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8 yrs ago
dissertation done. can actually post again. yay.
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In Divinus Mk. 8: The Eleventh Cycle (A God Roleplay) → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Asheel




“What! Why! How! Why do the other gods keep doing this!?” the exasperated Maintainer threw up her hands and demanded to know, further scaring the assortment of humanoid creatures she had come across in the desert. Those that were not already boiling in their thick fur scattered into the desert, fleeing the furious goddess and causing her to snap out of her rage when she saw the consequences of it.

“No wait, come back! I didn’t mean to scare you! Please don’t run, you'll get hurt! You’ll die out there” she called after them desperately, and though some slowed, others just kept running.

Then all of them started running again when the motherly figure and her great crystal orb were replaced by a wizened form sat astride a machine of blades and death, one which immediately started cackling at the Maintainer's misfortune.

“EHEHEHEHEHEHEHE It never ends! It never ends! This is your curse, you stagnant goat! You care too much, and look where’s got you! Endless labor!” The Breaker mocked the third that had been keeping her from taking control, only for her to lose it as well just as soon as she had gotten it, and for the Maker to take over again.

Still, she was in agreement with her oldest self , complaining that “This is so booooooring! It’s time for something new! The cave was cool, let's go do more stuff like that!” only for the Maintainer to snap back in control.

“No! Someone has to do this, and that person has to be me!” she insisted, but the others were still having none of it

“Come on now dearie, we’ve been at this for ages. I think we deserve a break ehehehehe” the Breaker joked, while the Maker agreed with by saying “Yeah, let it be someone else’s problem!”

“No no no we have to- I have to …” the Maintainer insisted, before slowing in her speech, thinking for a moment and then realizing that “we can make it something else’s task” which got a “huh?” From the Breaker but an “ooooooh!” from the Maker before she clapped her hands and declared “one self sustaining solution coming right up!”



A nameless figure stumbled through the desert, fleeing from the strange shifting thing that was screaming at itself. The figure had no idea what it was, or who it was, all it knew was it had to run, to flee. Then, in its haste, it tripped.

It went tumbling down a sand dune, sand making an absolute mess of its shimmering black feathers as it fell, before its pointed beak got stuck in the sand. It struggled, grasped the ground with all four sets of talons and then heaved with all its might, freeing itself from the sand.

It shook itself, trying to get the grains out of its feathers and nostrils to little avail, before wondering if maybe it should have listened to whatever that screaming pointy headed creature was. This desert thing was not nice.

Then it heard a rumbling, and turned to find the source, only to see a massive wall of chitin coming straight at it. Or rather rolling, though the distinction was rather lost as it cried out in alarm and started to try and run again.

It was fruitless however, as all legs pale in comparison to the all mighty wheel.

The roly-poly of a woodlouse the size of a van bore down on the poor bird beast person, but rather than squish him it opened up its curled up body just enough that the gap rolled over its target, rather than its body. It didn’t leave its target behind however, and instead lots of little legs pulled the bird-person up into the center of its body.

The rather dizzy bird person only barely felt the bug stop spinning, and then was carefully inserted into some kind of translucent cylinder that the bug was wrapped around. As it was dropped in, the bird landed atop a creature who had long red hair, rounded ears, a moderate stature and with skin pale as the sands down to the waist, at which point the rest of its body was that of a red and black banded snake.

The two screamed at each other, struggled and scrambled to either side of the cylinder, from which they stared at each other for a few moments, both panting hard. They hadn’t come out of the struggle evenly however, and the now bleeding from claw wounds snake person shied away from the bird when it tried to communicate. So instead the bird sighed and looked away, only to gasp at what it saw.

Through the glass like exterior of the cylinder it could see the desert flying by as the bug that had captured them rotated around the glass, somehow keeping them completely level as it used its own body as a wheel. They were climbing an embankment of some kind, and from up there the bird could see more of them. So many more. A few were chasing after other humanoid creatures, but most were simply blazing forth into the desert, looking as if they might fill the world with their bodies.

Then their own bug turned, racing down the embankment and careening towards a half dozen green figures. They barely even tried to run, and soon enough they too had been scooped up and deposited inside the cylinder. The bird waved at them too, but the green things seemed too exhausted, dehydrated, or both too much else but lay there in defeat.

That was until they stopped rolling again a little while later, and a stream of little soft globs rained down atop them, stirring the goblins into wakefulness. One reached out a shaking hand and promptly shoved the foreign object into its mouth, chewing it with grim determination. Then it paused. Then its eyes lit up. It chewed barely enough to soften the orb up, swallowed, and then eagerly grabbed for another one, and then a third, before finally pausing its feasting, and passing the fourth to a fellow green thing.

Curious, the bird, who had left the goblin pile well alone after one weakly hissed at it when he’d poked them, reached for one of the orbs itself, only to have their hand slapped by the green thing who had eaten. Very weakly slapped.

The bird was shocked rather than hurt. Sat there for a few more moments, thinking, and then tried again. A hand tried to slap it away once more, but the bird was bigger and stronger and still full of the energy it had been created with, so it simply ignored the feeble attempt at violence and took what it wanted.

That rather set the tone for the rest of the journey. Having found that it could, the full blooded bird folk with its larger size, feathered armor, and sharp beak and talons came to dominate the other occupants, snake person included. It hoarded the lion’s share of the food orbs, leaving only a few for the others. They in turn stuck together, the snake joining the goblin tribe mainly because they had to share space with each other as the bird took over ⅔ of the chamber so it could control the food supply.

Then, out of the blue, the journey ended.

Sand was replaced by wetlands and, at their heart, a shimmering river of crystal blue waters that gave life to all around it.

The giant rolling bug promptly dumped them out onto the ground here, proceeded to devour several trees, and then rolled off into the desert again. It was not the only one to do so. Even as the people started around in wonderment, they saw other giant bugs rolling in to drop off people.

A lot of people.

Then all of a sudden all eyes went to the bird for a moment, then back to the open space before the goblins and snake-folk all collectively ran (or slithered) away from it, wanting to be as far away from the bully as possible.

It watched them go with disinterest, and though in time it would come to desire that power again, for now it instead approached the banks, and stared down into the waters, finally seeing its own face.

A thin beak, dark eyes, pointed ears and radiant black and dark blue feathers stared back at it, and then the kingfisher heeded the call of the waters, diving into their cool embrace. On instinct it snatched its head forwards, catching something in its beak, and then rising up to the water’s surface, wiggling juvenile carp in its beak.

The act of fishing fed some hunger it had not known it had had, bringing about a satisfaction that beat even that of the one brought by the taste of swallowing its catch.

Life, it decided, was good, and surely it had all been made for the king fisher’s benefit. Thus bloomed to fruition a deep seated ego, and only woe for those upon whom it was inflicted could follow.




In Divinus Mk. 8: The Eleventh Cycle (A God Roleplay) → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Asheel




It was quite the picturesque scene: goblins, recently saved from the desert, danced and played along the riverbanks they had been brought to, saved by its sweet hydration and lush plant life that covered its banks.

Admittedly it hadn’t all been sunshine and roses. Turns out drinking lots and then eating loads of random green things after having been close to dying of thirst had some ironic and unpleasant consequences on the digestive system. Plus they didn’t really know how to swim. Also the plants kept sassing them.

Still, for every group running headlong into tragedy there were ones who were having the time of their lives. Admittedly their lives had mostly consisted of gradually dying in a desert before that, and still, the river lands they had been dropped off in were beautiful. Clear blue waters filled with shimmering fish ran slowly but steadily by, flanked by wide zones of wetlands full of all sorts of pretty plants.

Those close to the central sea had it even better, because they could climb up the hills and cliffs surrounding the divot in the earth, and look down into it to see the seas, islands and, most glorious of all, the giant tree that defied all logic.

One particular group of goblins sat atop one of these picturesque cliffs, a pile of fruits, leaves, sticks, roots and other plant things resting on the bear rock which they were periodically munching on as they argued casually. Them and a Daffotale growing in a clod of mud that one of the goblins had adopted.

“Iz a big tree, just very far away. Bigger than anything else in world!” one goblin who considered themselves master of perspective insisted.

“Nonsense. Shangshi La has huge waterfalls I’ll have you know. They must be way bigger to be able to fill the river!” the Daffodate sat in another goblin’s lap insisted.

“Yeah, but you never saw em, did you? Meanwhile I saw a big big hill in the desert. Spent whole time there trying to walking around it! That must be bigger. You can see past that tree” a second goblin insisted, pointing vaguely at an island behind the tree.

“Desert make walking slow, bet could walk nice and fast down there” insisted a third, only for the first to needle them with “Wot, you can walk on water now?”

“Ya know what mean, dummy” they retorted, only for a fourth to derail the question by asking “Wonder what it tastes like” which got them all musing on that very important question.

“Trees blech. Hard. Plus you just scrape teeth on it and get nuffin” one posited at last which got several nods, only for another to retort “But the leafy things, maybe they good? Gotta be huuuuuge. Eat one all day”

“Then have to climb up all the way there. Fall and you go splat. I know, I seen it in desert” another said, which got several shudders, and a few confused looks from the ones lucky enough to have not witnessed a messy death yet.

