Thanqol

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

She was silent. She was still. Her eyes were open unblinking as the incense wagon rumbled ahead, pulled by a poor and tormented horse forced to bear the slumbering bodies of half a dozen cats in addition to its normal load. She had this edge, at least. No self respecting cat would be diligent enough to bend her head to check underneath a wagon. Why would they, when reptilian scales gave no scent to trigger perilously sensitive noses, no motion caused majestic whiskers to so much as twitch, no light reflected from scales robbed of their shine by powdery coal dust. Nothing betrayed her but her rushing heart.

She was the only one who could do this. Fifty Watchers stood ready, all of them waiting to move on her signal. She was the tip of a shadowed spear. Not only were they betting their time today upon her, the untested little dragon, they were betting weeks of scouting, preparation - and not to mention all the bribes. Some of the elders had loudly complained about betting the farm on a little dragon that, really, was just a mascot - and whatever the jokes from the rank and file, was definitely not a real princess and certainly not an Adila.

That's what was at stake for her. If she couldn't defeat Princess Rita then she'd never be a Princess herself. The Captain had waved them off in the end but that just meant that it was her trust at stake as well. She resolved to fight with all her hopes, all her dreams, for everyone who believed in her and who'd given her a chance. She would prove herself!

But in the end, what are hopes and dreams and love compared to the spiteful fury of a cat who does not want to take a bath?

The battle had been epic. Pounce and scamper. Charge and skitter. Paw and jump. Climb and roar. Frozen moments where dragon and kitten stared with unblinking eyes waiting for the other to make a move and explode everything into motion once more. Every twist and turn of the conflict was watched by staring cats atop every rooftop.

And during the lightning flashes of scale and fur a few more of those cats disappeared - wrapped in thread and dragged away before they could let out so much as a meow.

In the end, Adila had wound up upside-down over that vat of incense. Princess Rita had dunked her in time after time and then reeled her back up until her head was spinning and all of the royal kitten's questions got answers. But each time she went under and came back a few more cats were missing. And when she finally broke and admitted that the plan had been for her to defeat Princess Rita in single combat the cat laughed. A foolish plan! To rely upon proving better than a cat in a battle of grace, of speed, of prowess? Only a fool would have imagined such a thing would work! How had the Watch been so simple to imagine that this untested little dragoness could defeat her alone?

To which the Captain had answered, "We weren't," and picked up Princess Rita by the scruff of her neck.

She had given in to the incense then. Her dreams had been thick and tangled and happy, fat with victory. She had known then that she had lived up to both her names. She had served with skill and secrecy in the finest traditions of Adila, and her victory had come while bound and upside down just like a true princess.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Sorted. Busy weekend and storm knocked my internet for a bit. All back now.

Sam is so not going to move, unless there's like a fire or something.

@Elanorin

Ah, it's a matter of Principle now. I understand.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Pokes thus issued to Elanorin and Amish.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

My thought for this sequence is bouncing around between various moments that Adila, at various points in time, thought were 'the most important moment in the world'. I can do this essentially indefinitely, allowing other important scenes to play out.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess Adila hunted cats. It was scary work but she was a brave dragon and could handle it. It was a much more fair fight than she'd imagined it would be when she thought of cats as those cute little sprawls of fur who spent their days lazily shifting between sunbeams. She had claws! She had wings! She even had a little badge! And there was nothing she wanted more in the world than to be useful to her friends in the Watch.

But cats. She had claws? So did they. Cat claws were perfectly capable of scratching through her baby scales and they had the reflexes of greased lightning. She could fly? So could they. Better than she could - she'd been floored the first time she'd seen a cat run up a vertical surface. Was that something people could do? Was that something she could do? She'd learned the answer to that one very quickly. She had a little badge? They had a little princess, with a little crown, and a little kingdom of various kitty-exiles - scumbags and rogues just as capable of using teamwork as the Watch, and just as capable of laying an ambush for proud little dragons.

She remembered the swirl of time, forwards and backwards. The Clock and the Eye and her failure. Each connection was like a thread tied to her and as she fell through broken time they wrapped around her, forwards and back, tying and binding her until she couldn't move, and still tighter they pulled. She grabbed at one of the knots and tried to untangle it, and as soon as she touched it and the thread that connected to it she knew that it was the most important thing in the world.

