applicable truth, but Science will give you theory and consistency.

The sequencing now complete, you are ready to begin implantation of the genome sequence. You have the ability to implement it however you like. There are so many options to choose - do you create your own spark of life, or do you subvert something that already exists? Unlocking the physical and mental capabilities of one of the other deities’ creations has a certain appeal...

OOC: Both buildings completed.
-----------

VOTH(3/10H) and Ivadora(1/10H) - Heart’s Ease

The entire corps of the Knights Tenebrae are gathered in a prison rec yard - once part of the residential area of the most feared prison in the universe, now converted to a drill field.

“Pass... in Review!” The commander yells the order across the field to his subordinate officers. Each headquarters element marches in front of their unit

Adjustments made to their design have turned them into a disciplined fighting force

“Eyes… Right!”

The Mantises in front of the line turn their head to face VOTH and Ivadora while marching.

One of the columns on the far side of the formation, still standing and waiting their turn to move, has a Mantis collapse. Weak knees, or perhaps some sensitivity to the bright sun? Neither of you can tell before the other Mantises pick up their fallen comrade and move them to the back of the formation.

OOC: Ivadora’s first two adjustments have been made. The Knights Tenebrae have organized themselves in a tight-knit fighting force. However, other beings may not see them as such. They do not inspire fear.

-----------

Cat(0/10H) - The Den Of Doors

Cat is ready. Resolute. He walks up to the doorknob, stands upon his two feet, and bats it. It makes a hollow metal noise. He bats it again. Another hollow sound. Again. Less hollow. More batting. The doorknob has a song, a sound. A rotting melody that Cat pieces together swipe by swipe. He can almost understand the song well enough to get it all the way open...but then it changes. So many subtle little changes. It’s always just out of reach of being complete. Otherpasser chuckles from his fur.

The sound makes him realize - there’s only one way. Through it. He shoves himself through the enlarged, but not quite large enough keyhole - into an antechamber of doors and keys and locks. There’s wet laughter above.

“WHERE ARE YOUR LUNGS, JACKASS? I THOUGHT YOU WERE FULL OF HOT AIR?”

And then he feels it above him, around him. Rushing air. The release of tension. A dozen diseases swarm his location. Well, his former location. He’s sitting on another platform, licking himself off, when they strike.

-----------


The Den of Doors is a powerful thing, radiating energy that none of you have felt before except when traveling to the farthest edges of space: the energy of creation and conversion. It is not pure, having already seeded itself with patterns. It is a Sacred Place, and it echoes the Domains of Lock, Key and Secrets.

Summary:

Buildings: Every building that had an action has been completed

Hubris: Cat is at 0 Hubris

The Den of Doors is not connected anywhere on the map. Cat may still communicate with others in an attempt to find a way there or out.

Map to be added tomorrow, sorry for the inconvenience

Fa, Siderous and Cat sections completed by Complexity of Light

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