Thanqol

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

What emerges from the muck is not the snake-husband. The snake-husband was made out of stone, you see, and was similar to a cobra, and also had laser eyes. This giant sea snake is made out of glass, and is -- as mentioned before -- a sea snake with rippling feathery sides, and also she has poisoned laser eyes. She also has a really wet, detailed mouth, and while you're pretty sure letting her swallow the Jedadi mercenary and the Watchwoman wouldn't be fatal at all, it would be, well, like being trapped in a giant, wet, rippling tunnel, and it strikes you that there is absolutely something worse than being tied up. Oh, gosh. Just infinitely worse.

The problem is that you have made the gremlins practically invulnerable to being rushed, and as soon as the, well, let's call her a snake-wife, as soon as the snake-wife bends down they're just going to toss their sacrificial captives into her mouth! Bull-rushing them is out of the question, and you don't have very much time at all before the two of them meet a slimy, disgusting doom.

Also, you're trying to think of something while desperately trying to duck out of the way of green laser blasts that leave the swamp bubbling noxiously and make any stray gremlins hit by it keel over groaning and clutching their stomachs. There's always "plan: punch a hole right through her," but that seems really uncomfortable after what happened with the snake-husband, and if you hurt her how will you ever manage to coax her onto a date with the snake-husband???

@Tatterdemalion

Princess Adila is in no position to think of cunning plans. Princess Adila is in no position to be graceful or elegant. Princess Adila is in a position to do exactly one thing, and you know exactly what it is, damn your eyes.

Princess Adila leaps into the open mouth of the Snake Wife before any of the prisoners can be thrown into it.

She expands her wings and braces herself as best she can, getting lodged into the serpent's mouth, two dripping poisonous fangs braced against her shoulders. Her talons scrabble for purchase against slippery gums like a dog trying to climb a waterslide. It takes all her strength to keep those jaws from snapping shut. But there's a silver lining here: laser poison eyes can't shoot you if you're being eaten. How, exactly, Princess Adila feels about the physical experience of being inside the Snake-Wife's mouth is left as an exercise for the reader.

+I... really hope you've got a better plan than I do,+ Princess Adila thinks to Princess Dandy.

[Keeping Her Busy on a 9. This is a temporary solution.]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

SECOND PLACE
WEREWOLF MAGNET

Of course. It all makes sense. This is what she was looking for, all along! Not dumb white picket fences and pies cooking in the oven! Before her eyes unfolds a vision of the world where everything turns in a great wheel. The seasons turn, and life turns to death to life again! Why should Big Underworld get their soul portfolios stuffed with ghosts? Why should psychopomps have to ferry humans to their eternal reward every second of every day? If Mother Earth had her way, it would all be part of the cycle! Life turns to death turns to life! Numinous awe fills Elodie up to the brim, and tears prick hotly at her eyes.

She wiggles like a happy sardine in the sheaf.

"Yes," she cries out, in a way completely unlike she might cry out with her arms wrapped around any hypothetical boys. "Yes, yes, yes! I want to change! I want to throw my life in the garbage can and recycle it, I want to be the person turning your wheel!" She reaches up and touches the flowers, and they don't wilt away! This is fantastic! "Is there, like, a prayer I have to say, or-- how do I break my mind chains?" She tries imagining a chain and then snapping it! Wait, is snapping the right action? Maybe there's a specific way she's supposed to destroy her mind chains. Is there a twisting motion to it, maybe?

@Tatterdemalion

"There is," declared Gaia in the voice that was the creaking dark of ancient trees and the spine-thicket guarding wild blackberries, "no time. The fox does not contemplate or learn how to live, the fox just lives - and it is your duty to live as the fox. My abundance is yours. My power is yours. My voice will be with you. My presence will be with you. There are no ranks or tombs or books or pyramids or societies or any of the dead-while-living architecture. There is no how. There simply is. Act! Act, do as thou wilt, do as I wilt, do all as now safe in the knowledge that if you step off the path I will destroy you. Simply speak and I will grant your desire, and when you listen you must grant mine."

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

"For the record," Sara says, sourly, "Plan A was going to be super radical. The drones were going to get blown out of the sky." No thrills of fear running up her back over how fast she was being tracked by that AA fire, nosiree! To distract herself from being mean at her awesome maybe girlfriend, she scans the field from the steps. If she can't do her stunt, she's going to make sure that her next move -- synchronized with Errant this time -- is decisive and awesome as hell.

