Atrophy

𝕮𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖘 - Chaos and Order

I'm struggling between 4 different character concepts and I've got no idea which one to choose, arrrgghhghdhgdsfjh.

@The Bork Lazer

Float 'em by us!

𝕮𝖔𝖎𝖓𝖘 - Chaos and Order

@OppositionOh hey, missed the interest check but I really dig this idea. I'm toying with a few ideas at the moment, but I'm leaning towards a wannabe stage actress who can take on different "parts" to help the team out, be it hiding in plain sight as a new intern, pretending to be an exec from the home office, or just bullshitting someone long enough for the others to come up with a plan of action. Kind of a mix between the bait/distraction and a scout/plant.

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

There's an eldritch abomination out there

@Ruler Inc

Yeah, mosquitoes. Those things can't be from this plane of existence.

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

Yo, Montana is, like, really pretty. Almost makes the outdoors bearable.

~ Winds Of Fate - A Thief's Adventure ~ (1.0)

Oh hey I'm back

~ Winds Of Fate - A Thief's Adventure ~ (1.0)

Prudence Stolz

Somewhere Else — Another Time

Kill or be killed. When Prudence had first heard her captain say that, she had taken it as some kind of morbid encouragement—either you kill the enemy, or the enemy will kill you. It was simple enough for her to understand, and she proved to be pretty good at it. When cannons sounded in the distance and waves of salt water splashed them as they prepared to be boarded, she could always hear the captain’s words echoing in her head. Kill or be killed. The words were on her lips as she weaved her sword like crimson paintbrush through pirates that had come to plunder the riches of people she didn’t even care about. All that mattered were those words.

She had never considered until this morning that those words might’ve been a threat.

Prudence stood shoulder-to-shoulder with four other mariners. The captain stood to their side while the rest of the crew flanked behind them to watch the scene unfold despite the chill coming from the light rain. The sailor next to her mumbled some concern about their muskets getting ruined by the rain, and Prudence prayed for him to be right. She’d take a backfire and a couple of missing fingers over what was about to come. The captain called for them to raise their arms. She did as she was told and hoped that the others wouldn’t notice the shake in her arms. It was so strange. She never hesitated once when it was a pirate. Then again, a pirate was never survived long enough to get pulled in front of a firing squad.

Cowards, on the other hand, found their attempts to save their own skin often put them on the fast track to the one thing they had tried to avoid. So was the case for the man before them now. He had been caught hiding in the kitchen during the last attack, and the captain saw fit to make an example out of him. His head was covered with a bag, his mouth had been gagged, and his arms tied before he was attached to a pulley and hoisted up high so that all could see his legs kick in a panicked, arrhythmic fashion. Some of the men prodded one another and pointed at the dark stain forming in the coward’s pants, laughing at the sight. They usually did that. Piss themselves and get laughed at. Normally, Prudence laughed at them too.

This wasn’t a normal case.

She wiped her face and tried to steady her musket. Maybe the others would think she was wiping rain from her eyes. The captain’s voice roared above the sea. Shots rang out; she fired her gun, too. Prudence knew the rules. If she didn’t fire she’d be the next one up there. She aimed her musket high, but she had always been a rubbish aim. The legs stopped jerking and the coward’s body hung slack, the sack over his face quickly turning a muddy red. It was her bullet. It had to be. The captain smiled. The crew cheered. Only the men and women in the firing squad were quiet.

On the captain’s order, the body was swung out over the sea and cut free. Prudence passed her musket to the quartermaster and headed underdeck. Her job was done for the day. She made her way to her cot and pulled out something from beneath the mattress. She sat down on the edge of her cot and buried her face in the green scarf. It still smelled vaguely of coward.

---

Great Hall/Throne Room — Late Morning

---

“Look lively you rotten mutts.”

Salty air and a wet deck was replaced with the scent of despair and the feeling of cold, wet stone. Prudence stirred from her uncomfortable sleeping position and the memory of the past slipped away. Too exhausted to try and argue, military routine took hold of her as the guard’s orders pulled on her strings to make her dance the prisoner’s waltz. Her cell was opened and for the briefest of moments she thought about attempting an escape as she was unshackled. Before she could figure out the best way to inadvertently get herself killed she was chained up and marched out of the dungeon with a handful of other prisoners. They were lead through a twisted route of halls and stairs. Prudence bit the inside of her cheek, the fresh pain served as a distraction from her old aches.

Eventually they were led into a grand room. It was nicer than anything Prudence had ever seen, and it was certainly nicer than the gallows she had been expecting. The Red Sail Brothel had a certain sheen to its environment, but there was a cheapness and dirtiness to the sheer curtains and gilded bannisters that made it abundantly clear that there wasn’t anything fancy about the business that was conducted there. This room was fancy. A single decoration from that room was worth more than any one of the poor bastards chained up with her. Taperesties and pretty lights and all sorts of other rich bullshit just lying around surrounded by a bunch of guards decked out in the most expensive armor there was to dissuade anyone from snagging some art.

