Avatar of Parzivol
  • Last Seen: 4 yrs ago
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    1. Parzivol 6 yrs ago

Status

Recent Statuses

6 yrs ago
I forgot how bad colds were.
6 yrs ago
When he says work at it, he means work at it. Hard. It's definitely not a problem that'll ever really go away. You'll just learn to keep it quiet, or force through it.
5 likes
6 yrs ago
Nothing makes me happier than seeing a sub notification.
1 like
6 yrs ago
Fallout 4 was certainly terrible in many ways, but some stuff like the fridge-kid can be overlooked through the less-than-serious attitude of the entire series. Yknow. Pistols exploding entire bodies.
6 yrs ago
Gimp drains the lifeforce of those that download it. Be wary. If your soul is plentiful and grand, then surely you'll face not the gatekeeper of Gimp and be able to freely use the program.

Bio

Yo, Parzivol here.

Young, in that I'm young enough that I'm not yet considered an Adult. Been doing this since I was about twelve to some capacity or another. Of course, that means I started in Minecraft and another forum. Worked my way into Discord and then here. Excited to participate.

Primary Interests:
Dark Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Historical-Medieval (Periodic style insertion stuff, a la Kingdom Come: Deliverance). My stylistic preferences are on the side of mystery, rather than open-world adventure romps or conventional murder-hoboing.

Favorite Authors:
R.A. Salvatore, H.P. Lovecraft, David Eddings, Orson S. Card

Games Of Choice:
TES: Oblivion, Darkest Dungeon, FTL: Faster Than Light, Dark Souls 1, For Honor, Divinity: OS 2 (Haven't gotten to 1 yet, though I'd like to), and Absolver.

Out of that list, my favorite in terms of storytelling methods are DS1 and Absolver, which both use the light-touch item descriptions method. Take whatever you wish from that. FTL has engaging stories, and Oblivion is a fun FPS A-RPG with the heavy lean on action. Darkest Dungeon is the monster I'm yet to slay, while DS1 is the monster I love to curl up with on cold days. Divinity: OS 2 is interesting and I enjoyed what I played, but I wasn't all that engaged in the story. Personally doesn't feel like the kind of game that should have player-made characters. Perhaps the simple fix would be to play one of their legacy heroes. I'll find out this summer, in all likelihood.

Also, Music:
Weezer, Primus, MC LARS, Beastie Boys

Most Recent Posts

Alrighty. I'm now just waiting for proper character motivation and something to direct Yolo into the mess that's going on in the wider more populated parts of the Sanctuary. I'll be adding his real world name to his character sheet, as well.

Crevice in the shade...



The haptic suit was actually hurting now. The wounds burned against the open air, and the loose chunks of shrapnel and shards of stone that had scattered back into the small hide-away. It was pulling him out of the experience. It should have been a battle. Someone should have come by at this point.

He shrugged his shoulders, and shook loose dust and exhaustion. With a will of their own his feet and hands dragged him from his hovel, and he grabbed his blade. It found himself fixed firmly between his ribs and into his lungs and heart. It was a singular, careful incision. His health point indicator dropped sharply. The scent tower in the corner of his room showed him the richness and redness that was blood. His own blood. When he wrenched the blade up, it carved through his form. The pinching and pain brought deep by the blade and the haptic suit faded as his favorite red text brought itself across his screen. A rich, vibrant, crisp image. It meant home to him. His investment in that tournament had been minimal anyhow.


Kirt knocked his visor up and tugged at the zipper of the haptic suit. He had cracked his system so that he could walk away when he needed to. By the time he had returned from his exodus into sunlight, he’d be back at his version of Firelink Shrine. His default spawn location. His, as he saw it, home away from flesh and blood.

Carefully, he waited for the dizziness to fade away. His head ached a bit, and he swayed. Rather than fall, he caught himself on his dresser. After it passed, he continued into the hallway. His hands traced the walls of his home, dragging along the moulding around the doors as he passed. When he finally met his stairs, he walked down them. His younger brother, now seventeen, was watching television on the coach with his Sanctuary gear and haptic gloves to the side. The news was on. A pair of anchors were babbling about some incident downtown.

Hey. You alright?

“Yeah.

