Thanqol

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 2

"Locker," Sara says, intense. "I need to hear your Comstar. I have never needed anything more in my whole life." This is a lie, obviously, but what's a little hyperbole between friends? "Let me hear the Commy or I'm calling Angel again with directions for exactly how to come pick you up. I need this."

She's grinning, much like a tiger that's learned that it can get fish by padding up to fishermen and asking politely while flexing its claws casually, and commenting on how isn't it such a nice day with nobody getting mauled?

@Tatterdemalion

"Hey @Sarahphim!" said Locker, bouncing up on his heels in the bubbliest voice he had. "I was going to fight you but I didn't have any ideas for how to do it so I was hoping you'd suggest something! It should be something that shows off how amazing I am and make you into a puppet, and it should be kinda hot but not so hot that it distracts me enough for you to break free again. Oh! Maybe I should ask my audience! They'll tell me exactly what they want me to do! That's the move of a real puppeteer who is good at controlling other people!"

"Ok, maybe another crazy story would be good tonight. Did you hear how Victoria Messermitt bought a controlling interest in AEGIS a little while ago? Well anyway, she tried to use the company to strong arm me into hunting down my teammates like a psychopath. I refused, and she turned the entire complex into my enemy in a second. Imagine it, right? Hundreds of people, all highly trained professionals, suddenly trying to gun me down. Bullets flying everywhere, Maria from BlackSun coming at me with a sword the size of me. I have to fight my way through the TAG hangar, alone. I get chased by the god damn Turbo Knight armor and have to break away from it twice.. There are bullets flying everywhere, EMP weapons going off all over the place, everything that everyone can think of to stop or even kill me, all happening at once. I broke through it. The @SARAHPHIM stream at the high school in Neo Chaos Spire happened less than an hour later. And then right after that was the big fight at the starport. All of it, on the same day. I ate two cakes and managed half a cup of coffee and maybe an hour and a half of napping. That's all I had to run off of that entire time."

Errant sets the tablet down on her lap, screen side down. She shrugs.

"You can see the arms and legs. Everybody knows about those. A few more people know about the armor mesh that's been implanted under my skin because they've seen what it looks like when somebody blows through it on a camera. But I also had them remove my non-essential organs to clear space in my body cavity so I've got fewer soft targets when something does go through me. Most of my ribs are metal, and I've had to have my spine reinforced several times so it doesn't shatter when I do something stupid. And I've trained obsessively after every surgery so that my body has muscle memory of all of my fighting styles at each new level of capability, so that I don't have to waste skillwire space on combat programs. They're not fast enough. Besides which, novel programs like decryption, bomb disposal, cooking, and motorcycle repair are all much more useful.

And I'm not telling you all of this to scare you, by the way. It's just... when I signed on, I had no idea what it really meant. But I think that you should. This is kind of stuff the movie-level stories are made of. And I mean, you don't have to be exactly the same as me, but... do you understand me, Cinders? This is really important."

@Phoe

"I, uh..."

The confidence falls away. She looks down. Looks sad. Bites her lip. There's only one thought that could possibly be happening there - have I already failed? A real hero would accept without even thinking. If the stakes are that high, that... permanent then how could just hearing about them get me to flinch? There's a whole whirlwind of thoughts happening behind those eyes, all the more intense because she's on the spot and aware of every passing second.

It's a lot you've put on her. But so is what she's thinking about doing. It's only fair she gets to think about it before she commits.

"Do you mind if I think about it, for just a little while?" she said in a small voice. "I don't want to say something dumb."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Something, somewhere, was wrong.

Late in the night of the Watch party they'd done Deductions - attempts to read as many personal details off strangers as possible in the style of hero detectives in novels. Brill had cleaned up, of course and he'd taken the time to dunk on Adila while doing so - "you've spent so long doing princess work you've forgotten how to pay attention to your surroundings". And then he'd picked her pocket. Bastard.

He'd been right, though. Everything in her brain had been too noisy lately - so many new places, so much heartache and heartbreak and heartrealization. In the Bazaar where things had been quiet it had felt like she'd had scope to expand her mind outwards until her thoughts could soak into the fabric of the city. Becoming so used to the rhythms and flows of the place that she could sniff trouble like a shark princess. She hadn't had a mind quiet enough to do that since...

Well, the when hardly mattered any more.

She was surprised that now of all times she was noticing the feeling. Here, on the Pear, when she should be coping with the complicated feelings that came with being a Captain or stressing about the final battle with Oberon and saving the world... instead all she had was this constant sense that something wasn't right. It was almost the same sense she had when Hornet visited the Bazaar - a warning that today was going to be an overtime day. Maybe there was some trick of Oberon's at work?