Ropes wrapped her into a ball, an egg, but still she clung to that strand as it began to unravel...

She was here to hunt the princess of cats. It was the scariest part of a scary job, but it was the most important thing in the world. She needed to, with stealth and cunning, lure her out of the narrows to the open where the waiting Watch would be able to finally capture her. Once the Princess was in captivity the city's cats would be brought to their knees, and the Watch would issue a terrible demand for her release: The mandatory bathing and medical examination of every single cat in Jedad, a procedure that would in the Captain's estimation eliminate a seasonal fever from the city entirely.

No force less than the capture of their princess would bring the defiant cats to the negotiation table. And so little Adila stalked into the darkness. It was scary, but it was a small fear, of a small world, when everything was still small and manageable enough to fit into the boundaries of her perception.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Quick note - I have no comms on Eldest so we'll have to wait for the old forums to come back to re-invite her.

Eldest, once you're here, we'll have words about what scene to drop you in on! Hopefully I'll get your Discord so we can avoid this happening again.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

@Saraphim!

Locker: hey. spotted one.

You are being hunted.

It's not easy being the best version of yourself. The first time one of your dopplegangers approached you on the street and challenged you to a 1v1 duel for the title of champion it made for fantastic ratings. By the third time it was exhausting. To be entirely honest with yourself, two of those three fights were total coinflips. Whatever their gimmicks, these alternate-yous are, well, you and every time you duel one it takes the majority of the afternoon and leaves you utterly exhausted. For each of them it's the final showdown and they're totally free to bring their absolute all. For you? You have to work tomorrow. Unless you want to move into dominating yourself full-time it's starting to make increasing sense to just... avoid them, where you can.

So, where are you - and more importantly, what are you wearing?

Locker: ive seen her b4 somewhr
Angel-IKA: Where? I can't see her!
Bode: Me neither.
Dominus: IS IT NINJAPHIM?
Locker: no shes got like black scars on her face
Locker: only saw her 4 a second
Angel-IKA: Oooooo, Mordorphim?! The terrifying demon-queen of the underworld who fights with beams of molten lava!?
Locker: don't think so
Angel-IKA: Is she heroine or is she villainess? Her friends say one thing and her enemies say another!
Dominus: WHAT ARE YOU, PRESIDENT OF HER FANCLUB?
Angel-IKA: I'm doing commentary for a school Aristeia! game, so I'm practicing my MC'ing!
Ferraphim1tp: Didn't you say you were on the team yourself, Angel-IKA?
Angel-IKA: yeah ._.
Angel-IKA: was.
Ferraphim1tp: Oh dang I'm so sorry!
Bode: This grounding has gone too far.
Dominus: SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
Angel-IKA: Haha guys don't feel bad for me, I'll be fine. I've always wanted to do commentary!
Locker: do u need a co commentr
Angel-IKA: Awww, that's sweet of you to offer! But, um. It might be a little weird.
Locker: u don't think I can break into a hi school
Angel-IKA: I didn't say that
Locker: how dare. youll see.

*

Errant!

You are in an interrogation cell. It's an informal interrogation. The door is open. Your hands aren't cuffed. Agent Buddy got you coffee.

"So did you know that Victor was planning to betray us all like this?" said Agent Bargain.
"Not implying you were in on it," said Agent Buddy.
"Betrayal is always shocking," said Agent Bargain.
"And there's no way you could have known that he'd try to murder the chairwoman of the board in cold blood," said Agent Buddy.
"But maybe you know other things."
"Maybe you thought he was doing vigilante things."
"Or where he'd go to ground afterwards!"
"Or if he came into contact with any mind control villains lately."
"We just want everyone to walk away from this horrible situation with a smile upon their face!"

*

Brainstorm!

You have gone underground. You have retreated to your secret lab. You have had time, information, years of preparation and the assistance of your old AI. You have a mission to destroy a corrupt government and overthrow the president (of AEGIS). I have two questions: Have you built a mecha suit? And, how big is your mecha suit?

While you're telling me about your preparation work for what will be the grand struggle of your life, tell us a bit about your secret lair, your downtime and what you're doing to stave off the descent into outright supervillainy.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

SUBSCRIBER COUNT: 24

"Hey guys, it's @Sarasylph here with my - Siri play drumroll.mp3 - long awaited AMA! It's been two weeks since I started asking for questions and in that period I got a new record of four questions! But before I get into that I wanted to say a sad goodbye to Jiffles and Manix630 who unsubscribed last week, and you know, if you're still watching know that I'll do better to try and win back your hearts! And also a big welcome to new subscriber ContentIDBot! Great to have you with us!"