Cool. Mom home from the store yet?

“Yeah. She’s working in the garage.”

Rad. Tell her I got water and I love her.

“Will do.”

Kirt drifted off at that. To the fridge. He hoped quietly that his father had filled the fridge sometime recently. Being a content developer for the Sanctuary was a good gig, sure, but it often kept him out of the house pulling long nights. Designing video game content had become harder since the Sanctuary. Less video games and more culture being introduced. Professional content designers were fading more rapidly as well due in large part to the ease of access into the occupation. Connections got him a corporate content design job, however. Kept him and the family stable and awake.

He got a water bottle from the fridge and stepped away, leaning over the nearby coach to watch the news with his brother. He watched carefully as the Old Man In Red appeared. He decided immediately that Omir was one of the content developers or a lead content developer with Sanctuary’s ownership company. Or some similarly important figure. The speech ended, and he walked up stairs.

Watch Twitter and Facebook and what have you. Call Dad and Mom if it turns out to be true. Text Dad now, make sure he heard. I’m gonna go run Darksouls offline. Don’t worry about me. Come tell me what’s up if you spot anything odd.” He was lying. He didn’t play Dark Souls offline. Ever.

Stepping back into his room, a veritable mess of toys, figurines, and various brands of Sanctuary interface gear. His chair sat open, and the scent tower was putting out old stone and grass. That was suggestive of Firelink. As suggestive of it as possible.

There were implications that Kirt, soon again to be Yolo Of Londor, didn’t like about this supposed techno-organic thing. How did it infect people through the game, for one. Didn’t seem scientifically sound. Something like a scent tower could do it, but as far as he knew most people didn’t play with scent towers because of where they landed on the financial burden side of things. Construct the pathogen inside the scent tower. It was more or less a chemical manufacturing tool, wasn’t it? That seemed the most likely thing. He walked over to it, and unplugged it from the wall. Once he figured out a potential cause other than it, he’d plug it back in. For now he’d search his favorite invasion locations for an example of one of these infected things.


Yolo woke up with a close friend placing a gentle, warm hand on the cold shoulder that belonged to him. It was an NPC, yes, but he couldn’t help but feel a connection to it. They were exceptionally designed machines. They rarely repeated answers. It was good to have something that felt so attached to his favorite world.

“Hello? You alright, friend?”

The withering old pilgrim glanced over Firelink. It was Firelink Classic. He preferred it to the Firelink present in the third Souls game. Regardless, the pyromancer would have been there. There was something about the way he talked. A cadence to it. An honesty. An altogether genuine personality. He was mandatory to any run. Even the speed runs that would have forgone him completely. As far as the Pilgrim was concerned.

Excellent, Laurentius. Just broke from a particularly souring invasion. Dozens of fools clustered together fighting along a ridge. Myself among the, but I’d been disarmed. A ponce was using some old Velkan sorcery that was putting spells out completely. Dreadful. I used a black soapstone to make myself scarce.” He pivoted, using his sword to help support the massive weight on his back. It was difficult to move with it. But move he did. Carefully.

“Oh. Well, remember to be safe, friend. Do you need pyromancies?”

No. Good bye, Laurentius, my friend. Don’t you dare go Hollow.” Laurentius nodded and smiled. Once the Pilgrim Yolo had turned his head, Laurentius went idle. NPCs were never perfect. These were old ones. He didn’t expect much from any of them. Laurentius still made the old Hollow smile, though.

Old Hollow. It was odd that Yolo Of Londor called himself that. He always did enjoy putting himself into the game as fully as possible.


Quelaag shuddered, and the chaotic energies pouring out of every wound and orifice burned at the fading corpse. The Soul counter in Yolo’s bottom right vision began to tick up the valid 60,000 point reward. His screen ignited in the golden, “You Won,” text that he dreaded so harshly. No challenge. He was hit once during the encounter, and it barely shaved a sixth off of his health bar. Each of his strikes was worth dozens of Quelaag’s own, considering how solid his defenses were and how thorough his offensive was. The result was a board grunt. He turned around and dug around in his bag. After a moment of searching his inventory, which appeared to him as a well organized rucksack that slung over his side, he found his Mound-maker trinket and equipped it. Then, he retrieved his Red Eye Orb.

