Circ

Dr. Elenwen

@Normie Approved.

Lothaire The Crime Lord

@Lothaire Shouldn't the influence be a 4 to match the weak mind control? To leverage that across a global population, he'd need influential connections in the media and government if he wanted any hope of exerting mind control on a sizable audience.

Also, Shiny stone requires some description if its influence is 5. At first I thought that might've been some sort of typo, but in any case more detail is helpful here.

Sea of Ignominy

Satire out of the way and as bad as this thread started out (and continued to be for a while), there were some aspects of it I enjoyed. Specifically the dialogue and the attempt the characters made to empathize with one another in the last three or four posts. That, in my opinion, elevated the situation from just a stupid fight into something potentially meaningful in terms of the Val'Gara and the direction of the group. Megalodon's mental turmoil and Disciple's acknowledgement that his attempts to reconcile a fairly impossible situation were futile -- both of those inclusions were good.

Sea of Ignominy

Thread summary:

Sassy Mama claws her way out of Colossus’ belly. She’s a big’un; like, “Sassy Mama So Fat She Squashed a Planet” big. No wonder her mama exploded. No wonder she cranky. Her brothers are there, by-the-by. They do not impress. She bitch-smacks shark-bro to a whole ‘nother world and ties squid-bro up in bondage gear.

Disoriented from being flung to Planet Crazy, shark-bro burps up some spittle. A mean bong-hitting man afflicted with Alexandria Genesis tells him to shut up and mind his manners. Damn, he smokes a lot. The whole place is covered in it. Before shark-bro can apologize, the mean man tells his luck dragons Sandy and Rocky to sick ‘em. Shark-bro doesn’t like that and bites Rocky’s tail. They land on the ground and make a big boom. Apparently, they hit the ground too damn hard and wake up Rip Van Winkle. He is hungry and devours a spider with eyelids. Whoever heard of such a thing? Then he starts bitching about kids these days having no respect and magics squid-bro into a bathtub full of putrefied skin because plain ole bondage gear is boring.

Meanwhile, Sassy Mama farted through space to escape her moma’s dead body. Her farts are pretty bad and pretty moist. Anyway, she catches a whiff of her own produce and and either hallucinates or really does run into a giant cross-dresser in space who wants to give her a shiny rock. She isn’t having none of that, though. No shiny rock. The cross-dresser won’t take no for an answer, and tricks her into taking the rock. Damn. It isn’t a rock, after all. It’s fucking urchin-bro, her new baby brother. Where was he hiding? Don’t matter. She bitch-smacks him away too.

Back on Planet Crazy: lots of val-babies being made. Not through normal reproduction. Just random shit getting stuck in the folds of fat-bro’s loose skin. Eventually squid-bro claws his way out of fat-bro’s belly button and damn is he angry. He starts mouthing off about how Satan or Magnus or somebody is their daddy. Some rockstar starts thrashing out some Metal Mayhem. He doesn’t actually know how to play his instrument, though. This drives the luck dragons crazy and so they start barking at flesh-bro. The bad music also attracts the attention of a bigger, hornier, metal dragon who bursts upon the scene. He isn’t friends with anyone! And he has a gun! Shark-bro’s pet fish is screaming, but he has a tummy ache. Whoops, ate too much! He vomits and a bunch of jelly fish come rushing out.

Holy fuck, these guys have mommy issues.

The metal dragon fires his pistol.

Shark-bro flushes his pet fish down the toilet because he is sad and confused. Then he jumps into the toilet too and swims down the drain.

One the Impenetrable

@Tristwich Approved.

Admiral Forge

@Mataus Approved.

Unsolicited Invasion (Earth-F67X Chronicle)

Verily, the flames of Violence devoured the influence of the Vesuvian Virus. Consequently, the animal mind, once trapped in the moment, expanded through the visceral fog of survival and obedience to true sapience. Increasingly, memories poured in, including those from the ages prior to his enslavement to Idea. More and more the boiling river ate away at who he wasn’t and exposed who he was, less monster and more demon.

