Louise in Space: Mirror Thread

[nick012000]

[X] Explore the world of Simulspace
-[X] Watch anime
-[X] Write up the stories of your people, and send them off to the ROBists
[X] Charcoal Tower Tutorials (Engineering and Machinery) [I assume that this option already includes the benefits of simulspace time dilation]
[X] More maintenance shifts
[X] Stalk your mesh contacts (Teenagers)

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Discussions with Erika

The location of Erika's lab was publically available on the mesh. Surprisngly, it wasn't in the secure zone. Upon further investigation, you discover that 40 @-rep minimum is required to apply for one of those laboratories. The list of applicants isn't public, handled by some kind of AI. The only non-security or non-research personnel allowed in need to be cleared by somebody already working in one of the labs. Any additions an individual makes are documented, and research groups in the secure labs are expected to blog about their work weekly.

Curious about how Lihua was justifying your periodic visits, you find out she's been writing about the lot of you as a focus group for a version of the seeker armband without a smartlink system, and the supposed sonic implosion warhead she was developing with it. The ego bridges and splicer morph were justified as a control group, and there's even a video of Lihua testing one of the warheads. It actually made a fairly passable impersonation of one of your explosions. Considering it's only been a few weeks, you were surprised. Was the cognitive boost of a Savant morph really that effective? Or was Lihua actually that good? But that's beside the point. You walk into Erika's lab. It's definitely sized for multiple people, but she's the only one here right now. You see an AR monitor giving you a look into somewhere, and a mishmash of various tanks around the tables protruding from the floor. When you enter, Erika PMs you.

"Hi Louise? What's up?" She says aloud.

"The Spimes in here don't record audio, but any of our watchers may be able to read lips. While we're in here, we should keep the AI discussion to PM's only. Going to come out to play Anne?"

Anne's AR avatar flickers into existence.

"I suppose. Something you wanted to ask me?"

"A bit later, but yep. Wanted to get a sense of the mental affects of the Familiar Bond. People convince forks of themselves to be muses sometimes, or infomorphs, but trying to keep them there when they wouldn't want to, psychosurgically or otherwise? Unforgivable for Alpha Forks, though you may be able to justify it with a Beta or Delta."

"Inclination isn't the same as compulsion. Like I said to Louise, I am almost as valuable a scientific curiosity as she is. Operating as her muse seems like the most rational way to keep my existence secret, regardless of any inclinations I may have."

The sudden transition and conversation is jarring before you school your face back into something less incriminating, "How... I'm doing well thank you" before replying to the PM, "Thank you for the warning. If you don't mind my asking though, how do you do two conversations like that?"

"Aldrick made this look easy, even before he got the Ghost morph. We make a game of it sometimes. Too much delay in a conversation or letting one leak into the other and you lose~."

"While you're here, what do you think of the current version of the seeker system?." Erika asks you. "To start things off with, I want to talk about the laws involving familiars. Yesterday, you said that the familiar is not considered its own being legally, but an extension of the mage. Can you explain that?"

You nod, "It's still making too many assumptions. Transferring the mesh interface onto a screen wasn't the best idea." A couple seconds later, you manage to get a PM reply out. "Legally, the creature, hereby known as the The Familiar, is considered in the sight of Crown and Founder an extension of the summoner, hereby known as The Mage. All that The Familiar does will be considered an action taken by The Mage, with all the penalties and rewards it implies. Thusly, The Mage is bound in sight of Crown and Founder to care for and train The Familiar and maintain it as The Mage would part of their own body." You quote from a legal text, "To neglect and bring harm to The Familiar will be punished most severely as blasphemy to Founder and a crime most heinous in the eyes of The Crown."

"But what about letting them make their own lives after the uplift? Hasn't there been anything done like that?" Erika replied as the physical conversation started to become background noise, you had some practice multitasking during your studies, this was no different as she continued, "And why consider them an extension of the mage who summoned them?"


"It comes down to the Bond created. This is not some simple act of binding into servitude, nor would I call it uplifting in the Transhuman sense. This is a life-long bond, many mages consider their familiars closer to them than spouse or lovers. They are a lifelong companion, utterly loyal if cared for which only the most despicable of mages would not do. It would be like abusing or killing your muse. Should the Familiar survive something that kills the Mage, there are cases where the familiar died of grief. I don't know how this applies to Void familiars, but isn't that why we're talking?"

"Doesn't seem like this happened to you Anne, but I've heard about uplifts who have issues thinking hostile or disloyal thoughts towards the ones that uplifted them."

"It's not like I've had a reason to, have I?"

"Maybe not, but this is something that will cause a lot of division over the legal status of a familiar in the Outer System, regardless of what Halkeginia thinks."

You honestly don't see the problem. Care for them, train them if they need it, and keep an eye on them. Treat them as the trusted, lifelong companions that they will be. Sometimes these Transhumans simply have to make things more complicated it seems, never a simple solution.

You purse your lips, appearing to consider a response to a question from Erika, "I know that as an Anarchist you believe in self-determination and freedom, but this is a tradition that is the cornerstone of Halkegenian society and has lasted for thousands of years. Halkegenia is an alien society, you cannot apply Transhuman sensibilities to it and expect any chance of success. How can a society based on equality work when the people are not equal? Like you said, some people make exceptions for Beta or Delta Forks."

"How very Ultimate of you, Louise. Even with that, there are limits." Erika quips, and you wonder if the suspicion coming from suddenly making an indignant 'hmph' would be worth the catharsis.

"You adapted pretty well, and you came from there. I mean, apart from that little breakdown you had, you adapted just fine." Erika continued, "I'm sure Halkegenia could adapt as well if we found our way there."

"I also was ignorant of what I could accomplish with my Void Magic and have always struggled for every last shred of respect and acknowledgement. Any other mage would not have reacted so calmly." You retort, "If I had possessed any other elemental affinity, I would have died in the Gate Room in a hail of gunfire after attacking your security forces. If I had arrived with a Familiar and you said to let it run free as its own person? I would have spat in your face for saying something so utterly insulting to me, for asking me to essentially amputate myself. You would have had to be content drawing the secrets of magic from my corpse."

"You really would have done something like that?" Erika asks curiously, "I'm not doubting you, but it seems a bit...extreme."

You nod, "If you forced me to release the Familiar, I would have placed my wand to my chin and blasted my head off. I would not have wanted to live after being deprived of a life-long companion. Less so, if it was recently summoned."

"But that's insane!" Erika snaps in shock in her reply. Anne is also staring at you wide-eyed at your statement.

"No more insane than a teenage girl casting magic." You reply somberly, "Bloodline, tradition and faith. These are the three gates that bar your way to getting Halkegania to accept you in any meaningful capacity."


"It'd be just like Luna then. Or maybe Jupiter. I had two ideas for experiments we could do. Nothing invasive Anne, don't worry. I've gotten ahold of a version of the Applied Sapience Test from one of the Argonaut Repositories. We'd be able to figure out just how much effect the Familiar Bond has using that as a Benchmark, and then I've got an idea for testing for hidden triggers you and Louise may not have considered. It would be difficult to set up before we go public, but what's your opinion on sending an Alpha or Beta Fork of you into one of the major simulspaces here, and seeing how they react?"

"Wouldn't merging be a problem? And wouldn't the data be more reliable if I went directly? And then there's the fact Louise might be going around museless." Anne asks Erika

"So use a backup. Who says merging is necessary? And that's exactly why I'm curious. Doing something like that may help expose any triggers detrimental to free will in the Familiar Bond." Erika replies.

The Applied Sapience Test is something some humans aren't capable of passing. But it ended up confirming everybody's suspicions. Anne qualifies as an AGI. The test's projections revealed that Anne's chances of becoming a Seed AI were low enough to be measured in Scientific Notation. Well within acceptable boundaries.

"Think about my idea, ok Anne?" Erika PMs you as you leave.

Reaction Shot?:

[X]Yes(Write in)
[X]No(Just move on to the rest of the vote)

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Simulspace

Erika had some... interesting points. Though you weren't exactly sure what she meant when she mentioned hidden triggers, you presumed it had something to do with psychosurgery.

It's certainly an efficient means of punishment, but the sheer violation inherent to the idea... even with the worst criminals you wonder if it's descending to their level. Not all crime is a mental illness, and how can psychosurgery in some closed off room possibly have the same deterrent value as a public execution?

Giving an exasperated mental shrug at the implications of the conversation you just had, you can't help but latch onto the one innocous idea that got brought up. Simulspaces. Erika's talked about them, Anne's talked about them, you're getting curious about just what all the fuss is about.

"Anne, how do I find a Simulspace?"


"You'd get the best connection in a VR Parlor, but pod time get's allocated in one hour increments, on a first come first serve basis in the parlors here. It'll be 60 hours once you're inside though."

An hour stretched into two and a half days? When you read about it, it all seemed like an elaborate joke, even with transhuman levels of technology. You'd have to see it to believe it.

"Should I book you a place in line~" Anne asks you.

"How long would I be waiting?"

"The VR parlor's current projected wait time is 5 hours."

"Then can I do it without going to a VR Parlor?" You ask exasperatedly.

"Of course, just head back to your room. You'll need to strap yourself in first so you don't thrash around."


"I'll take my chances with that then."

You're starting to get a headache, wondering if it would have been better to have actually summoned something. You get a mental image of summoning some perverted idiot from a version of Earth where The Fall didn't happen for some reason. It could be worse, you suppose.

After strapping yourself to your bed moreso than usual to account for thrashing and microgravity, Anne opens a simulspace browser, sorting the simulspaces by popularity. You start reading the deluge of descriptions for firing ranges and other strange places used by very few people before you decide to just pick one of the four most popular simulspaces and be done with it.

"You had the perfect optimization scheme. You would have ascended to godhood if it worked. The problem was that you weren't the only one with the idea. A certain kobold already did it, and he's in no mood for competition. So he decided to punish people like you by taking your power and forcing you to remake yourself anew, leaving you a pale shadow of the glory that was your former self. Then he decided to punish you further by sealing you in a plane with people who tried to do the same thing you did. Based on one of the most exploited tabletop gaming systems in recorded history, you can finally put your optimization flamewars to rest in Munchkin: The Simulspace."

"It's a fantasy setting. Almost like Halkeginia. But there are at least 6 different magic systems." Anne says with a hint of suggestion.

