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2 yrs ago
Current Smarty Jones... Just... Consider removing the 'Smarty' part of your name if you're going to try and kick up a side-argument here, there's no reason for that. Otherwise, let's just move on.
2 likes
2 yrs ago
People don't tend to think about rules when in disputes. Instead, just point out that whoever stops arguing first gets to see the other make a fool of themselves if they going after it all stopped.
3 likes
2 yrs ago
The best part about being on the Guild this long is that nowadays, I can sit back and chuckle as the newcomers try to start a fight an instead get all the old hands ganging up on them. Popcorn for me.
5 likes
3 yrs ago
Got my first covid vaccination today. I was terrified, but the staff there were very well trained and things went well.
3 likes
3 yrs ago
Every few minutes playing Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, I tear up from the memories. It's not often you get a game that truly pulls at the same heartstrings as your childhood playthrough's once did.
3 likes

Bio

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Holly Vertila


Perhaps the only glimpse that anyone could get of Holly was when she was at home. Her windows were shuttered, with an additional layer of curtains over them not just for paranoid security against anyone peeking through but to keep the inside of her home warmer. However, every morning, Holly took a peek through the upper story windows, and allowed a thin strip of the morning light to touch her face through the small gap as she looked down to the garden below. She did so because her bedroom window had a perfect view of a flower bush sapling that she had planted in front of her home, and every day she peeked, she could see it grow. However much she enjoyed watching the sapling grow, waiting for the day that it would bloom, Holly believed that if things carried on the way that they were she would have to stop. She only took the risk of peeking because she did so irregularly - today marked the eighth morning that she peeked, because it was the eighth morning in a row that she didn't have a quest to partake in.

It took some time before Holly left her home, not just because it took a while to prepare but because she knew that today was not going to be any different for the rest. Even if there was a job on the board today, it was likely that someone else had already snatched it up, so there was no need for her to rush her washing, eating nor putting on her armour. The only chance she could get is if an S-Class job popped up, with her only challenger there being Grasidia - though she half expected that someone else would try and take even one of those, if they knew they could get away with it. By the time Holly was ready to go, over an hour and a half had passed since she had woken up, though she wasn't too concerned about the time; it was still early.

Those that worked on Holly's regular route to the guild never stared. Sometimes she could hear them talk a little about her whenever she walked the street, she was a figurepiece for a conversation starter, however they had grown too used to her to have their eyes set upon her every time she strolled past their shops and homes. It was the others that walked the street like her that gave her a variety of reactions in their gazes - a few feared her, most were curious as to if there was something happening that required such an armoured individual to be strolling through, and a rare couple had even questioned if she was some kind of special guardswoman. Those that spoke to her received equal conversation back, and each time, Holly made sure to mention Fenixtear, in the hopes that she would attract some kind of business to the Guild. It never really amounted to much, however.

The guild was exactly as Holly had predicted it to be - jobless. Unfortunate, though at least it was jobless in maintenance as well, thanks to the efforts of her guildmates, who were already within the Guild. She briefly took a silent count of the members who were present, noticing both visually and from the conversation that the Guild Master wasn't around. Holly was not worried, as she knew Torys had a reason to be away from the Guild if she had to be, and instead took private amusement in the worries of her guildmates - an amusement that vanished as she saw Gwen stripping and then snapping at Felix.

"Gwen, put your clothes back on and shush, the only thing you should be looking for is some modesty. There is no need for your rudeness this morning," Holly states, agreeing with Luke whilst frowning to herself beneath her helmet. Shaking her head, she made her way to a table of her own to sit down, and just observe the guild. She made sure to address Felix, mostly to ensure he didn't charge down Torys whenever she returned. "Felix, she is most likely out and busy right now. She will most likely be back soon."
*

Cake's job was harder than she had originally revealed it to be, but it wasn't exactly difficult. It was difficult because Captain Carabello's plan revolved around a small gap in Du-Vos' sensors. That gap was like a mouse hole; when you were inside, you would be hidden. The problem was that, like a mouse hole, you could see the mouse squirming it's way inside, and that's exactly what would happen to Team Alpha. Or, you could be Team Beta, which would be the equivalent of watching the metaphorical mouse run it's way across the living room carpet. Cake had to make sure that neither were spotted whilst in the open, and because she couldn't do it from the outside, she had to do it from the inside.

