Thanqol

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Sorry for inactivity. I've been fighitng a nasty cold for the past few days and will try to get something up later today

@Balmas

Dang. Feel better soon!

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

"You're not...you can't be serious." Annalee lets out a long sigh. The kind of long-suffering sigh that lets a whole extremely long day pile up on itself all at once like a sack of rocks. She's ready to just relax, but master Samael needs to see Timothy and she needs to find him. She had been right there! Right! There! But no, somehow he had been invisible at the time. And now that she knows where he is (or where he was at this point, though she was sure he'd be near Elodie after that little run-in) now there were obstacles. Hells below, did people who couldn't fly have to do this every time they came to the school?

"I'm an enrolled student, I was tossed outside the walls with a werewolf along with that spider girl you just let inside, and I've got an errand from both one of the TAs and the Angel, so get out of the way and let me inside." She gives the sphinx a look that says I am extremely tired and it is a bad time to mess with me.

@Anarion

"Yea, like, you say that, but you still gotta answer the riddle. It's. The. Rules," she said, ensuring that every syllable was loaded with enough so much ironic sarcasm that even a trusting dog would figure out that something was up. "So today the question is, are torn red stockings, like, fashionable, or do they just make you look slutty, but in a bad way?"

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Just flagging that I'm holding my post until after Phoe's due to previously discussed face-slapping.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Hey Tatters, remember on a 9 to a Shut Down you get to inflict a condition in response - and it sounds from the post that you're putting something like 'Hexed, probably' on Timmy.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

There's some unofficial rules to the race, you know. Bringing someone down over the desert? Not just allowed, it's encouraged. Bringing someone down over the gulch? Well, as long as you're willing to pay for their medical bills in a pinch. That's why everyone's eyeing you suspiciously, or oiling their harpoon cannons meaningfully, or squeaking nervously when you strut by all fire and power and gleaming scales. Nobody knows how to take down a dragon. You're an unknown quantity, the Watch's pet dragon all grown up, a real princess of the Bazaar, and if you fail today you're going to become the laughingstock of the entire Bazaar and never be taken seriously ever again.

(Spoiler: you did not fail today. You came in first place. You swooped down and dug your claws into the sand at the finish line and breathed fire joyfully! You cut through the air like it was the empty void beyond Ouroboros!)

The real competition... that's got to be Flash Morgan, hired this year by the textiles guild. Her strawberry blonde hair is streaked with her teal racing stripes, and her custom flight suit is covered with trophies of past races. She's a returning champion, coming straight from her victory in the trans-Askaian triathalon to honor her contract and defend her pride.

She was tough as hell to beat, wasn't she? Neck and neck, right to the finish, both of you doing loops and ducking out of the way of each other's attacks. And when you managed to push that last burst of speed out of your heart, swooping down low into the merciless heat of the gulch to edge Flash out...

How'd that feel, champ? And how'd she take it, anyhow?

@Tatterdemalion

It would have been so easy to be mean.

A lot of the racers were. They came carrying bolas and tanglewool and baskets of rare flying rope snakes and harpoons with chains and a general attitude of it being preferable to destroy your enemy than to win the race. The entire sport felt like it was teetering on the brink of doing away with the race part altogether sometimes and just acknowledging a future in dogfighting alone. And wouldn't it be just natural for the dragon to perfect that style? The final evolution, a story told in a dozen burning, falling gliders and a triumphant monarch of the clouds?

But Princess Adila was here to race.

When she'd been younger she'd had the aerial attitude of a pigeon - wings were for short, flappy, high intensity hops between floor and rooftop. Flight in the open, in the Blue - outside the practical confines of the city - it was frightening! Nobody in the Bazaar knew how dragons were supposed to fly, or what the rules were, or how to be good at it. She didn't know what was dangerous and what wasn't so she kept her nose to the sand...

And practiced.

The harbour was her haunt. She'd scorch so low over the water that her wingtips almost brushed against it. She'd circle and bank around the ships as they came in thick and crowded, daring herself closer and closer. Sometimes she folded her wings and point her nose and let her speed carry her under the water like a knife and her magical eyes lit up the treasures of the sea floor like they were hers. She had thought for a while that was what flying was, and that it was fun.

She'd been wrong.

Flying in symphony with someone else was everything.

