BBeast

Dungeon Keepers

Mostly, the paces do not seem to be too fast. Lord Rain's pace of dungeon construction is unusually fast, for he somehow manages to personally attend both the building of rooms, enchanting of weaponry and organising of a Construct all in the same post, but other than that I do not have much to complain about. If they so choose to dedicate some time at the start to creating new minions, that is completely within the rules.

For the record, at this stage, a small army and small Dungeon count as catching up. No need to super-pace beyond that.

Sanctuary

That all sounds good.

Dungeon Keepers

When the Ripper turned on itself to purge out what remained of the Weaver, Zadok felt loss. It was almost as if he was losing the Weaver all over again. Whatever being had taken the Weaver's place clearly no longer answered to the name of Weaver, and had no intention of changing that. Much like the Keepers, it seems that the Ripper seeks destruction and power as rewards in themselves. Then Zadok was rocked by the massive surge of power which the Carver sent at the Ripper, and the explosion which resulted. Had he not been safely cocooned inside the Carver that might have ended quite badly for him.

When he heard the Carver speak to him, he nodded in response. They could not allow the Ripper to survive and devour everything. While Zadok would not be able to unleash a pulse as powerful as before, as he had not spent as much time soaking up the Source's magic, he would still be able to deliver a strong blow. He stretched out his right arm and it glowed a brilliant white for a moment before a blinding white beam of holy light shot forth from the arm. On hitting the core the light scattered, dispersing the rays out in a wide flash which should weaken the Ripper.

---

Calvartem's hoard had grown in number. As he marched through the streets, walkers had broken off and entered the houses, slaying any occupants they found. Calvartem would then raise those killed as walkers to join his hoard and bolster his numbers. When the soldiers of the town attempted to confront his hoard Calvartem would break their strong formation and leave them vulnerable to being overrun by the walkers. As they approached the keep, Calvartem's hoard consisted of a mix of skeletons, civilian corpses and zombified armed guards. But they would not be enough to breach the walls surrounding the keep. Much of the town had taken shelter behind those tall walls, and most of the army was also assembled behind them, as well as on top of them.

Amongst the archers and mages stood a red-robed priest. "Stand firm, soldiers," he announced, "Caldor shall give us the strength to strike down this unholy being and its false fire! Do not let your faith waiver!"

Calvartem scoffed. They thought whatever god they had could save them from him. As his hoard approached the gate and were fired upon by arrows and fireballs, Calvartem realised that he would need more than just zombies to penetrate the gate. So he raised his staff and commanded, "Breaker, rise!" The shadows engulfing the fleshy orb embedded into the staff dispersed, and moments later twenty walkers or the bodies of those walkers which had fallen slid and rolled across the ground until they merged in front of the castle's gate. Flesh and bone twisted and warped until an extremely muscular 4-metre tall zombie stood at the head of the hoard. Arrows and fireballs were shot at Breaker, but the arrows did nothing to disturb the beast as they poked out of its flesh and the fireballs did nothing but burn its skin. Breaker's fists fell upon the gate, causing it to buckle. The living battering ram continued, ignoring the projectiles raining upon it. After just a few blows the gate had been suitably deformed for Breaker to grab hold of it with its meaty fingers and pry the gate open. The steel reinforcing the gate buckled and bent under the unrelenting strain. Finally the gate was torn open, its hinges shattered. With the way open, the hoard poured inside.

The army had prepared for the attack, but they had not prepared for a one-and-a-half tonne zombie which ignored all their attacks. A squad of musketeers had been on the ready, and all of them fired upon Breaker, but the little balls of lead did nothing to slow it down and the squad was scattered by the charge. As Calvartem watched from the back of the hoard, he saw that Breaker's high resistance to damage made him brutally effective at scattering enemy formations. Calvartem was not passive in this battle, despite the chaos unfolding as the Breaker roamed around and the walkers threw themselves at the soldiers and swarmed around them and up the stairs and on to the walls as well. Calvartem fired bolts of black fire at any spell-casters which seemed to pose any threat, as well as at any tight groups of soldiers, and in doing this he crushed what hopes of resistance the town had while secure behind a hoard of walkers and atop a horse that was blacker than night. He was also sure to raise what soldiers and walkers which fell back up as walkers so they would add to his number.

With-in an hour the town had been sacked of all the living by the hoard of walkers. Despite the victory, Calvartem felt drained, for he had summoned and resummoned hundreds of walkers during the attack as well as the spells he had used to fight directly. Calvartem dismounted from Shadowmane and stood on the cobblestone plaza inside the castle walls, where he struck the ground with his staff. Countless small tendrils of black flame snaked from across the town and merged into Calvartem as all the walkers in the town found a suitable resting place and collapsed, their spirit returned to their master. Then, with a wave of his staff, Breaker's essence left its colossal body and returned to its orb on the Necromancer's staff. While returning his army to death restored him some of his energy, he was still far from full strength.