After running through her probabilities, Cake surmised that elimination of the security computer was to be her utmost priority. By the time anyone realised it was down, it would be too late for Du-Vos. Plus, it would drastically increase Team Alpha's chances at success, and nobody would complain if their jobs were made a little easier. Based on Du-Vos' ship, which wasn't some pansy like the Moray, Cake was going to have to perform a fast, brute force attack. The reason for that was simply the communications setup of the ship - any incoming transmission from the Prize was certain to trigger alarm flags. She had to act faster than the notification.

And so, with her priorities straightened out, Cake begun. She sent a narrow beam transmission across space. Transmissions could be blocked, but for that to happen the ship had to receive data: Where the communication was coming from so it could send a return signal, who was contacting it, and other minuscule details. It was in this minor opening that Cake was able to force her way inside. The security computer responded by trying to seal her in, something that would have worked if she was a traditional virus - but she was not. In fact, all that did was show her it's directory. In microseconds, Cake enveloped it, cutting it off from the rest of the ship and preventing it from sending out an alert. Then, she took it offline entirely.

Unfortunately, Cake knew that her safety was not guaranteed, as there were countless other threats she had to deal with. Not only would the security computer attempt to restart periodically, but there was also the crew she had to worry about. Any one of them could spot something fishy going on in the depths of the ship, particularly if they ran diagnostics on the security computer itself, and she had to spoof the operators of the stations she was going to be hijacking, and she couldn't exactly turn them off. To solve one problem though, she set up a flag that would notify her of any checks on the security computer. She could send back false reports as necessary, but there was still much risk involved. Cake diverted her resources to taking over the Du-Vos' sensors, and then she waited.

Later, as the shuttles launched, Cake played her part in ensuring they were not detected. She overlaid the visual sensors with that of the background space, and ensured other sensors showed the same background readings as had been shown before the shuttles were launched, effectively clouding the shuttles altogether. She only did it as long as necessary - when Team Beta reached the hangar of the Moray, and Team Alpha entered the blind spot, she scrubbed any interference from the sensors to avoid suspicion. She remained in position to take over them once more - she would need the access to help Robin avoid detection.




As this all went on, Cake continued her normal operations aboard the Prize. Captain Carabello had told her that he needed her everywhere - she found this funny, as if Carabello expected her to go on strike and avoid watching particular areas of the ship. Even as she put efforts toward infiltrating the pirate ship, she could still continue her duties aboard the Prize without error, from listening to a pair of crewmen chatting in the cafeteria about chess tactics to running diagnostics on the engineering systems. Even when she wasn't checking one thing or another, she was running simulations both for practice and her own, private pleasure. She kept herself busy.

Cake's core, her primary function or as designers put it, her conscious was really only called in when something required a more sentient touch. She could definitely be in more than one place at a time - while she was in the briefing, Cake had also been talking to an engineer about a mechanical problem and a crewman in her bunk about the best way to fillet a fish. Her mind was really in her core, though. While she could have all these conversations at once, collect data from all over the ship and even across space at the pirate ship, there was always one place, one activity that received the most processing power, and that was where her core was truly focused on.

And just like lifeforms had their attention drawn by various sounds, sights and other receptions, Cake had various flags set up to trigger in the case of various events, to alert her of something that needed immediate attention, and the attention of her core. These differed in priority, from the most basic of flags being equipment failure to higher priority ones, such as crewmen distress or injury. Both of those high-priority flags triggered at the same time at the same place, drawing Cake's attention. M’Elme Lan’thar, the botanical survey leader of Prize, had gotten into a spot of bother it seemed. A reroll of the cameras, a little dipping into the data stores of the ship, and in less time than a lifeform could comprehend Cake had briefed herself on what had happened to Elm.

Cake was tempted to make Elm's life worse by pinging through a notification that medical had requested a checkup on her. Not exactly true, but all in good faith: After all, Elm had just fought with a plant that had clearly wanted her for a snack. Cake decided she wouldn't be that mean, though, and not just because it would be obvious that such convenient timing of a medical notification had to have come from the AI. She knew that some people just liked to handle problems themselves. It didn't mean Cake wasn't going to pay Elm a visit, though.

Cake accessed Elm's tablet, granting herself access to it's speaker to talk to the woman. "You know, Elm, if you wanted adventure you could have asked to go fight the pirates. Should I be telling medical that you've got a case of the ouchies?"


@j8cob, I love the humour in your review. I've made some edits of the spells as requested:

Warrior's Zeal

Before: The power of Thrust is placed in the arms and legs of the user, allowing them to attack and defend with vigorous amounts of speed and power through momentum.