She prowled the ship. Around the engine deck. She knew she should be preparing, but...

Fellowship: The Heart

Looks extremely cool and good to me, Count! Also I adored your short fiction piece. More thoughts in a later cartoon.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

+It's...+ Adila tries to articulate a thought which almost seems simplistic once she has to give voice to it. +The mechanism by which the clocks read the future. It seems to me that they can do this because, if viewed from the correct angle, past and future are adjacent to each other. The clocks are circles inside circles and the hands move independently... The past is next to the future and they're always informing each other and they flow into each -+

The words broke off, and the next phrasing was filled with a strange clarity. +I think that time is better modeled by the processes of thought than the processes of a straight line.+

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 2

Sara bows back. She might be a badass, but the most badass thing of all is choosing to share in her friends’ weird little rituals. And... tbh, Locker’s one of the best dance partners she’s got.

“Step one is establishing an alibi. You’re going to need a bot that can cover for you in chat, and also some sort of weird depression hobby. That way, you’ve got someone who can cover for you by spamming typos, and you’ve got an excuse for hiding in your apartment. Second, we start laying hints that you’re Vault, but sloppily, like someone’s trying to shunt suspicion off onto you. Then, just to make sure the lowest common denominator gets it, you’ll get saved by Dominus as Vault. And while that’s happening, I’ll start spamming the butts match, using photoshop and arrows and curves to PROVE YES PROVE that you and Vault are the same.”

She catches the look he gives her and nods solemnly. She was, in fact, controversial and ultimately canceled fic writer S4R4STORM17. Victor can never, ever find out.

@Tatterdemalion

"Sometimes even I forget how much work you put in to make this look easy," said Locker. "And yeah, alright. I think video game development makes sense as a weird depression hobby, especially if I'm making twisted little experimental games for Weird Youtube. Nobody wants to talk to game developers, the games can be bad and weird enough that nobody feels good about looking them up, and games take arbitrarily long periods of time to make -" he's working through the angles, following through. This is the opposite of where you started; you were the hero and he was the backup then. "Pity I won't get to fake my death, I've been mentally rehearsing my Comstar all through the fight."

"Oh come on, don't tell me you don't believe there's a legit Hyperborea dimension after all that @SARAHPHIM double nonsense! Phimmy alone should be worth an extra fifty credibility points on this! Especially because it was her stupid version of Satan I had to chase all the way over there! And then, get this, that asshole raised Devilhome out of the ground like twenty minutes after I showed up on scene and was still getting my bearings and had the nerve to call me a cartoon character! So I do this once-in-a-lifetime mission and I blow the whole stupid thing chasing a jerk around Devilhome which is basically just here but weirder and I'm still so mad about it! What a waste of a perfectly good emergency..."

She folds her arms across her chest, too deep into pouting to care about what this looks like anymore. Call her out on it, Cinders, she dares you.

@Phoe

Cinders picks up her next set of chopsticks. Rather than part them and try the precise scissor gesture she just jabs one like a spear, puncturing right through the sushi roll and denting the countertop below, and then adeptly transferring the results to her mouth. The assassin-chef in the background scowls at the terrible chopstick form.

"So I guess that's the reason I want to be a superhero then," said Cinders. "To find out how full of shit you are -"

She laughs and thinks better of trying to pat you on the shoulder. "I mean, like, there are other jobs that involve kung fu on the regular, but all the heroes I follow seem to have all these weird, magical stories that's wackier than anything you see in the movies. Just the idea of actually living it rather than just writing about it, you know?"

"Hey, mama. Remember how you always told me that when I grew up and married, I'd have a kid as wicked as I was?

"...No, Mami, I'm not married.

"Yes, you know I'd tell you if something like that... Mom! Mami, no--I--Yes, I know how to use a con--Mami please--"

Victor runs his hands through his hair wearily. "Look, we're not like that yet and that's not the point. Point is, point is, you know." Dammit. Damn it all. "He needs help, and I don't know how to give it."

@Balmas

"You were right to call me," there's the slam of a car door in the background of the call. "I've been worried sick. My boy makes the evening news and not a single phone call to let me know you're okay -" the engine starts and there's the ripping roll of tires. "- I'm coming right over. Look, Victor, it's okay if you're not ready. You're still a kid yourself. And you're lucky enough to have a family so lean on that, okay?"

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

Ten, eleven, twelve.

Thirteen.