@Sarasylph couldn't afford an advanced multi-angle automated megacamera array like some of her interdimensional colleagues so her show was done in the more traditional shaky hand-held cell phone camera way. She had had the idea to do celtic spiral-circle cybertattoos before this show but, lacking the budget for the fancy versions, had opted to draw them directly onto her face with a sharpie. She'd realized very quickly that wasn't working out and had tried to cover the black lines on her cheek with a heavy layer of foundation and instead realized her ambition of being a beautiful druidess by mixing some glitter into her green eye shadow.

In the background there was some kind of high tech facility. Screens displayed the Perseus logo in black and yellow.

"So, question one, from ContentIDBot - wow, getting off to a really good start! And it's a long one too! Question one: Your account has been flagged for using copyrighted music -," @Sarasylph abruptly stopped smiling, stopped talking, and scrolled down as hard as she could. "Sorry, uh, sorry," she mumbled, "Uh. Um. Q-question two? Question two."

From off camera, someone yelled "Hey you're not supposed to be here!" @Sarasylph made a gesture that was not at all caught by the camera and the chimes of hardlight were swiftly followed by a yelp, a crash, and a thud.

"Question two," said @Sarasylph, trying to get her composure back. "JamesHard asks, 'Are you the pirate one?' And, haha, the answer to that is no -" SUBSCRIBER COUNT: 23 "Oh, um, sorry to see you go... um... but I think that question kind of touches on a bigger topic. You know? And that is, um, how does it feel to be in a world where there are like twenty alternate yous, all of whom are successful and famous? Oh, hold on, I'll remember to flip the vision this time, hold on,"

After a moment of concerned expressions, she manages to flip the cell phone's camera. Six security guards and a fully armed main battle TAG are advancing towards her, assault weaponry aimed. But this is a cell phone camera and it has automatic zoom and focus features, and those are optimized for taking photographs of faces. Unfortunately, with all but one of the guards wearing a balaclava, the system only identifies one human in the photograph and automatically starts zooming and focusing on him. His expression goes from professional determination to shock, to horror, and then to a blurred distortion as he's drowned out in a blast of pixelated green light.

Then the camera flips around back to @Sarasylph. "The Woad Wind technique! I practiced it for weeks! A-anyway, um, so I think it's encouraging that all the other Saras made it big, you know? I mean, I'd be a superhero no matter what, but there's a lot of inspiration in seeing alternate versions of myself." She passes by the charred wreckage of the TAG, three meters of advanced combat robot reduced to slag in the out-of-focus background. "And they're all really sexy, you know? Like... really, dominantly, grabbing-ly sexy. Um. And apparently that's what the audience wants! So look out, world! Ladies! E-Errant! It's not going to be as easy to ignore me in the future! Pow!"

There was an off camera explosion, and @Sarasylph walked through the wreckage of a burned out door. She turned to the left and there was a glimpse of something enormous and out of focus back behind her shoulder.

"Question three comes from RacoonMart! She asks, 'Hey @Sarasylph, love the show -' awwwwww! 'and congratulations on hitting twenty five subscribers!' awwww... 'Have you ever considered trying out for Aristeia!? I think you might have the moves and you'd benefit a lot from the support staff and camera crew. Good luck with hitting thirty!' Thanks, RacoonMart! And, you know... wow, um, professional sports?" The camera finally focuses over her shoulder. She's in some kind of launch tube - and that looks like a space ship behind her. It's a massive thing, layers of booster rockets, a huge and elaborately spiked satellite attachment at the top. "T-that's a lot of pressure. But I'm glad you think I could make it! I've had a crush on Parvati since forever and... no. That's not who I am, though. I know I could inspire a lot of people from there but I'm a superhero. I'm here to protect people. The fame is, you know, n-nice... but it has to come second."

She lets out a heavy sigh. It looked like saying that took a lot out of her. She then steels herself, flips the camera so that it's facing a sealed steel door, and blasts through it.

On the other side is Turbo Knight. Two.

There is a flash of lasers, then a thud and darkness as the camera hits the floor.