“Splat how? How can goblin go splat?” one of those innocent ones asked, to which the one who had brought it up responded by demonstrating, which they did by picking up a mushy fruit and then tossing it off the cliff they were all hanging about on top of. The fruit fell down down down, and then promptly went splat down below.

“Like that. But with more red. Creepy kinda dark red, not like the flowers that are red. Bad red” she insisted, which caused one to point up and ask “dat red?” as he pointed up at the way the southern sky

“I… Yeah… Like dat…” the goblin agreed hesitantly, rather unnerved by what the sky was doing.

“Is dat bad? Did goblin go splat in sky?” the one who had asked about splatting asked again

“I dunno… but don’t like it” the splat explainer replied, before glancing at their flower companion and asking “is that place where water come from”

“I suppose. But That’s on the other side of the world though, and that certainly doesn’t look like water” the Daffotale replied, the plant tilting its flower to one side as it tried to figure out what was going on, before in straightened up all of a sudden was it realized “oh no wait is that getting closer!?”

That question rebooted the perspective argument up for a few moments before the rain was spotted hitting the south side of the crater, and by that point it was too late. The blood rain swept across the inhabited equator within moments, splattered down from on high causing the goblins to panic and flee in all directions. Some kept panicking till the rain ended, or worse, met their untimely end as a result of their panic. Some realized the rain didn’t hurt and stopped, and some of those happened to turn their maws up to the sky and drink it in, giving them their first taste for the stuff. Those that did so in the desert bought themselves more time to be rescued.

The goblins on the hill however, found their way to a cool cave they had found earlier, rushing inside and out of the bloody rain, each and every one soaked in red. The only one saved from this was the daffotale, who’s beautiful delicate form had been shielded by its bearer’s own body.

After they’d caught their breath, the brave among them then turned around to take a look at what they had been caught in, marvling in the awesome supernatural terror of it.

One of them leaned against the entrance of the cavern with one hand, and then happened to look at the spot after she pulled it away.

“Huh. Look. Hand on wall!” she called out, which freaked several out till they saw what she meant: namely that there was now a bloody handprint on the wall. Specifically “my hand!” the goblin marveled as she hovered it over the mark.

“Me try me try!” another insisted, before they slapped a hand against the wall, leaving more of a splotch than a hand, causing them to go “awww” in disappointment

“Maybe slow like” a third said as he more gently pressed a blood soaked hand to the wall, then pulled it back, revealing the first bit of intentional art the goblins had ever seen (made by mortal hands anyway).

This got several oos from the other goblins, except the first who insisted “me discover it, not him!” before slapping the wall a few times for emphasis. Then she had a look at the splats and made a few more, wiping her hand on her blood covered body and deliberately adding a few more splats before stepping back and revealing her “big tree!” made out of handprints.

That got even more ooo’s and then everyone wanted to have a go, resulting in a flurry of art that left the goblins so distracted that they didn’t even notice that the rain was gone till one of them ran out of blood and went to get more.

“Oh! It over!” the goblin called out to the others excitedly, before realizing that that meant “aw, no more blood for making wall shapes”

“Maybe pools?” Another suggested, which got them all excited again, goblins spilling out of the cave and then returning to it with fresh handfuls of blood, only for them all to get a proper look at what they had made in the light of day post blood rain.

A lot of it was just hands and nature, but several had made attempts to record other things, such as painting themselves or, in one big collaborative section, painting the goddess who had saved them, a goblin surrounded by a ring appearing before lots of smaller goblins.

“Oh, is that supposed to be me?” asked a voice from behind the goblins, causing them all to spin around and behold a figure wearing a wide brimmed pointed hat. Behind her were a collection of other goblins, their bodies still dusted with the sands of the desert, and behind that, parked on the river itself, the great crystal sphere that had brought them all here.

There was a little moment of stunned silence caused by the sudden appearance of the Maintainer in their midst lingered on for just enough time to get awkward, at which point one finally spoke up and confirmed that “yeah!” it was meant to be her, before the goblin asked, a little hesitantly “um, do you like it?”

“Oh I just love it my dears!” the goddess proclaimed with clear and genuine delight “such creativity, taking something that must have scared you so much and turning it into something beautiful,” before clarifying that “and I don’t just mean the part depicting me, naturally. It's all quite wonderful”

She swept into the cave to make a show of taking a proper look at everything, which left the goblins who had been huddled behind her exposed. They shied away from their fellows because they were, well, covered in blood while these goblins had clearly managed to avoid the storm inside.

Of all people it was the Daffotale who broke the silence with a call of “Hello hello! Welcome to the river-lands of the great Tuuni!” before it added apologetically “I swear it’s a lot nicer looking when its not drenched in blood”

Indeed, the lands were absolutely coated in it, and the river presently ran red, with all the blood that had fallen into it here and upstream.

“Not to worry, I’m sure that it will be cleaned up in no time” the Daffotale insisted.

“Yeah. Hope so. Blood is stinky, but there’s water and plant things to eat. Much better than desert” one of the blood covered goblins said, before offering to show the others about, and to get some grub in them.

Most eagerly agreed, but a few stayed behind, and asked about how they’d made the walls.

The remaining cave painters eagerly explained, but then lamented that “once blood is all gone, or dry, then no more painting”

“Maybe use own blood?” another suggested, which got mixed responses, along with one pointing out that “Not much space left either”

“Well, the blood will wear off in time unfortunately” the goddess told them as she stepped into their conversation “so there will be space then but ah, it would be a shame to lose it all. A real shame” before she gave a “hmmm” of a thought.

She held that thought for a moment, and then snapped her fingers as she had an “idea!” before she lightly tapped the cave wall. In an instant, it grew and grew, forming a great cathedral sized dome of stone, which then lit up as the walls began to softly glow.

The paintings that had been made were still there, but had been moved up to just above the height the goblins could reach, freeing up space below. If they looked closely at those paintings, they could see that they were slowly moving, rising up towards the ceiling. This caused one painting to bump into another due to the shape of the dome, causing both to disappear, much to the alarm of the painters, only for the Maintainer to quickly point out that they had re-appeared elsewhere on the dome.

“There we go, now there is space to paint more pictures, and the ones that have been made will cycle in and out of existence in such a way that everything gets a turn to reappear again and again and again” she told them getting many ooo’s and aaaahs of amazement from the goblins.

“Now then, as fun as this has been, I really should be off. There are still goblins to save out there, though i do hope all that blood has bought me some more time” she said before telling them “you all play nice now, and I look forwards to seeing what you end up filling this place with” and then stepping out the room in a flash, leaving the goblins to marvel at their gift for a few moments.

Then they all ran outside to get more blood to do even more painting.





In Legend of Benkei → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Fae


While Fae could have been embarrassed about being the only one to take Sinmara up on her challenge, he simply decided not to be (one of the many advantages of shoving metal into your brain in his opinion) and returned the titanic woman’s pre-offered bump, before he then proceeded to idly file his nails using a tendril sourced laser as he waited for the others to board.

“I do hope this wasn't a preemptive demonstration of your inability to keep up, Marissa” he needled the woman dressed in a school uniform who clearly hadn’t yet overcome her childish fear of childishness, before more productively suggesting that “Perhaps you’d be willing disavow that first impression at some time during the trip? We really should use the time we have to get an actual understanding of each other’s capabilities, don’t you think?”

That could come later however, as the cyborg first decided to have a little look around the ship, taking it all in, and digitizing it all for later use. It simply wouldn’t do to get caught flat footed if they came under attack after all, and knowing where everything was on the vessel was a part of that. Plus it was simply interesting to get a close look at such a titanic war machine, and the man had to be shooed out of several sections he was not really meant to be in after he had strode confidently into them, casually bypassing any security in the process.

After being explicitly ordered to stay out of restricted areas, (and replying with an ever so casual “Well now, why didn’t you say so?”) the man instead sought to track down the most suitable area to create an impromptu combat arena (be it any actual training space the ship might have, or simply a palace where they were least likely to blow up the engine or the ammo stores) and then sent out holographic copies of himself to find the others and offer an invitation to his little impromptu fight club.

Said invitation would involve the doppelganger giving a theatrical bow, and requesting the come show him their “flesh and mettle”

While they did that, the doctor proceed to build himself a weapon, in this case was a Sea Wasp Personnel Disabler system, which looked a bit like a rectangular multi missile launcher if instead of 4 missiles it contained dozens of taser darts capable of being fired and then back reeled in, for use in any sparring matches.

He also constructed a number of holographic training dummies as well, should sparring matches not be of interest (or, worse, he get no interest at all)

Due to needing to make a fair few, these were wireframe humanoids rather than anything particularly life-like. The ones produced could be split into artful dodgers armed with rapiers, regular soldiers armed with rifles, and hovering mages who tossed illusory spells, though he was also open to taking requests. The dummies were not able to hit or be hit, even if he was capable of making those, and so they were more like mobile practice targets armed with laser tag weapons that would tell their opponent when they had been hit. Given that any ones he made capable of physical interaction wouldn’t last very long, that was more than acceptable.