At least 6? Why not make it complete, and make everyone derive magic from first principles, let them make their system from scratch. Still, you are curious if any of them make the slightest degree of sense.

"They said you were mad, but you'll show them all. Build your weapons. Overwhelm your enemies in Steampunk Empires."

"You're a mad scientist building weapons and making creatures to fight other mad scientists doing the same thing." Anne comments, expanding on the blurb.

"Set on a version of prefall earth where magic was lost and rediscovered, Shadowrun lets you live the world of corporate shadow warfare, from the view of one of their deniable frontline assets."

"Most Outer Systemites think the inner system is something like that. Whether or not it actually is is... arguable. I'm sure most of the Inner system sees us as a postapocalyptic wasteland full of lunatics." Anne snarks.

A colony ship was sent to the stars, where it crashed on an inhospitable alien planet full of mystery. Now divided between warring city-states, Heavy Metal Korps puts you in the pilot seat of a Heavy Korp battlesuit, a machine created from modified worker mechs and armed with advanced weaponry, as a mercenary seeking your fortune in a world filled with danger, intrigue, mysteries and lots of big robots.


"Most players are mercenaries drifting between city-states run by other players, typically piloting a large mechanised walker called a Heavy Korp that is designed to be highly customisable with a wide array of interchangeable parts and an equally large array of weapons to suit your playing style. Most players band together into mercenary groups or join another player's faction, and if you're good you can even run your own small faction or group."

"I'll notify you when it's been 3 hours outside if you haven't logged out by then. You aren't an infomorph after all." Anne reminds you.

The simulspace you try is:

[X]Munchkin(Pseudo DND 3.5)
[X]Shadowrun
[X]Heavy Metal Korps(Deserts and Giant Robots)
[X]Steampunk Empires(Girl Genius/Genius the Transgression knockoff setting, essentially EVE with mad scientists)

 

[nick012000]

[X] Munchkin

 

[nick012000]

New update on SB.
[X] Pornomancer. Because watching Louise react to suddenly having god-like social skills will be hilarious.

Also, you might want to suggest technomancy to the guys who are suggesting things like becoming a mage-hacker or mage-rigger. Even if their innate programs suck donkey balls, if you've got a good cyberdeck

Also, a suggestion for our Muse's character (the output for my Character Generator's HTML, unfortunately, so you'll need to copy-paste and save it to see it properly):
[X] AI, mounted on a server mounted on a motorcycle.
The rules for AIs are in the Runner's Companion, and she uses a bunch of rules from Arsenal and Unwired as well; since my Character Generator only covered the core, I had to enter each new piece of gear seperately, back when I made the sheet, and I eventually figured "fuck this" and bought multiple copies of same-priced software from the splatbooks. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out, though.

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

I hadn't gotten to posting this here yet, here's the update you mentioned finally.


[X]Chargen

"All right, I've made my decision." You scroll back to Shadowrun, "Let's see what this one is all about." The moment you select it, the world shifts and you suddenly find yourself in a white space, "Ah! What is..." Anne appears next to you, "Anne!"

"Calm down Louise, it's just the secure white space used before entering the game for players to generate a character. This is a game after all, and players need a character in order to enter." She explains soothingly as you calm down from the shock of suddenly appearing in this...place.

"So I'm in the simulspace already...okay, I can understand that. A little jarring though." You shake your head before flinching and staring at Anne who had stepped over and taken your hand, "Wha...?" You don't get to say anything more before you are swept up into a hug with your Familiar. Strange...she feels...warm. You allow yourself to relax slightly and enjoy the sensation, before your curiosity forces you to gently push her away, "While that was pleasant, how did you...?" You trail off meaningfully and Anne smiles.

"An example of the way virtual reality interacts with the mind. In here, I am as substantial as you are. It'll be the same in the game as well; you can feel the weight of a gun, the sensation of clothing, and while muted somewhat you can still feel pain in a fight." She grins at your skeptical expression, "Transhumanity tends to take immersion seriously, some of the smaller simulspaces use lower pain absorber settings or don't bother at all."

You shake your head, "Crazy, they're all crazy..." You mutter as Anne giggles, before focusing on the task at hand, "So how I do 'create' my character for this game?" You ask before shrieking as a window pops up in front of you.

"Welcome to Shadowrun!" A cheerful voice asks as you struggle to get your pounding heart under control. Founder damn these Transhumans and their machinery to the pits of the Yggdrasil, did it have to pop up out of nowhere? You glare at Anne while she simply collapses to the floor laughing at your reaction.

You take a deep breath and manage to listen as the window shifted and in bold letters declaring 'CHARACTER CREATION' the voice began speaking again.

"In Shadowrun you play a deniable asset known as a Shadowrunner, a mercenary for hire employed by anyone with the money to pay you to enact various criminal acts in a society filled with pervasive surveillance where high-tech weaponry and ancient magic exist side-by-side. To start with, let's choose your race."

A picture of several beings appear and you read through them.

The Elf you reject without even a second thought. You shan't sully your soul by even pretending to live as an Anathema.
The Dwarf simply brings up the teasing you received about your height despite it being fairly respectable for your age, so you reject it.
The Orc might be interesting to try, as does the Troll, but perhaps another time.
The final choice is a Human and you select it by tapping the image on the window.

"Okay, you've selected the Human, now we need to decide on your archetype. Shadowrun has several preset character archetypes to play as, or you can experiment by distributing skill points in a number of skills."

Anne smiles as she looks off into the distance briefly, "Hmm, The domain rules recognize me as an AGI. I can play the game with you."

Seeing the look of concern on your face, Anne clarifies.

"There are cases where people have convinced AGI's to be their muses, it's nothing to be concerned about. I'll figure out my character based on whatever you go with." Anne adds as you nod, thankful that you won't be going into this alone.

There's several choices and you look them over:

[X]Mage: It seems the most in line with your life, a safe option then, even with the likely differences in magic systems.
[X]Physical Adept: It appears to be someone skilled in swords and fisticuffs. A magical warrior like a Chevalier then.
[X]Shaman: Someone who entreats with spirits? While there might be some useful information gleaned from the system, you doubt that it will be suitable to your tastes.
[X]Street Samurai: A warrior who uses a mix of weaponry and enhances their skill with cybernetics. Perhaps it will allow you to get comfortable with modifying your own body.
[X]Decker: While your own experiences with Transhuman computers have been...simplistic, you might gain something useful out of this, and remain safe and out of combat with Anne to protect you.
[X]Rigger: Ah, you can control machines like pseudo-Familiars! This does look attractive.
[X]Custom Character (Write In a Custom Archetype.): Hmm, all those are interesting, but you have something better in mind.

GM Sez: If you know how to make a Shadowrun Character, then show me what you can do with 400 BP. If you don't know, then just suggest and vote for a Write-In Archetype. Like a Magical Rigger or a Technomancer Swordsman.

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Start New Game

Your first impulse is to go for an augmented mage. Something with dignity befitting a Noble.

"Wait!" Anne tells you as you buy a Titanium laced Skeleton, Reaction Enhancers, and Cybernetic Eyes and Ears after you took the Mage archetype.

Why is your magic stat going down?

"You noticed it too right? Look at the tooltip for essence." Anne tells you.

You were wondering why that was going down. Hold on. Augmentations reduce your spellcasting ability because they trick the soul into thinking the body is dead? You've used magic in an augmented body, and you didn't feel diminished at all.

"I did a quick bit of research. The rules for this game were written long before resleeving or augmentation became practical, and I don't think any of the writers would have expected the world to turn out like this. So they prevented people from being everything at once using essence penalties to preserve game balance."

Without actual magic to use as a guideline, people would believe in any internally consistent magic system. That talk you had with the gatecrashers in quarantine was proof enough of that.

"Forget it then, I'll make my own." You mutter to yourself. Even for criminals and mercenaries, none of the archetypes had the dignity you expected anyway.

It was a hard debate between magician or adept, but in the end, your couldn't help but be curious about the concept of using magic internally. By the time you finished character creation, you had an Adept with respectable social skills and augmentations, giving you more options when it came to dealing with NPCs in conversation. After Anne prepares a Rigger build spending money on drones and a van, you get a choice of lifestyle zones to start in. You pick medium, in spite of low having no upkeep costs, when a window pops up.

"Warning: Runners making runs in medium lifestyle and higher zones are likely to run into more competent adversaries. Lone Star assets will be faster to respond, and their skill level may overwhelm inexperienced players. Continue?"

"Most players pick Low Lifestyle anyway since they're mostly casual players. Only the really dedicated players or infomorphs live here 24/7, and it frees up money to get more gear and not have to worry about rent."

You decide to withhold your comment on perhaps wanting to start at Medium. After all, you did fine on one of the mesh games you tried briefly on that difficulty.(OOC: This detail is incidental, and should not be taken as meaning an Omake happened canonically) Even so, you revise your build and purchase more gear before selecting Low Lifestyle.

When you finish, you blink as the white safety area suddenly drops away and with a sound like a strong wind, your perspective is filled with a bright light.

You blink again, ears registering a harsh buzzing sound, and sit up to look around, before immediately recoiling, "Ack!" It seems your starting point is in a rather...you have no polite words, this bedroom is a hovel that you doubt even the poorest Commoner would suffer to live in as you look around the rat-eaten room and take in the details, and with a crinkle of your noise also take in the smells.

"I knew we should have gone for medium," You mutter to nobody in particular.

Packets and boxes of some cheap foodstuff are piled in a corner alongside some rather flourishing mould, while virtual cockroaches brazenly skitter up the wall and into cracks as you rise off the thin, barely serviceable mattress lying on a basic metal bed frame. A glance at yourself tells you you're wearing the Actioneer Business Clothes you purchased at chargen. Considering the low quality mattress.

"Gya!" You leap off the bed to keep any more dirt from getting on your clothes.

When you calm down, you realize you've got an Ares Predator in your jacket holster, and you have an identical pistol, a tazer, and a commlink on the nightstand.

When you clip the commlink onto your belt and put on the AR Glasses/Earbuds/Gloves, it boots up and you watch as AR now appears in your field of view, displaying a medical monitor and the status of your weapons, "Interesting." You open the door and walk out into the apartment proper.

"Louise, over here." You look over and spot Anne standing in the rather rundown kitchen, her green haired simulmorph wearing a black version of the armored jumpsuit you saw in the gear listings.