"Who the hell is this?" snapped Victoria's voice, distorted by her armour's voice filter. "Sara-who? It doesn't matter, I don't care," there's another flurry of sound and footsteps. "Back off! I've lost three subscribers this week and I'm feeling pretty upset about it!" There was a deafening explosion, so intense that it flipped the phone over to give it a view of the ceiling instead.

"See, Perseus? This is exactly what I'm talking about," said Victoria over the sound of soft choking. "Nobody respects me. I've essentially taken over the entire world and nobodies keep thinking they have the right to break into my workplace and challenge me to single combat! It's not enough to just have power if nobody knows I have it!!"

A dark shape rapidly passed overhead - and the phone's automatic camera dutifully picked out @Sarasylph's face from it as she flew past.

"I can't believe the old bastard was right," said Victoria. "People... remember Turbo Knight. They think of me as Turbo Knight. Even now! Their fucking brains can't comprehend how much more I am! So I need to reach them on their level. I need to do some big, stupid, comic book scheme and brutalize everyone who comes to stop me so that they realize that not only am I better at being a person than grandpa but I'm also better at being a supervillain than him."

SUBSCRIBER COUNT: 24

"It doesn't matter how much better you are than him..." said a muffled voice off camera. "Because you'll never be better than me!"

With the camera on the ground, facing up, it had that rarest of things: an absolutely perfect in-focus view of @Sarasylph's new Woad Wind technique. Intricate blasts of hardlight scorched overhead, curved and twisting and impenetrable. It was one of the most intensely complex battle-patterns ever put to camera, a true act of genius and total mastery of the form. There were crashes and explosions, and then a howling siren started.

SUBSCRIBER COUNT: 25

Then, a scrabble, and @Sarasylph's face was back on camera. "H-hey! Um, sorry about that. I..." she took a deep breath. "So, question four, from Ripperdactyl: 'are you the pirate one?'." Her face changed and her voice hardened. "No! I'm not! I'm @Sarasylph! And if you want to unsubscribe then that's fine but I'll really miss you and won't stop working to improve the show!"

She waited.

SUBSCRIBER COUNT: 25

"Good!" she said. "That's settled then! Stay tuned! There is a crossover episode coming up! Because there's like seven hundred guards coming at me and I'll need to get m-my team together to help me destroy this doom satellite!"

STAY TUNED FOR ISSUE 4: THE FINAL SHOWDOWN

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess Adila flinches when Princess Rita steps out in front of her with cat smiles and self confidence and having just committed a spooky act of violence that meant nothing to her but she knows she could do again three times in the time it takes you to turn around and run away. It had been easy for her to dismiss Princess Alina but even in the heights of ego Princess Adila had never underestimated Princess Rita. A long childhood of being tormented by Jedad's criminal feline element had burned a deep paranoia into her heart. Cats were dangerous. Cats were sadistic. Cats were mean. She didn't really know how dragons fit into the food chain but in her heart of hearts she suspected it was below cats.

Princess Adila thought there was a reason why all the cats were quarantined on an island blanketed in calming incense, and did not think it was a coincidence that island had been the first place Oberon had attacked after Illumina. It wasn't that she wasn't happy for Princess Alina finding a girlfriend, it's just that when Eska had told her that Alina had fallen and she had done nothing she'd kind of suspected that romantic involvement with Rita might have been a contributing factor.

So when the bells start chiming and Rita starts yelling with an open mouth with those wicked cat teeth that make her tail reflexively coil around her leg just to make sure no second cat is sneaking up behind it to pounce it like it's a snake and poor fragile Eska is hurt on the ground already, Princess Adila is already primed and ready to run. But for a moment she's frozen still - she knows any motion will provoke a reflexive bat from the claws, and she knows that if Rita fights anything like Alina she'll be all over her before she can blink.

Only one thing snaps her out of it - Dandy! With a sudden surge of terrified motion, not caring about how many times Princess Rita bites her tail, Adila snatches up Eska, holds her against her chest, and surges up to the portal to pursue Azora Howl as swiftly as she can. Adila has breached the veil of time before and flashed from point to point on lines of devil-lightning, but you've never seen her run away from something before.

She is not good at it.

[Get Away to try and reach Princess Dandy quickly: 5]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Can confirm Tatters is wonderful, Elodie is wonderful.