All in all, he hoped this would prove a fun little distraction, as well as a way to learn a bit more about his comrade’s capabilities prior to them facing any real danger.
In World of Light → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

The Koopa Troop

wordcount: 1,458 (+3) (+5 + 5)
Bowser: Level 13 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (195/130)
Bowser Jr: Level 13 EXP: //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (83/130)
Kamek: Level 12 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (192/120)
Rika: Level 8 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (46/90)
Location: The Under - Termite Kingdom Ruins


It was a pretty casual trip back all things considered, as the practice dummy like monsters patrolling their fields were still about doing their thing, and presumably keeping the local bug population nice and low as a result. Plus this time there was no dwarven thievery to enrage them.

In contrast, it seemed like their area had been more straightforward than whatever weirdness was vaguely alluded to via puns by Miss Fortune regarding their team’s trip when they caught up, that was for sure.

”I got a tank!” was jr’s main input to explain what had happened to them, as if him having to pop open the hatch of it to tell them this didn’t make that obvious in and of itself. Although in his defense, the Kuebiko could be easily mistaken for a tractor, if not for the massive triple barrel gun on the front.

”His majesty also fought a giant pig, with my enlarging help, so I am afraid I will be sitting this next bout out from in here” Kamek, who was also in said tank, informed them in a very tired tone.

”I punched it right in the snout! That sure showed it who’s boss!” the King confirmed, ever so proud of this apparently.

”Also there was, uh, bugs and stuff I guess. And robots. But you probably had those too?” Rika concluded the summary of what they had been doing rather less bombastically ”Which we should probably handle the spirits of before we fight this triangle thing, right?”

That got some confirming nods from the rest of the troop, except for Bowser who decided that ”Seeing as the big pig was pretty tough, I think I’ll fuse with it. Get my own big tusks or more root powers or something” for which he borrowed the Snaktivator from Kamek to do, while Rike as usual borrowed the mimic shaped hat from their reisdent bug queen to do some crushing.



”So. How do I look?” Bowser asked after the fusion, which caused the others to trade a few glances and for Kamek to offer that ”The tusks look, ah, very regal, sire. Like a second set of horns” while clearly avoiding talking about the obvious, namely that ”You've got a pig snout. It looks a little silly”

”What?!” the King balked, before booping his own snoot and then groaning as he confirmed what Rika had told him

”I’m sure the fusion will come in handy though, that great beast was quite devastating on the charge after all” Kamek quickly pointed out, before admitting ”Though perhaps not against such a large stationary target like that one” referring, of course, to the pyramid.

Somehow that was only the first half of the warping of Bowser’s face that went down, as he foolishly forgot the danger of pedestal items and proceeded to poke the bat floating on one. Admittedly, it could have been worse, because the resulting v shaped hairline and extra pointy tooth didn’t actually do much other than add a few strands to the front of the King’s locs, while the tooth mostly blended in with all the other sharp ones.

The other items consisted of some valuable looking metal, which got shrunken and stashed, along with the giant alien green diamond. Bowser held onto the mine, peering at some very small instructional text scribbled under much larger warning text, and while Rika attached the helmet bot on top of one of her gauntlet ‘heads’, intending to use it as a replacement for her destroyed scout plane.

They got use of the turret by physically strapping it onto Bower’s shell via metal bands made with Jr’s Ferromancy. Mounted atop one of his existing turrets, and with the trigger controlled by a vine, it would give him quite the boost in long ranged fire power. Given that the king wasn’t exactly the best marksman however, the main form of help it would be providing would be adding to the volume he could output.

With all that out of the way, they were ready to go, just in time for Overhard to give them a heads up as to what was going on.

”Alright, see you guys on the other side” Jr said as he hopped into the tractor tank, and snapped shut the hatch, before revving up the machine, raring and ready to go. Rika meanwhile finished filling her grizco blaster’s primer tank with her own saliva and slotted the cylinder onto it, while Bower just cracked his knuckles and got ready to throw down.

Just as explained, the caretaker’s first mode of defense was its big mechanical tentacles, which immediately started blasting at them. Rika and Jr both got moving, the ship girl using her shot slowing vision to evade fire while Jr backed up the metal attacker while spraying retaliatory fire back at their foe.

Bowser wasn’t nearly as evasive, and so he was very thankful for Primrose’s defense buff, and some overhealing provide vines Jr had provided before taking command of his tank. That and his little mecha mit shield let him withstand the initial barrage, but none of those were much help when the tentacle decided to slam forwards to try and skewer him with its four pronged tip.

Fortunately, he’d just had a bit of practice with something just like this, and so instead of being gored by the 4 prongs the king just barely managed to grab a pair of them in his claws.Monster and machin struggled against each other till the king got a good grip, and then pulled and pulled, till the mechanical limb was ripped from it’s socket, flailing on the ground for a few seconds till it went still.

”That the best you’ve got?!” the king, just a bit out of breath, taunted, just in time to find himself facing down giant walls of energy that someone had forgotten to mention where going to be an issue.

As the king scrambled to run out of the way of the blasts, and Jr had to do some of the best driving of his life to weave between them while avoiding running any one over, Rika handled them with far more ease.

This was mainly because she could go over them, the ship girl dodging the first, and then squeezing her feather fall rune to launch herself clear over the top of the seconds. The tiny wings on the back of her rigging gave her just enough thrust to help her buzz over the wave as it slipped under her, after which she took a leaf out of Miss Fortune’s book, and also went for a mount of the machine.

Her grappling hook shot out, attached, and then pulled her atop it, where she proceeded to scramble over to a different vent from the one the cat girl was clawing up. Once over there, she promptly gave it five barrels of fun, hammering 4 disruption gobs and several rapid fire blasts of electric goop into it, really gumming up the works, and debuffing the machine’s damage output by 20% for 30 seconds in the process.

Rather than simply flee with her glowing cotton tail between her legs when the shredders came however, she instead left them a parting gift, dumping out a shocker swarm from her hangers, and also summoning her cloister striker. The very tough shellfish didn’t have to worry too much about the cutting attacks of the shredder bots, particularly when it proceeded to summon a whirlpool around itself. The resulting swirling vortex spun the drones around, either tearing them apart, smashing them into the cloister’s shell, or leaving them soaked through and thus extra vulnerable to the electric swarm Rika had left behind.

As that dance of elements played out, the ship girl grappled too one of the tentacles, and used it to swing across the electrically charged platform below, only avoiding being blasted to bits by friendly fire due to her shot slowing sunglasses and her little wings giving her just enough extra air controle to weave between them.

”Rika!” came a panicked buzz in her ear as she landed, coming from one of the sources of that near friendly fire accident, which proceeded to tell her to ”Call in that you’re going to do that next time!”

Over in his tractor tank Jr got a sheepish ”Sorry” and ”will do” from Rika, before focusing back on the fight. The vehicle he was in certainty was fun, wheezing around at impressive speeds, turning practically on a dime, and laying out a whole heap of fire power, but the Prince was getting a bit frustrated at his lack of options.

Options that the blinking red ammo and fuel reserves constantly reminded him that they had been wasted by the ”Dumb plants!” that had infested it.

Still, when he did manage to stop power sliding across the dirt and got to line up a shot, the triple barrel cannons laid waste to anything in front of them. He just wished things would stop moving and stay in his line of fire.
In World of Light → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

wordcount: 1,110 (+2) (+5 +5 +4)
Midna: level 9 EXP: ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// (71/110)
Location: Suoh
Warp Charges: 1


”It really is all happening today isn’t it?” Was Midna’s first comment after the city wide announcement that the rebellion was going above ground, before pondering out loud ”I wonder if they’re just capitalizing on each other’s actions or if someone is egging things along? That Other shower wasn’t predicted after all, and the way they came in was strange, right? Almost like they were transported in by whatever those flying machines were?”

Looking at the others, Midna could see that she definitely wasn't the only one feeling it. As a veteran soldier Luka might be more well-adjusted to this sort of exertion, but Yuito and Hanabi were both breathing heavily from the battle through Suoh. When Midna addressed them, though, they couldn't help but consider the truth behind her words.

"That's right...Others come from the Extinction belt, but in pods, not in buses," Yuito mused, putting his fist to his chin.

Hanabi scratched her head, her eyes narrowed. "Those ones are called Battle Buses, I think? Pretty sure they're used in some sort of game show. A one hundred person survival island kind of thing, you know. But even if they can fit a hundred people apiece, there's no way all those Others could've fit on them."

"The timing is too convenient, too," Yuito added. "How could Karen know what was about to happen and use it to break into Arahabaki, if even Arahabaki couldn't see the Other rain coming?"

Midna did not have time to reflect on what in the world a survival island gameshow was, because her brain lept straight to ”I … oh goddesses I hope I am wrong, but if you can fit 100 people on there, then you can move them to a location, and then turn them all into Others when you get there. I know they had to shoot Peach individually, but what if there was a way that could do it en mass…” That was quite the terrible weapon, both in terms of effectiveness and sheer monstrousness.

Both of Midna's comrades looked horrified. "You don't really think that's what happened, do you?" Hanabi shuddered. "That's almost too horrible to consider."

