[you get one embed the whole thread because i'm not strong enough i'm just not. it's pixel shu unless i say it's not pixel shu
anyway pixel shu is at this lovely lil venue, having a sip of his water in his fancy lil cup. and then he will do this very annoying, very rude thing when nodd wanders by whether to refill his drink or otherwise
and that is stick his leg out at the last second when he walks by to trip him. sae i'm so sorry]
[ hey shu, you're looking blurry aga--nodd has been drinking digital alcohol!!! he does not have his supernatural monk speed!! he is but a half-elf, doing his best to figure out who won the person auctions. he trips.
i rolled a 9. high dex stops him from eating absolute shit, but wow definitely major stumble action. turns around! ]
[and pixel shu's appearance glitches - to one of a very dead man. scien brofiise makes unrepentant eye contact with his multicolored eyes, though his throat has scarred over where his reliver tattoo was.]
[ not even trying to find scien because why would he? this guy spoke to him all of once and left the really solid impression that they shouldn't do that again. huffpuff! what was that look?
anyway, it's later. nodd has showered. looks less like he was almost fused to a chair or something wild like that. perhaps heading to the foodcourt for evening munchies. and then the not quite meetcute crossing of paths occurs. ]
[scien has been back two days and in those days, he first lost an arm and then he regained one. that's right! somehow scien already had both arms back! that much is probably obvious from how he's walking around (somewhere. anywhere. void.) messing with the IRIS with one hand and eating a piece of bread with the other.
but that's not the only thing. nearly two months ago, one might remember that scien's emotions were... not quite right the last time people could share feelings. echoes of what they should be. never that strong. more like small little bumps rather than the highs and lows of true feeling. that's what it meant to be a reliver.
they're getting trapped in a void - ugh memshare! gimme!! - but there is also one very, very immediate feeling in its strongest form: annoyance.
. . . but that's still a real emotion, isn't it? (anyway gimme a memshare or tell me you want one mwah)]
[ feelings! so very inconvenient. here, have some more.
you stand on the ornate stage of an opera house, scaled down to fit within the confines of the ambassador's expansive manor. no balcony seating, but plenty of rows to accommodate the show's current audience. it's a full house tonight.
an older woman gracefully dances overhead, wrapped in floating sphere of fire. sain and corryn, your companions, stand beneath. corryn must be figuring out the right spell for their situation. sain can only stare at his mother twirling in the flames above.
you need to deal with the other problem.
there's a monster, a mass of black ooze with mannequin limbs poking out at upsetting angles, machinery jammed into the ichor as if it were once a mechanism that had burst apart.
you hurl yourself full-body at the abomination. speed is what you have, speed and keys are what you depend on. you deliver a flurry of blows (hehe) to the monster from one side and then the next. beating it incessantly until the creature sputters and collapses.
corryn casts moonbridge--creates a tangible band of pure light that lets sain ascend and approach the flaming orb. sain shouts, "Mother!"
the dancing woman faints and her son catches her.
another spell from corryn manifests radiant light that pierces the monster hobbled by your blows. good kid. always thinking.
you thrust your full arm into the creature and wrench out a still-beating molten core heart.
something jagged pierces your palm when you crush the heart, so you drop the core back onto the bloated contraption-corpse. a mouth appears, swimming within the gore--just long enough to say:
"Killing me only freed me from her service. Now you have to deal with her yourselves."
the spotlights swing back into the seats. the audience is comprise of mannequins wearing human skin suits, clothes sewn on.
in the very back, behind the last row, scarlet, the tiefling child, stands where you left her. you saved her life two rounds ago. supposedly. less certain of that when the kid splits apart.
what seemed so well constructed a moment ago, a perfect little girl, erupts and reshapes. wider, wider, a form that threatens to tear through the theater's ceiling. great taloned feet crush the puppet audience as the massive figure rushes the stage. when it scrambles upward, you leap backwards to avoid being crushed.
it's a red dragon. a big, scary dragon with scales over a foot in length and eyeballs taller than you are.