She hadn't brought any weapons. She was doing something even more daring. From the moment she spread her wings and leapt from the starting cliff she stuck as close to Flash Morgan as she could, almost on top of her glider. She'd seen Flash's eyes - was this the play, to tear down the strongest competitor as quickly as possible? But then Princess Adila caught a harpoon out of the air and immolated a hurled shot of tanglewool with her breath. Flying upside down, body in between Flash and the other competitors, she'd grinned and memorized Flash's face when she'd realized what she was doing.

She wasn't here to destroy the competition. She was here to protect her greatest threat.

Again and again Adila swooped and dived to intercept projectiles aimed at Flash's glider.

Again and again she brazenly exposed her back to Flash, completely vulnerable.

And Flash... didn't take the shot. Again and again. Adila was practically daring her to. She swooped and wove, in and out, angling at rocks and steam pits and making it extraordinarily clear that even a nudge from Flash Morgan's glider would take her out of the race.

Flash rose to the bait. She started flying closer in response. They entered a suicide spiral of flight, spinning around each other, more and more daring, more and more trusting.

And then it went a step further.

Flash made a move that was actively impossible, flying directly at a rock formation. If Adila had held to the same almost-but-not-quite touching descent then they would both crash. The ultimate test of trust.

Adila took physical hold of Flash's glider and applied her weight against it. They scorched around the corner faster than any glider before or since. Adila had seen the truth - the move was only suicide if they weren't perfectly in sync. It had been the trust of an acrobat, leaping into the void and leaving it to your partner to decide if you would fly or fall.

They burned ahead of the other gliders, ahead of everyone and everything else, wrapped in a fluid, twisting, synthesis of trust and instinct and adrenaline and physicality. Unrehearsed displays of acrobatics and impossible acts of trust given to a complete stranger. Princess Adila rode Flash Morgan's speed and skill and Flash Morgan rode Adila's strength and power and they tumbled through the blue...

Right up until that final moment when there was nothing but blood and instinct and they broke apart again, blazing like two meteors furiously towards the finish line. Not a betrayal, but a synchronized madness, a passion that came from being driven beyond the point of sanity, where when the end of perfection comes into sight then there's nothing left but to greedily grab any remaining fragment of it like a girl drowning in the salt'd ocean grabbing for a flask of fresh water.

They spent two weeks together afterwards. During this time they didn't say five words to each other. There was a strange, fearsome magic in the air between them as the energy of that shared flight, shared fall, shared burning impact played itself out. Then, just as wordlessly, they blazed apart like the heart-pounding breathless and boiled escape from a sauna. It was less a relationship and more of a convergence of celestial mechanics, and to use words to describe why it happened or why it ended is to condense the might of Jupiter to an equation - insufficient even if accurate.

What could be more intimate than flight? The strangest thing about the Riders to Princess Adila had never been the cold, or the void, or the wickedness. It had been their attitude to flight, to fight in formations with lances atop their pegasi. They were almost as indifferent to the air as the groundborn were and Adila couldn't understand it. Princess Spite had even climbed atop her back as though she was simply a larger version of her sky horse and hardly seemed to have realized what she was implying through doing that.

But perhaps she'd gone too far as well. Looking back on this time, this moment, re-living the all-consuming thrill... Adila realized that she'd grown guarded. She'd come to regard her wings as so powerful and dangerous that they'd almost become too sacred to be used at all - and when she'd given in and touched on that energy again with Princess Iron Star she'd shied away from the results because the moment wasn't exactly like it had been built up to in her head.

There was an energy here she was missing. At once more limited and less. Capable of less, able to do more. She felt like she wanted to bookmark this moment in her life and come back to it again, to recover what felt like such an important part of her life and values.

And again, an idea blossomed in her head - but it wasn't quite ready yet.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

“How about some milk?” She spits bullets at Witcherphim, and scowls as they’re torn into shining prisms of regular non-zappy light by those really dangerous swords. “I’m sure you drink a lot of that in your backwards backwater Game of Thrones-ass ripoff.”

Of course there’s a crowd gathering. And her fan’s hand, waving as she jumps and tries to get her attention. Maybe she’ll give her an autograph after this if she doesn’t get splattered instantly on those swords. Really, all that magical power and you go for swords? Lame and really deeply inconvenient.

[6 on Assessing the Sitch.]