Yuito furrowed his brow, disturbed, but also a little incredulous "Wait, you mean this was the work of the same people responsible for metamorphosis? Why would they use it to attack their own territory? Especially since that not only gave Karen the perfect chance to break into Arahabaki, but also led to the Grand Head's assassination?"

"That does sound pretty...I don't know, counterproductive? I mean, if it's their fault, that either means they're working with Karen in order to destroy themselves, or they're insanely stupid." Hanabi crossed her arms.

”Well … Unless Karen got his hands on how they did it. He’s definitely the one who benefited the most” Midna pointed out grimly, before musing ”though it could also be someone else stole it, or the regime is coming apart at the seams. Wasn’t there some conspiracy inside of it …. Konoe! Konoe controles Psych-OSF, Neuron, the G-men and he did have Vandelay till it got destroyed. It and Project Armstrong, which was a big part of his overall plan”

That was something of a save for Karen, which she extrapolated upon ”The guy just suffered a big loss, and he hates Shinra. So maybe Karen just took advantage of some hit Karen was making against Shinra? Or Konoe wanted them to make this move for some reason, maybe to make them Shinra’s problem as well as his? Or does he also want something down there? I’d be a good distraction” and while it was a bit of a stretch, after all he was in control of the organization at the heart of the Rebellion, it could have been part of some play of his. ”Either way, he has the means, and a potential motivation, so I wouldn’t put it all on Karen yet. Yet”

Since Midna was more or less spitballing, neither Yuito nor Hanabi tried addressing all her hypotheticals, though it was definitely food for thought. They didn't have all the answers either, after all. "Well, I hope it wasn't Karen," Hanabi said after a moment. "He's definitely benefiting from all this the most. If he's somehow responsible, that makes him almost as bad as the people he's rebelling against in the first place."

Yuito nodded. "At that point, we'd have to wonder if he really did want freedom for everyone, or if he had some other, more selfish agenda. With Arahabaki, almost anything's possible. Whoever controls it controls the information, even Midgar itself."

”That powerful huh?” Midna asked, before noting that ”And yet despite that it’s not even the thing that’s deepest down apparently. You have to wonder what Shinra has that they want to protect even harder. Other than the area guardian I mean, but they don’t know how important that is”

Luka had stayed quiet throughout this time, ruminating on all that he'd heard. At this point, though, his eyes went up slightly, and he cleared his throat in order to present a new possibility. "Maybe, but...if this 'guardian' is that important to the people behind the curtains, wouldn't it make sense to make it vitally important to the people actually defending it, too?"

”Thing is they can’t know what it’s for, as that'd involve knowing about Galeem, so I’d think it would be something that’s important for another reason as well?” she informed him, before thinking about it a bit more and postulating that ”Or one of the Consuls managed to convince them it's important? But I think we should prepare for it to be something that has consequences when it goes down”

The others nodded their agreement, though none felt especially confident. 'Be ready for anything' was a phrase everyone could agree with, but never truly put into practice. Whatever came of these new crises and discoveries, hopefully their strength and their bonds would be enough to see them through.

”Alright, I think I’m recovered enough to get moving again” she said, before asking the group in general ”Got anywhere else we need to be, or should we try and regroup? I can portal us to a few places if I make another one here” entirely willing to fill them in on where those where if they had a desire to move out. It wasn’t the only fast transportation option either, as she pointed out ”Or seeing as we’re fugitives now, there’s no laws stopping us from driving somewhere instead”
In Divinus Mk. 8: The Eleventh Cycle (A God Roleplay) → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Asheel




“Woooooooooooow did you see that! It was all like, woosh boooom, kablooie and then now there’s all this stuff!” The Maker excitedly summarized what had just happened, namely the birthing of the universe. Had she been capable of being humbled, she might have been by that supreme act of creation, but as it stood she was just fangirling over the start of the, as she’d put it “biggest and bestest cycle ever!”

“Yes yes, well now we have to do something with it” the Maintainer said, rather looking forwards to it, before noting “and there they all go to do just that I see” as the other gods blasted off this way and that to leave their mark

“Yes, but, hmmm, I think there’s someone missing?” The Breaker, who had an eye for such things, noted as she looked around and saw not a hint of the essence of “that lazy looking fellow, the one who arrived here first and then never did anything?”

“Oh yeah, huh, um” The Maker replied, before she almost immediately got distracted by a big tree getting made. Yet in doing so she got another glance at the codex, and upon it saw a rather pointed line that had been written there.

“The Sloth is dead!” the Maker cried out as she read it, prompting the Maintainer to echo her with a mix of questioning and panic “The Sloth is dead?!”

“Correct” The Breaker replied without any of the alarm of her other two thirds, as if she had known this all along.

“Ah, how can you be so calm! I get it now! We can die! Things can kill us!” The Maker freaked out “But I don’t wanna die, I have so much left to live for!”

“And worst thing is, it could be any one of them” the Maintainer aid, glancing paranoidly around

“Now now, Its fine, we wrote in reincarnation after all, so he’ll just be reborn” The Breaker pointed out, only for the maker to reply that “Not for gods! We weren't in the book, just all that life stuff, and bugs”

There was a brief stunned silence, and then they really started freaking out with the Maintainer yelling that “We need to protect ourselves” while the breaker demanded that “no we need to arm ourselves” only for the Maker to overrule them and shout that “we need to be able to escape!” before doing just that.

The Maker just started running, and as she ran she built around her, forming the familiar shape of a great wheel. Feet that had been hitting sand instead hit metal as she formed a divine transport powered by the person running inside of it, which caused her to blaze around the world at ungodly speeds.

It was a machine for someone with everything to lose, and yet also for one who did not know that was the case, one that would get her both into and out of danger

This went well till the Maintainer took over and declared “no no no, this is too much, where did you get the energy to do this from” before she warped the machine, wrapping it around herself and making it larger till she was embraced by it, sealed within a great crystal ball, and sat atop a lovely room sized platform scattered with pillows.

It was a machine for someone for whom there where others she was responsible for, and a way to protect protect both them, and to ensure she herself would still be around to do so herself.

“Ahhh, much better” she declared as she lounged, at which point the Breaker took over again and called them both “Cowards!” before reshaping the machine again, causing it to grow even smaller till it was only slightly larger than her. Then she split the wheel in two and made a central hub out of which slicing blades sprung, chopping and slashing as the machine sped forwards.

It was a machine for someone at the end of their tether who really did have nothing to lose, and so feared not death, because it was coming for her either way.

“Give death unto death!” the old goblin cried to the winds before cackling maniacally as she tore across the sands.

Then the Maker’s machine returned, then the Maintainer's, and back to the Breaker’s as they blazed around the world in cycle after cycle, till they were sure they were safe.

And then a bit more just for fun, during which the Maker actually christened their new ride, naming it quite simply the Super Cycle.

Then all of a sudden their joy ride came to an end as the Breaker slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt somewhere in the middle of the vast desert that still made up most of the world.

She had stopped because she had found something very strange and yet very familiar. Several things, in fact, as the three in one came face to face with 20 more somewhat like her.

Goblins. Made and then cast across the world with no concern for the fact that most of it was still uninhabitable.

The goddess and the mortals stared at each other for a moment, her with curiosity, they with fear and amazement. And then hope.

They rushed to her side, or rather tried to, but mostly shambled due to how desiccated, begging for salvation from the blistering sun and barren land.

“Why should we? All things end” the Breaker replied dismissively, despite having been the one to stop to see them, and the Maker, in her way, agreed “and then you’ll live again! Somewhere nicer where there’s new life and stuff” but the Maintainer was having none of it

“These lives have just been made, it is not time for them to end just yet!” she declared, and then did something they had not done before, and refused to swap over. Instead she invited the goblins into her sphere-like ride and spirited them away to “this lovely river someone made all the way around the world. Lovely work I must say. There’s plenty of shade, water and things to eat there”

The words she spoke were truth, and soon enough the goblins had been delivered from the desert and to the promised land, where they first rejoiced, and then sang the goddess’ praises, something she found she rather enjoyed. She had also enjoyed their company, having learned a bit about their limited time alive, and of their birth. Of the sparkles in the sky that had fallen around them.

She put that and an observation she’d made while riding around the world, and so put a name on the god responsible for their plight, and recognised that there were so many more goblins out there that might need transporting to safety.

Investing the former could wait, because the first was a rather time sensitive issue. As a result, the Maintainer spent the next few days riding her orb like machine all across the desert, collecting and transporting goblin group after goblin group, and in doing so making a bit of a name for herself as she swelled the riverside populations, as well as their devotion to her.




In From Realms Beyond — An Isekai Crossover RP (Now Accepting) → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay


??? — Ruined Church -> Burning Town


“Well, now we know they’re just people, so could we at least try?” she requested, referring to the slaughter of the Raven Heralds. She saw the logic, obviously, and also understood that they more or less deserved it but it still sat badly in her stomach that they had died.

After that they learned a little more about how they had gotten there, or at least the events leading up to it. A possession, a spell, a summoning. Whoever this Lavielle was, she was, Rayne assumed, not that much like the Gaia of her own world, who had been very hands off to the point where she had barely been aware she had been dying.