"And now I have the Othūn and the tapestry," says scarlet-now-a-dragon. (her real name is letta the puppetmaster, you'll realize later.)
so, what can you do? you raise your voice, you shout, "I promised I'd play with you after the show!"
and she hesitates, the brat. "You'll keep your promise?"
"Of course. You just have to let those three leave."
sain and corryn protest. they don't want this. they've both lost so much, not that guy they've been tolerating, too! but you know this is the only way anyone gets out alive. it was a quick calculation. an adult dragon versus three low-levels and a knocked out npc.
"You can go after them once you're done with me. If they can escape the manor before you finish, you leave them alone for now. How about it?"
to quiet the kids, you add on: "Sain, you have what you came for. You need to go."
they do, corryn lingering at the end, staring at you with fully black eyes before turning to race out after sain and his unconscious mother.
you turn back to letta.
the second part of this boss battle is short. you survive several rounds through sheer speed, leaping off the stage and running along the backs of the theater seats. (okay, once, you scrambles over a corpse-mannequin. bad squishy.)
you don't attack letta. you're here to buy time.
when she hits you, you sail, smack hard into a weight-bearing pillar--so hard it leaves a crack in the marble. lots of cracks in you. before you can stand, she grasps you between her talons and tosses you back to the stage. the wood splinters beneath you. ow.
letta takes her time following. you have a moment to rise to your feet.
it's only been a few minutes but that will have to be enough. you're a monk, not a cleric, not a priest, not a saint, and you don't care about the gods and you've never had their favor. when you clasp your hands and stare letta down, you reach out to the hearth mother because she owes sain, not you.
Get them out. after everything, let this be enough. it's a final, defiant demand.
here is your death. what you have earned. what you avoided yet longed for.
letta lowers her jaw. the fire that engulfs you is white-hot. you surrender.
then scien may be free from memrift. haveth your bread. nodd's ears droop. ]
scien's emotions, now repaired to feel normal and come through crystal clear, only has a sense of understanding. there is still this strong, underlying pulse of irritation the whole way through that he's watching something of nodd's... but otherwise he watches like a distant audience member. though the agitation spikes again at the clasped hands before a dragon—the emotional equivalent of an eyeroll.
[ the memory fades and falls apart. two (possibly) dead (kind of) men, standing in a random corridor together.
nodd's expression appears briefly stricken, feeling the remnants of scien's sacrifice heavy in his own chest. then, willfully, he changes to disgust. disgruntlement. ]
It's great how neither of us asked.
[ fuck offfff, parasite??? nanites??? cem??? science is evil ]
[ nodd had been scratched up but also patched up and he now sits in the rec center definitely zoning out. some pcs have occurred prior to this and some haven't. woooo, spooky. ]
[ sweet dana he is ALLOWED TO LEAVE please nodd is not friend-shaped that is acceptable (but also what if he didn't?) ]
No. I don't think it's something that can be fixed.
[ hums ]
I get it, you know. Why you don't like me. You think I don't try. That I give up too quick. When, to me, I've tried so many times in my life I've got good at determining when nothing I do will matter. You don't like when someone falls into the flow and I'm a favorite of the undertow. Does that sound right?
[NOOOOOOO I WANT MY SAE THREADS STAPLES SCIEN HERE
but also he's listening and there is no emotionshare but there is a ? feeling]
No.
I don't like most people. [he also doesn't like most people. about 80% of people fall in a 'true neutral' kind of range]
My irritation with you is that you were disrespectful and ignored the will of others in your own emotional rampage. Normally I wouldn't care, but you had a few bad targets.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
week 4, post-mini event
anyway pixel shu is at this lovely lil venue, having a sip of his water in his fancy lil cup. and then he will do this very annoying, very rude thing when nodd wanders by whether to refill his drink or otherwise
and that is stick his leg out at the last second when he walks by to trip him. sae i'm so sorry]
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i rolled a 9. high dex stops him from eating absolute shit, but wow definitely major stumble action. turns around! ]
Heeey!