Vallec was busy talking with the High King. Perhaps it should’ve been strange for someone so low as Prudence to be in the same room as the king, but she hardly even noticed them. Servants had arrived and presented a massive feast on the table before them, and she felt her stomach growl as she looked at the food. Thoughtfulness, never her strong part, fled instantly as the guards guided her to a chair and freed her from her chains. She didn’t go for a weapon, even though her dagger was right there, although she did take a second to grab her green scarf and tie it around her head before she began to dig into the food.

She didn’t even bother to sit as she ate greedily, shoveling whatever she could get her hands on into her mouth between gulps of wine. It blew away the meal Selena had made for her yesterday, although there was hardly anytime for Prudence to actually taste away the food. It was only after eating more than her share of the food that she collapsed back in her chair, grabbed a horn of mead, and kicked her boots up on the table.

”Now that almost makes up for everything,” said Prudence as she picked over a bone before flicking it on the floor behind her. She looked up at the King on his throne. “So this the usual treatment for crooks around here? Cause then I’m pleading guilty to whatever crap reason it was that your goons arrested me. Otherwise, I’m already in a business with someone else, and this meeting is just gonna be a waste of my time.”

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

---

_{@Ruler Inc}
Town Hall

---

Holy shit, the idiot defense actually worked. Penny felt a heavy weight lift off of her as Billy stumbled away from the Mayor, but tensed up again as the Mayor lit up at the sight of Britney. Penny hemmed as he started spilling the beans. For such a big secret, it seemed like half the town had been involved in this damn conspiracy. What if her parents had known? Were they even still alive? Worse yet, what if they were Corrupted? She lit a cigarette so she’d stop biting on her lip. She doubted the Mayor would protest between all of his nihilism.

“Hold up, man,” said Billy as the Mayor revealed the nature of his Abstraction. “If you can see the future, then why even draw a gun on me? Wouldn’t you know I wasn’t one of those loonies?”

“Billy, I doubt he ever considered you at all,” said Penny, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

“Fuck that, dude,” said Billy. “Fuck that, man.” He turned to the Mayor. “How do you even know your Abstraction even works? Mine doesn’t even do shit. It’s worthless. How come yours works then? If you tell us something is the future, then we don’t do it, then you didn’t see the future. And if you tell us something is the future, and we do it, then we were really just doing what you said.” He waved his hands around as he tried to make some kind of point. “Maybe you just see something and you think it’s the future when really it’s all just a big coincidence so far, or like, it’s not just the future but a future and there are ways to go about and change it or—”

“Or maybe fucking Nostradamus here actually creates a reality just by thinking of it and just because we’re in a goddamn basement doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend to be high enough to have this kind of fucking conversation with you, Billy, so go search for the map while the adults talk,” snapped Penny. She ashed her cigarette and turned to the Mayor, annoyed with his attitude as much as she was with Billy.

“Listen, I haven’t fought an indestructible, axe-wielding bully, a swarm of human-hungry insects, weird zealot zombies, some avatar of a thing I can’t even begin to understand, and the urge to bitchslap half the people in this room just to have some shitty, schlubby politician that I didn’t even vote for tell me that the future is futile. I literally do not care if all I ever amounted to be was just some pesky little gnat buzzing around the Glutton’s head, because I will at least die knowing that, for the briefest moment in time, Penny Lawson stuck it to the biggest asshole in the universe,” she said, smirking. “So—”

“If you knew the future how’d you get hurt?” shouted Billy from behind a shelf. “Fucked that right up, didn’t—”

He shut up as Penny’s cigarette went blasting past his head. She lit another one.

“So since we really don’t have time for this,” she continued, “how about you tell me where I can find a map for the mountain’s mines so I can find the Glutton and kick him in the dick.”

---

_{@Ruler Inc}
Library

---

Rita wasn’t glad that Justin practically dragged her along, but she didn’t let go. It was such a strange feeling that the library, something she once considered a safe haven, now filled her with so much dread. When the Speaker appeared she barked out a noise of surprise before covering her mouth, embarrassed that her reaction wasn’t a cool display of annoyance. If it could just pop up wherever, what else could do the same? She didn’t like cowering, but there wasn’t much else she could do. It wasn’t like her Abstraction gave her the power to talk something to death.

She grimaced at the recollection. They didn’t need to see that. Why did it think that they needed to see that? It was just a cruel joke, another sick game. When they couldn’t be physically beaten down by Scott, they’d be mentally beaten down by the Speaker. She hated this. Why didn’t they just grab the map and beat feet out of here? She was ready to tell the others just to start going when the Speaker said something that struck a nerve buried deep down within her.