That is the lesson of the Dragon’s Clock, its method and its means. It was made for you by devils, perhaps not you in the specific, but for the dragon who would be standing here right now. Time and dragons and old stories, clocks and time woven from the hungry void at the beginning of everything, with this moment and this place as its anchoring point.

What came next? What did you do in the moments just beyond this one, this slivering, this fire-on-the-heart?

@Tatterdemalion

There's some deep dark instinct, even still, that says: Hoard! You've learned a secret and now it's yours. There's a kind of pleasure that goes with letting thoughts pass unarticulated, in keeping your head closed and your secrets closed - a feeling that makes board games and bargain shopping and shadowy lurking feel right. But Adila has been raised better; all along the thread of time is the lesson that the nature of humanity is to share information.

If she wants to fit into this community - and she does, and she's surprised how permanent that thought feels even on the brink of all this change - then it is her duty to share what she knows.

+Master, I have an observation on the nature of time,+ she said, approaching the Clockmaster.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 2

"How about the Incredible Nerd?" Suns blossom around him, sharp shards of flare forcing him to dart from foot to foot, grazing them so close he nearly singes the scarf. "Or you could call yourself Eraserhead; you've got that Lynchian vibe to you." Mandalas bloom, spitting lasers that trap him into firing corridors. "Rat Boy, with the skittering and mischief skills of a rat, not to mention the awful little hands, and the jumping ability of a boy!" He backflips over a pulsing shot and lands neatly, letting the follow-through zip perfectly between his arm and his body. "Prince Sparklepants, if you're looking for a new costume--"

And then he taps her forehead. Game over. Right in the space she left open for him. She grins, her eyes bright, and punches him in the arm.

"Or... how about Vault? It's got both the mad moves and the, you know, locker. Because you put things in both vaults and lockers? Don't laugh, you have no idea how hard it is to get a good and marketable name that hasn't already been snapped up, but I can get #Vault trending in 24 hours..."

@Tatterdemalion

It takes a while for him to still his razor-crackling nerves for long enough to bow to you at the end of the fight, but he does. It's one of those little rituals of his that can be mocked in isolation but because he keeps them up without flinching or changing they come to seem increasingly important. This one says: I respect you deeply.

"I like it," he said after he gets his breath back under control. "But how are we going to make sure the vault stays locked? You strung along the world for years before you chose your OTP so you surely have some ideas about blue-balling people over my identity."

Her eyes are wet amber. Her mouth is the tiniest bit agape. Her heart beats the only emotion it can remember right now, that most people would call love. Errant, superhero, Corporate Champion, Agent of AEGIS, Princess of AEGIS... her universe's one and only Euna Kim, stares at a girl attached to her prototype limbs. She watches the fingers squeeze oh-so-carefully. Her eyes blur as they trace down the arm, across the shoulder. Down the body. She notes every inch of Cinders' physique. It fills her. She realizes she's not breathing. She starts again.

She opens her mouth to say something, she's not sure what. Something simple, like 'thank you' or 'I'm glad it helped'. But she doesn't make it that far. A word chokes in her throat, and her lips twist themselves up into the kind of smile that's entirely too soft for the world it's living in. Her tears roll quietly down her cheeks.

This is not a moment for words, after all. She wipes at her eyes with one finger, only for fresh love to trickle down in its place.

@Phoe

Cinders looks at you. Then she looks away, and shoves the napkins over at you. "It's okay," she says gruffly. "I cry all the time too. It's okay to do that," barely hidden under the words, different ones: I did not know that was okay but if you're doing it then it must be, and that's such a relief to know I might actually tear up a bit too. "I even cried at the scene where Ad- a drag- someone had lots of cats sitting on them. I mean, not the first time, the second time, with the context from later in the show - I mean even the title music gets me a bit these days -" okay, ruining the moment a little, Cinders.

Victor sits back and closes his eyes. Yikes. Yeah, Bode was right, and somehow this made it feel even more urgent that this be fixed. No, not fixed, fixed indicates broken, but... Hrm. Language unimportant, helping important. Quietly, he turns the screen towards Bode, and bends over the keyboard again.

Is it not? Ferra won, didn't she? By your own logic, that makes her better and so she gets to do what she wants.

@Balmas

She cheated I had a bigger gun she was only one person I had an army I had a hundred armies I was way better than her and she hit me anyway and that's not fair I should have won

Prometheus couldn't run the numbers in his box, but he'd compressed that entire relentless calculation and probability-crunching quantum foresight into a sense of grievance at some indistinct force that had done him wrong. That was what he'd chosen to preserve when he'd been reduced to a personal computer; not anything that would help him escape, but the angry impression that the universe didn't make sense in a way all his imperial intellect hadn't been able to figure out.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Adila!