["Who here is most vulnerable to me?"]

@Tatterdemalion

Your vision locks on like a magnet to the Knights of the Black Sun - those hamfisted corporate goons who are failing at the basic task of put-sword-into-robot. They're completely focused on fighting Ferra/making soulful battle monologues and are, accordingly, the perfect targets for orbital dropkicks. If you have someone to cover your descent you can make a hell of an entrance.

Got it, crystal clear, over and out, sir. Yikes, yeah, she's pissed.

H'okay. So. Right now, they've got a swarm of bots broadcasting a narrative. Watch the heroic Blacksun defend against the evil supervillain Brainstorm and his henchmen! Can they resist his hypnotic allure, with which he's already corrupted another corporate champion and his superstar sister? Tune in to find out!

So the goal is to find their comms booth, and throw it into disarray. Bam, four corporate champions out in the cold with no hype crew directing them, a swarm of drones with no command center. Or, even better? Swap control of the bots over to Sara. That at least ought to be good for some brownie points. She's probably missing her camera drones and here comes Brainstorm, with an apology gift of several hundred corporate grade ones.

She might not even punch him!

[Assess: 11. what can I use here to accomplish the above? How could we end this quickly?]

@Balmas

To shift control of the drones? That's a Bode job. It is, after all, merely a high-energy act of software piracy and that's what Bode is designed to do. Get him one of those drones and he can do the rest.

How to end it quickly? You're going to need to get right in Victoria's face. You're looking at this situation and the numbers are impossible - Victoria has an army and you'll be worn down eventually. But she also has a terrible liability: she has a plan. You can sense more than you can see that this entire situation is a trap - and that's not a bad thing. If Victoria wanted to fight you straight up she could just keep paying dollars until you were gone, but she's not doing things the smart way - she's doing things the Turbo Knight way. She wants to prove her superiority here, and you should let her. It means she'll throw away her greatest advantage.

Ferra is singularly unimpressed. She holds up each arm, both in a "come at me bro" gesture and a focus, and a halo of five blades, longer than she is, appear behind her. "Learned this one from Sara." And they spike towards the Knights, one held in reserve for the surprise she wasn't seeing coming.

There's another AI involved. There was a surprise coming.

@eldest

"Fiend! You dishonour the sacred laws of the duel!" said Lyra.
"I weep for this fallen age!" declared Scipio, and true to his word, he stood stock still and took off his helmet to wipe tears from his eyes in a perfect melancholic pose. His team effortlessly moves to defend him while he takes his moment.
"You dare hold back?" roared Yates, pressing the attack. "You think that we are unworthy of your full efforts? Fie! Fie and damnation, let our swords teach you the price of your arrogance!"
"Use the promo code Arrogance-2187 to get 10% off our limited edition Armour Mark 55 Unboxing Video, featuring our unabridged reactions to our iconic new gear!" added Violet.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

The gremlins go wild. Their shrieks are ear-piercing as they run back and forth in circles, waving their spears in a very unsafe manner. But you had the right instinct: even though they're eyeless, they can't resist the opportunity to be overdramatic little goofballs, just like their creator. It's taking all of your self-control not to herd them. Down, girl! Stay!

Then one, in an intimidating bone-and-feather headress, hops up onto a standing stone and begins a chant. One by one, the gremlins join in: BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA! BEEGA BORA YOU FOUR AH!

A terrible black spine cuts through the water, the first sign of something very big, given the terrible ripples and the way the water is trembling in its wake. Mimsley is panicking, and once she sees what's coming, she'll probably faint dead away. Your advantage? Your speed, and the fact that Dandy is with you, and the two of you working together can overcome anything. Also, the gremlins are little goofballs that barely come up to your shins.

@Tatterdemalion

Princess Adila relaxed, calmed, centred. She can take everything in stride right now. Easy as pats. Now she's around the left and a snarl leaves her, and now she's around the right with a single firm bark. Excellent posture. Excellent discipline. She's in control of herself and she shares that control with the gremlins, bringing order to their chaos as she snaps and pounces and suddenly dramatically spreads her wings and looms over them. Forwards! Back! Stand up straight! Woof!

She then sits back and proudly looks at the rows of gremlins she's herded back into a perfect pike square, an absolute picture of military efficiency.