The Speaker said, "I speak the truth, and the undeniable truth. I feel it is the duty of higher being such as myself to enlighten the deceived."

And Rita doubted that very much. In fact, it was utter bullshit, right? As another recollection played, Rita glowered. The Speaker kept showing them half-truths to get them to turn against the Child, and Justin made a good point about it possibly just being a fabrication. She didn’t want to even play its game, but she felt compelled to go through with it. Hell, maybe she did seek the truth after all, whatever the hell truth even was. Fortunately for her, she could get all of the answers. Rita stepped out from behind Justin and Tuyen. She took a breath, and then looked up at the Speaker’s orange eyes.

”Did that last thing you show us actually happen? Who was the hidden person?” She grinned. ”Or did you just lie to us? Are you even capable of lying?”

She didn’t know if her Abstraction queued questions up. She didn’t know if it even worked on non-humans. But it felt good to ask. She had a couple dozen more start forming in her head. Where’s the Glutton? Can we escape it? How do we kill it? Are you the same thing as the Child? How do we get rid of both of you? Are you called the Speaker because you never shut the fuck up?

The list went on and on.

~ Winds Of Fate - A Thief's Adventure ~ (1.0)

Prudence Stolz

The Red Sail — Dawn

Last night was just another tally mark on the ever growing list of Prudence’s crimes. Since her arrival in Gullian two years ago, she had committed a number of crimes acting in Fontaine’s name as well as in her own poor conduct. These crimes included some petty theft, a handful of burglaries, many vandalisms, uncountable acts of coercion, several assaults, some murders, and an embarrassing incident of public nudity following a night Prudence can’t recall. That’s not to mention the crimes she committed before arriving in town, but it’s a big world and who can say that this Prudence Stolz is that Prudence Stolz? Regardless, she should’ve been arrested, tried, sentenced, and hung some time ago, and she would’ve been if it had not been for Fontaine.

Rather, it would’ve been if not for Fontaine’s money. A few bits and a free night with a girl of their choosing was enough to make most lawmen turn a blind eye to a roughed-up trader or a beaten up crook. Sure, not all constables would trade in their honor for a free poke and some loose change, but enough of them would and the good ones were kept in check. What all of this means is that whenever a band of constables came to the Red Sail Brothel it was normally to cash in on one of these handshake deals and Prudence need not worry. She was under Fontaine’s protection, and the constables were always hungry for a certain kind of proposition. So when Selena told her there was a group of them at the door, she didn’t even think for a second that she was going to be in a lick of trouble.

“Morning, lads,” said Prudence as she opened the door. Her green scarf was styled around her head to cover Selena’s patch job, and she squinted her eyes as light hit them. For a moment she thought she was still seeing double. Usually it was just some crooked guard and a couple of his buddies. Never six. Today it was six. “You lot lost? Don’t think your captain would want you in a brothel before the sun’s fully up.”

“It’s the captain who sent us,” said the man in front. Usually the only thing that separated a constable from a back alley thug who bathed only in booze and filth was the uniform, but their leader clearly put in effort in his appearance with his shined boots, slicked hair, and manicured mustache. He was handsome, arguably, but Prudence liked her men a little bit tougher.

“The girls are hardly up. Go back and tell your captain that we don’t open until their legs do, and their legs don’t open ‘til their faces are on,” said Prudence as she started to close the front door.

“Wait.” A shined boot jammed it from shutting. “We aren’t here for that. We have a warrant to let us enter.”

“What’s that?” said Prudence. The constable took it as her asking to see it, and Prudence stared at the jumble of words on a piece of paper ordained with an official looking stamp. “Look, Madame Fontaine normally deals with these things, and she’s out. Come back tonight and she’ll handle this nonsense.”

“Afraid that’s not possible, Miss Stolz,” said the constable with a smirk. Prudence’s eyes narrowed. She had never met this man before. It was rarely a good thing when a stranger knew your name, especially when that stranger was the law.

“And why is that?” she asked, her voice turning dark.

“If you come with us I can explain it all. Slowly, too, so you can understand,” he said. The guards behind him chuckled.

“Sorry,” growled Prudence. She didn’t quite grasp what was happening, but she knew she didn’t like it. “We’re closed.”

Prudence slammed the door with all of her might. A howl of pain erupted from the mustached officer as his boot was smashed between door and jamb, a sickening crunch sounding out as tendons snapped and bones shattered. It had been a nicely shined boot; he shouldn’t have used it as a stop. However, it did manage to do the job of keeping the door from closing, and as it bounced back open Prudence was greeted with the sight of one screaming officer on his back and five angry constables stepping over him with their clubs drawn. She could hear Selena screaming from behind the bar, and a smarter person would’ve tried to run. But when Prudence looked at the five constables bearing down on her she didn’t see a good reason to turn tail and flee.