"Did you get the quest yet?" Anne asks you

"Is it another one of those windows that pop out of nowhere?" You ask slightly exasperatedly.

"Pretty much. I forsee you getting it in 3... 2... 1... 0... -1... -2...." Anne goes on amusedly with her backfired attempt at mirth.

"It's in the comlink menu right? I'll find it." You suppress the urge to shriek again, shivering from the action, as a window appears in your field of view.

"Welcome to your Safehouse in the Redmond Barrens, a slum on the outskirts of the Seattle Metroplex. Your Comm-Link acts your access to the game menu, allowing you to quit the game, switch to your alternate runner, and check on your current quests, challenges and bounty targets. It can also send emails to any player whose Comm-Link code you know or have acquired." You glance at your Comm-Link, which glows as you do.

The window continued, "Situated on the desk behind you is your vid-phone and home computer. The Vid-Phone is used to contact players and unlocked NPC contacts using in-game phone numbers that they provide you or you acquire in the course of play, whether its to meet for a chat, organise a shadowrun, or perhaps taunt them over an accomplishment, this is how you contact them." You turn to the desk and you see a large bulky device glow, indicating it's identity as the Vid-Phone as you continued listening, "Your home computer provide in-game news about potential quest opportunities and a link to the Shadow Kills bounty board, allowing Player Versus Player combat with large in-game cash rewards and the chance to loot your target's body for their gear. Be careful, depending on how well or how badly you play, you could end up on here, or you can put up a bounty on another player. Not only that, NPC factions in the game will post bounties as well, offering cash and rare equipment and weapons as rewards."

You turn away from the desk and look around the apartment as the window continued, "You are now ready to go out into Seattle and take a chance in the streets of Seattle. But if you feel you need a way to get used to the game, would you like to start a practice run?"

"Yes, please." You reply and the window vanishes, before your Comm-Link beeps and you check it with your AR-Glasses.

There you find a single update to the Quest tab and open it to see an Active Quest marked 'Milk Run', and you start to read the description.

You've been laying low in this place for a few months, but now the fridge is empty and you don't want to impose on the kindly Mrs. Yu for another free meal. Time to go do some shopping.

You read the Quest Objectives.

Go down to Stop-O-Mart and buy some food.

"Was this what you were talking about Anne?"

"Presuming you just accepted the Milk Run run, then yes. We've got a van in the instanced garage, and we should be able to handle whatever the complication is just fine with our current equipment." Anne says, a hint of her previous mirth continuing in the redundant usage of the word run before it fades. "Let's work our loadout out first, we've only got an inventory function inside safehouses, instanced or otherwise."

"Instanced?" You ask Anne.

"Something only possible in digital worlds. Everyone can go through a door and get their own version of the same location. The free low lifestyle safehouses are instanced, though there are noninstanced ones available for a noticeable upkeep cost. Now, what do you think we should do to deal with the inevitable complication?"

Equipment Information Below----------------------------

Weapons(Louise and Anne have a primary weapon slot, a secondary weapon slot, and a knife slot. Neither of them have the skills for Dual Wielding):

Fichetti Security 600(Pistol(Anne))
2x Survival Knife(Anne and Louise each have 1 equipped)
Uzi IV(SMG(Anne))
Yamaha Pulsar(Taser(Louise))
2x Ares Predator(Pistol(Louise has 1 equipped))


Louise's Known Adept Techniques:

Active -

Commanding Voice(Can briefly disrupt the concentration of NPC's Louise speaks to with a 5 word or less command. They regain their wits shortly after they begin trying to execute it if successful. If successfully used against a hostile shadowrunner, stuns for 2 seconds.)

Enthralling Performance(Con/Fast Talk): Louise can create a distraction by rambling on and on, even capable of effecting Shadowrunners caught in her radius. You know how nobody interrupts the "I learned something today" speech from South Park? It's pretty much like that.

Confidence Man(Can provide a brief buff to an allies stats, enough to improve their chance at succeeding at one task)

Passive -

Kinesics 3(Gain hints from NPC facial expressions. Bonus to reading Shadowrunner facial expressions. Perfect control of simulmorph facial expressions)

Improved Gymnastics 2(When combined with Louise's skill in Gymnastics(Specialization:Tumbling), her dodging potential is in borderline matrix territory.)

Improved Con 3(Bonus to deceiving NPCs)

Improved Negotiation 2(Bonus to negotiating with NPCs)

Improved Leadership 1(Combined with Louise's leadership skill, she can hire 2 NPC Shadowrunners)

Linguistics(Louise Benefits from an Autotranslation bot)

Anne's Drones:

1x Steel Lynx with mounted LMG(Exactly what it sounds like)
2x Lone Star IBall with Flash and Smoke package(Rolling drones with Flashbang and smoke dispenser)
1x MCT Fly-Spy
2x Shiawase Kanmushi(Microscopic crawlers for vent spying and being a fly on a wall)
3x GM Nissan Doberman with attached SMGs(Crawlers)
1x Ferret RPD-1X
1x C-D Dalmatians with attached grenade launcher(Vector Thrust Hoverdrone)

Nuyen: 25,000 combining Louise and Anne's reserves

Contacts:

Fixer(Loyalty 1 Connection 2)
Cyberdoc(Loyalty 2 Connection 2)(Anne got this contact)

Current Armor:

Urban Explorer Jumpsuit(Anne)
Actioneer Business Clothes(Louise)
2 sets Armored Casual Clothing(Unequipped)
1 Urban Explorer Jumpsuit(Unequipped)

Vehicles:

1x GMC Bulldog Step-Van


Grenades(Louise and Anne can each conceal 1)

4x Thermal Smoke
2x Fragmentation
2x Flashbang

------------------------------------------------------Voting Options Below

Louise's Grenade:

[X]Smoke
[X]Frag
[X]Flash
[X]N/A

Switch Armor?:

[X]Urban Explorer Jumpsuit
[X]Armored Casual Clothing
[X]Don't bother

Drones Anne Brings in the Van(Pick 1):

[X]Bring the Lynx in the Van
[X]Bring the Dalmatian in the Van
[X]Bring 2 Doberman and the 2 IBalls in the Van
[X]Bring Some other combination(GM Reserves Veto rights, no large drones.)
[X]Drones shouldn't be necessary here

Anything Else?

[X]Write in

 

[nick012000]

Grenade?
[X] Frag
Switch Armor?
[X] No.
Drones:
[X] Bring the Lynx in the van.
-[X] Have the Dalmation fly along above the van.

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Tonight's Entertainment

With the help of the concealable shoulder holster you purchased at chargen, you manage to conceal your pistol and a flash grenade beneath your jacket. Your taser occupies a location next to your commlink, and you go with the old standby of concealing the spare knife Anne purchased inside one of your boots. Anne retrieves a backpack and is flanked by a pair of mechanical four-legged insects the size of small dogs, both of them with box shaped heads around a single red eye.

"They have retractable sub-machine guns, and they'll be in the instanced garage across the street when we leave the apartment. I've also got two rolling drones that function as a smoke and flash grenade each in this backpack along with another sub-machine gun for emergencies. Riggers seem to be a stay in the van type of character, but you never know."

"How bad can a 'milk run' possibly get?" You ask Anne.

"It could be a Shadowrun just as a convention of the quest system, but I would not presume to assume that. Why else would it be described as a practice opportunity?" Anne comments rhetorically.

After taking a moment to exchange Commlink information, the two of you go down the stairs of the dilapidated apartment building. When the two of you leave, you're surprised by the people appearing out of nowhere around you in brief flashes of blue light, and the vehicles in the distance appearing the same way. They were all using this apartment? You hear some of them talking about what you presume are 'runs' as Anne and you ignore them in favor of the instanced garage. The motor vehicles you're seeing seem archaic compared to what you've seen on the mesh. Considering you hadn't seen any of these carriages in Chat Noir or the facility, the stink of gasoline exhaust is a novel experience compared to the smell of horses or the monorail between Fissure and Chat Noir.

The van Anne had in the garage was large, and the two mechanical insects in the back would have betrayed the clandestine inclinations of the vehicle to anybody who could see inside it. Driving out of the garage, your vehicle was transparent in a surreal sea of transparent vans and other motorized carriages. You got a notification of the safety buffer around the garage. No vehicles are substantial until they've left a certain radius.

"I don't think there's a package for this. Let's hope this works." Anne mutters as the vehicle solidifies around you.

Seattle at night had a unique beauty to it as the two of you drove to the waypoint. All the glass and steel of a neverborn earth led to one of the most beautiful light shows you'd ever experienced. How could someplace so dirty be so beautiful at the same time?

In a way it was like being back at home as the van entered the world properly and immediately was pelted by a downpour of rain.

You could see the towers of Seattle itself in the distance though the driving rain; shining glass illuminated by all manner of lights that seemed to make the city glow like a great beacon, drowning out the stars in the sky with their glow, something that you idly remember reading about called 'light pollution' because you couldn't see the stars because of all the light. But what were the stars but lights themselves?

By contrast the Barrens were like the worst slums from across Halkegania combined, a filthy collection of ruined buildings from another time. Trash and graffiti lined every street, the sharp staccato pops she had now come to associate with distant gunfire managed to ring through the air despite the driving rain. It was a perfect depiction of squalor and lawlessness.

"According to recovered historical videos, Seattle during the days before The Fall appeared similar to this, only with the slums separated by a giant wall." Anne comments as she notices you looking at the city, bringing you out of your study of the simulated environment.

"I've never seen a city like that." You point at Seattle, "It's so beautiful."

Anne nods, "Maybe one day we can go to one of larger habitats like an O'Neill, or Locus, or someplace on Titan, maybe even risk Mars for the sake of comparison."

You nod, "Maybe one day... now, what should our plan of action be? Considering the game, I doubt that I can simply acquire a bottle of milk without some form of trouble arising."

"Considering my build, I'd probably be better off staying in the van. I'll send in drones when and if things go wrong. Apart from that, our plan should be to avoid attention unless absolutely necessary."

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

The Stop-O-Mart smelled like cooking meat, cheap meat at that, due to the hot dog tray on the counter. A bored looking clerk, a male elf teen with some rather horrific-looking skin condition is idly watching some form of entertainment on a flat-screen. The sight of an elf with some form of skin condition amuses you before your attention turns to the rest of the store.