Invasions were what motivated him most greatly. They always presented some kind of challenge. Backstab fishers, parry fishers. All of them were challenges to some extent. Pyromancers were his favorite to face, sorcerers his least. They all still brought him pleasure through the challenges that they represented.

Once he activated the orb, his session began searching. Invasion orbs worked slightly differently when used from within a Dark Souls session. They kept you within a Dark Souls game and tossed you into a leveled session specifically to ensure a fair challenge. This one did just that. The Mound-maker artifact he was wearing just made PvP easier for him in Dark Souls, allowing him to target both helper phantoms and physical players for a chance to gain rewards. When the brief loading screen flashed by, he was in upper Blight Town standing on a bridge in a key part of the zone, by the only reliable Bonfire respawn point.

He hated running this zone on his own, but he enjoyed killing others in the zone. That was his plan for today. His target’s name flashed across his view. “Sk88rh8r,” had a phantom with him, indicated by the accompanying, “Kill Sk88rh8r or 1 summoned phantom,” text. When his view was completely clear, he was able to get a good look at his surroundings. A blue phantom was leaned against a wall while a rather bloated and disgusting looking Host clawed at him. The blue phantom was an ally, so none of the Host’s attacks were interacting. A red phantom was standing by the bonfire, staying just at a safe distance. They were talking, and Yolo had arrived in the middle of a conversation. He caught the tail end.

Blue was speaking first. “Yeah. He hasn’t stopped since I was summoned.

Red next. “And he’s torn up three others? Just with his hands like that?

Right. I haven’t had to lift a finger, but it also isn’t sending me home. I think he must have cracked some knuckles before going down into Blight Town. I swear a guy is hiding around somewhere.

So do you wanna help me kill him? If you grab him with your hands it might enable collision and I should be able to backstab him and give you time to retreat and draw your weapon.

None of these three people that maintained their sanity had ever played HALO before. They didn’t recognize the Flood infection. It looked natural in the world of Dark Souls. It seemed more to be some sort of hidden artifact item than anything else. It put their guards down. They forgot about the transmission that had been blasted out to each of them.

“Hello, you three. I’m Yolo Of Londor. Might I provide aid of some sorts? If this fool is as attacking his own Blue sentinel then I’d say we take him down with quickness.”

The pair looked up, taking their focus off of the infected player. His avatar’s fingernails were scraping against the wall, and the sound was dreadful. A constant snapping and drawing and bending and scraping. Chalkboard had nothing on this disgusting creature. It was dreadful in just about every possible meaning of the word. It held Yolo’s attention for a moment. By the time his head was clear, his new allies were nodding and readying their maneuver. The red phantom drew a chaos-infused dagger and equipped an artifact called the Hornet Ring. He stood close behind the finicky infected, while the blue phantom set his hands forward in the air, over the infected’s shoulders.

Why the hell not. You only live once, right?” Blue was dressed in Darkwraith armor, so his smile and chuckle was mostly inferred based on the way he shifted and moved, and the accompanying laughter. Red, who was wearing Farron Knight armor, nodded affirmatively and quietly. Yolo stepped closer and held his sword above his head, while he prepared to quickly cast affinity as a follow up.

Blue brought his hands down onto the infected host’s shoulders, and collision enabled. Immediately Blue began to scream in a rather unholy manner as the player ripped into him. The feedback on the haptic gear would have resulted in a similar startled shreek, but the cause to this particular one was the physical shock of the virus being introduced into Blue’s physical system. Red moved quick, stepping forward to stab the creature in the back. The resulting damage was minimal, and the normal backstab mechanics for this worldspace didn’t kick in. Instead, the creature flung a bloated arm against red. He grunted as his head struck stone. The flood infected player turned his attention, in a panicked rage, towards Yolo. Before it had an opportunity to enact a full lunge, he had knocked it downwards with a stroke by The Long Crusade. It did little against the creature. When affinity kicked in, it was slightly more effective. The barrage of eight humanity-sprites staggered the creature through pure numbers.

