Stern Algorithm

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@Sailorsadie@Rune_Alchemist@Crusader Lord@Regitnui

Peeking out from his hands, he looked up carefully, but his face soon lit up. "Braids!" Zeke recognised the cloud over a girl's head, and waved. "Braids!" Someone else had joined the group as well, but he didn't immediately make any connection. Instead, he walked over to Braids and gave her a brief hug. "I was walking and I got bumped into by a puddle and now I'm confused. Please help," He asked, and looked back at the group.

@Regitnui

"P-puddle?" ShiZhen asked, taken aback by Zeke's sudden hug. Looking around, she could only assume he had meant Eirwen, who happened to be laying on the ground. She let herself wander closer to the group, but she gave Zeke a reminder, "Remember, Zeke, we should use people's proper names. We can only call someone by a nickname if they're okay with it." ShiZhen had no issue with being called 'Braids' by Zeke, but she said this as he referred to Bhu as 'Bookie'. Looking at the group, she remembered their names, though she was really only at cordial-level with them. She recgnized Leanne as the 'dark' elemental, though coming from a non-elemental background, ShiZhen didn't understand why a good number of other students avoided her, but at least Leanne seemed to have hit it off with Eirwen at least, though ShiZhen hoped that it wasn't a case of the smaller girl taking advantage of Leanne's solitude.

Having been an older sister to several younger siblings, ShiZhen naturally gravitated towards the hapless Zeke. Though they were the same age, many of his mannerisms made him seem like a younger child, causing ShiZhen's big sister persona to kick in. jhowever, while she was thinking this, Bhu gave Leanne and Eirwen a simple enough response.

"Y-yes, that's right, Zeke also has a tendency to get fixated on things he finds pretty, and in his attempt to either recreate it with his light-painting abilities, or to simply capture it on camera, he tends zone out everything around him. So please forgive him if he's caused offense," ShiZhen bowed slightly in the general direction of Leanne and Eirwen, unsure who had been offended or how.

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Eir, the laziest waifu....who is currently trying to physically absorb her own waifu physically through just sheer lack of effort alone. XD

Are we waiting on someone in that interaction? I ask because Regit tagged a couple others in that latest post.

Though if anyone wanted, i could interact with them using Diana, though she's current in a swimsuit at the lakeside after a morning swim. Albeit, she will be there in time for class to start. :P

@Crusader Lord

Maybe I'll have ShiZhen make a weak attempt to intervene and get Zeke out of the overstimulating crowd.

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Life was good.

In three months, ShiZhen had friends, ShiZhen had some control over her water element, and Zeke's nickname of 'Braids' had slowly pushed away the undesirable nickname of 'Otter'. After her private study session with the headmaster, ShiZhen applied herself wholeheartedly into reigning in her powers, and realized what he was trying to show her. For as long as she has had her power, she sought either to escape from it, or keep it at arms length, forgetting her love of the water. Now, she had learned to embrace it, and that was the first step.

She enjoyed her classes, Ms. Hargreaves' thought-provoking philosophy, Mr. Hirsoi's math, and while she was not very physically fit, she at least enjoyed whenever they got to swim in Mr. Manilow's PE, even though she was still rather shy to be seen in a swimsuit.

ShiZhen had gotten close to her roommate, Lyra, and her friend, Zeke. Some of the other first years she knew cordially; volatile Felix, ice-cool Dia, sluggish Eirwen, sophisticated Kanako, easily-flustered Jideh, tough Chaska, and several others. Some of them demonstrated great mastery over their element despite their age, and even grew up surrounded by elemental family members. ShiZhen aspired to master her element as well, and wanted to learn as much as she could about life among elementals.

She headed towards the gathering that would be happening soon, wondering what it was. Alongside her floated Kracko Sr., a small cloud, the most recent manifestation of her unusual grasp of her abilities. Whereas before, her nervousness brought on massive amounts of condensation on herself, now a small cloud followed her wherever she went, its weather behavior indicative of her mood. As part of her regimen to embrace her powers, she decided to name it.