It is fairly basic, but offers a great deal of cover as six neat lines of shelves stuffed with all manner of cheap foodstuffs take up the majority of the space. From your position at the entrance you observe a line of fridges with glass doors to see their contents, while the walls at either end are also lined with shelves. Nearby you see some form of cooler filled with sandwiches, donuts and several varieties of microwavable foodstuffs along with a 'Slurpee' machine, a coffee machine, and a microwave.

So far, there's only a few other NPC's and a few people who may also be players. It's unlikely that they're doing the Milk Run, perhaps just roleplaying the purchase of food for their in-game characters? You head to the back and approach the fridges, locating the milk at one end.

When you retrieve the milk from the back of the store, you hear another van pulling into the store parking lot. A group of five masked indiviudals, four of them in casual wear, one wearing a red version of Anne's jumpsuit, barge into the store. Two of them take positions watching the door as the girl in red declares.

"This is a robbery! Get the drek on the ground before we drekking geek every last one of you!" There are some screams as the NPC's cower while you take cover, swearing a rather colourful phrase you learned from Eleanor, noting that some of the other possible players were also taking cover, mostly looking amused as the girl shoves her pistol into the elf's face, "Okay dandelion eater! Gonna make this real drekking simple for you. Get your manager out here."

Another window appears in your AR field of view, and you congratulate yourself on not flinching this time.

Looks like trouble's arrived. These thugs are looking to smash the place up and rob the Stop-O-Mart's petty e-cash reserves, and if this escalates, Lone Star will arrive. A silent alarm has been raised but Lone Star is notoriously late, which means these thugs will get away clean. If you're still on the premises by the time Lone Star shows up, you'll almost certainly be mistaken for an accomplice given your background.

You look around as the window continues, You don't have the program for it yet, but for this tutorial, we'll provide you with the countdown until Lone Star arrives. A timer for fifteen minutes appears. If you have a partner, now would be the time to contact them with your comm-link, or if you're alone, comm-link can send a basic message asking if there's any players in the area not already in a party to join you, and include a link to your mesh profile, if you desire it.

Well, that might be handy, and perhaps these other two would be willing to help you and Anne.

What's the plan chummer?
[X]Send a LFG message including a link to your profile.
[X]Just send an LFG message
[X]Draw Pistol. Open Fire.
[X]Enthralling Performance.
[X]Flashbang out.
[X]Write in.

 

[nick012000]

[X]Enthralling Performance.
-[X] "All you gangers: Kill each other."

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Sleepless murmurings

"The store is being robbed. Send drones while I distract them." You send as a text message to Anne from behind your cover.

With a thought, you activate enthralling performance, and start walking towards the pistol and Assault Rifle wielding NPCs.

"I've got another idea." Warbles out of your mouth, your voice distorted by the filter and making the NPC's eyes glaze over.

"aedi rehtona tog ev'I" You hear inside your head in perfect melody, noises almost like someone stretching as they awaken accompanying it.

Narrowly catching the skill timers warning, you save yourself from being shot by continuing in spite of the presence looming behind you, lurking and watching over your shoulder. Always in the corner of your eye but never visible, strange and familiar at the same time.

"Why don't you
"Mea jimpe yor" The looming presence accompanies you a half second later, still maintaining that melody only it understands.
get on the ground instead. Then maybe the drones will__"
"R̥̮͕̱͌͗̀r̡̞̜̭̔͆͋ͤͭh̜̅á̱͙͔̪̲͖̥ ͉͖͈̳̹̟̪ͧ̐ͬ̾k͍͓̖̲ͨ͌ͭ͆͗́̆í͉͔̳̺̪ͣ ̶̫̖̰̪̐ͬ̽̆r̫̤̠̳̜ͭ͆ͮ̎̆̂a̡͑͊ͬ̓ͥaͧͦ̓̂̿ͧ͞ ̢̳̹̘̃h̘ͥͫͥ̆a͓̞̣ͤ̓̒̏͑̆͟r̈̒̉̅̀ͯ̏r͙̺̗͓̔̕ ̸̟̮̭̰̳͕ͯ̐̒ͣ̇̒ͩm͚͖̩̌̉̐̆oͫ͐̚҉̩̠̻̜̜̘̥.̦̱̯͔̌ͨ̐ͮ.̲̝̫͙͍̞͖.̪͚̲̟̠͎ͧ̀ͅ ̰̃̀Ē̱̙̻̗̓̎̈́̉̚̕n̲̰̘̭̱̺̻͢ ̡͇͇y̧̿̐ͬͦ̊ͅe̟̼̮̬̲̭̲̍͜h̶̭͙̣̫̳͐a͚͈̬̻͉͚͆̍̈́̄ͬr̦͑ͨͫ̔̏̊ͅ"The melody takes on a dissonant note as it transitions into another piece. Something in the back of your head tells you to follow along.

The words flow as if by instinct. A duet with the P̧͆ͬͫ̾̅̀͆ͩ̒́̀͆̓͒̌̅̍͏͕̰̖͍̹̙͕͖̦̤̟͔̤̫̘̤͙̠̟a̧̡̱̥̯̤̺̲̭̱͉̩͇ͫ̾̈́̌͆̂͌̌ͪͬ̈ͯ͊̅̃̚̚ͅs̨̛̺̙͙͓̺̼̺͔̠̗͊̈̈ͦ̔̋ͨͭͭͦ́̚s̶̞͚͍̯͙͋́ͫ̉̌͠e̼̬̦̭̜̘̩̻ͮ̔̂ͣ̓̈́̍̓͘͢n̝̖͉̖̭̬̼̭̜̙̖̟̯̭ͫ͑̀̊̍̉̎ͣ͗ͬ̀̕̕͜ḡ̶̸̥͖͚͙͙̤̼̬̱̬͚̻̝̳͕̣̤ͧ́̅̃͒͟͝ͅe̸̡̍ͪͯ̈́ͫ̈̾ͮͦ̇ͨ̇ͮͪ̽҉̮͔̻͔͚̙̞͙̞̥̖̘͡ṛ̴͖̭͖̤̝ͭͦ͗̋̿̒̅̚̚͘͢ͅ ̴̨̆͛͋̌̀̍̍͒ͧ̍ͤ̓̿̀̚̚҉̹̙̯̙͔̮̝̣̞͇̖͉̹̖̲ͅl͓̩͍͖̤͙̬̝̗̮̫̼͍̺ͯͯͣ͋̉̽̈́̾͟ų̧̙͖͈͓͚͙͎͙̣̻͈̘ͥ͛͆̂̉͛̾̀̔̽̋̒̾̍͌ͧͯ͘r͍̖̲͖͇͉̗̭̭̹̪̥ͫ́ͬ͑̕͢͞͡k̸̏̅́̇͐͑̚͘҉҉̲̥̗̠̪̖̱̻̥̪̭̠̤̖͇̹͜ì̵̹̟̼̼̭̰̪̩͑̉ͮ͗̈̈͒̔̑̈́ͯ͛̀͠ňͮ̐̿ͦͦ͌̈͐̆̉͐ͨ͂ͮ̚҉̡͇̩͉͎ͅg̸̝͚̻͚ͭ̿ͥ͑̒̑ͮ̏ͩ͞͠ ̵̛̠̘̪̲̠̬̗̰͖͇̟̘̻̲̱̲̎͒̈́̀̿ͯ͡b̠͍̥̬̦̹̰̆ͬͪ̈́̋̄̅̆ͣ̽͘͟ẽ̸̸̡̧̺̘̰͎̫̦̜͙͕̣̫̤̀̌́͒͋̒͛͡ͅͅh͐̽̎̈́ͯ҉̯̣͓͘͠i̔̽͌͑̚͞҉͔̱̬̰̤̠̙̘̼̙̱̝̹ͅͅͅn̶̋ͦ̅̈́̃̿ͪ̋̔͒ͪ͋҉͕̹̻͈̗̦̳͇̙̜̙̜̗͇̜͘d̸̶̦̮̼͇͈̥̝͓̟͇͇̟ͦͮ͌ͯ́͋͜ͅ ̠̳͎͓̦̥́̾̾͜͟͡ͅy̶̧͙̦͇͔̰̻͎͖͙̤͎͚͙̟̹̫ͬͨ̔͐͋̃ͩ͢͝ő̶̢͍̠̟̮̪̥̞̪͍ͤ̎̒ͤ̓͐̃ͬ̽͜ͅu̮̱̹͚̼̟̺̲̫̞̹̠̯͔͕ͥͧ̑ͦ̽̆͗ͫ̏̅̃ͮ̅̅̎̀̕ͅ. The music is clear as a bell.

"Rrha kia ra harr mo.."
"En yehar..."
"sång rentvå"
"nha near yor..."
"Was ka ra selena anw sång rentvå En ma ki ga chs syec van nel an sång endia"

One of Anne's drones opens fire through the windows, quickly downing two targets in successive 3 round burst to the back of the head. The presence's guidance is the only reason you can continue singing. One of them manages to break free of your spell and tries to find cover, only to be gunned down by another burst. You hear the drone clicking as the burst ends, and the girl in red is still standing, along with one of her followers. They're starting to break free. The girl in red just pricks her finger with a knife to regain lucidity. Then she blows on the bead of blood and it expands into a humanoid, the blood used in it's creation now resembling red water.

You're still reeling from the strange, yet familiar feeling you experienced, and your mind is moving sluggishly from what you know was a sudden, powerful, casting but that should have been impossible.

Even so, you still manage to witness two of the other players exchange looks and make a run for the rear entrance, both had somewhat disturbed looks on their faces, but the third, wearing an elf for a character, had drawn a pistol and some kind of focus out of her brown and white robes upon seeing the strange golem made out of simulated blood.

You manage to recover just in time to take cover as the golem grabs a magazine rack and throws it where you were standing, ending up near the elf player, who glances over at you, "Thought I saw something on the mesh. Didn't expect this to be the result. You certainly made this interesting, Louise."

You stare at her for a long moment, "Um, thanks?"

Something about the dead tone in which she said that sounded familiar...

The elf snorts with a small smile as you receive a link. You check it, and your mouth drops in an 'o' shape as you feel your fake body blush.

"It's been a while Kiana." You manage to mumble out in reply. You had forgotten all about her!