Either way, there was little time to delve into that, and Sanae’s question of if anyone else could fly was as good a prompt as any to get moving.

“I can” the Knight Witch said, perhaps a bit redundantly, as she floated up after the green haired woman, which gave her the same good view of the black plume of smoke. She did not need to be told twice that that was bad, and as soon as Sanae moved so did Rayne.

Rather than simply soar through the air however, her speed at that wasn’t actually that fast, the Knight Witch instead vanished in a flash, and then appeared a few meters ahead of where she had been after a beam of energy crossed the intervening distance. Then with neary a pause she dashed again, and again, and again, and in doing so covered ground (or rather air) at an impressive pace.

It let her arrive at just about the same moment as Sanae unleashed her deluge upon the burning town. It was very hard to see anything through it from up on high for anyone but the woman in question. Fortunately Rayne wasn’t much of a long range fighter anyway, and so she immediately pivoted her dashing chain down into the rain, blinking into gaps between the bullets to avoid getting harmed, entirely unaware of both how this was unnecessary and how it would not have worked if it was.

It was only when she halted at the sight of yet more blood that she messed up, and one of the water bolts harmlessly whizzed through, which acted as a good way of removing her focus from said blood and putting it back onto the danger, and those who had caused it to be spilled.

Just in time for 3 to spot her, and for her to spot them in turn. Well them and one fellow who had fallen to the ground, physically unharmed and yet still down for the count. The rest meanwhile had raised shields above their heads like umbrellas against the falling maelstrom.

She hadn’t actually thought about how she was going to fight people using her lethal magic, but here was a solution looking her in the face. She dashed forwards through the rain even as the Heralds turned spears and axes towards her, blinking straight at them, then at the last second blinking up at a 45 degree angle to appear above them instead. Light glowed in her raised hand, and then in her grasp appeared Runedge, a heavy blade lent to her by fellow Knight Witch Sykra, which she then slammed down, splintering the shield only for her to banish the blade before it struck the warrior themselves.

They tried to hack at her with a hand ax in retaliation, only for her to dart up into the air, and for the magic bullets to splash down atop her now shield-less attacker. She then repeated this again, dashing next to a second and smashing their shield away as well.

The final one fled as their fellow got caught in the rain, seeking proper shelter (of which there was ironically little to be had due to their own actions), but Rayne pursued, dashing next to them and full body kicking him off his feet. The Herald fell, dropping their shield and weapon, in response to which Rayne formed an arrow-like glyph in front of their fist, which they pointed at both dropped items, and proceeded to shoot them with basketball sized magic bullets of her own. Intended to be used to vaporize magitech war golems in only a few shots, the comparatively primitive equipment stood no chance and was shredded by the pair of blasts.

It was good enough for her, especially as all three were now entirely exposed to the pain raining down from above, and so she moved on, darting forth and fully intending to keep using Sanae’s magic to her advantage for as long as possible.
In World of Light → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Montoj - Sayonara, Wild Hearts

The Koopa Troop’s @DracoLunaris, Sectonia’s @Archmage MC, Cyclops the Driller, Overhard the Engineer
Word Count: 4010 (+5)


After Kuebiko was ready to roll under Junior’s control, Overhard went ahead and pressed the big red button on the hacking pod. Hack-C’s monitors lit up, lines of code pouring across them faster than any human could ever possibly read, and Hack-C began tapping its keyboard like a robot possessed. The Power Station detected the security breach right away and started fighting back, and while the progress bar on its top monitor indicated that Hack-C would win that battle eventually if left to its own devices, the network monitoring the Rival Tech in this sector would not let that happen. Almost immediately, a squadron of Patrol Bots showed up out the blue, either hovering through the air in spread mode or rolling around on the cavern floor in tower mode. Their orange laser bolts were an issue, but not the only one; small swarms of Shredders appeared as well, eager to slice all living things into ribbons as they viciously darted around.

“Contact!” Cyclops bellowed, switching to his semi-automatic Subata pistol to try and pick swarms off at a distance. “Lock and load!”

Overhard’s turrets went to work while the engineer’s Shard Diffractor blazed. “And protect Hack-C!”

While numerous, the Shredders that approached Sectonia were in for a shock, literally, as her tesla coil zapped them out of the air. While evasive and small, they were extremely fragile and couldn’t stand up to more than a tiny bit of punishment. The Patrol bots on the other hand were much more tanky and had almost the same level of evasiveness. Her antlions also assisted, but they assisted by dealing with the glyphids that showed up due to the noisy robots about and the commotion of Hack-C.

Using this opportunity, she tried out those new spells that she had gotten from her new spirit. Normally these spells would be a little weak it seemed, even if she could cast them easily, but when cast in triplicate, they were a bit more of a threat. The triangles, after being summoned, didn’t have their own projectiles affected by that mask, so they could shoot straight even if they moved in weird ways. The other spell, the homing balls however, were similar to Sectonia’s own arcane orbs, but homed in which in combination with a few of her other items made them somewhat difficult for an attacking Patrol Bot to dodge even at range.

Bowser started off the fight right this time, spitting a mega fireball into the air to slowly float through the cavern, providing light as it did. Then he got to air scrubbing, exhaling out wide gouts of flame to wash away whole swarms of shredders in a single breath. Kamek hovered above his King, flicking fast moving fira spells at any foes that got around Bowser’s waves of death, while havng his healing clones keep the king topped up when they weren't bobbing and weaving to act as decoys.

Rika meanwhile sailed to and fro on her pre-prepared sea of slime, which gave any patrol bots that tried to roll over it a nice coat of shocking goop on the orbs they were balancing on. The ones in the sky she weaved around the projectiles of, and then blasted them with bursts of flaming goop, threatening to overheat the machine's internal circuitry, especially when she triggered all out assault every dozen pulls of the trigger, which let her hammer any unfortunate bots nearby with a burst of rapid fire triple spread shots.

Finally jr got plenty of use out of his new trigun tractor, letting loose a hail of bullets from its main triple barreled cannon and keeping on the move like Rika was. It was a little tricky to combined moving and shooting like that, particularly against the small/agile bots, but in a way that just made them very good practice.

The initial response from the Rival Tech network proved wholly inadequate to resolve the threat posed to its Power Station. Just the dwarves would’ve been able to hold the bots off on their own, but with the Koopa Troop and Sectonia to help them, their attackers didn’t stand a chance. Shredders dropped like flies, and even the most resilient Patrol Bots turned to scrap metal when the Seekers focused them down. In fact, Rika’s All-out Assault ended up feeling like overkill, most of her ammunition wasted as the last few targets really weren’t crowded anywhere near thick enough to make the most of it.

Still, Hack-C’s progress bar remained half empty, and the team wasn’t out of the woods just yet. Stirred up by the commotion in the fight against Rival Tech’s response unit, bugs began to crawl out of the cavern walls. In addition to glyphids, with a greater percentage of guards and slicers, speedy tickers began to appear in groups of three. To the dwarves’ delight they behaved just like glyphid exploders, able to be detonated early when shot, but their huge burst damage and ability to come from every angle (including dropping from above) made them high-priority targets. It wasn’t long before things much creepier and crawlier showed up, though. Like nightmarish elite versions of the web spitters, two huge Bloodstalkers lurked in the dark of the cave’s upper reaches, shooting out webs to grapple targets and pull them in for evisceration against their blood-sucking spikes. One of them snatched Overhard right out of his turret nest, causing the dwarf to yell as the webs dragged him up into the darkness. “Eeeeeelp! Somethin’s got me!” As he rose, he was also horrified to glimpse masses of icky black spiders, packed so tight together and moving with such cohesion that they resembled centipedes. These coalescipedes were fast, vicious, and terrifyingly stealthy, their aggression limited only by the size of their chains and their aversion to light–though even then, familiarity would eventually bring contempt.

A moment after he cried out, an amber bubble wrapped itself around Overhard as Kamek cast an arcane barrier around him in-order to give them more time to get him out of there. Then he summoned Quiet, in-order to have the sniper striker take down the grappling bug with her well aimed shots. He had the End take her place on counter sniping duty after she timed out, while the mage himself set about reanimating the dry bones from earlier to once again act as bait. The skeletal koopas were not much of a threat to the glyphids, but they were near impossible to keep down, repeatedly drawing attention away from actual targets whenever the self resurrected.

Rika, out of reactant to get the explosive slime in her grizzco blaster to detonate, and not really looking forwards to refilling the tank with her spit, switched up her strategy as the insects replaced the robots as their main threat. First, to do something about the spider swarms she sent out her own, launching her electric fire flies and sending buzzing up into the ceiling to chase after and zap them till she used up all her SP. The spiders instinctively fled from the light, but in reply they began to group into larger coalescipedes, pooling their health and damage together.

After that she held her non renewable rifle ammo in reserve, using it only to pick off the exploding tickers, and instead used her gauntlets and hullclaws vs the glypids, sailing across her shocking sea of slime and delivering a beatdown on any bug foolish enough to enter her domain.