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so he'll just repeat in a monotonous drone:]
"Heeey"?
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[ he wasn't doing nothing!!! abuse!! ]
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[and pixel shu's appearance glitches - to one of a very dead man. scien brofiise makes unrepentant eye contact with his multicolored eyes, though his throat has scarred over where his reliver tattoo was.]
Even I can't help from being petty now and again.
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Oh. Oh. It's you.
[ name on the tip of his tongue. ]
Why are you annoyed at me?
[ a sense of get in line ]
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[scien was going to leave the line be but then he got to see the living and then jumped right on in]
He's fine, by the way.
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week 6 ; saturday
anyway, it's later. nodd has showered. looks less like he was almost fused to a chair or something wild like that. perhaps heading to the foodcourt for evening munchies. and then the
not quite meetcutecrossing of paths occurs. ]no subject
One of the abductions that people get whisked away on reflected what I assume to be your memories.
[just seems fair for nodd to know!!]
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[ ......definitely the face of a man who was bracing himself to get yelled at. ]
What--uh. Part? The Spires?
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.... school?
You faked your death.
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Sir Friendmore's.
[ grumble ]
Was it just you?
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The dead wizard.
Those two were also there.
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and dead wizard is nero, right? not bradley. bradley lived. ]
Great.
[ frowns, although not at scien specifically. in general. ]
Well. None of that--I'm not ashamed of it. Or hiding it. That was all a long time ago for me.
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week 7, monday
but that's not the only thing. nearly two months ago, one might remember that scien's emotions were... not quite right the last time people could share feelings. echoes of what they should be. never that strong. more like small little bumps rather than the highs and lows of true feeling. that's what it meant to be a reliver.
they're getting trapped in a void - ugh memshare! gimme!! - but there is also one very, very immediate feeling in its strongest form: annoyance.
. . . but that's still a real emotion, isn't it? (anyway gimme a memshare or tell me you want one mwah)]
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you stand on the ornate stage of an opera house, scaled down to fit within the confines of the ambassador's expansive manor. no balcony seating, but plenty of rows to accommodate the show's current audience. it's a full house tonight.
an older woman gracefully dances overhead, wrapped in floating sphere of fire. sain and corryn, your companions, stand beneath. corryn must be figuring out the right spell for their situation. sain can only stare at his mother twirling in the flames above.
you need to deal with the other problem.
there's a monster, a mass of black ooze with mannequin limbs poking out at upsetting angles, machinery jammed into the ichor as if it were once a mechanism that had burst apart.
you hurl yourself full-body at the abomination. speed is what you have, speed and keys are what you depend on. you deliver a flurry of blows (hehe) to the monster from one side and then the next. beating it incessantly until the creature sputters and collapses.
corryn casts moonbridge--creates a tangible band of pure light that lets sain ascend and approach the flaming orb. sain shouts, "Mother!"
the dancing woman faints and her son catches her.
another spell from corryn manifests radiant light that pierces the monster hobbled by your blows. good kid. always thinking.
you thrust your full arm into the creature and wrench out a still-beating molten core heart.
something jagged pierces your palm when you crush the heart, so you drop the core back onto the bloated contraption-corpse. a mouth appears, swimming within the gore--just long enough to say:
"Killing me only freed me from her service. Now you have to deal with her yourselves."
the spotlights swing back into the seats. the audience is comprise of mannequins wearing human skin suits, clothes sewn on.
in the very back, behind the last row, scarlet, the tiefling child, stands where you left her. you saved her life two rounds ago. supposedly. less certain of that when the kid splits apart.
what seemed so well constructed a moment ago, a perfect little girl, erupts and reshapes. wider, wider, a form that threatens to tear through the theater's ceiling. great taloned feet crush the puppet audience as the massive figure rushes the stage. when it scrambles upward, you leap backwards to avoid being crushed.
it's a red dragon. a big, scary dragon with scales over a foot in length and eyeballs taller than you are.