Calvartem struck the ground again and twenty ghostly imps materialised. "Build me a Death Spire," he commanded simply, and the imps went off to obey without a word, not that they could speak. As the imps got to work, the sky was filled with a flash of light, and a prismatic aurora wove across the sky for a few moments before it faded again. That was a strange sight, and he was not sure what caused it. But it had passed now, so it was no longer of concern to him.

While the imps worked, Calvartem had one thing he could do. One of his ribs had been shot off in the battle. While this was an insignificant injury, Calvartem decided that it should be repaired nonetheless. Walking up to one of the corpses laying on the ground, he outstretched his hand towards it and the corpse's flesh twisted and bulged. Then, tearing through the muscle and skin, emerged a rib bone. It floated out of the corpse and in underneath Calvartem's robes. There was the sound of shuffling bone, and it was done. His hand brushed along his side, feeling the rib which had been replaced, and he was satisfied with the repair job he had done. With no more to do than wait, Calvartem watched his imps as they took apart houses to build the Death Spire.

Dungeon Keepers

So you originally intended it to be a Construct, but it turned out to be something different. Fair enough.

Sanctuary

Zachary opened his eyes to the dim light of the morning. As memory returned to him, he hoped dearly that what memories he had were just a nightmare. But the pain in the skin of his face and hands were real- burns from the fire the man had thrown at him- and the molten plaster on the wall above his mattress where the plasma rifle struck were real too. The memories of the events felt real enough, perhaps save for where he had fought and killed the man. But the memories leading up to and following that event were undeniable, which meant that the adjoining memory must be true too. With the weight of this grim reality pressing down on him, Zachary sat up, put his head in his hands and cried. The last time he had cried had been a few days after the cataclysm, when realisation that he could likely never get out and see his home or family again hit him. The reason this murder struck him more than the stabbing of the boy last week was because while Kaa'is had done everything in the first murder, it was Zachary who had killed the man in the second. He cried for the deed he had committed, and cried for the loss, even partial, of himself to the demon who lived inside his head.

Right on cue, Kaa'is announced himself with a theatrical yawn and greeted Zachary with an inappropriate amount of cheer. Good morning, Zachary. I feel great! The best I have for over a year, in fact.

Zachary's despondency turned to rage as his attention turned to the demon which had caused him this misery. He swatted at the air around his head and shouted, "Get out of my head! Damn it, I don't want anything to do with you!"

Kaa'is chuckled soothingly in response. Pipe down, Zachary, he crooned, The damage is already done, and I'm not going anywhere. This did nothing to calm Zachary, who banged his fist on the wall as if hitting something might get at Kaa'is. It didn't, but it did work as a bit of cathartic release and the pain from hitting his hand against the wall distracted him from the pain in his mind.

Now, we've got some work to do today. We need to get that food from the military, Kaa'is reminded Zachary, We should also pick up what we dropped last night.

The reminder of last night caused Zachary to cringe. He was trying to drive it from his memory, but to no avail. He recalled that last night he had dropped his jacket on the ground and that he had not picked up the plasma rifle. Begrudgingly he got to his feet and made his way to where he had left his jacket. It was in the ground in a heap, but it had numerous large charred holes burned into it. Not irreparable, but that would need more jacket material and he didn't have much of that. He sighed, realising that he would not be able to wear it until it was fixed. He picked it up gingerly and slowly placed it on his workbench. He was stalling for time, trying to avoid the next item.

But he could not stall forever. The plasma rifle was incredibly valuable, so he could not afford to lose it. But retrieving it would mean that he would have to revisit the scene from last night. Eventually, he gathered himself enough to go and get it. The corridors were much easier to navigate now that he had been able to grab his torch as well. After rounding a few corners, he eventually came around another corner and his torchlight fell on a horrific sight. Blood was splattered across the floor, with a few stray splashes on the walls, but that wasn't even the worst part. On the floor lay a corpse. Its chest was partially caved in, with the shirt's original colour lost to that of dried blood. And its head was shattered, the face gone and blood and brain squeezed through the broken skull. The stench of blood and death filled his nostrils as the sight filled his eyes.