[Rolled a 4]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

A few shards of hardlight in strategic places, and they're both off the rocket. A dozen more, whirling around in a precise pattern, gives them both enough cover to get away from the rocket without being shot, and she's straight out the window and towards the AA emplacements. They are shooting at her cat. How dare you. The swirling vortex of glass and baffling hardlight following her is almost an afterthought.

@eldest

[Counting that as a Defend]

There is no more noble cause than the defence of cat. You cut through the anti-air lasers easily - they're as obsolete as the shutters, and for a moment the skies are clear.

Then sleek black drone fighters begin lifting from the spaceport; vantablack triangles launching one after another in streaks of golden light. These are BlackSun's mobile reserve, the cutting edge of the corporate-industrial complex and the moneymaker showroom pieces. They scatter up, wings opening - too small to take the fight to the Gears Foundation directly, but dangerous enough to intercept anything or anyone jumping from the skies.

And then...

"TO PROTECT THE STARS FROM DESTRUCTION!"
"TO GIVE GREAT BARGAINS ON CONSTRUCTION!"
"TO GUARD THE WORLD FROM ABOVE!"
"TO BLACKEN THE SUN WITH OUR LOVE!"
"LYRA!"
"SCIPIO!"
"VIOLET!"
"YATES!"
"AS HOLY KNIGHTS WE WIN OUR FATES!"

In a perfect sentai group pose the four Knights of the Black Sun, the elite megagoons - each a celebrity in their own right - emerge onto the roof of the aircraft hangar on an elevator. They're Maria's hand-trained elite badasses, surrounded by swarms of camera drones, instinctively catching every splash of sunlight and turning to let the illumination of explosions catch their good sides.

They then draw their swords - a complicated manoeuvre that involves graceful leaps, pirouettes, moments of break dancing and dramatic, smouldering stares into each others helmet-visors that no doubt have their fans screaming from the romantic tension. Once they're done with that it'll be time to use those swords, and perhaps strike more poses.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

She's never really meditated before. She's done the breathing exercises. She's sat still. She's tried not to think of anything. But meditation is more than that.

At first she thinks she's going to die.

A vision of hell erupts inside her heart, inside her eyes, inside her muscles. Rage and fear and pain just come pouring up out of her like steam through a geyser. Her heart pounds and her muscles clench and she wants to thrash and scream and scream and scream...

Stroke. Stroke. Midnight wings glide through water in beat with breath and heartbeat. The air is such a harsh mistress to fly in, but the water holds you up.

Her mind is untethered from her body now. It's shaking and weeping and so, so, so tired. It just wants to stop, wants to rest, wants to solve everything and do everything and have it be done. The exhaustion crashes into manic energy like a tidal wave hitting. Everything! Everything you've fallen behind on, Adila! Everything you could be better at, every problem yet to solve, you know exactly what to do - so erupt up and do it! You're ready, you're ready now! Do it! Do it all! And then you can rest!

Stroke. Stroke. Everything in slow motion, so slow that it's like she's not moving at all. The water is her timepiece - make no motion so sudden it breaks that surface. Glide through the water without the slightest splash, heartbeats slow. She can feel the point in her spine between her heart and the heart of her love. She can feel the hollow place in her mind that was thinking forever of danger.

It's not the meditation, the quiet, the dark that's created these feelings. It's all a product of her buzzing, deafening, talkative mind that's always been so noisy it could never keep its thoughts to itself. If her thoughts are so loud that others can hear them imagine being inside them. Even her silence had a character like the nothing-hum of shouted quiet. And they all seemed so important... That feeling, that overwhelmed, shattered feeling, that's always been there. It's not new. It's normal.

She feels like she's sinking. Not into the water - she still flows as steady as ever through the known unknowns, heart never missing a shared beat. She's sinking into herself. Her head stills and her perspective slides, slides, slides down the long curve of her graceful neck. Without the dominating sense of her so-precious eyes it didn't seem necessary to live inside her head. She wasn't her brain, after all. If she was then how was it that she was watching those chattering, exhausted, energetic, thrashing and uncontrollable thoughts still and fade away like dreams? Her mind came to a halt and still she swam, still she loved, invisible and one with her beloved and the darkness that wrapped them both. She could hear her two heartbeats and knew that was what she was, where her spirit lived, and that wild brain seemed nothing more than an organ for cooling the blood.