"And now I have the Othūn and the tapestry," says scarlet-now-a-dragon. (her real name is letta the puppetmaster, you'll realize later.)
so, what can you do? you raise your voice, you shout, "I promised I'd play with you after the show!"
and she hesitates, the brat. "You'll keep your promise?"
"Of course. You just have to let those three leave."
sain and corryn protest. they don't want this. they've both lost so much, not that guy they've been tolerating, too! but you know this is the only way anyone gets out alive. it was a quick calculation. an adult dragon versus three low-levels and a knocked out npc.
"You can go after them once you're done with me. If they can escape the manor before you finish, you leave them alone for now. How about it?"
to quiet the kids, you add on: "Sain, you have what you came for. You need to go."
they do, corryn lingering at the end, staring at you with fully black eyes before turning to race out after sain and his unconscious mother.
you turn back to letta.
the second part of this boss battle is short. you survive several rounds through sheer speed, leaping off the stage and running along the backs of the theater seats. (okay, once, you scrambles over a corpse-mannequin. bad squishy.)
you don't attack letta. you're here to buy time.
when she hits you, you sail, smack hard into a weight-bearing pillar--so hard it leaves a crack in the marble. lots of cracks in you. before you can stand, she grasps you between her talons and tosses you back to the stage. the wood splinters beneath you. ow.
letta takes her time following. you have a moment to rise to your feet.
it's only been a few minutes but that will have to be enough. you're a monk, not a cleric, not a priest, not a saint, and you don't care about the gods and you've never had their favor. when you clasp your hands and stare letta down, you reach out to the hearth mother because she owes sain, not you.
Get them out. after everything, let this be enough. it's a final, defiant demand.
here is your death. what you have earned. what you avoided yet longed for.
letta lowers her jaw. the fire that engulfs you is white-hot. you surrender.
then scien may be free from memrift. haveth your bread. nodd's ears droop. ]
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scien's emotions, now repaired to feel normal and come through crystal clear, only has a sense of understanding. there is still this strong, underlying pulse of irritation the whole way through that he's watching something of nodd's... but otherwise he watches like a distant audience member. though the agitation spikes again at the clasped hands before a dragon—the emotional equivalent of an eyeroll.
memtrade!
"Bread is the main food I eat."]
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nodd's expression appears briefly stricken, feeling the remnants of scien's sacrifice heavy in his own chest. then, willfully, he changes to disgust. disgruntlement. ]
It's great how neither of us asked.
[ fuck offfff, parasite??? nanites??? cem??? science is evil ]
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It's nothing I care to hide.
[his past is his past]
week 7 ; saturday
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scien is probably just in here looking for someone else but he pauses when he sees nodd just absolutely zonking out,]
... you didn't take too many drugs, did you.
[as one of the few medically trained people on board that isn't just a magic person he has to ask,]
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no disgust or discomfort this time. scien is fine. humanized by certain public activities. ]
Yes, but also no, that's not the problem. My tolerance is back to normal with powers returned--it's not an issue.
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but,]
What is your problem. Is it medical.
[if it's not scien is thinking of leaving but i will find a way to keep him here so help me]
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No. I don't think it's something that can be fixed.
[ hums ]
I get it, you know. Why you don't like me. You think I don't try. That I give up too quick. When, to me, I've tried so many times in my life I've got good at determining when nothing I do will matter. You don't like when someone falls into the flow and I'm a favorite of the undertow. Does that sound right?
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but also he's listening and there is no emotionshare but there is a ? feeling]
No.
I don't like most people. [he also doesn't like most people. about 80% of people fall in a 'true neutral' kind of range]
My irritation with you is that you were disrespectful and ignored the will of others in your own emotional rampage. Normally I wouldn't care, but you had a few bad targets.
[people that scien was even slightly fond of]
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