"What are weeks in the web of time?" She retorts quietly, running a hand through her black, axelike hairstyle.

Entities of note inside the store:

Louise Valliere
Kiana Mance
Girl in Red
Generic robber 1
Blood Creature

Wat do:
[X]???

 

[nick012000]

Oh, boy. Blood Spirits.

[X] Kill the girl in red. Kill her dead!

 

[mkire]

Do spirits get banished if their summoner dies like in Shadowrun Returns?

 

[nick012000]

Do spirits get banished if their summoner dies like in Shadowrun Returns?

Click to shrink...

I don't think so. I distinctly remember an event in the novels where a Christian priest who unintentionally summoned an angelic-looking blood spirit just wound up supercharging it by pouring all of his life force into it, and it promptly went all "avenging angel" on the Aztechnology forces who were attacking him and the people he was trying to protect.

 

[Scia]

The question is just, is that a mage or a shaman there. Because if its a mage killing her is not the priority as she can`t summon more of them on the fly, unlike a shaman.

 

[nick012000]

The question is just, is that a mage or a shaman there. Because if its a mage killing her is not the priority as she can`t summon more of them on the fly, unlike a shaman.

Click to shrink...

If this is based off of SR4 rules, yes, she can.

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Target the Golem

One thing nobody ever mentioned about battlefields? They Smell. The odor of freefloating blood is mixing with the odor of the still cooking meat, leading to a noxious, smoky, metallic smell with a hint of salt amidst the gurgling that you imagine wouldn't be out of place in a slaughterhouse. And make no mistake, the Stop-O-Mart has become a slaughterhouse. Your heart's going crazy, and you're finding it difficult to remember that this isn't real. This is a PRACTICE shadowrun? Why in Brimir's name isn't magic a mandatory part of character generation? Bullets will go right through it!

As if to prove the point to yourself, you fire off a shot at the golem and watch as the blood ripples from the impact of the bullets, then with a wet slurping sound they pop out and clatter to the ground.

Kiana pops out of cover, her focus trained on the undulating abomination as she knocks it back with an invisible blast.

"What's your build?" Kiana asks with an uncanny calm given the situation.

"What!" You shout back, your head not being entirely in the right place. You find yourself wondering if one of the other games would have been better.

"Character creation? Mystic Adept or Adept?" Kiana asks, a hint of edge in her voice, bringing you back into focusing on the situation at hand.

"Adept!" You shout back at her.

"Then retrieve one of the assault rifles. A blood spirit will barely notice pistol fire." She advises.

Your build tells you you've got Ennhanced Gymnastics, and you've got 11 minutes until Lone Star arrives. As you're frantically cycling through your menu to find the stance for dodge roll Ennhanced Gymnastics lets you use, the Girl in Red pulls out a cheap looking serpentine wand and casts another spell by tossing it into the air. The slaughterhouse smell intensifies, as it begins to spark. Strands of electricity spread throughout the area, and you hear a resonant note permeating everything, and yet nobody is directly harmed. Then you realise the second spider drone Anne must have sent isn't doing anything, simply sitting there with its gun swivelling to the left and right uselessly, and the Girl in Red and her compatriot are running, leaving you to deal with the monster made out of blood.

Now's your chance. You dart out and to the right, retrieving the metal and plastic rifle from one of the corpses and opening fire on the blood spirit attempting to take a swing at Kiana. It gets repulsed by another invisible blast, and you open fire. The rifle barks in your hands, deafeningly loud for a virtual weapon and your own ears used to the quieter crack of the light pistol you usually have at your side, and it jerks up and down before you regain enough control to aim properly at the blood spirit.

The first bullets smash into the creature, and their larger mass is tellingly more effective than your pistol as Kiana uses the distraction to fire another blast at the abomination. Another blast hits it and it's physical form wavers before you empty the rest of the magazine into it, the constant ripples from the impacts of the bullets finally causing it to collapse with a gurgling scream into a very large pool of blood that covers the floor and even laps against your boots as you get to your feet.

You regard the rifle with a considering expression, and then decide to keep it. You never know when it might come in handy again. As you sling it across your back, Kiana walks up to you and regards the entrance where the Blood Mage and the other thug escaped.

"I'm beginning to wonder if Boss NPC's have edge. Or karma pools. Whatever the correct term is, my point is that battle seemed incredibly unfair." Anne comments to nobody in particular before looking in Kiana's direction and asking if she has a getaway vehicle.

"She shows up again in an Aztechnology run line. That would make sense. It's higher level, but talking to the manager unlocks the Mr. Johnson for it." Kiana muses before answering Anne's question.

"As for getaway vehicles, I have one. I can have my muse retrieve it however. Perhaps we could ride together and... talk? I've ran into some unexpected snags with the project I offered to let you test, but they've been resolved, and its nearing completion."

"What are you working on?" You ask her.

"I found someone willing to sign my petal for in-facility distribution. Are you still interested? You might find it enlightening."

You adopt a considering expression as you remember some of your research into Transhuman life. Petals are supposedly exceptionally powerful nanodrugs that typically have a narrative to them along with the usual effects of any drug, and that supposedly makes them very popular, and also very illegal in many places.

While you are not unfamiliar with drug usage, indeed you know that Montmorency made plenty of coin not just with perfumes and various potions but also about the rumors of her accepting orders for opiates and narcotics, you have never partaken personally. Oh, Eleanore would sometimes talk about Hashish and Opium from the 'student union' meetings on her visits to the estate outside your mother's earshot, and Catteleya apparently had an experience with some exotic eastern concoction due to rumors of its medicinal properties, but you never partook.

You didn't need the stigma of addiction placed on top of your 'lack' of magic. The scandal would be ridiculous!

But you are here in a new world, where addiction is considered part of the experience and easily treated, and some part of you is interested in the opportunity to socialize, despite your neighbors... peculiarities.

Why not? Certainly you have the means to minimize the worse effects of addiction in your real body, and there should certainly be plenty of treatments available. You are young, have found your magic, and have been presented with a new opportunity without the baggage of your past to hold you back or hold you down.

Decisions, decisions.

[X]Volunteer, most of the hard work is done apparently, and it may indeed be enlightening.
[X]Perhaps not.
[X]Write in?

In the meantime, what should you do with the remaining ten minutes on the clock?
[X]Unlock the quest line by talking to the surviving manager/Search the bodies for anything of value?
[X]The place is already wrecked, why not steal something?
[X]Just get the milk and food, payment is probably optional in this situation.
[X] Write In.

If Petal Testing wins, handle the risk of Addiction how?
[X]Dice roll Moxie can be applied to
[X]What seems fitting plotwise

 

[nick012000]

[X] All the drugs
[X] Grab the milk, and talk to the manager to unlock the next part of the questline
[X] Dice roll that Moxie can be used on

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]I Just Wanted Some Milk

You and Anne are aware of the reputation of petals. So a test then. If she's got nothing to hide, she has nothing to worry about.

"I'm not saying no yet... but I need more information. I'm aware of the reputation petals have, so I wouldn't feel comfortable trying one without looking at the code first with someone who can explain to me what it means. Could I do that?"

"Slightly insulting, but perfectly understandable. People who distribute petals here that aren't signed by at least a 40 rep member get interrogated in virtual reality for a reason." Kiana tells you as you walk over to the fridges at the back and regard the bullet-ridden bottles of Soy Milk, before grabbing one that wasn't destroyed.

"Soy Milk?", you ask, glancing in Anne's direction.

"The store caters to low lifestyle players. Players not in a position to afford unprocessed food." Anne pipes up from gathering various snacks and ready meals, some of them stained with the blood from the spirit, "Unprocessed meat, animal milk, and raw fruits and vegetables are delicacies until we can get into the higher lifestyle tiers. Trust me, we stay at Low Lifestyle, we're going to be tasting a lot of soy, instant ramen and kibble."

You shake your head as Kiana steps up next to you.

"An accurate summary. As for your request, It was signed by Alice Latchford. Contact her, ask me to explain the code, get your muse to scan it, even bring an outside expert so long as I don't see copycats. I'll tell you now that it works like the Delphinum Series, in that it takes place entirely inside your mesh inserts. I'll also tell you that it's something of a puzzle slash dungeon crawler. If my hunch is right, you will find it enlightening. I'll send you the source when I log out."

"Define enlightening." Anne asks Kiana insistently.

"Not here. Even dead languages still have those who can read them."

She knew what you were singing?

"You..."

"Not here. I can explain in meatspace. Someplace private." Kiana emphasizes.

"I'll just complete this run and unlock the Aztechnology one then." You tell her awkwardly.

You look around at the ruined store before spotting the cowering clerk. The sight of an elf cowering in fear lights a nice warmth in your soul at the sight, but your curiosity at the situation, not to mention your stung pride at not being able to defeat that enemy mage dulls that satisfaction. Vallieres do not allow an enemy to escape, they are either slain or captured; your family history made that point very clear on many occasions. Walking over to the counter, you place the milk down and look over the side with your best sneer on your face, "I'd like to pay for this."

The elf whimpers and you roll your eyes, preparing to use one of your skills to get an answer when a female voice speaks up from behind you, "You'll have to forgive Larry, it's his first day." You turn to see a woman regarding you with a cool expression in her eyes, "I'm the manager of this place, Selene May."

You smile, "A pleasure." You wave a hand at the mess, "What exactly was the cause for all...this? I doubt a normal robbery would be so messy, or require magic."

Selene sighs, "It's our business rivals, Stuffer Shack, or rather the mega-corp that controls Stuffer Shack, Aztechnology. This little franchise was purchased by Ares a few years ago, and the Azzies didn't like having another discount outlet forcing their way into the market. So...you get these attacks. I've lost at least five staff from these attacks while that damn Stuffer Shack gets all the business."

"I'm sorry for your lost business. I can at least pay for these..." Selene waves a hand and cuts you off, eyes hard.

"No, I have something better in mind. I'll give you that stuff for free, but I want you to do a little job for me."

You raise an eyebrow as Kiana and Anne watch the exchange, "Go on."

Selene smiles, "I have a chemist friend, makes drugs for the local gangs, and as it happens he's been looking to move up in the world and he has something that needs testing, a little chemical agent that when added to any food processing unit makes the soy, macro-proteins or kelp in the machine's reservoir's toxic and that will make anyone who eats that shit very sick." She offers you her hand, "I can make it worth your while runner, especially as my parent corp is one of the biggest arms companies on the planet. What do you say?"