She emerged from the water without once tearing its velvet surface, washed clean of all her cares and chaos. She rises glistening in diamond black so clean that not even the patter of fallen water gives her away. She is the love within the darkness, an embracing nightmare so wonderful that it can only be invisible.

And she shares her gift.

In a motion all the more frighteningly swift for its thoughtless serenity, she lunges into the light for just long enough to knock the braziers into the water, plunging all the gremlins back into the shadows of Dandy and Adila.

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Elodie!

"Oh darling, my darling, you were never going to defeat Death with mundanity. Don't you see? He makes his living bringing death to the suburbs, places of stillness, sitting ducks. There's no way out in those coffins of the plains. You can't live by killing your own desires and instincts. He comes for those who are corpses already, who carry stillness in their hearts and rotting bodies sealed inside their castle walls. The way to defeat Death is to live!"

The roots, the leaves, the vines grow all around you, wrapping you into a sheaf of living wicker and crowning your head with flowers that do not wilt. You feel the embrace of Mother Earth, strong and steady and so vibrant. Everything is used. Everything is processed. Death is not death here - there are no tombs and no graves. Every strip of bone and mouthful of flesh has purpose and nature forgets that they ever were.

"You know what Death is? He is waste. He is cancer. He is the removal of precious resources from the cycle of the world, sealed within boxes, burned within fires, stolen away from me - as you were once, Elodie. Sleepshy is his realm even though the people in it are alive, why? Because they are wasteful. They do not recycle. They keep their skeletons and zombies and vampires in a state of unliving stasis where they do not go forwards and do not go back. Do you want to change things? Do you want to escape your fate? Then start by breaking the chains in your mind and allow yourself to live."

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

With a shattering rush and thump of displaced air, the Gears Foundation appears in the skies above the Kessler Multispace Site.

A little background on the company BlackSun. It began life as a luxury cruise ship company ordering tours of Africa and later broke into similar tours for the hyper-rich who wanted to visit space. As a sideline it sprawled into low-cost spaceflight and the mass launching of satellites. It achieved such economies of scale with this that scientists started warning that the company was the major factor putting Earth at risk developing Kessler Syndrome - a planetary problem where there are so many dud satellites in orbit that any spaceflight becomes perilous.

The company sat down and thought about what their response was going to be. On the one hand they could devote themselves to a sustainable vision of the future where they ensure the integrity of earth's orbit and guarantee a future for human spaceflight. Alternatively they could embrace their bad boy image, and maintain proprietary star charts of the few narrow orbital bands they have not polluted with space junk to lock out competitors, and rebrand themselves as BlackSun for the way their company's products are literally blotting out the sky. The decision came down to the black-and-gold colour scheme testing much better with focus groups.

The Kessler Multispace Site is defended comparably to a supervillain doom fortress. As soon as the flying Gears Foundation building erupts into the air above it enormous arcing anti-air lasers lock on and begin scorching beams through the sky and scrambling sleek unmanned jetfighters into the air. The attached spaceport terminals and hyperluxury resort are, at this point, meant to begin throwing up massive shutters to preserve their customers from debris caused by any such fights but as we all know nobody ever got rich playing it safe and only about half of them work, leaving civilians exposed and in the open.

As the sirens sound Professor Gears politely informs everyone in her best captain's voice that some mild turbulence is to be expected - and to help yourself to the Gears Arsenal on level 4 before you go for last-minute equipment grabs. There's everything you could need to make a hostile drop there, from wingsuits to laser-reflecting mirrors.

*

"Wah-ha-ha-ha!" laughed Turbo Knight 2. "Everything is going according to plan! Minions! Launch the rocket!"

Ferra, you can feel the rumbling of massive engines begin to roar below you. Channels of golden light run through everything as Prometheus begins executing his plans. Megagoons all over the open launch silo light up like lights on a server bank. It's all happening now, and those are your friends up there above you.

You've already done the groundwork to free the Shogun and bust free - and with your friends up there and in trouble, taking out some of that anti-air would be a damn fine assist.