Bowser spat up another cavern lighting mega fireball, before he and Jr both want mobile, both monster and machine leaping to and fro in the cavern, stomping on glyphids and making it very difficult for them to get a devastating surround on either of the royal koopas. In addition to hard landings, Bowser’s stomps caused fiery shockwaves, while Jr pointed his tank turret up and blasted wildly at anything up there that moved.

While the royal koopas were doing their thing and keeping the riff raff at bay, Sectonia decided she’d do something with these giant spider centipedes. Giving herself some buffer room with her antillions and with her tesla coil zapping the exploding bugs, Sectonia began to charge and then unleash a spacial shatter upon the coalescipedes as Bowser’s fire made them all horde together into much longer, larger variants. Seeing one that was more charged, the dwarves could see what it did as reality around the bugs shattered like glass and darkness overcast the area for a bit until it disappeared, leaving a white void behind that slowly, slowly reformed back into the reality of which it was.

If not for the long-range rapid-fire capabilities of Kuebiko (not to mention Kamek’s protective quick thinking) Overhard might’ve been toast, but thanks to his new allies’ help the engineer managed to avoid getting gored on the Bloodstalker’s probosci. Given that crucial moment, Overhard seized his Shard Diffractor and turned it up to eleven. A bright orange beam of energy refracted through the weapon’s crystal burned through the webs reeling him in, and Overhard plunged toward the ground. Rather that yell out in panic, he kept his cool and waited for the right moment to activate his Hover Boots to break his fall. “Argh!” he growled, turning his beam upward to finish the job. “It’s like a bloody Stingtail on steroids!”

Exposed to the light, countless spiders had collected into nightmarish coalescipedes, but once Bowser and Rika grouped them up, the others could cut them down. Kuebiko’s chaingun worked well enough, but Cyclops’ flamethrower was just the ticket. When a coalescipede got just a little too big for him to roast, Sectonia arrived to wipe it off the face of the planet with her reality break. With the number of fodder bugs quickly dwindling, only the other Bloodstalker really remained to challenge the Seekers. When Overhard saw it, he marked it with its laser pointer, giving the monstrous arthropod a glowing outline that everyone could see. “There it is!” he yelled. “Take it down!”

As the others started shooting up at it, Cyclops had an idea. “Hah, watch this!” He pulled out one of his grenades, took a moment to aim, and then threw it down. It promptly expanded into a springloaded ripper that started slicing through the ground, mincing a couple stray glyphids as it ran before hitting the cave wall. It climbed right up the surface, approached the flushed-out Bloodstalker, and chopped up one of its legs like green onion. Losing its grip, the Bloodstalker promptly fell from the wall and became easy pickings.

A moment later, an alert sound rang out from the hacking pod. “Hack-C’s done!” Overhard announced happily. “Good job lads, we’re through here!”

As if on cue, a big stretch of ground by one of the cave walls began to rumble. When Cyclops glared at the engineer, his helmet’s single eye somehow conveyed every ounce of his irritation. “Nice goin’ there, poindexter.”

After another moment, a freakish brown-and-white monstrosity with a huge segmented tail, wings of radiant green energy, and lobster-like pincers dug its way out of the ground with a shriek. “I don’t believe this, it’s an alien!” Overhard exclaimed, like they hadn’t been fighting alien bugs until now. He rushed over to resupply his turrets, while Cyclops loaded up a fresh can of fuel. The alien raised its claws and prepared to attack, only for the cavern wall behind it to explode in a gigantic eruption of rock, soil, and plant matter. Through the chaos plowed none other than the Kingtusk, majestic and imperial, to land on and squash the alien bug beneath its immense mass. As the husk turned to ashes around it, the Kingtusk sucked in its breath, then shook the entire cavern with its ear-piercing squeal.

Wincing, Cyclops cracked his neck and lifted his flamethrower into position. “Awlright. Guess it’s time to pull some pork after all! Suuuuuuuuuuuuuey!”

In response, the Kingtusk lowered its head, and charged.

“Hmph, a beast will be a beast.” Sectonia said, casting her Slow on the Kingtusk as it approached the group, setting it up for the koopa clan to deal with it as they seemed eager to beat it up.

Never one to back down to a challenge, be it a mighty meal or mighty battle (or both in this case) Bowser counter charged, which would have been incredibly foolish had he not called out for ”Kamek!” to ”Make me huge!”

Now there was logic to be found here, for if the cavern could support the big pig, then surely it could support the king too. Both however? Well that was a question that was just about to get answered, as the mage saw no choice between using his magic and letting his king get trampled.

He quickly landed next to the hacking station, raise his his wand over his head and began chanting.

Unfortunately to do this he had to sit still, while making an awful lot of noise, which had the inevitable result of drawing attention to himself as an excellent Bloodstalker grapple target.

So up he went.

”Kamek” came a cry of alarm from Rika who had seen this happen, and who then did the only logical thing, and grappled the mage from below. Her own hook launched up, grabbed a leg, and then with a cry of ”I’ve got you” Rika began to pulled in the opposite direction from the bug, resulting in some rather pained sounding chanting as the mage kept up the spell even as his life was in danger.

Then there was a wooshing sound, and light briefly blazed as a trio of rockets slammed up into the ceiling as Jr expended some of his Metal Attacker’s limited unused stores to free his caretaker. Said caretaker was pulled down with quite a bit of force, and it was a near thing that he did not get slashed by Rika’s chainsaw bayonet’s blades as she caught him.

”See, told you I had you” Rika reassured him, preparing to set him down, only for Jr to powerslide to a stop beside them, throwing open the door to his tank and urging his sister to put Kamek ”In here!”

”Huh? Oh! Good idea” Rika agreed after only the smallest delay, before quickly popping the mage inside and strapping him into the copilot's seat.

She stepped back, and then, with the source of engreatening power safely secured, had a chance to take in the spectacle Kamek was enabling.

Intentionally or not, the mage had only increased the king’s size to on comparable to the big pig before he had been distracted by his abduction, meaning that dragon met sow on a mostly level playing field.

With each step the king had grown, until he’d been big enough to grab the boar by the tusks as it charged him, causing him to grind backwards through the dirt, boots carving furrows into it till he brought it to a halt. The two roared at each other as they struggled, claw vs tusk, before the king slammed his own head into it, and then lashed out with his vine tendrils, driving them into his target, releasing electrical shocks at each thorny impact site.

The pain gave the Kingtusk a burst of strength, wrenching its head up into the air, kicking the king with its front trotters, and then slamming its head back down, smashing him back and freeing itself from his grip.

It was the kings turn to roar in pain, and then retaliate recklessly, the king swinging a wild punch forwards, having expected his foe to follow up a charge with a charge. Instead the Kingtusk stomped the ground again, sending a line of roots to spike up from the ground one in a wave like pattern, forcing the king to step to the side to avoid being skewered.

His slowness meant he still suffered a glancing blow, the spikes clipping his arm and sending him stumbling. Perfect for an ungrabbable charge, which the Kingtusk wasted now time in executing, the pig thundering forwards towards the king.

Yet unlike it, the King was not alone, and in that crucial moment his family and allies came to his aid. Missiles and triple cannon fire slammed into its side fired by Jr’s Metal Attacker, along with a barrage of sticky disruption globs from Rika, that clung to the beast and sapped its strength. Sectonia helped out as well, using the fact it was such a huge target to fire her large Rings of Light at it, which would be incredibly difficult for that thing to dodge with its size, their size, and the limited cave room. Still, she kept her attention on the smaller bugs to keep them off of the others while they dealt with the big guy with her antlions, lightning, and tesla coil.

Those knocked it off balance and weaned it, but what really did a number on it was the dwarves, with Overhard’s Shard Diffractor and Cyclops‘ flamethrower igniting parts of the decidedly plant like pig and making it squeal in pain. It rounded on them, which was particularly bad for Cyclops who had had to get into close range, but Bowser was quick to repay the favor.

”Eyes on me bub!” the king, who had recovered from the root attack, demanded, as he charged back in, winding up and then driving a punch into the side of the boar’s head.

The baor reeled, and then, naturally, focused back on the main target before it got mashed to a pulp. The two struggled for a moment before a voice chimed in Bowser’s ear thanks to the linkpearl.

”Burn it papa! The dwarves’ stuff seems to be really working out, but no one can top you when it comes to fire power!” his son helpfully chimed in like one of those helpers Mario seemed to acquire a new one for every adventure. Unlike them, Bowser would never find his son annoying, particularly when the advice was so useful (for him anyway, anyone else would have been able to work out the weakness for themselves after all)

”Now you're gonna get it!” the armed with new information Bowser told the pig, before he breathed deep and unleashed a sea of fire breath upon his foe.

As predicted, the flames ravaged the plant-based pig’s body. Not predicted, however, was the way that the Kingtusk’s face became engulfed in its own source of liquid flame, and its tusks grew even larger, splitting off thorny branches wrapped in energy as burning hot as its anger as it entered an enraged state.

Burning roots burst from the ground all around it, an explosion of power that slammed the king back again, the king staggering and then finding his footing to face down the rival king once more. There was the briefest moment of stillness, and then the two charged each other again.

Bowser tried his tusk grabbing trick again, but the spikes and flames on them made them too hot to handle, harming first his hands and then his chest as he was properly gored by the beast for the first time.