@Tatterdemalion

You're going to lose. That's all your instincts are screaming at you. You can smell the venoms and oils and poisons, you can see how she shifts her weight, you can see the faint shimmering barrier of magical energy around her. You're tired and distracted and unmotivated and this is not your day and not your fight. You need to do whatever the fuck it takes to weasel your way out of this situation because otherwise that girl is going to put you on your ass and take your reputation with her. That, or figure out some kind of cheating advantage.

"Harsh words from a future Celebrity Survivor semifinalist," rasped Witcherphim, taking a threatening step forwards.

*

Ferraphim1tp: Oh NO she DIDN'T
Dominus: OH YES SHE DID
Locker: whiteys got this imo
Angel-IKA: @Sarahphim will be victorious with the power of love!
Locker: domins you do biotek, whats do you think
Dominus: A LIMITING FACTOR ON A LOT OF WHAT I DO IS HUMAN ENDURANCE, AND IF WITCHERPHIM GETS AROUND THAT WITH MAGIC THEN... SHE COULD BE REALLY SCARY WITH ACCESS TO A MODERN PHARMACY

"I don't know where Victor is. How the fuck would I? I was literally off-world when he went to ground, and Command hasn't let me outside since I got back! And frankly, you're a lot dumber than he says you are if you think he'd ever tell me about this kind of thing!"

...That one stings. He's said all of those things to her, both nasty and nice, but at the end of the day she'd always believed they were on the same side. And he didn't even leave a hint for her to follow. What a team. What a leader she turned out to be, huh?

She stands abruptly, sending her hair over-dramatically tumbling like a black and silver waterfall. It did that a lot these days. She glances down at her coffee, and makes for the door.

"I'm getting sugar."

@Phoe

"Say hi to your new co-workers!" said Agent Buddy with a wave as you went.

Maria - the BlackSun corporate champion - is there by the coffee machine. She's an Amazonian black woman with a similar suite of cybernetics to you except everything is built to emphasize strength and power. "Bonjour," she says, tilting her head as you make your way to the sugar. "We are to be on a team together now, yes? Do not worry, small girl, I will look after you."

Victor opens his mouth. Victor shuts his mouth. You know what, that wasn't how he planned this conversation going, but fuck it, it's as good a place as any to start. "I didn't, no. What exactly is there to heist at one of those games?"

He's boiling with questions, but if there's one thing he's learned, it's that he didn't pay enough attention to Prometheus. And he'll be damned if he makes the same mistake now. So as he listens to Bode, he's doing all he can to... shit, does the same body language even apply? Bode is something new entirely, but he's doing his damnedest to try to figure out what he's thinking. Like, does he actually like Victor?

Somehow, that question is topping all the rest.

[4 on pierce the mask. Marking XP.]

@Balmas

"That is what we are going to find out," said Bode, heading right for the door again. "Come on."

And suddenly you're scrambling to keep up. Bode single-mindedly heads out into the outdoors and starts moving across the city, dragging you along in his wake as you struggle to keep up, heading single-mindedly towards Neo Chaos Spire. It's a hell of a place for a wanted man to go but... you can't figure out Bode's body language. Maybe this is important to him, a test, and what kind of creator would you be if you ditched him now?

So how do you get into the most secure district in the city, Brainstorm? And how do you deal with the broken-reality vertigo and heights of Neo Chaos?

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

She leaves the time fragment of youth with a wrench. She doesn't want to go, doesn't want to lose track of that innocent and smaller world, doesn't want to have to turn her back on creeping and pouncing and riding along on peoples' shoulders forever. It was a shelter from the falling fragments of time in the wake of the opened Clock but with the crashing storm around her she can't endure there long (although...)

But then the rush of fire soaks into her and, just like it did before, it hypnotizes her. She blossoms. There is no gangliness, no awkwardness, no imbalance of hormones or even lack of confidence. She grows like a jaguar - sleek and fast and already optimized for predatory hunting. It's not that she's invincible. It's that she's capable of anything.

So she stalks the starting line as a hunter, sizing up and staring down the competition. She's painted her racing number, 012, directly onto the scales of her neck in red where it shines still-wet. She's sizing up the competition - they all feel like prey to her, all these gorgeous, fearful humans about to launch themselves into her domain of air and fire. She knows instinctively that beauty and danger are the same thing, so she seeks the greatest prey amidst the flock.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Elodie, even as you ready yourself to inflict terrible damage upon an evil ghost, something catches your eye. Masque is indeed whispering those things in dear little Timmy's ear, and that is unambiguously the sort of thing Masque as a wicked shapeshifter would do...