*

"Right," said Sabrem. "First. Save world. Second. Movie night. Hnn. I could do with a... break. Good luck."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

Your keen senses allow you a moment to drag your claws down the side of the pit after it opens up beneath you. Eupheria might have gotten you once by surprise, but she won't get you twice! No, you will clamber back up and demand she let you back into the labyrinth by a more dignified--

That's when Dandy's butt lands right on your snout, and with a surprised yelp you fall, tucking yourself in around her in order to shield her fall. Down and sideways and up you tumble until you shoot right out into a muddy, murky swamp. It smells awful, and Dandy wrinkles her nose as you manage to hold her up over the bog, though for how long you can keep her from it is anyone's guess, with the way you're slowly sinking into it.

"Thanks for the catch, sugarcube," she says, giving you a very comforting pat on your tumtum. "Sakes alive, I wish that witch would give us a little more warning before she tosses us around!" Then, she freezes up, and says, in a hoarse whisper, "There's more of those freaky black centaurs here, but I don't think they've spotted us yet..."

@Tatterdemalion

Princess Adila nodded. She was quiet now, not because she'd forgotten how to think but because stealth was called for. Thoughts didn't travel like sound, they came into the minds of those around her clearly, so when it came time to prowl and evade she kept her thoughts structured. Besides, it was Princess Dandy's turn to talk.

She knows enough about swimming to know that if she keeps her wings spread and her lungs full of air she can float forever on her back, drifting with winds and tides or with steady flowing motions of her tail. In silence she sets sail into the deep and dark like that way. The only catch with holding that much air is that it ignites inside her and she occasionally has to breathe out little candle-plumes of light which illuminate these dark realms so that she can navigate for them both.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 0

"So, this Prometheus... Victor has him back at his base, right? Is he like a supercomputer he's been tinkering on?" Okay, she can see the theme naming. Prometheus, the Bound Eagle, it's all connected. She'll have to tease Victor about being such a nerd later. And, more to the point, she might be able to twist his arm into using some of that processing power to help them when they go in to take down Vicki.

Because this is 100% the first time she's heard anything about this Prometheus.

@Tatterdemalion

"Yes, Prometheus is a supercomputer, but no he's not at Victor's base. He took over the BlackSun megacorporation in order to support and arm me while I carry out my core function. He is also working more closely with AEGIS these days. He's always looking for ways to help me perform my mission better," said Bode.

She rises up onto her knees. Staring at cakes. At two cakes. This is a test. Suddenly she's seized with a wild desire to scream and smash both of them against a window. That's just what she's gonna do. She moves slowly. She's watching Sabrem. Watching her enemy, waiting for signs of an attack, looking for the moment she needs to jump up and fight and this whole thing will make sense again. Her hand is near the beautiful store bought cake now. Stupid thing. She hasn't eaten a cake in six years. Not about to start now. Her fingers move by themselves.

Quietly, Euna grabs one of the blunted knives fixed to the packaging. She slowly and carefully cuts herself a slice from both cakes, and puts them on a plate. She grabs a fork, sticks it in the slice from the clearly homemade one, and then brings a bit up to her mouth. She closes her eyes as she chews. It's sweet. It's much too sweet.

"...Can't finish these by myself."

@Phoe

Sabrem approaches. She's not doing that heavy stomping she does sometimes - that terrifying psychological hammer blow she uses to confuse the sound of her approach. Just an ordinary walk, a walk that's trying so hard to be ordinary.

She takes an uncertain bite of cake.

"Hnn... the backup cake was. Wise."

Hmm.

"Like a CEO."

Fuck.

"Fuck."

He sighs, shakes his head vigorously, and sighs again. "So, I'm hoping you have an EMP device somewhere under that PJ top, because I desperately need to wipe a phone about now."

@Balmas

"You think that Saraphim respects my privacy out of the goodness of her heart?" said Locker. "I can guess her comlog password cold in under twenty attempts, less if I know what she's been doing recently. Here, bring up the login page," without so much as a blink of hesitation he unseals the jar with your nanites and gives you back your phone, looking over your shoulder.

"But yeah. I do have an EMP grenade as backup,"

She's ready. She's been ready. She really ought to let things be.

But she's really curious.

"Hey! Turbo Knight 2 lady! What's your plan for Mars when you're ruler of the world and stuff?"

@eldest

"Mars? That pitiful red planet?" said Turbo Knight. "And Sylvanius, the one man outside of my system... You know what!? You're right! Change of plans! Fuck Australia! Lackeys! Turn this satellite around! We're going to blow up Mars instead!"

There was a wide and suppressed groaning from the tech support staff at this declaration.