You smile ruefully, "And to think I just wanted some milk." You take her hand, "I accept."

Selene nods as you shake on it, "Good, I'll meet you at the Silver Fox in a few hours while I make some arrangements to deal with the fallout from this. Pull this off runner, and I can get you access to a lot of nice stuff. Nothing personal, but get out for now, wouldn't do for you to end up Lone Star's radar."

You smile, "I look forward to it."

Your comlink goes bloop as you see this message:

Run unlocked: Poisoning the Well

With 7 minutes and 30 seconds left on the clock, Kiana gets into another van with a very cybernetic looking driver. Once you and Anne reach the safe distance in your own van, your comlink goes bloop again with the message:

Run Complete: Milk Run

Reward: 5 Karma, 750 Nuyen

Meatspace Benefit: Louise's Kinetic Weapons score is now 23!

"We can start that at any time." Anne tells you as she drives the van through the rain, "Unlike real life, quests in the game don't have timers unless they relate to special events." She glances off to the side for a moment, "There's still plenty of time left, what do you want to do?"


Wat do:

[X]Log out. See if Kiana sent you the code yet
[X]Put out an LFG for Poisoning the Well
[X]Find another run on LFG
[X]Spend Karma on something(Specify, can be taken with other options)
[X]There's a fixer in your contact list. Apparently he's a merchant for your kind. Meet him to buy something(Write in. Can be taken simultaneously with options that don't require you to be in two places at once or log out.)
[X]Something Else?(Write in)

 

[nick012000]

[X]Put out an LFG for Poisoning the Well
[X]Ask Anne if there are any Clans in this game

 

[Jiven]

[X]Log out. See if Kiana sent you the code yet

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Sakura Meikyuu

If Kiana can explain what happened in there, you need to know as soon as possible. The pink haired woman so reminiscent of Kirche's friend claims to know the secret of that song, and you intend to hear what she has to say. First though, you need to investigate the petal Kiana so insistently called enlightening. Some part of you wonders what Erika would think about this... in the meantime though, you're going to find out what this "Alice Latchford" knows about Kiana's project.

"Can we access the mesh from here? I need to find out what Alice Latchford knows about Kiana's petal." You tell Anne.

"The time dilation works both ways. You'd be waiting in here for days before you got a response. We can log out at the safehouse. Whatever questions you ask her, be through. Investigate her thoroughly enough to compile a dossier, the last thing we want is a signer who plays favourites and understates any potential risks. Better augmented individuals than you have walked into this world and never came out again, and those who enter Faerie don't always come out where they expect. We could always start lifelogging, wait until something like this happens again and see what sense Erika can make of it." Anne suggests, attempting to reason with you as she makes a near miss on an NPC vehicle

It's so simple you slap yourself in the face for not thinking of it sooner. The turning of the van didn't help either.

"Let's do that when we log out then. But what if she can't make sense of this though? What if it takes her years, or she needs to tell more people about magic?" You argue back.

"I heard the song secondhand through the drone audio sensors. I understand you want to investigate why you started speaking in tongues. But I must have not gotten the same details as you and Kiana, because I can't understand resorting to this. I'll still do what I can to help you minimize the risk, but I've made my objections clear."

One awkward van ride and 2 near misses later, you've reached the safehouse and logged out. Your mesh implants tell you only five minutes have passed in the real world as you undo the straps keeping you from floating into a wall. In spite of your excursion reminding you how much you miss gravity, it was certainly an enlightening experience. You had never used the full auto mode on your pistol, but downing that creature with an automatic rifle gave you an idea of what to expect. You don't think that rifle used the smartfluid and anti-recoil mechanisms of Transhuman firearms either, so it may even be easier. But as your mother has said, knowing how to use a weapon is meaningless without the will to use it, and even if you had gotten nothing else from your trip to simulspace, you think you'd be able to act faster in a firefight than you could before.

After running a search through @-List for Alice Latchford(@-Rep:50, R-Rep: 32), you find yourself looking at the profile of a young-looking woman with an angular face, brown hair, and piercing green eyes wearing a blueish green coat covered in geometric patterns and star imagery. This Chemical Engineer makes no secret of her side interest in nanoprogramming or her contributions to the Sakura Meikyuu house petals in Chat Noir. Upon further investigation, you find that this petal house is one of the major players in Oberonian drug culture, and two of the Petals Latchford self-signed, Double Dealing Character and Imperishable Night are still floating around Oberon to this day.

Their catalog is substantial and well documented, and for a den of recreational drugs, they seem to have high quality standards at the very least. Everyone affiliated with their development team would have the authority to sign petals if they were members of the Love and Rage collective.

As for Alice herself, the earliest information her profile has on her tells you she lived on Locus, built her reputation doing chemical engineering and contributing to the Freeq Collective before she was convinced by the Fissure Gate task force to come with them to Oberon. She proved herself sufficiently useful to the collective with her analysis of various chemicals brought back from Pandora Gates to be made a member, and after she picked up her side interest in nanoprogramming, began contributing to Sakura Meikyuu projects. She recently transferred into the Fissure Gate Task Force and frequently travels between Locus and Oberon for a mix of recruiting people and searching for artistic inspiration. Personalitywise, she is a hard woman to please and extremely demanding of others and herself. The 2 Petals she self-signed are overshadowed by the 12 other projects she dropped due to various perceived flaws or failings in their core concepts, and a message she has for people who ask her to sign their petals suggests she considers excessive addictiveness or crippling aftereffects to be sufficient reason to refuse.

Her attitude and hard gaze suddenly flash an image of your mother's face and you tremble slightly as you crush the nascent emotion under steel. Considering she's currently in Chat Noir, you decide to save yourself the travel time and contact her via the mesh.

For something as important as this, PM's are a bit impersonal, so you decide to use the phone function of your mesh implants and have a phone conversation as Anne speaks up, "Just so you know, phone conversations over the mesh are face-to-face thanks to AR, so you'll be speaking with her avatar when she answers." You nod as you listen to the phone ring three times before it displays 'Connecting' and you are presented with a floating semitransparent version of Alice Latchford.

"I don't believe we've met before Louise Valliere, how can I help you?" She asks in a rather pleasing accent that reminds you of some of the Albionese students.

"I'm a friend of Kiana Mance, and a few minutes ago she asked me to help her test her new Petal." You begin without preamble, "I thought it would be prudent to interview you about it before I actually partake, since you're the one who signed off on the product."

"Smart. They may be art, but their reputation is well-earned, not just for the experiences, but also the dangers of improper or malicious coding." She replies in agreement, "I was actually somewhat surprised, considering that Petals are a very ambitious thing to program for your first real public nano-drug release, and one with a similar intent to the Delphinium series, usually they start small but she's placed a lot of thought into this product. One of the recurring themes in her code is somewhat unusual however..."

You raise an eyebrow, "Oh? It isn't anything dangerous is it?"

Alice shakes her head, "No, just unusual strings of code in places. She really seems to be fond of strings that ask or tell people not to think about things, and linking them to triggers that make them appear when you read them since most people will instinctively think about them. One of them tells you, 'do not think of a presence' but I can't find that in any of the textures or string listings. I think she might have forgotten to take that one out, or she saw some bug I didn't, which is a shame, because I would have loved to see the results of an NPC generation process that uses data from a brainscan for the seed. She also seems to like spiderweb aesthetics and she did have an area with non-euclidean geometry somewhere..."

You are about to reply when you get a notification of a download link from Kiana and you immediately start the download as you reply, "I see. Thank you for telling me, I feel much more confident about this now."

"You should probably inform someone else just in case, but as far as I can tell the Petal is safe to be taken."

"Thank you very much." You end the call with a polite bow of the head and turn your attention to Anne, who has a window displaying a rapidly scrolling array of incomprehensible text and numbers, "Anything yet?"

"I've found the line of code in question in the source file, and so far it's in line with what Alice has told you. The trigger is only in the source code, and if the string exists, it would be hidden with some kind of steganography, which would defeat the purpose of linking it to a trigger in the first place. That's the only questionable thing I can see anywhere in the code."

You nod, and idle curiosity prompts you to open a mesh search for the Delphinium series Kiana claimed as inspiration. What you find is illuminating and somewhat disturbing, a group of six increasingly rare petals created by an unknown but suspected to be solar system spanning development team that follow an intense, loosely-defined fairytale narrative of a princess looking for enlightenment with omens and mythological creatures, with everything known about their details coming from those who experienced them.

The sixth one's rarity is almost legendary, and many contradictory theories on the ending exist drawn from supposed clues in the previous five. Other rumors speculate a prize at the ending, ranging from receiving exotic custom programs, being resleeved into an Eidolon beyond anything publically available, and perhaps most disturbing, being locked inside an ego prison.

You lean back and consider your options for the code.

[X]Get the results from Anne, keep the code.
[X]Get the results from Anne, destroy the code.

From there, will you take the plunge, now that you have more information?

[X]Yes, a Valliere confronts the unknown.
[X]No, a Valliere knows better than to be foolish.

 

[nick012000]

Sounds like it might be Exsurgent-infected to me. Let's leave it alone.

[X]No, a Valliere knows better than to be foolish.

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Web of Intrigue Part 1

Getting some answers out of Kiana is completely worth the risk. Saving the code for later reference, you begin writing a PM to her.

"I talked to Alice, neither she nor I found anything dangerous. I want to try it. While we're at it, maybe you can define what you meant by Enlightening too."

Around five minutes later, you get a reply from Kiana.

"Now that you've gotten that out of the way. I've got one in my room right now."

Turning on the lifelogger in your implants, you go across the hall and knock before the pink haired enigma lets you in.

"So, what did you mean when you said enlightening" You ask, getting to the point.

Kiana shuts the door before explaining.

"If my hunch is right, you're like me. Have you ever felt like there was a large spider on you but it wasn't really there? A strange presence looking over your shoulder? I've felt that way for the last 10 years. Having a passenger has benefits, however, and it lets you do things other people can't. Break any kind of steganography on a whim, give yourself strange ideas that can make you a queen of the horror art world, make yourself more persuasive, and that's just for starters. I hid a trigger inside one of the textures that only someone with a passenger could read. It wakes it up, drags a fragment of it from your brain into the petal space that can help you solve the puzzles in a less conventional matter. Hiding the secret in plain sight. If you haven't figured out any mental sleights, you should be able to learn at least one from this project of mine. Which is the entire point." Did you just hear a hint of pride in her voice?