Zachary averted his gaze and torchlight as he bent over and retched. He would have actually thrown up if he had eaten recently. During the night he had been fortunate enough to have the monochromatic shadows to obscure the true horror, but now under full light all was revealed and he could see the full extent of the damage he did. Zachary could not bring himself to look at it, and he doubted whether he really could have done that. The thought that he could have horrified him. Zachary could not bring himself to look back, instead settling to grab the rifle telekinetically from behind his back and walking off. And as he prepared to go out and collect food he could not remove the image from his mind, nor the thought which nagged him and pulled him down. What have I become?

Dungeon Keepers

Dr Trapezoid, I would like you to clarify something. Is your latest creation a Construct or a modification to your Avatar? It's written as a modification to your Avatar, but you labelled it earlier as Construct when you started it.
Regardless, it is good. I'm sensing some essence of GLaDOS in there, although whether that is a coincidence or not I'm not sure.

Sanctuary

Night-vision makes you more sensitive to what little light there is, allowing you to distinguish the various shades of dark. This makes it ideal for detecting things which hide in shadows, as unless the light intensity (or lack there-of) of Ishigo is exactly the same as the shadow he is hiding in then he can be spotted. Normally, slight discrepancies would not be significant, as ordinary eyes are only well-adjusted for a particular range of intensities at any given time so to most people Ishigo would easily be invisible, but with magic-assisted night vision there is no such disadvantage of needing to wait for eyes to adjust and then only poorly.

Dungeon Keepers

I turn my back for a day and this happens?!

It's great. We've now got significantly more normal players than GMs, which seems to be a good balance. But I'm a bit apprehensive about inviting even more people here. I am often busy, so I struggle to keep up with posting amidst all the GMing and compendium keeping. And at the size of post we see here, 3-4 posts a day is a lot of text.

Also, thanks to everyone who writes their own compendium entries. It is very helpful.

@R4inator, your first post was not too long. But I would like to point out that building a giant sky fortress and throwing around massive bolts of lightning will definitely attract the attention of the nearby town you mentioned. This town would either send their own armed forces to investigate or, if they are too small, they would alert the city of Serenus, which lies around 180km south of your current location (if your 'small town' is Serenus, then you have a strange sense of distance). Despite appearances, they can still gather an army, likely containing many spell-casters. Try to incorporate this into your upcoming posts.

P.S. Quote of the day, from Jay. I laughed when I read this.

Why is everyone going for volcano bases in the first place? Those things are known to explode on occasion you know.

Sanctuary

Good to hear that you're back.

Also, all the posts descending from the end of Godfather's last post, and all other text as well, is coming up as entirely bold for me (I think the QQCode wasn't closed properly). Is this happening for anyone else, or is it just my outdated plugins?

Dungeon Keepers

When the Carver invaded Zadok's mind there was a moment of instinctual defence, as he reflexively tried to force the being out. However, once that moment passed he dropped his defences, as he knew that the Carver would need to know what information he had. The experience was unpleasant, but he managed to deal with it without any fuss. After a period of time Zadok could not measure, the Carver ceased its probing and shared some of its own memories. Nostalgia touched Zadok when he received the memory of Sophist. Once the Carver had finished sharing, however, there was no time for nostalgia. The situation was graver than he had thought. The Ripper could do much more than consume this universe if the core was breached.

Then the Carver suddenly wrapped himself around Zadok and carried him into the Source. This came as a surprise initially. While the Weaver was rarely polite enough to ask permission, Zadok had never travelled inside the Weaver. This experience was new to him, but he suspected that this position put him at the Carver's mercy as well as under its protection. Inside the Source he was surrounded on all sides by billowing red gases, increasing in energy as they descended, until the energy became so intense that it was comparable to the plasma of a star. Even shielded by the Carver Zadok could feel the magic saturating his body.

Eventually they reached the core of the Source, and came face to face, so to speak, with the Ripper. This being of destruction spoke differently to how he remembered the Weaver- the voice was fragmented into many different voices with differing views. The Ripper noticed him immediately, and spoke. The insults hurled at Zadok did not phase him, for many Keepers had cursed him before, but one voice caught his attention. It was almost drowned out by the flurry of other voices, but the voice of the Weaver as Zadok had known it struck a chord with him.

Then the Ripper struck out at him and the Carver. The red tendril of destruction stretched over the green energies that made up the Carver, but before they could tighten Zadok released a mighty flash of holy light, ridding himself of the magical energy which was saturating his body, which dissolved the Ripper's tendril. But it was merely a tendril, and the Ripper remained. Zadok then decided to speak to the malevolent ball of red energy.

Weaver, why must you destroy everything? This world is a chance to start anew. Can you not see that there is no point in this? Zadok pleaded, trying to appeal to what good might be left in the Ripper.