Within the charnel house of sutured limbs and battered flesh, Nessus reanimated within its mind epics that preceded its enslavement to Idea. Genuine remnants were reclaimed ages hence in the specters of the loyal wolfhound, the innocent belle, the trench of worms, and the morphic virus, but withheld was the catalyst of sadistic incipience that the other components decidedly lacked—the polluted ingredient that twisted honor, poisoned righteousness, and distorted beauty equally explained its otherworldly athanasia and further mythic aspects.

Idea had plucked a demon from flames of hell and watched as the Vesuvian Virus interleaved the fallen codex of the supernatural with the hallowed grist of life. Pure and impure, equally enslaved, distorted, and deprived of identity, exalted to heaven and damned to the inferno.

The worms were no more.

The girl’s name was Claar.

Her dog’s name wasn’t Nessus.

Oddly, he finally recognized her influence, although it was there all the while. Her body long dead, Claar’s soul ascended to bliss. He hated her for that, her escape from the eternal torment all spiritual beings deserved. He recalled how she would not, at first, countenance that to which her soul, by astra, was tethered, for the evil and twisted nature of the Val’Gara exceeded her capacity to reconcile. Yet, as time wore on, she learned pity and sought to inspire dignity in the multiparte being. Now, her powers awakened by the passage of millennia and with Tristan as her host, she refused to let his beauty be tortured and annihilated. While she could not cleanse him of it, she nevertheless pitted her will against that of the Vesuvian Virus and reined in its morphic influence.

He would not be converted, nor consumed, nor controlled.

Still, it was a strange thing and, in a way, she was thankful that the virus, in its action to enslave, made possible her communion to the world of the living.

. . .

Minutes stretched into hours as Tristan wandered the forlorn corridors of Jadis. The emergency lights soaked everything in sinister scarlet hue, from the cold corpses on the floor to each inadvertent glance at his warped visage in the mylar-draped walls. Variations of crimson and maroon lurched in the shadows, but it was his own, indistinct and constrained to his periphery, that eventually became the most unsettling and alien. It conjured into his mind incarnations of the horsemen of the apocalypse, or gorgons, or a hydra.

With an effort, he consigned the nightmares to the place of unthought thoughts and concentrated on the task at hand. Frustrated at nearly every turn, his compass nevertheless expanded with every access card, severed hand, and plucked cornea taken from the dead. Each impasse and backtrack was a misstep in his race against time, he felt; if not limited by the site’s remaining fuel then by the stench intensifying in the halls as the bodies steadily thawed. Soon the place would reek strongly of death and present the added risk of airborne disease.

He stalked the facility with the silence and analytical eye of a trained assassin. Over time, he built up a rapport with his surroundings, much like he would have in encountering an acquaintance not seen in years. Which is to say, things were the same but markedly different. As was typical with a black site, no ownership was implied. Even so, amongst the various laboratories he found vials of bio-force and cartons of adrenal enhancers.

This facility has to be Mobius Corps, he thought, but I shouldn’t prejudge. Things are the same, sure, but different in small yet meaningful ways. More advanced, almost. And why is my clearance not recognized? Perhaps it is a simulation—training? Enemy espionage. In time …

Finally, he worked his way to the armory.

There they were, a row of inky black frames lined up against the wall. Super suits, Tristan recognized instantly. Four, all told. Intrigued, he stepped closer. These weren’t the cutting-edge T-22 he wore on Xenophore, but far more advanced models. In comparison, his seemed like a relic. If this is an enemy simulation, they know too much, he deduced, this could be a trap—they could be trying to mine my mind for intel. It seemed like ages that he stood there and gazed at the super suits in a mixture of awe and indecision. If this is real, these assets will be invaluable. He tapped his foot once, twice, and a third time. Fuck it.

A minutes later, he stood a good two feet taller, black carbon nono-weave within black–whatever. He had no clue what this new model was made out of, but movement within was as natural as without. In a word, he felt like even more of a badass.