One of the clocks begins to chime. One, two, three, sharp silvery tones. For a moment, it's the only sound in the whole world. Everyone stops breathing, the dust stops settling, even the night wind stills. Then the hymn begins. Not an Igniter hymn; this is the sound of Palatine piety, rising from nearby roofs, from windows, as one of the new clocks (peeking out from under a budding branch) sings its song. Four, five, six.

The song rises from throats like tongues of fire. Do you join them, Adila? Seven, eight, nine. Each of the old clocks is gone. This new tree of time... it is the ship, each part changed, but still the same. It is the turning point of time. And despite this, despite the overturning of prophecy, the wiping clean of the slate... has the great work changed at all?

That's for you to decide, as it is for everyone in the Bazaar.

@Tatterdemalion

Time is broken here. That's what this is. That's what this has to be. How else could she see the past and the future both so clearly from where she stands?

She can't find it in her to sing, can't remember the words in time. She's captivated like she's standing at the intersection of two waterfalls. And in that moment she - to her shame - experiences the kind of sudden, shocking enlightenment about the nature of time that the Igniters claim as the core of their beliefs.

Perspectives aren't linear. Minds aren't linear. Thoughts aren't linear. The future can reach back to the past's wisdom to make sense of its new insanity. The past can be bound to visions of the future, dragging it with the strength of destiny. She has days when she feels ancient and wise, and she has days when she feels as new and fearful as a hatchling. She has days when she wants to take refuge in the past and days when she can't wait for the future.

And with that insight, her magic ignites within her. Now she's an adolescent - powerful and fast, but in the same kind of size and scale that humans are powerful and fast. Now she's a hatchling, stealthy and playful and the right size to catch cats who have committed cat-crimes. Now as she is now, mighty and vigilant, ready to defend her friends against any sort of darkness. She'd loved each time in her life, and she'd felt incomplete in each part - torn between future and past, the friendships and deeds she'd thought she'd had to leave behind and those she couldn't do yet. But now she recreated herself in tripartite and by acknowledging her own different selves her mind finally felt whole.

The Time Dragon blurred between shapes, one to the next, and then in three voices raised her voice to join in with the final chorus of the song.

[Advance: Unusual Upbringing, to provide Lived in a Shoe from the Halfling. Adila can change her size at will]

Fellowship: The Heart

Hello abouts, friends! My character came together extremely smoothly so I'm good to start whenever, in the interim I'll be thinking up random worldbuilding facts and details. Only need to do bonds once other characters start appearing :)

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee Sundish
The Angel

Agenda: Heroic Duty
Dive into danger when an innocent is threatened
Seeking Fame

Look: Compact, cute, bookish - anyone who looked at her would correctly identify this Rodine as an apprentice of the Celestial College. Ordinary and nonthreatening, the kind of demure apprentice that clusters around more experienced magi. But as she comes into focus there’s a defiant sharpness to her gaze, a sense of fierceness not normally seen in one as low ranked as her.

But then she takes off her travelling cape, revealing the green binding patterns dyed into her fur - her entire body carries the complex alchemical notation of a binding circle. And now those lines of energy ignite in veridian flames and terrible shadows swim into being around her, dragged into a world they have no rightful reason to be in.

STATS
Blood +1
Courage +1
Grace +2
Sense +0
Wisdom -1
Pride INFINITE

Holy Command
You can speak the language of all things. You can always be understood by anyone you speak to, and can Talk Sense to anything that listens.

While this divine language lets you speak to all things, it does not let you understand all things. You can command the natural world to obey you, but you cannot hear what they have to say about it. You cannot Speak Softly with them unless they have the ability to speak back to you.

Sky's Limit
You can fly. When you fly with a passenger or a heavy load, you have the Clumsy tag. Clumsy gives a -1 penalty to Get Away, Keep Them Busy, and Finish Them.

Words of Power

- Pride - Sword, Melee Piercing 1/1
- Impatience - Pistol, Ranged Burning 1/1
- Judgement - Hammer, Melee Necrotic 1/1
- Waste - Artillery, Ranged Dangerous 1/1
- Curiosity - Spear, Melee Burning 1/1

You know three power words. You do not need to decide what these words are until you use them. As you declare the words you know, write them down. A Word can be any verb or improper noun.
Example power words: Burn, Chains, Echo, Fear, Fly, Frost, Gate, Mirror, Open, Rage, Restore, Run, Shield, Sorrow, Storms, Truth, Tunnel, Wall, Wind.
You can use a power word to command any natural object or animal to follow that word. For example, you may speak Power Word: Burn to set an animal on fire, or to burn down a door, or to light a campfire.
Unnatural things, Threats to the World, and those that mean you harm resist your words of power. You cannot speak a word directly to such a thing - it can only delay them, and it takes power to do so.
When you speak a word of power to a threat before you, tell us this word and the threat you speak it to, then take damage. Your word will delay the threat in a way you describe, but it will break free before long.
When you Share this Move, the person you share it with knows only one word of power. They can write their own word, and do not need to use one of your words.