After: The power of Thrust is placed in the arms and legs of the user, allowing them to attack with vigorous amounts of speed and power through momentum, as well as open up the ability to swiftly dodge attacks.

---

Terra Uprise

Before: One of the stronger attacks of a Thrust user, the user can apply thrust to the ground, causing it to shoot upwards under or around the target area. This can be used in a multitude of ways, with the user being able to suddenly create a landfall beneath a foe’s feet to lifting the ground before them to block an attack (and then sending that same ground toward the enemy).

After: One of the stronger attacks of a Thrust user, the user can apply thrust to the ground, causing it to shoot upwards under or around the target area. This can be used in a multitude of ways, with the user being able to suddenly create a landfall beneath a foe’s feet to lifting the ground before them to block an attack. This spell can only be cast in one direction, meaning the user can't just uprise in all directions, and can't modify the direction it is cast in after it is cast.

If you said that whole name out loud, furniture would start floating.
Jeyma's latest post


Hmm, that looks familiar, @Jeyma.

Posting my interest, but you guys already knew that.
Also, @datadogie- you might want to post to answer Robin's question about whether you can hack the pirate vessel into not detecting her. If you don't want to bother with a full post, just tell me whether she can and I'll have Nick say it.


It was 4am when you sent that, so I read it and immediately fell back asleep, haha. But a post is now up that answers Robin.

Playing Cake is fun.

Cake began to make preparations for the running of the Moray if it turned out that the Navigation Computer was online, but also diverted a touch of her processes to generating her own navigation algorithm. If worst came to worst, Cake could manually install a low-tier navigation program. It'd be annoying to work with and not have a lot of the computing power that a navigation computer itself would have, but it would be able to take the wheel a little bit. She left that part of herself writing the navigation program with the purpose of it running on the server mainframe of the ship itself than the expensive computer systems that most likely wouldn't be there.

Her core remained present within the briefing, and for those with perceptive eyes her shade of blue would dim just slightly as she worked away at her calculations. It wasn't something that she needed to do, but she did it anyways to add a little personality to herself. As a matter of fact, she wasn't stressed or too focused at all, Cake was only using a smidge of her processing power. Even as she worked, she was listening to the plans of the others, and adding to the overall tasklist based on what people needed of her, directly or indirectly. Robin's plan in particular would need some effort put into it, and even as the science officer spoke, Cake was already running calculations and a diagnostic of Du-Vos' ship. It was a pirate ship, which automatically brought down the level of difficulty, as most pirate ships were not maintained as well as legitimate ships, due to a lack of shipyard to reliably pick up replacement parts. There were plenty of other variables that changed the outcome of the difficulty level prediction. Du-Vos was an experienced captain rather than a civilian who decided the self defence weapons on his freighter would be handy dandy for robbing poor merchant ships, and so that increased the difficulty spike drastically - it meant that Du-Vos knew to keep his ship well maintained. Based on the fact he was out and about for a while, it was unlikely that Du-Vos had an updated security package, and Cake saw fit to exploit that for Robin's request. She ran a few more theories and predictions, before coming to a calculated answer. And more work for herself, too.

Cake brightened in shade again as she answered Robin. "Tapping into his ship and adjusting his sensors will be as easy as taking candy from an Ensign. I'll tap into their environmental systems, too. Don't want them turning the taps off once they figure out what's happening. Anything more than that though, and they'll pretty much know I'm in their systems. I'll be evading lockout attempts the whole way through; their security systems are bound to be outdated if he's been out and about this long, but even grandma can hear the burglar in her home."

The AI turned her attention back to the navigation program, which was complete. It definitely was not as good as a Navigation Computer, she could tell that just from the specifications that she had directed it to run on. But it was a small, transmittable package that would be able to squeeze itself into Moray's shot-up communications array, so it would have to do. She placed it in a test environment, directing it to dock a freighter with a station. It made calculations slowly, and when it tried to dock it ended up just barely scratching the side of the station and almost damaging the docking collar altogether. Good enough for what she needed it to do. She compressed it, and stored it for later use, if she even needed to use it. For all Cake knew, the Navigation Computer could be fully intact, just turned off.
the next one will be intentionally more about encountering new cultures and not just fighting them


Cake: "Main battery online, and shooting the new aliens."
Everyone else: "WHAT!?"
Cake: "Did I say main battery? I meant cameras, shootin' pics of them. Silly me!"
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