But there are two forces there, not one. Something that was already inside Timothy is seeping out of him and mingling with and overlaying Masque. Some evil spirit must have gotten to him before all of this. Not the sort of thing you can affect with your magic, but perhaps the sort of hex Annalee might know how to handle - if she wasn't the one responsible for it in the first place.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

[X] SECOND PLACE
[X] WEREWOLF MAGNET

Oh, please. Like that’s the takeaway of poor little Timmy’s tale of woe. No, the problem is that he has suffered terrible trauma from the trashiest, most terrible girl ever to walk the earth! Elodie’s blood seethes in her veins and she punches a sweater. Her little Timmy, betrayed in love? No. Oh no no no. This will not be borne.

Whatever’s going through Timmy’s head right now, Elodie is studiously ignoring it, because she’s scheming in the depths of the closet she’s hiding in. The pits of Tartarus are too good for her! But that’s where she’ll send this two-timing heartbreaker, oh, yes! She’ll dangle her over the Pit and let Timmy vent at her until he’s managed to find closure, and then she’ll push that bullying two-faced jerk inside and let the furies figure out a proper punishment for breaking little Timmy’s heart!

Ha! Ha ha! Hahaha! Muahahahahahaha! Muahahahahahaha!!

(Every now and then, one should be reminded that Elodie is here for a reason. This is one of those reminders.)

@Tatterdemalion

Visions of death and darkness flash behind your eyes, Elodie. In a lot of ways this girl is in unique trouble that it is you she has crossed and not any of the other, ostensibly more dangerous monsters contained within Sleepshy - if only for the reason that you are not contained within Sleepshy.

Roll to Gaze into the Abyss.

Annalee is beginning to wonder just how one normally gets into Sleepshy Academy. Baba Sockolov had flown her into the castle the first time (she was absolutely going to learn how to mount a cauldron properly, but Baba insisted that she needed to gain her freshmen fifteen first, otherwise the cauldron would laugh and just throw her off of it because her thighs weren't strong enough). Right, castle entrance. How did the people who couldn't fly get inside?

She starts circling. She hopes maybe G'eldriia heard her and will know a way in now that she's not worried about avoiding the Angel. The spider quiz captain seemed entirely motivated by avoiding punishment as much as possible, so doing exactly what the Angel wanted seemed like it would be right up her alley. If not, Annalee was pretty done with her for now, and was simply going to walk away and circle the place. No way was she climbing those slippery stones, she'd had enough injuries already and she bruised very easily (this was also a reason Baba said she couldn't fly a cauldron yet).

Ugh, this was so frustrating. She finally had a bead on Timmy and it had been RIGHT WHERE SHE WAS. Oh she was going to get whoever had been hiding him, mark her words. She just needed to find a way into this dumb castle. If she didn't find something soon, she was going to have to just blow a hole into the dungeons.

@Anarion

"Your answer is... correct," came a voice, soft and melodic on the breeze. "You may pass."

You catch a glimpse of G'eldriia disappearing down a tunnel, pausing only to wink and wave. You race to catch up but you find your way blocked by the contents of an entire Hot Topic store.

Despite any individual item of clothing being designed to maximize the amount of flesh shown, the patchwork collection amounted to something that was almost practical for the rainy English countryside. Around you posters for all those classic Goth bands - Evanescence, Chiasm, An'tep the Pharoh's Court Musician - leer out in black and red and papyrus. White foundation and black eyeliner and more than an edge of the feline and tauric paws that gave every impression of being able to take your head from your shoulders.

"Two visitors in one day?" said the Sphinx. "Whatever."

So, brooding and scheming was all well and good but at a certain point the blatant lack of respect and fear was becoming enough to dampen even this unusually good mood. Of course, only one thing was worse than sitting here, staring daggers at the un-knocked door, was getting up and going after the damn students like some whimpering puppy in desperate need for attention and validation.

Hell.

No.

Over his undead body.

So Samael Hale remained, sinking an inch deeper in to the massive armchair, digging his nails in to the armrests as his expression slowly melted from smug to a slow-simmering bitterness.

@Elanorin

Waiting, Samael? You must be good at that for having lived this long. You've spent a not-inconsiderable amount of your immortal lifespan in vampiric torpor, recovering from terrible injuries under the ground, filled with dark nightmares marking the span of centuries. You have a lot to be bitter about.