> Hud initialized.

The tactical overlay changed his perception dramatically. Again, it was similar to that of his T-22, just … better. Faster, simpler, less cluttered were descriptions of the user experience that all jumped to mind.

I wonder what model this suit is, briefly slipped through his cerebrum. Tristan was shocked when an answer synchronized to his primary auditory cortex and directly, inaudibly to anyone else, interjected:

> Hello, Tristan. This suit’s model number is Prototype U-9, codename Tethys.

For a moment, he was speechless. A number of questions flickered through his mind, most too indistinct to qualify as conscious thought. Still, one managed to bubble up to the surface more or less intact: Why Tethys?

> According to my development notes, I am named for one of the least-known titans, which fit the project profile of secrecy and strength.

In retrospect, although an interesting tidbit, he really didn’t need to know any of that. What Tristan needed was to get home. To get home, he needed to know what assets were at his disposal and possess an overview of this unit’s capabilities.

In anticipation of his half-formed question, a list began scrolling in front of his left-eye.

> Adaptive Camouflage
> Physiological Enhancements
> Med-Scan
> Gravity Repulsion
> Ballistic Shielding
> Psionic Shielding
> …

It went on and on until he started to forget some of what it could do. Instead, he focused on what would help him address his more immediate concerns. He found out from Tethys where he was, when he was, and began to formulate a plan on the best way to get back to Earth-F67X. He also discovered there were peculiarities in his psionic and physiological profiles, but they did not pose an imminent threat to his well-being. He decided to dismiss that for later. The situation was already taking its toll. What she wouldn’t—and presumably couldn’t—answer was how he came to be on Jadis in the first place.

Protected from his environment, he took his time stocking up on armaments and eventually made his way to the blasted-out hanger. It just took the thought of What happened here? for Tethys to play back in vivid halographic detail the events from mere hours before. The image of Reschelle being whisked away both infuriated and awakened in him a memory. He saw her hovering above him in the room in which he first found himself on Jadis, passion, determination, and frustration burning in her evergreen eyes. Also, a touch of disappointment.

So angelic …

At first, he tried to use the beacon to teleport himself home. That required a special access code, which he didn’t have. Worse, he knew if he tried to hack it the firewall would leave him hanging in space as a bunch of inarticulate particles spread out across light years. Meanwhile, all but one of the ships in the hanger were too damaged for flight or life support, and even that required repairs. Nothing that between himself and Tethys couldn’t be addressed.

An hour into his work, something within him flared and recoiled. In the back of his mind, he felt, rather than heard, a clarion call—it screamed and beckoned and while it ensued seemed as if a piece of his essence were being siphoned away, only to violently lurch back in refusal. It wasn’t him, although it certainly felt that way; instead, something intangible vaguely intertwined with his will. In that brief moment of separation, he became certain of his own death. In the next, it was gone.

> Anti-psionic countermeasures activated. Connection request interrupted.

Tristan shook his head to clear away the fog and murmured, “What’s wrong with me?”

> Analysis confirms your life force is maintained by two external proxies. Thus, full metaphysical defense protocols jeopardize your vitality. In lieu of that, I’ve been actively scanning anomalies. A psionic frequency attempted to access your primary proxy by hacking your side of the connection. I have added that signature to my firewall.

Tristan was dumbfounded—proxies, hacking his soul or whatever the heck was implied by Tethys’ analysis. Those were questions for later, of which he was accumulating a great deal. Instead, he queried, Were you able to isolate its source?

> It explicitly identified itself as The Will of Idea.

. . .

Modesty wasn’t one of Spencer’s vices. He stripped as he walked along next to Czes, leaving a trail of dirt and debris for the artificial assistant to pick up—socks holier than the Pope, underwear able to stand on its own power, torn jeans, stained t-shirt, and sweaty brown footprints. Although Czes looked like a child, Spencer suspected there was far more to him than met the eye. That said, the extent of the immortal’s business empire and strategic influence were even more closely-guarded secrets.