Blue was panting, and took the opportunity to cycle through his inventory and draw a weapon. A Bloodlust katana. From the Mound-makers covenant. Coincidence is fruitful. Blue read through its item description, and as he felt the physical twitches set his ingame and real-world movements off-kilter, he drew it from his inventory. Once in his hand, he tossed it directly into the infected player. It slid through, creating a strong wound and lodging itself in. The resulting animal sounds from the infected creature were unsettling. Yolo stepped back, spacing himself out from the temporarily dazed creature. Blue was twitching and losing control, and similar growths were sprouting from his wounds. Red stood and produced his Farron Knight Greatsword and its accompanying dagger. With ferocity, he lunged forward. The technique for the weapon was fluid and wild. Artful and untamed. It represented well the Undead Legion’s attitude towards the Abyss. It was useless. Rather than executing an excellent and dangerous maneuver, he was grabbed mid-air by the creature he hadn’t even the chance to dig his dagger into the ground so that he might redirect his momentum into a powerful blow. Red’s neck was held tight by a bloated and warped hand. He was struggling to breath. Instead of swearing or grumbling in anger, he gagged. To Yolo, this only indicated a high quality haptic suit. It was the virus again, though. Lacerations on the avatar’s neck was allowing the infection to enter uninhibited.

Yolo took the opportunity to lunge forward for the Bloodlust in the Flood infected player’s back. It seemed to have actually harmed it. It was the only blade that caused a wound, anyhow. He grabbed it by the hilt, and pressed it deeper. He had to put his back into it right proper to avoid the crushing weight of his Pilgrim’s Burden. It was dreadfully annoying but it was important for his total comfort in the world. It was a situation like this where he needed all of his hands that made things hard. Normally in combat he would scramble along the ground and perform heavily defended strikes or cast affinity from the safety of his Burden, but today he was forced on a heavy offensive. The blade slid deeper as he leaned against the flooded player, and slid cleanly upwards and outwards as he sliced a massive gash through the player. Whatever the weapon’s special property was, it was effective. The creature fell to its knees as its right shoulder fell away into a mass of gore and flesh. Dark Souls had no qualms with letting players see something of such a nature. Yolo was both proud of the work, and a little disturbed. The Kirt behind the visor was a little disturbed. But he was Yolo at the moment, so he was proud as the zero-health creature faded away. Large text flashed across the screen. Golden. It made him proud this time.

“Host Destroyed, Returning Home.”

Blue was now standing, covered in a similar mass of viscera and growths as the host. He was making garbled animal sounds, again like the host. Yolo gave him no time to adjust, and simply cut a red-thin line from left shoulder to right pelvic bone. Red lunged next, receiving similar treatment.

“Sorry, my fellow Hollows. Hopefully that stuff will get off your avatars once this odd event passess. Your vertebra shackles will be well kept. Toodles.”

They screeched as they dissolved into mist. Then, Yolo did as well when he was returned to his own session. Death had looked him in the eyes and offered him a simple, “I’m coming for you,” and he had ignored the threat and instead appreciated the sword.


“Anti-Viral. Does that mean anything to you, Laurentius?”

"No, friend."

"Hmph. Must be the event then."

"Perhaps... Would you like any pyromancies? I have the time."

"Eh."
Once those two items get approved, I've got a rather substantial post ready.

I probably wrote too much for one post. It ended up being six pages with good paragraphing and formatting built in. I'm a little worried about not putting it in a hider. Opinions?


One week buuuump. Next bump will follow a one month gap rather than a one week gap.
This is interesting. The fact that it's a tough pill for everyone in universe to swallow and the fact that it is, technically speaking, impossible to an extent creates suspension of disbelief issues for the heroes. If characters in game are rampaging because of the virus, then none of the players will be rampaging in real life to any noticable extent until they're forced out of the gear. This creates a sort of time limit for decisions on the part of the individuals before they start acting and before evidence will appear in social media on a large scale. It'll be seen as a bluff until there's more evidence.

As for the whole, "Chosen ones," thing, it very much appears to be more of a plot motivation for those individuals and as encouragement for them individually to participate. Calling upon their potential honor and such.
I'm going to work on writing a character for sure, hopefully others will as well, but it may take a hot minute. I want it to be rather high in quality. My interest is definitely still here.
Made an IC post for Yolo Of Londor. Hopefully it'll elaborate a bit on who he is as a character, where his interests and focuses and thoughts are. Simple stuff along those lines. It also might show a bit regarding his ability to stab things.