Worldly Detachment
You can never hold more than 6 Bonds total. When you would write your seventh Bond, erase one of your existing Bonds first. This Move cannot be Shared.

What is an Angel?
Messengers from Beyond
Your people are strange and alien messengers whose magnificence is beyond understanding. You know two additional power words, and you gain one extra stat: Pride.
Pride is not used for any rolls, and does not have a modifier. It can be damaged and healed just like normal stats. When your Pride becomes damaged, you gain Hope for your next roll.

Angel's Custom:
Mightier Than The Sword
Give each of your power words one option from each list:
X Melee or Ranged.
X Burning, Dangerous, Necrotic, or Piercing.
X Ax, Bow, Gun, Hammer, Spear, Sword, or Whip.
Each of your Power Words can be used as a weapon with the chosen tags, in the shape of a weapon from the final list. You can only have one of your Power Words in weapon form at a time, and can only use the tags of your current Power Word weapon.

Language Barrier
Your power words gain the tags Useful and Armor. Each word has 1 Use. When you Use a power word, describe the magical way it provides armor or help for you. When you Fill Your Belly, you may restore the Use of one of your words.

Smite Evil
Evil suffers in your presence. When facing a Threat to the World, you do not need to pay a price simply to act against them.
Damage you deal to a Threat to the World is Necrotic.

Angelic Gear
Light Rations (Food, 3/3 uses)
A Holy Symbol and a Prayer (Armour 1/1)
Kroan (Fickle Flier, Power Word: Heroism)
Ancient dictionary (Slow). You can understand the language of anything, translate any text or Speak Softly with foreigners and animals, as long as you have the time to consult this dictionary.

The Celestial College

The Bransmuth is the brain of Great Jelt, the university town that produces the arcane scholars that inform every aspect of Empire. Within the schools for administration, duelling, etiquette, and the lesser forms of sorcery exists a dark and rotting place: The Celestial College, Their Majesty’s chosen investigators into that which exists beyond even the imaginations of the Monarch.

It’s a place of deep caution, of paranoia, madness and backbiting. Academia is a vicious place at the best of times, and with the College’s resources and funding many ambitious souls are drawn to it - but the College’s duty is to interact with secrets that shake the eternal understanding of Great Jelt’s imperial destiny. As a result it has become bound intimately with red tape, royal commissars, constant tests of loyalty and endless watchfulness for signs of weakness. The magic of the College can upend the earth and throw entire cities down into the Heart, and so Their Majesty does not allow it far from Their grip.

Ailee Sundish (Aye-lee Sund-ish) is a third year apprentice to the College. She dreamed when young of exploring the depths of the Heart and dragging the truth back to the surface that it might please Their Majesty. Instead she found herself facing a career path that would keep her behind a desk for forty years. She was a prodigy of the art and yet she was told to waste her talents in idleness, ritual and routine.

So she performed that classic wizarding move: She broke into the Tower of Penitents, opened up every forbidden grimoire she could find, and started summoning cosmic horrors from the depths of the Heart and soul-binding them to herself. The elders of the College had claimed that binding even a single Angel was the culmination of a lifetime of exhaustive research. Though they had scoffed at her methods, she had bound six by the time the night was done.

In her escape she wielded powers comparable to the Archmages; none could bar her passage as she spoke from the midst of a symphony of terrible vocabulary. And then she was gone into the dark of the Heart before the Royal Commissars could get their boots on, swearing that she would learn more in a single voyage than all the ancient masters had learned in all their lifetimes.

So armed, so determined, the fierce mouse-girl set off into the deep and nightmares lit her way.

Bonds

I am Lucien Roue's guardian
Lucien is an excellent person but he wouldn't survive a day down here without me looking after him.
Jackdaw and I studied at the College together
Not everyone needs to be pushed out of their comfort zone, but her comfort zone is the contents of a cup of coffee
I trust Coleman to get us to the depths of the Heart safely
Coleman told me of his journey
I did research into the other train knights and frankly he's the only sane one