“Gosh, thanks for getting me out of the shit. A few minutes more and I would’ve been taken out by an explosion, or flying car, or something. Who knows when monsters are fighting? Anyway, where are we, exactly?”

“It doesn’t matter where we are,” Czes replied, his tone and affect unaltered as he took the nearby stairs down a deck, turned a corner, and opened a door to the water closet. “What is important is quickly getting to our destination. Get in.”

“Where might that be?” Spencer pressed, leaning against the door frame. The pristine white metal was cold, and when he pulled away he left a smudge. Chastised by the chill, he marched forward. Automatically, the sprayers activated. A second later, the pool of black water was draining away between his feet. The artificial assistant behind him, holding his rags, conjured up a look to display just how unimpressed it was.

Meanwhile, Czes’ face was a mask. Hands folded placidly behind his back, he observed Spencer with a critical eye. A few scars and bruises on his lanky, but muscular form, to be sure, but the operative was otherwise fully intact. More than could be said of most spies his age. Which was—he forgot. Fifty or sixty in his years, maybe. Then again, people from Careo Fas didn’t age in the same way as they did on Earth-F67X. It was possible Spencer was still the late twenty-something his physique indicated.

“Tamarin, an autonomous floating city in the Indian Ocean. Coordinates vary. It is currently the prime capital of the South-West Asia Group, although that honor shifts amongst the four capital cities of the group every new year.”

Spencer paused from washing his hair. He wasn’t aware of any business Czes might have in the SWAG, but there was a lot he didn’t know. Not that he cared much about where they were going, he was just nosy, a good trait for an information broker. In response, he shrugged his shoulders and quipped, “Four, huh? Monkey, baboon, and ape?”

“Mandrill, Vervet, and Rhesus, actually. You know this, or should. It was included in your intelligence updates. Now, what happened on Fortis—and how did Allure City end up here? After that is out of the way, describe each of these so-called monsters you observed prior to extraction.”

A few minutes later, Czes enjoyed a bit of sherry up on deck. Spencer was below, presumably selecting something respectable to wear. Czes had his doubts on that point, but it wasn’t a natter of much importance—worst case scenario, a few snobs would be offended. Tamarin, meanwhile, gleamed on the horizon a few kilometers away. It looked to be in far better condition than Allure City, embroiled in severe conflict. He saw the broadcasts and contemplated reaching out to Margaret Iedereen directly, but concluded that would be a waste of political currency; particularly after he observed the response from New Roswell.

He glanced down at the screen of his monitor and adjusted an earbud.

On Czes’ behalf, Lionel Duperie busily addressed a panel of world leaders, mainly from Europe and the SWAG, assembled in the aftermath of the Iberian upheaval. Self-important people preferred the distinguished and exceptionally normal middle-age spokesperson to the child trillionaire. Behind the Comte Foundation spokesperson and the logos of its charitable arms, giant screens portrayed mundane scenes of life in Allure City recently acquired from Spencer’s recording apparatus. Everyday people, only alien in physical appearance and no different than any of Earth-F67X’s citizens in their emotional response to the fear and danger of their present circumstances. Lionel impressed the truth that these people, millions in number, played no part in the turmoil. In contrast, that they were victims and still in very real danger. Not just internally, but externally—from the potential response of Earth’s government to vengeance-seeking vigilantes.

In other news, Czes noticed that his public relations team already responded to what the media speculated was a terrorist attack on Discorporate Headquarters. He stood in solidarity with his friend Apollo Amon against the act of violence. An appropriate response to an unthinkable event.

Jane Hyder

@SIGINT Approved.

Paleoworld Agonist

@Antarctic Termite Okay. This is definitely what I would consider a character with an influence of five given the synergy of all abilities. A Living Touch should probably be bumped up to five on its own, as it allows things like a hail of bullets, etc, to pass through Calign. Otherwise, approved.