Elsewhere On DOOM...



The gesture he made to execute the fatal strike was simple. Downward arc, two hands. His haptic suit bit tight against his flesh with the movement, as the competition’s armor hung over his Hollow form. It made him anxious to be without his own armaments.

Whichever fool he had just executed groaned as the, “YOU DIED,” effect played against their visor. Yolo Of Londor ignored himself, his anxiety, the way the armor weighed heavy on his shoulders and arms. He was Hollow and needed to remember that. The other world was insignificant and false. Illusory. His goal now was to slay.

Metal scraped against metal, people screamed. There was a rather dense cluster of three clans and a half dozen singletons, the clanless, fighting in close proximity. It was a small ridge with a cliff to the West. The steep drop lead directly to a magma flow. To the East was a completely vertical upward climb. Every dozen or so square feet was a cluster of fighters. Clans were more or less roughly organized and focusing on each other, while the clanless singletons were picking at whomever they wished while fighting their hardest to avoid quick counter attacks.

Footwork was important, and he kept that in mind as he moved across the uneven terrain. Carefully and with a certain amount of experience, he placed his right foot forward and left foot back. It gave away his background in fencing to those that cared to watch the subtleties. The way he swayed showed a breach of his training, though. He was searching for a roll. A gentle opportunity just large enough for him to slip through and gut the similarly dressed PvPer in front of him.

Yolo’s opportunity came when his foe, an Ork, lunged forward and swung clumsily with its katana. His gut instinct was to roll directly into it and follow up with a front dodge attack, but this wasn’t a Dark Souls zone. No immunity frames on dodge roll. When he realized where his mistake was, he was half bent over and waiting for the strike to come down onto him.

He didn’t let it. Instead, he turned his hands upwards and backpedaled. His own blade knocked the Ork’s out of the way, leaving him open. Yolo leaned back in, extending forward with force enough to knock the larger avatar back. The armor in the chest and the weakness of the blade’s stabbing ability didn’t yield him any major success in the strike.

The movements had been messy, and left him open across the back. To ensure the opportunity wasn’t capitalized on, the Hollow stepped forward again into the Ork and swung his blade down across the Ork’s main hand wrist.

The resulting stunned stare gave Yolo time to strike the deathblow across the Ork’s neck.

The simulated blood and viscera misted out into the air and speckled over Yolo’s back and armor as the Ork’s form slumped down and then vanished. Hit points remaining, zero.

Excellent.

With the minimum number of kills needed to get him through to the next round, Yolo was quite content. Carefully, he slinked towards the cliff on his right. Most others were caught up in a fight, giving him plenty of time for to begin the climb. Below him, several noticed.

They began to produce their bows from their inventories and send arrows up the ridge, while the more enterprising individuals took out the archers in melee range for the easy kills. By the time he had scaled the cliff, Yolo had acquired a half dozen arrows in his back and legs.

His health was lower than he’d prefer, but he had done his job. It was an easy enough feat now to shuffle forward and find a small alcove betwixt two rocks. Step one was the removal of the four arrows in his lower legs, and step two from his hideaway was to remove the arrow stuck below his ribs and the arrow embedded in the armoring of his back.

The disadvantage he was at was significant enough to encourage him to remain still and hidden between the two rocks he had found near the cliff. With that plan in mind, he couldn’t help but be relieved. Soon enough he’d win the competition, alone, and get back into his own gear. Perhaps invade in Blighttown once this is all over as a way of blowing off steam.

Yolo pulled his bow out of his inventory and set it on his lap so that he could set his sword just to his side. Once it was out of the immediate way, he held his bow at the ready in case he had to get a pre-emptive strike against anyone with a similar plan to hide away in a hole.

His mind drifted, however. The haptic suit was pinching at his wounds and it was beginning to ache. He needed a break. To stand and stretch and get some water. Check on his brother... The tournament was running long... Time to find a partner and do an Ornstein and Smough cossplay run of the series...

So sat he. His time for victory would come.


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