He roared with pain even as he drove his elbow down into the forehead of his foe, and then trying to shove it away, only for the beast to stay right on top of him, tusks stabbing and scraping his shell as it did so. He would have flame breathed it again, but ironically, he too was part plant, and the red hot tusks were already threatening to put the vines growing out of the back of his shell aflame, and so there was no way he was risking burning washback.

Instead he and it engaged in a grueling bout of punching and stabbing, till Rika chimed in to relay some details, which from the other koopa’s perspective sounded something like ”I can’t do shock damage that’d burn my roots! … No … Ask them what they mean by that … Well why didn’t they just say so!” after which the king slung a single cannon over his shoulder.

Doing so exposed part of his back, and the mass of vines beneath, which the burning farec boar immediately tried to take advantage of, trying to hook a tusk around the side of the shell to drive it into Bowser’s innards. The jab landed, but not before the cannon fired, blasting the beast not with bullets, acid, or light bullets, but with water.

The initial incoherence of this move was quickly replaced with dwarven genius as the fire on the pig’s face was extinguished, stealing away the power boost, and the rapid cooling from the water sent the pig into temperature shock.

Flesh and tusk disintegrated and several eyes turning to hollow sockets under the damage, sending it stumbling back. Bowser immediately capitalized, stepping forwards, driving a vine covered fist into it to deliver a different kind of shock. Then he fired up his kinetic strike module, slamming into the kingtusks’s lower jaw with a devastating uppercut, shattering both its tusks and sending it staggering up onto two hooves.

Not at all done, the king grabbed his porky foe and hauling it over his shoulder, suplexing it directly into the power station, before turning around to face it. His jaw opened, breathing in gallons of oxygen, and then he exhaled all that built up fuel, blasting a mega fireball into the stunned target, the giant fireball near as large as it absolutely incinerating the foe in a single devastating finisher.

When the flame and smoke cleared, the heavily-damaged kemono was deader than dead, its massive carcass quickly burning to ash that blanketed the compromised Power Station in a mound of black powder. The dwarves watched with slack jaws, not just sweating from the intensity of the fight. “...Bloimey,” Cyclops muttered. “This fecker’s a bloody monster!”

“Glad you’re on our side,” Overhard laughed somewhat nervously. “Uh, well, that’s the Power Station sorted. Back to the Data Vault then lads, that Caretaker ain’t gonna crack itself.” He recalled his turrets, and together the dwarves packed up to leave the burning bamboo forests and wheat fields behind.

With the battle over, Bowser rapidly shrunk down to his usual size, as a rather exhausted Kamek released the spell as soon as the battle was won. The kids meanwhile gave their papa cheers and adulation for his mighty victory, which did plenty to boost the king’s already sky high ego.

After they’d all calmed down a bit, Jr looked back to ask Kamek to make his toadies do some spirit collecting, only for the exhausted manaless mage to shake his head. It would be a while till he was back in fighting shape, but at least he was going to be able to ride out his rest period in Jr’s new ride.

That left the others to quickly salvage what spirits they could from the battlefield before they all started fading. Naturally the two big bosses, fought and unfought, were salvaged, along with a smattering of others.

There wasn’t that much time however, seeing as the dwarves wanted to get moving, and the threat of more swarms was still hanging over their heads. So soon enough they were back on the road, and heading back the way they had come.
In Divinus Mk. 8: The Eleventh Cycle (A God Roleplay) → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

The Many-Eyed Monarch

(and Asheel)


The wheel spun and spun, and it saw things come and go, each in turn leaving their mark. It did its best to read over their shoulders, so to speak, and it learned some interesting things about what was, was not, and would be.

Some crafter or twisted great energies, but it was a trio of beings that it had the most interest in.

First thing of smaller things, who in imprinting insects upon the world gave her an understanding of their beginnings.

Second the thing of tendrils, that shaped how things would change and grow.

Lastly, the thing of bones, who raged against an end not yet written, and in doing so letting her see the shape of it.

The three inside of it spoke to one another, muttering in circles about what it had seen, till the maker realized that, if it could talk to itself, surely it could talk to others too, as some of the other things here had done.

So it did.

On a new path the wheel did roll, spinning after the first thing it had observed, the thing of insects.

“Hi hi hello! Can we talk?” the maker called over to it, as much a question as to if it was even possible as it was a request for consent.

The Cloud suddenly spurred, coming apart. The insects which had made up its body began to fly around the wheel, surrounding it, as if examining it from every angle. Some of the tiny creatures even went so far as to land on it, walking across it for a few seconds before flying back to rejoin the circling swarm.

“Now look at what you’ve done, you broke it, and that’s the other one’s job” the Maintainer teased the Maker, only for both of them to be horrified when the breaker did what had been unthinkable, and halted their rolling in order to avoid squishing an errant insect.

The wheel began to vibrate violently for a few moments, wracked by internal conflicts, before with a pop it collapsed in on itself, and was replaced with a small figure. The green skinned woman had pointed ears and teeth, a few gems hanging from the former and replacing a few of the latter, and who’s complexion was aged like a fine wine. She wore purple robes and atop her head sat a wide brimmed and pointed hat, which made for a rather perfect landing platform for the insects.

“Sorry about that dearie, those two almost caused a nasty accident, and we can’t have that now can we?” she said apologized with a little tip of her hat, before introducing herself “I am the Breaker of Cycles, a pleasure to make your acquaintance ”

The insects began to circle for a few more moments, before suddenly moving away from her back to their original position, where they began to reassemble. Except this time instead of forming a shapeless cloud, they took on the shape of a wheel - the same wheel they had just been inspecting. They held this form for maybe a few seconds, before they came apart and reassembled again. This time, the buzzing mass took on the same general size and shape of the green woman’s form.

Greeting, the mass of insects buzzed. We are… they began, but then paused. Who were they, exactly? We are Many, they finally said.

“And we are three” the Breaker replied, before pausing and then pondering thoughtfully “or I am three? Hmmm. It is difficult to say”

Then, without any fanfare, she was different. Younger, much younger, as the Maker took control of the wheel and declared “We should have names! For what all of us is!” before looking thoughtful in a much more agitated manner than the Breaker had, foot tapping, hands making tiny fluttering claps before her mouth before she came up with “we should be Awheel! No, Asheel! That’s us. We’re Asheel!”

Then she changed again, growing older and fuller, and at the same time more tired looking than the other two as the Maintainer revealed herself to say “Well, our second choice certainly was a major improvement” to her younger form, before addressing the insects again to ask “So, do you have a name for your, ah, collective?”

The swarm had mirrored each change, adjusting size and shape. Of course the imitation was nowhere near perfect - the ‘body language’ was not quite right, and at the end of the day they were only copying the other god’s shape, so they were still fundamentally a buzzing mass of insects. Name? they questioned, an edge of uncertainty in the tone of the buzzes. We did not know we needed a name! they exclaimed, feeling a sudden sense of anxiety. They had done something wrong. They had already bungled their first attempt at communication!

“Now now, no need to fret, we just came up with ours on the spot right now, if you need to take your time that’s perfectly alright” the Maintainer said gently in an attempt to soothe their first not themselves conversational partner, before explaining that ”Plus, we overheard some of the others using them before, so we had something a head start on this”

“Not that the Maker made much use of that head start. Much too impulsive that girl” the Breaker popped in to tease, which got a brief “hey!” of complaint from the Maker before the Maintainer was back again, rolling her eyes at the other two’s antics.

The Swarm let out a long contemplative bzzzzz. So this was not something that was required of them, it was merely invented by some of the others. And yet it seemed others expected them to go along with it. This created something of an impasse - they had no personal need for a name and yet if they wished to show cooperation they had to have one. Eventually they came up with a compromise.

The one you call ‘Maker’ has more experience with these ‘names’ than we do, they finally declared. This ‘Maker’ may decide what you will call us.

“Oh dear” went the Breaker, quickly followed by an “oh yeah!” from the Maker, before she did what can only be described as a finger wagging dance of contemplation as she brainstormed out loud “Hmmmm. Buzzy. Buggy. Uhhhhh. Swarmy. Swurmy? The swarm that talks. Or no, how about… A thousand eyes like gems. Mr bugs. The mighty monarchs. The monarch with endless eyes. Abee. Abey. Abigail the uncountable.” and showing no signs of stopping, apparently putting way more thought into this than their own name.

The Swarm merely waited in polite silence, seemingly unbothered by the delay. However, as the Maker went on, an air of anticipation began to build, as they became more and more curious what she would settle on.

The little goblin seemed to pick up on this and became increasingly agitated “I um, oh, uh,“until she wrapped back around to the beginning of her brainstorming and came up with a final simple answer “Bugsby? Bugsby Maldrone? Nah. Just Bugsby. Yeah that fits. Short, sweet, and fun!” and then looking up at the swarm and telling them that “You’re Bugsby!”

Bugsby! the Swarm - ‘Bugsby’ now - exclaimed with unexpected excitement, as the insects buzzed and flew about with more intensity. They had a name. That felt good, for some strange reason. They should get even more names. A good name, they declared, not having much to compare it to. Then a thought struck them, and for a moment the insects froze. But we have spent much time talking about names when there is work to be done! Tell me, did you write in the Kho-Dex?