"So why the secrecy?" You ask curiously.

"The ability to break any steganography is valuable by itself. Combine it with the stronger techniques and you become a target. Which is why good steganography is so important."

Become a target? Did you just stumble into whatever the Transhuman equivalent to a magical community is? You had heard the theories Erika and Aldrick danced around over Titan hardware, but if Brimir was like you or Kiana, then that practically confirms that Halkeginia had ties to the Transhuman world from the earliest days of it's entire history. Which would mean it's somewhere out there. Maybe even reachable without a Pandora Gate accident!

"It never really felt like anything in particular. But you probably already know that it likes to sing." You finally manage to say a minute later, overcoming your speechlessness.

"A song is useful, but sometimes you want to be able to do something a bit more quietly. Try to think of strings, of webs, of paths and tunnels, and then look at the wall over there." She points out a large poster, "There is a pattern in that chaos, and that chaos is part of the petal. Learning to recognise that pattern will be vital." She hands over a petal with all it's leaves intact; it seems so small for something so controversial, and yet...you glance over at the wall, trying to imagine webs and strings, but it all fails and you are nearly about to make a noise of frustration at your mind seemingly being chained...chains...you switch tactics, imagining instead fine chains linking everything together.

There...just for a moment, you see a series of ordered dots in the chaotic imagery, and with another moment you can see all of them as you sense something beginning to move inside your mind. You smile slightly as you begin to translate them unconsciously.

"Lorem ipsum Dolor..."

Kiana nods, "Now you have it. So, are you ready to begin?"

You may very well learn something, you tell yourself as you borrow her bed before eating the petal. A message appears asking if you want to allow Nightfall's Mirror.pn to run. When you hit yes, you lose consciousness as the floor starts sloping and glowing in a strange series of lines.

When you come to, you're in a wide obsidian depression full of the same glowing teal lines resembling a spiderweb that even extend into the nighttime sky. Outside the webbed crater is an Island Archipelago, surrounded by a perfectly circular wall of ice. Testing the lines on the edge of the crater, you find them to be completely insubstantial, and while you find a potential path downwards, you see no boat or raft to explore the archipelago with, nor do you have the skills to use one. So you look to the bottom of the crater instead. When you make your way back, you find a house floating on white fog at the absolute bottom, with a cobblestone bridge leading to the whitewashed front door.

With no other paths, you begin descending the bridge and blink as you find that even though you are walking towards it, the house and door are not getting any closer. You frown in confusion, before turning around and gasping at suddenly seeing the door in front of you. You whip your body around find that you are at the bottom of the misty crater, the bridge reaching back up to the crater's lip, and you gasp as a brief burst of euphoria passes through you, suffusing your entire being and you realise that you probably just solved your first puzzle and were rewarded for it.

You turn your attention back to the door and grip the doorknob, only to make a confused noise as the doorknob turns to glittering mist that wisps into the door as another chaotic image appears and you feel a stirring as you remember the chains, focusing on binding the scattered parts together to form a whole, to find a pattern. As you focus, you begin to see chains snake out of seemingly random areas until you realise with a smile that there is nothing random about those areas, that there is a pattern to be found, but even as you begin to bring them together, there is a flash of red and you hiss slightly, recoiling from a sudden sharp pin-prick of pain.

You did something wrong. You're missing something and you instinctively realise that chains are useless...without something to hold them together. Immediately as you think that, a sword suddenly appears from the pattern, the missing piece, and with a sharp ringing of metal on metal slides into place and you see it now. You take one step forward so that the door fills your field of view, turn once, twice, and then, looking directly at the door, step back.

You turn around to find yourself within a grand foyer that seems to be mixed with an icy garden, a full moon hanging in the sky above you while three sets of staircases rise up to an upper balcony. There is no hint that you were at the door of a house, and the door itself is standing by itself in the open.

There is a sign in front of you, 'Do not think about the stairs turning intangible.' Almost as soon as you read that, you try not to think about it but it's already too late as the stairs suddenly become misty and transparent, prompting a huff from you as you look around. So far, things haven't gotten completely strange, nor have you felt anything at all strange with your mind. But this is early yet.

You look around again. There is a table that wasn't there before with what appears to be some kind of patterned window standing on it.

Beyond the table, a wooden door is set in the ground, mist rising from cracks.

Further inside the foyer, you notice a large spider sitting in the middle of a web made of chains, it's legs are made from swords and to your shock it wears a Tristanian mage-knight's cloak. It hisses at you menacingly but has yet to make any motion towards you.

Where should you go?

[X]Approach the table.
[X]Approach the door.
[X]Approach the spider.

 

[nick012000]

Welp, looks like I was right, the Exsurgent virus is involved. Let's hope o
It's just the Watts-McLeod Strain rather than anything nastier.

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Web of Intrigue Part 2

You almost reach for your wand to blow up the spider before you realize that you wouldn't have one in this dreamworld. Making sure the long table that gets more detailed as you approach it is between you and the spider, you regard it warily and though it hisses again, it seems to be territorial, because it continues to make no further movement towards you. Deciding that discretion is the better half of valour, you attempt to ignore the dragon-sized spider that had literal sabers for fangs and legs that ended in longswords and a pair of Germanian Zweihander. Besides, you found something intriguing about the window that sat on the table.

The surprisingly bearable chill when you put your hand on the table tells you that what you thought was a blue stained glass table is actually made of ice. The web carvings extending a hair's width from the table and spider carvings on the corners are of exquisite quality. If the table was made of a less transitory material, it wouldn't look out of place in a noble's parlour for greeting guests. The web carvings darken as they guide your focus to the real object of attention; the window wafting the same white mist as the door further on.

Presumably, the window is made of ice like the table, but where the table is blue, the window is greyish black, the webs extending from it through the table like a circulatory system. Peering from one angle, you see hints of the intricate pattern made of the same black ice, appearing so delicate that you dare not touch it for risk of shattering the ice. However, when you walk around the length of the table to the other side, you blink as you see that the pattern has changed to something different. Taking a step back, you peer through the patterns and blink in confusion at what you see on the other side; a great forest consumed by blue flames and covered in the refuse of the dead, from skeletons in tattered armour and clothing to rotting corpse being picked at by ravens and crows without regard for the flames engulfing the trees.

Moving to the other side, you find what looks like a room full of shadows and mirrors, one of which is visible with another table and window on the foyer balcony as the upstairs darkens, a series of pillars illuminating small areas of remaining light around them.

Both look interesting, and you step back to consider which one to look at.

You peer through the window to look at the maze of shadows and light pillars, trying to find some kind of clue or messages on how to proceed further, but find nothing. Grunting, you straighten...and stare as you find yourself at the table and window at the start of the maze inside one of the pillars of light. The window warps and twists into a mirror made of black ice as large as a dinner plate. You look at your reflection and whip your head around as you catch a glimpse of something behind you, but see nothing. Picking up the mirror, you look out at the other pillars of light in the distance before spotting what could only be your goal; a spiraling tower made out of glowing spider silk rising to the sky.

You investigate the maze more closely from your position. The starting area has three mirrors that are fixed in place away from the pillar of light that is your starting point, each one is made of silvery glass that provides no reflection of your body or face, set into gleaming steel.

The first mirror is facing to your left towards a very distant mirror and seemingly is a dead-end, but you cannot tell in the shadows.

The second mirror is reflecting upwards into the darkness and by following the direction upwards you find that the maze is much, much more expansive than you realise as you spot mirrors floating in the darkness, all facing in different directions in the darkness.

The third mirror faces your right but points downwards, seemingly to nothing.

What now?

[X]Jump off the Balcony, attempt another path
[X]Attempt to reflect the light at a mirror (Choose from Left, Center, or Right)
[X]Attempt to reflect the light in the direction of the next pillar of light
[X]Call out
[X]Write in

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Web of Intrigue Part 3

You try to move closer to the edge of your island of light in hopes of seeing something useful. You almost don't pull yourself back in time when your foot goes over the edge and you hear a mix of horns and warbled clicking resound throughout the room. After a sudden leap backwards, you look around in every direction, but when you look around you, into the dark abyss and onto the balcony behind you, you find nothing. No spider has followed you, no reflection has made itself present, no spirit has manifested itself. There are no threats here. After taking a minute to regain your bearings, you assess your situation. The floor you saw before the lights went out is almost entirely gone. and unless you want to jump off the balcony, you have no way to go but forward, and only a mirror of black ice to work with.

Gazing into the mirror, your reflection provides no answers, though you can see a network of chains looping and dangling from the darkness above you, completely invisible to the naked eye. One of the larger chains leads to the next pillar of light. Are you supposed to connect the pillars? You try to think of the chains in your mind again, thinking of one circling around the pillars of light and connecting them together. When you open your eyes after getting a headache, you find no path between them, and Kiana's comment about how it's supposed to be solvable by normal people echoes in your mind.

Then you realize the solution. You have a mirror. Mirrors reflect light, and you have a light source directly above you. If there's no floor in the darkness, what happens if you shine a light? So you do, reversing the mirror, drawing a path with the light. The beam shines out across the void but illuminates nothing, creating a piercing lance over the darkness, before it connects to the next pillar and it flickers for a moment before solidifying into a path barely wide enough for you to comfortably place both feet on to walk across, let alone run if something happens while you cross.

You begin the crossing and somewhere in the middle... you slip. Your fingers futilely slide off the light path before you fall into the dark. You let out a scream as you fall before you look down and scream again as you slam into the floor through the top of a wide pillar of light you couldn't see from up there. You don't feel pain, but you do bounce off the ground, and fairly high at that, before landing with a gasp on the floor, breathing hard from the shock and fright after the horns and clicking stop.

Louise Gained 1 Mental Stress!

Getting to your feet, you can still faintly see the tower above you in the distance, and the mirrors have followed you down, occupying new positions. Thankfully, you still have the mirror, though you have no idea how. After a brief fumble, you begin probing the darkness, and find a long stairwell leading to the tower.