Roll to Gaze into the Abyss, and tell me about your experiences lying trapped in a coffin under the earth.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

“Look, can we reschedule?” Her voice has to carry, so that the alternate dimension version of herself can hear, wherever she lurks. Probably drawing a bead on her right now. Her hardlight generator flares to life under her shirt. “I’m kind of in the middle of a business meeting, but I’d be happy to pencil you in around 3:30?”

A pregnant silence. She stretches her fingers and visualizes her new Prydwen defense matrix, a spinning whirlwind around a fixed point, silver as Euna’s... well, now her tips. But silver’s Euna’s color. A quiet way to say she’s serious. She really is.

“Hell, I’ll even get you a coffee. You take yours molten black, right?”

@Tatterdemalion

For a moment you think you see her - a thin waifish girl who looks kind of a bit like you, but it looks like someone's drawn on her face with a sharpie? She's trying to talk to you but you don't really hear her over the bustle and...

"Can't drink coffee," said the wet-leopard growl of Witcherphim. Oh, right! Wow, she can be stealthy when she wants to be. This makes much more sense, that other girl was probably just a fan. "My body filters out all toxins."

Her sword is silver too. She's just as serious as you.

"All I need," she said with the voice of a thunderstorm in a collapsing gravel quarry, "is a ticket home. I have people waiting for me back there. And defeating you," she conjured a second sword with a flex of her Hardlight generator. "Is the fastest way to get back there."

*

Ferraphim1tp: How is her voice like that~
Locker: hey
Ferraphim1tp: It's like the manliest thing I've ever heard, but it's got this soft, feminine, caring edge too.
Locker: hey ferraphimf1tp
Ferraphim1tp: And her eyes! And that jawline! I mean, Sara is buff, but she is BUFF
Locker: hey ferrapignmf i need blueprints of a hi skol
Dominus: WHILE YOU'RE BREAKING IN, SEE IF YOU CAN TAKE A REMEDIAL SPELLING COURSE
Locker: stufu

Oh, they're looking at her like they're expecting something now. Errant frowns.

"We're just calling her the chairwoman now? You guys aren't, like, at all concerned about the conflict of interests she represents? And we're a hundred percent sure her acquisition is legal?"

"In any case like I keep telling you, Victor couldn't have 'betrayed' us. In the first place he's not an employee, he's not on payroll, and citizens doing volunteer service work aren't subject to company loyalty regulations. It's Section 12, Paragraph C. Come on, guys. And... and even if he was, he's not... you know, a murderer. This whole case is opening backwards. We're better than this."

@Phoe

"Conflict of interests?" said Agent Buddy.
"Oh, of course! This is your first corporate merger!" said Agent Bargain.
"It's exciting, isn't it?"
"But think of it like this: It's civilized!"
"Back in the day when two nations went to war they kept going until one side was eradicated."
"Tsk! Tsk! Tsk!"
"But nowadays some money changes hands and suddenly all those Blacksun chaps are our co-workers!"
"And some of our other co-workers become our temporary opponents."
"It's how it goes!"
"So don't stress! Today we're going to work on catching Brainstorm..."
"... and tomorrow we're sure he'll be right back on our side!"
"It'll probably go much faster and easier if we can bring him in for questioning though."
"So again, it comes back to this," said Agent Bargain, leaning forwards. "Do you have any idea where he is located?"

So that's been fun.

Really, he's mostly just been working to figure out ways to contact Bound Eagle, Mami, and Sara without immediately having every corp down on him. He needs Bound Eagle to... well, apologize would still take priority. And then negotiate, and then plan. Baby steps.

@Balmas

Saraphim and Mami are both, as the kids say, hot calls. They're both being carefully observed specifically for you reaching out to them. But Bode? Nobody knows who he is, nobody has any idea that you might have a connection to him, and getting in contact with him is trivial in comparison. What you weren't expecting to also be trivia was convincing him to show up - but it was! Two hours after you reached out, there he was, standing in your hideout, like it was nothing.

"Hello, Victor," he said, unlimbering his enormous sniper rifle. Even folded it looks like the main battle cannon of a TAG, and the Thermo-Optic Camouflage cape he's wearing is Corporate Champion grade. Prometheus didn't spare a dime when it came to outfitting Bode. "Did you know that Angel-IKA is commentating an Aristeia! game? I was thinking about going to watch. I suspect Dominus is planning something related to that."