“In a way. We drew circles. Perfect, meticulous circles. I’d have preferred only one-” the Maintainer began to say, only for the breaker to intercede with “-but I’d wasn’t having none of that, eh he”

“And I made new ones alllllll over” the Maker said “New circles. New cycles. Now things starting”

“Those things continue over and over and over, just as they should. Neat. Consistent. Gathering power as they write themselves into the universe” the Maintainer asserted ”all things spinning in harmony”

“Until they aren't. All things must end, even universes, and that is a moment where all that built up power can be released in a lovely moment” the Breaker insisted “You see, sometimes the canvas wiped clean-”

“-so that new things can be drawn in their place” the Maker concluded, before continuing “new stuff like all the things you imprinted on it. Insects? They seem super neat!”

I know what you speak of, Bugsby interjected with enthusiasm, clearly fascinated by the topic. We have lived this, before we came here! We are born, we grow, we live, we build, we lay eggs, then we die. Then the eggs hatch, we are born, we grow, we live, we build, we lay eggs, and we die again. And on it goes! they exclaim cheerfully, as if they weren’t just describing an endless cycle of death and toil. It is ‘neat’, isn’t it?

“It certainly is ‘neat’ yes” the Maintainer agreed “and rather vindicating to know we were right about how things would, or should, flow”

“I was ever so curious about what that shouty fellow was raging against” the Breaker added “But seeing how your insect cycle, it is clear that some people are not so happy about that whole dying thing. Tisk. Some folks just can’t accept ending it seems”

As if on cue, a green mote touched the Khodex, filling it with yet more life, and rather specifically, life designed to not have an ending, that would spread, grow, and never age or die. To the Breaker, her body the picture of old age, this was just a little insulting, bemoaning “oh look, now there’s two of them”

What is the matter? Bugsby asked with concern. Is it their writings?

“I mean, it gets in the way of ours. If this life stuff just … fills up everywhere, then there won’t be space for new stuff” the maker bemoaned, while the maintainer simply declared that “That isn’t a cycle, it is stagnation. It does not spin, it simply sits there” with obvious distaste

“I just don’t see why they fear this ‘death’ concept so much” the Breaker said with a shake of her head, before the Maker deigned to actually ask “What’s it even like? Death I mean”

Oh, it is very undesirable for the one doing the dying, Bugsby assured her. Most things die when they have nothing left to offer, when they fail to secure their own survival, or when the survival of their hive requires it, but it is never chosen. A creature that desires death would be poorly designed. But creatures such as what we are now do not die so easily, do they? I am confused too - why would they fear what does not affect them? The swarm was not mocking, or judging, but genuinely curious. Why do this if it will only result in stagnation and the filling up of everything, as you say? Then before she could answer, the Swarm’s emotions shifted yet again. No no, this is terrible! I have not yet met everyone and we are already in conflict!

“I suppose that’s bound to happen when we simply toss things together like this without any coordination” the Maintainer replied sadly “perhaps if we had met before we made additions, we might have reached unity of purpose”

Ironically however, they were very much in the midst of not doing that, as the Breaker took them back to the issue of death by saying “But an end. There must be an end. The body must returned its nutrients to the soil”

“so a new cycle can start,” the Maker agreed

“and then they get to be part of that new cycle” the Maintainer concluded with a nod.

Which prompted the Breaker to now ask “So what is undesirable about that for the one doing the dying? They failed, as you said, but then they get to be part of new life, and get a new chance” and in doing so exposing the fundamental flaw of their thinking.

The Swarm took a few moments to contemplate this question before answering. It is undesirable because all things must preserve their own existence. They all have tasks to do, and if they die before their time, all the things they might do will never be done. There is value in both life and death, but to get the value of death you must sacrifice the value of life and that exchange is not always optimal. Most things do not get to decide or know when the value of their death becomes greater than the value of their life, so they must resist. This does not mean they should not die at all - but if all things welcomed death, there would be nothing.

“I guess it would be kinda sad to not be able to finish making all the things I wanted to make” the Maker admitted, while the Maintainer pondered, “and who would make sure the cycles spin after I am gone?”

The Breaker was instant however “No no, you don’t get to continue forever either my dears. We will end, and then someone else will take our place. Our essence will cycle somewhere else and be reused”

“Yeah but that wouldn't. Wouldn’t be us? We wouldn’t get to see it. The us that is… The… There's something … ” the Maker fidgeted as she thought it over, before finally realizing “The mind! The mind does not cycle, it just ends!”

Bugsby offered an affirmative buzz, as if that was what they were trying to get at.

“Then we need to rectify this at once!” The Maintainer asserted, only for the Breaker demand to know that “Surely you can’t be considering agreeing with those stagnant fools? Even if the mind isn’t preserved, we still need to cycle the rest of the creature”

“Nah we’ll just cycle the mind as well!” The Maker said, before she hurried back over to the Khodex and then somehow managed to pull the life cycle back up onto the surface of it. Except, of course, it wasn’t really a life cycle, this she now understood. It went from egg to young to adult to old and then dead, full stop. The solution was simple. She just added a line pointing back to the young form again.

“There we go. Now we match! Maker, Maintainer, Breaker, and then back to Maker again! Easy” she declared, before adding “or I guess. Hmmm. I guess they’re Maiden, Mother and Crone huh?”

“Either way, guess that’s that“ she said as she started to step away, only to pause and get an excited little grin on her lips before she asked “but you know what would be more fun?!”

“Oh no” went both the Maintainer and Breaker in turn before the Maker declared “more cycles!” and then started wildly scrawlling everywhere and anywhere, creating what looked like an absolute mess till the moment she had finished, at which point she had linked the end of every type of life to the start of every other type of life.

“There, now everything can be everything, and death won’t be so scary and sad any more” she declared as she stepped back, dusting her hands off and feeling mighty satisfied with her work.

Well, we are happy to have helped you reach a solution, Bugsby offered, and we hope this settles the conflict. We are going to go now, but we might work together again in the future. And with that, the swarm - which to this point had been copying Asheel’s various forms - reverted back to a cloud.

“It was a pleasure to meet you Bugsby, and thank you ever so much for the help” the Maintainer said with a bow, before the Breaker dipped out of it and added “Yes indeed. Now do have a lovely time dear” and the Maker finished with “see you again soon” while waving to the departing swarm.


In Divinus Mk. 8: The Eleventh Cycle (A God Roleplay) → 1 yr ago Forum: Casual Roleplay
Vacuums are not, in-fact, empty.

Within a solar vacuum, there are still five atoms in every cubic cm. In interstellar space, one. In the space between galaxies, a hundred times less than that, yet still there were atoms.

Here, in the endless nothingness that law stretched to its breaking point, and yet, in all of non-existence, there had still been three. Only three. Three insignificant remainders of the world that had been, drawn together over an eternity by their minuscule amounts of gravity, huddling together in the dark.

Had was also the key word there, because the eternal stillness had ended. Gods came or were born, and they stirred all that wasn’t, injecting energy, injecting motion. And they set those three atoms spinning. Twirling. Combining. And as they turned they gathered the dust shed by the newcomers till they were wearing a shell the size of a coin.

The coin rolled through non-existence till it bumped into the thing that had drawn the newcomers here. The Khodex. It bounced, landed on the page, and began rolling in spirals, imprinting that shape upon the parchment of reality. At first, it was random, uncontrolled, but as the power they had gathered was used, the atoms at the same time came to truly take it into themselves rather than wear it, and as they began to wield it in different ways they understood that while they where one, they were not the same.

The coin warped, center forming into three smaller disks, and then out from these disks purposeful rods extended till they reached the still circular edge of the coin.

No.

Not a coin.

They were a wheel, and wheels spun with purpose.

What had been merely a force of motion became a force of will, as wandering spirals became a single perfect circle. One spoke was pleased with this, wishing to spin forever, and yet at the same time the other two wished for change. One broke the cycle. Then the other sent them rolling off till they found somewhere else to start spinning anew.

And then just as the first was getting used to this new circle, they broke away again. Then again. Over and over until suddenly it became clear that they had, in breaking the circle, simply formed a larger circle out of the smaller ones.

In that brief moment they basked in the harmony of this moment, before the two broke them away from this circle of circles and began spinning anew all over again.

They danced this dance across the Khodex and in doing so covered the parchment in circles until the breaker decided they were done. The three spoked wheel bounced off of the void again, having set the universe spinning.

In time those circles would cause seasons to bloom, worlds to shift from day to night and back, and all the celestial bodies in the heavens to play out a cosmic carousel, forever spinning until, on day, it would all come to an end again, and everything would start anew once more.

“So, now what?” asked one, the maker, spoke as it set them rolling to one side

“Now we wait. Patience is key” said another, the maintainer, as it stabilized that roll into an orbit of the Khodex

“Wait and see what these lovely strangers do next” said the third, the breaker, as it watched and waited, ready to break the orbit when the opportune time came.

“Oh, oh, and then we can put our own spin on things!” the maker cheerfully declared, bringing the conversation full circle and giving them purpose anew.


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