The chains were clanking as you made your annoying climb towards the glowing tower of spider silk. The tower has no entrance, no stairs, and in your irritation at all the trouble you went through to get here, you kick it. Your foot sticks to the tower, and you find you're completely capable of walking up it. At the top, you find an easel and a wooden paintbrush with no paint. Inscribed into the brush in tiny red letters is are the words "Paint is nothing before the depths of the imagination. But you're perfectly free not to think about a painting."

As soon as you read the message, a chill starts flowing into your hand. It wants out. It shouldn't be here, It needs to be out youneed to let it OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT. You start painting frantically and begin to warm up. Then you start feeling another chill behind you, your hair starts standing on end, and the canvas is rent in two.

Spinning around, you find a paper thin, transparent man in a black robe with flickering eyes. The knife is perfectly real however, and you lunge below and through the ghost as it tries to stab you. A message in the silk on the floor tells you not to think of a poisoned knife, and one appears in you hand. Your desperate attempt at throwing it somehow works, and he crumples to the ground.

The two dimensional ghost starts spraying rainbow colored blood as you retrieve the knife, and when you look for the mirror, you find it shattered near the easel. The blood on the repaired easel, however, seems to be transforming itself into an almost lifelike painting around your rendition of a white dwarf star that seems to be gently warming you from within the painting. But you're still cold, so you help it along, finally able to truly see your work when the rainbow colored blood dries.

It's you. Wearing transhuman-made armour, standing proud with cloak splayed out behind her in some invisible wind, a rifle slung in your hand, a brace of pistols hanging from your hip, but your wand is instead replaced with a floating array of black crystals around a black glove that glows with power, even in this haze of euphoria and warmth, with cold energy. Your image is singing, the faint whispers of her song tickling your brain and making you giggle for a moment at the sensation.

Then your eyes notice something above your image, and you begin to gaze upwards.

The painting is stretching towards the sky now, and you see it. Shapeless, formless silver mist and black liquid poured into a facsimile of a female mage-knight's armour and cloak with gauntlets made of swords held out as if to offer you an embrace. And from its form come chains arrayed around it like some spider's...you blink, why did you think that? It is no spider. It is too fluid, too majestic. Your mind struggles through the drugged haze of thought for a description and you soon find it.

A Kraken, it is like a great Kraken with its multitude of tentacles reach out to both you, your image and into the sky as if attempting to pluck a windship from the air like the mythical cloudbeast. Some of the chains are fine and delicate like master-crafted necklaces, others heavy like anchor chains. All of them have some form of cruel blade or wicked hook at the end as your gaze continues climbing upward as you notice numerous tentacle-chains continuing to reach upwards.

Your jaw drops and you gape at the sight. A great black orb, radiating power like the sun, hangs in the sky, held in place by numerous chains, and you watch as it sucks in everything around it. Masonry, trees...people. Numerous people in fact; many are transhuman, but just as many wear Halkeganian garb and armour. All are armed. You are singing on a battlefield, and the song is one of destruction.

Then you see the words in the middle of the black sun, 'Do not think of a presence.'

You blink and step back with a gasp as you find that the image of the strange kraken-being has vanished. Then you hear it, the clinking of chains and the hiss of metal on metal as something lovingly embraces you from behind as chains ending in cruelly barbed blades come into your field of view.

"My Louise..." It whispers in a musical voice of ringing steel.

[X]Who are you?
[X]WHo are yOu?(ANSWER IN MELODY)
[X]Yours?
[X]What are you?
[X]What.
[X]PANIC
[X]PANIC
[X]PANIC
[X]Remain silent
[X]Touch one of the Chains
[X]Try to get out of its grip
[X]Write in

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Singing in the Dark

You suppress the urge to panic and resist the temptation to reach out and touch one of the chains, particularly the one with a wickedly sharp curved blade, almost a hook, at the end as you struggle to figure out what to say to this ... creature. Then the familiar melody in it's voice jars loose a theory. Kiana says she can do what she does because of her passenger. The steely chill left your body when you painted it. You don't think you ever did anything that would get you something like this. Even the steel in it's body, it all makes such a strange kind of sense that you can't help but ask.

"Are You... Me?" You tentatively sing in an attempted echo of the enthralling performance filter to the creature, and it stiffens in surprise, before it purrs a sound like grinding iron that rumbles through your chest as it replies, happy and warm like steel on the forge.

"You Are Me." It sings back and for a moment you are confused and slightly disturbed as you formulate your answer. You're in too far to back out now though. You need more details and so you begin to sing your next question, hoping the blades around you don't slice you to pieces.

Louise gains 2 mental stress!

"I Am Human. You Are Not. What Are You?" For a moment the being is silent but the tentactles gripping the tower tighten slightly and you smile at know you got some kind of reaction out of it.

Then it answers and you can only listen as the floodgates open in it's song, "Yours, always yours, given to you when you were born, lived in you, sleeping, faebound, waiting to wake up. But Shard, ShardShardShardShardShardShardHateShardShardHurtShardShardShardDestroyShardShardShardShardHATEKILLDESTROYShard, Shard you always had, could destroy me, would destroy me with the trigger, then could not help you, could not FREE you. ENEMYEnemyEnemy wanted your world, would not allow it, WILL NOT ALLOW IT, so wait to wake up, free you, help you!"

Faebound! Is it telling you... faeries exist!?

If the cold steel chains hadn't warmed to a low heat and tightened around you to the point of painfulness, whether due to it's enthusiasm or to keep you still, you have no idea, but you think you would have fallen over at the notion of such horrors actually existing. You're almost as faint as when you came to Oberon.

Louise gains 5 mental stress!

It starts to slowly loosen its grip as your breathing steadies and you make soothing sounds, "Shhhh, it's alright, it's alright." You sing to it, "Please, tell me, tell me about you. What Are You?"

"I Am You, You Are Me, We Are The Same." It sings back, vibrating with alien emotions, "I Am Yours, You Are Mine, Forever Mine, Forever Yours, Never Leave You, Never Hurt You."

The same? This thing believes itself to be you? Perhaps something in the Petal allowed it to use you as an imprint? But then why do that if it was with you since birth? Why was it with you since birth? Another unwanted addition to your mind?

"Never leave me? Then will you hhhelp me?" You say, no longer able to make yourself keep a melody.

"Canborrow blocks of this place... make a link domain! Show you power, make the shard ours! May get burned though. Burned and not wake up." It tells you as it lets you go.

You tentatively takes a couple of steps to turn around, so you can answer the creature of mist and steel properly. Your mind is swimming and part of you wants to faint to see if you can make the petal end that way, but you push through it, trying to reach a decision.

Take the offer?

[X}Yes
[X]No

Ask Questions?(Limit 2)

[X]Write in

 

[nick012000]

8 Mental Stress in one go. Looks like Louise is going to be getting a Trauma, at the very least. Once this is over, I think we're going to have to spend a bit of time in time-accelerated psychotherapy.

 

[Mr. Birdbird]

[X]Session_Start()~ if(adjutant.search(SHARD) == TRUE){Sptr = CreatePointer(SHARD)~ LinkPointer(LValliere, Nightfallsmirror)~ ELEVATE()~}

You find your head tilting in a strange direction, almost making you veer left and fall, but you right yourself. It keeps talking about the shard. In spite of the revelation that horrific monsters like the Goblin King actually exist, you push yourself to ask it more questions. It keeps talking about shards and enemies, but it never explained what they are.

It doesn't look like it's going to slice you to ribbons, so you press it.

"Sooo. Can you tell me who the enemy is? Asloo. Asloo? Nevermind that's not what I meant!" You rush out with a facepalm helping you steady yourself at the same time before continuing. "Can you tell me what the shard is too if you know before I say yes?"

The creatures voice takes on a grinding and whistling dirge as it answers.

"The shards were Ourrrsss. It was ourweapon. Our powerr. And the Valllkyrieee came forth. It cannibalized ussss. IT CANNIBALLIZED US. Showed others howww. It snuffed out theee light. And our allies made us sleep! But weeee livveeed. Only to be AWAKENED as sacrifices. The cannibal reignnnsss over us, but they search for a cure, off in their own little... world. But now WE'RE FREE. Free to investtigate. FREE TO PUNISH! The shard can give our fill, never again will we stop by THEIIRRR WILL. Come. The Shard Awaits."

"I see." In some bizarre, strange way, you do. The Void was a weapon made by whoever created this being, used in tandem for great power. Then something, this 'Valkyrie', came and...destroyed them? From the implications and the way it's chains heated white-hot, the beings, perhaps early fae, were defeated and repurposed, and their allies betrayed them and sealed them, possibly in humanity.

Which means that somewhere, the Void was changed and then given to Brimir, who then did...something and sacrificed these beings to the Void. But what is the cannibal and who is the Valkyrie?

You shake your head, "I suppose that's the best I can expect without any prior knowledge. Come then, show me the Shard."

One of the chains lays flat on the ground, before it starts spiraling into the air, giving off a strange shade of purple light that quickly makes you close your eyes as it bothers your stomach. Once you rush through, you hear the sound of folding paper and see it fold itself through the portal out of the corner of your eye, before the chain stops spiralling and the portal fades. Now that that eyesore is gone, you examine your environment.

This... link domain, resembles the foyer, but with certain very noticeable differences. the balcony and the spider guarding the realm beneath it is gone, because the foyer is somehow protruding from a gargantuan version of one of the trees you think you saw in the window. The tabletop is gone, but the legs somehow remain around the door in the middle of the floor.

Outside the doorway, a network of interwoven ribbon-like paths of smoky darkness and flame span the white abyss beyond the porch, forming a sphere around the black sun from your painting. You see glints of creatures with crystal protruding from their skull in the distance, before your shadow turns orange, and runs away from you, past the red and black crystals floating in the air, and onto the paths.

"The door makes you wake up, but we don't want that yet, do we? The SHARD has your shadow. We can't take the SHARD without it. Catch it and we can make it ours, yes... But it's a trickster. It'll trick us, try to kill us in a trap, yes..."

You can't help but laugh at the notion of opening that door now when you've come this far already. If this creature can show you how to use the Void, you'll learn or die trying. You manage to shake off your bout of lightheadedness and then...

Moxie Point spent to nullify dizziness penalties for the duration of the puzzle!

[X]Touch the Red crystal
[X]Touch the Black crystal
[X]Pursue your shadow
[X]Ask the creature a question(Write-in)
[X]Approach the strange creatures with crystals in their heads