“Good.” She whipped out her blackjack. Six was unreasonable. Five? Five wasn't so bad. “Now it’s a fair fight.”

---

Royal Complex/Stronghold Keep — Day

It wasn’t. One against five never was, and perhaps one day she would learn that. Prudence had gotten a couple of good hits in before the blows from their clubs had overpowered her, but she was lucky to even be walking. Well, walking was a stretch; she was doing more of a shuffling as two guards dragged her by the shoulders deep into the pits of the Royal Complex. It hurt where they grabbed her, it hurt where her wrists were bound, it hurt where her ankles were bound, and it hurt just about everywhere else. She had come to in the carriage. Waking up with new wounds and in an awful situation was quickly becoming a tiring habit. Her two new friends had met her outside of the carriage, and since then they had been engaging in pleasant conversation.

“Didn’t realize the King was hiring chickens these days,” barked Prudence, her voice echoing down the hall. “Bunch of yellow-bellied lowlifes, coming after me with a whole bloody battalion. Got me in chains. What’s the matter? Scared of a girl? Closest you been to one, I bet, you ugly, boot licking piece of trash. Wait until I get outta these chains. Pluck everyone one of your feathers off, I will, and cook you up real nice and slow. Real nice and slow.”

“Why do I get stuck with all the assholes?” muttered the guard on her left while the one on her right gave her a smack on the back of the head. The hall ended and they entered the dimly lit dungeon. Prudence’s voice echoed off the walls; she wasn’t making a good prisoner.

“Oh a real big man, aren’t you? Hitting an unarmed prisoner. Real big. Why don’t you undo my hands and I’ll show you how to really hit someone, huh? C’mon, I’ll even give you the first punch. You hit me, then I hit you, then you hit the ground. C’mon. C’mon, let’s go.” The sound of a backhand rang through the cells. “Ha ha, there you go! Ha ha, there it is. Okay, now me. My turn. C’mon you coward. You coward, that was the game! Undo these, you coward!”

“Please, you’re only making this harder on yourself,” muttered the guard on her left as the one on the right opened a cell and began to work the chains through Prudence’s restraints.

“You know, you ain’t that bad actually,” said Prudence to the left guard with a sly wink of suggestion. “You take that club of yours, give that jerkoff over there a couple of lumps, and undo these chains. I can make it worth your while. C’mon, it’ll be fun. Gimme your club and I’ll do it. You won’t even have to let me go. I just wanna see if that coward’s gots any brains. Nobody’ll know, right? Nobody’ll know. C’mon.”

“Ugh, no way,” muttered the left guard.

“Oh you scared, huh? You a chicken too, huh? Cluck cluck, that you? That’s what you sound like? Like to peck things? Or is that what you like? A pecker? Hoping he'll give you his, is it?” She smashed her body against the left guard who yelped, but held his ground. “I could kill you—” In an instant she was on the ground wheezing as the right guard reared around on her and hit her full-force in the gut. He had been holding back.

Prudence continued to cough as the cell slammed shut behind her. The ground was cold and wet and actually felt rather good on her throbbing head that she figured she’d lay their for awhile, until the thought of what the stone was wet with made her sit up. She let out a pained groan as she righted herself and took a glance around the dungeon. Humanoid blobs of broken, beaten losers were in the other cells around her, and she didn’t like that she was being associated with such a sad company. Yeah, there was no way she was spending her day in her with these jerks. Prudence had an idea.

First, she stood up. Not quickly, and with a lot of grumbling and blurring of the vision, but she managed to get on her own two feet. Second, she backed herself up against the wall that the shackles on her ankles and hands were chained to so that they all hung as slack as possible. Third, she...took...a...moment, because her body really didn’t want to be moving right now, and so she shook her head and breathed. Then it was time for the fourth step and she took off running. Within a third of a second she was where she had first started—in a heap of defeat on the floor. Amazingly, her plan to break the chains with her speed and strength didn’t work. Not even a stone was loose.

So she did it again.

And again.

And then she couldn’t get up. From that heap of defeat, Prudence growled an empty threat to the floor below. “When Fontaine finds out what happens…”

Of course, Fontaine already knew.

~ Winds Of Fate - A Thief's Adventure ~ (1.0)

Since we're on the subject, I'm also gonna be out of town from July 3rd to the 13th. I'll get a post throwing my folk in jail by this weekend. After that, y'all can feel free to use 'em in any awful way while I'm out so I don't slow anything down.

Vivid Recollections Season 2: Into The False Light [COMPLETE]

tfw some weird-boy keeps saying they're telling the truth but disappear before the human lie detector can hit 'em with the goods (only to find out it don't work that way)

Should get a post up by...Sunday? Also, gonna be out of town from the 3rd to the 13th because I'm, oddly enough, going to Montana. I'll let you know if any world-ending multi-dimensional monster is there.