---

It had been three months since Catherine had offered one-on-one training to Kanako, which ended with Catherine flying Kanako surreptitiously back to her dorm for a change of clothes. Catherine had been teaching philosophy to the group of first years, many of whom, she could tell were troubled. Though she started with basic logic, she had gone into ethics, belief systems, and epistemology, the knowledge of how we know what we know, all in an effort to cultivate in them, not only a personal identity, but a conviction in the identity they chose. She didn't so much stress what was the 'right' thing to do, as much as she stressed what was right for them each as individuals, even if it expressed itself in the form of rage or deception. But her philosophy was that to truly master one's element, they had to embrace themselves, to come to terms with who they were rather than trying to run away from it. She saw herself as an example; as elusive and duplicitous as she was, it stands to reason that her mastery of air comes in the absence of the element, through the use of vacuums. She had often playfully hinted that anyone seeking one-on-one tutelage simply needed to approach her, and she would help them to unlock their potential by finding their center. Some had been brave enough to take her up on the offer, while others remained hesitant, fearful to confront themselves.

She headed towards the gathering spot, floating gracefully through the air. She wanted to see how her first years fared against the Headmaster's 'test'.

Pariah Online | Season One

Ailanthus_Altissima

• Tʜᴇ Dᴜɴɢᴇᴏɴ •

---

Tessa flinched as Graves put his hands on her shoulders, but otherwise remained stiff and unmoving. She was going to disregard everything that came out of his mouth until he said-

"But...We can't stay here. It does seem safer, yeah. But you heard the dev- he said they've been trying to fix the issue for hours.

@Superboy

-reminding her, and dashing her hopes that the GMs would come up with a solution. She continued to stare at him with a skeptical gaze, grinding her teeth. The simple fact was: she didn't trust him. After all, PARIAH was, for most people, an escape, a place for people to go and be themselves, their inner selves, their true selves, free from societal inhibitions, free from consequences, free from backlash. After all, it was just a game, people could be as mean and brutish as they wanted. And Graves, the Graves that she had seen only moments ago, the crass, belligerent, and prone-to-violent-outburst Graves, taht was his real self. And the Graves standing in front of her right now? The Graves that talked about camaraderie, and protecting each other, who showed concern for others? That was fake. Had to be. People's true selves were always their worse selves.

But what choice did she have but to go along? The admins have already demonstrated incompetence, so relying on them no longer seemed viable. Did she dare risk moving deeper into the dungeon on the vain hope that they'll be able to clear it and make it out alive? Who would betray them? Who would crack under pressure? But if everyone was going, then her chances of holding this position by herself were laughable at best.

"...He's right. Certain death or fight. Can you?" Unlike the concern clearly audible in Graves' question, his own was masked beneath a layer of professionalism, his inner thoughts pulling his inflections from every business deal the two of them had participated in. It was his subconscious way of trying to calm her down, to give her something recognizable in this harrowing situation, as if this was merely another transaction between them both rather than a task that could lead to their doom. He could only hope it worked.

@Xiro Zean

Tessa gave Ochre an unreadable look. Did she ever really trust her clients? Only enough to do business with them, which quite frankly, was no small amount of trust. This was the same. She didn't have to trust any of them, but the very fact that there was some give and take involved, Tessa could trust in the nature of human need.

"...yes...I can fight..." Tessa replied, almost inaudibly, taking a step forward, her chains following, but maintaining the channeling circle.

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@CrabInATree

But if you go with air, then is it also called a blowj**?

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@Zelosse

Are all staff members privy to the headmaster's condition?

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@Pseudo Stygian@Regitnui

After three months, can ShiZhen be a third wheel to Lyra and Zeke, being Lyra's roommate and all? Don't worry, she has no intention of stealing your cinnamon bun.

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@Regitnui Not quite how aether works.It's an omnipresent, perfectly elastic medium having zero density, according to Christiaan Huygens, which is the best way I can find to describe it. It's like hard air. Manipulatable, magical, hard air.

@Arya10108909

You could use air, with the sub-specialization of pressure. Aether is problematic, in that it has been described as the 'air that gods breathed', as as the superior element to the classical four, called the quintessence from which words like quintessential (all important) come from. It's been described as the medium through which gravity and/or light and/or magic travel through and is associated with the philosopher's stone which can violate natural laws and grant immortality. In other words, it's a god element that probably should not be used lest people's eyebrows be raised.

Overlord : Advent of the Gods

Well just want to apologize to everyone, I'm finding it way to hard to think of good things for all the different things happening at the same time. If there is one thing I've learned is to never, ever let so many people go so many different ways at one time. I am not that great at organization and while I can keep one or two groups going the rest I just don't have the brain power for. Working overseas really drains me of creative juices and I am really bad at multi-tasking multiple story threads.

So if anything is going to be done, I really need to narrow my focus down or I probably won't get anything done.

@IceHeart

If necessary, I won't mind a time skip with @Baraquiel that would shove our party into the same region/scenario as another party.

Overlord : Advent of the Gods

Still here