Fading Memory

Planescape: Search for Tir na Og

What does Zaraknvyr do? He finds Tir Na Og of course. Duh. What a strange question. How silly of you, Fellsing. Next he ascends to ultimate transcendent godhood.

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

She said what she meant, and meant what she said!

Edit; that short is incredible and only reinforces Zavakri’s confused attraction to this witch. Anyone who can quiet a Mind Goblin is a winner.

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

Zavakri stands outside the shop, rubbing her eyes repeatedly as the others emerge. She sniffles a few more times, her eyes red and still watering, but she slowly moves to walk behind her companions. As she moves, she seems to calm. After several paces her hands fall from her face and she takes a deep breath.

"Thin is one heck of a word for it. This place is utter madness. It's looney."

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

I’ll get a post out tonight

Shadowrun: Lost Heir

Frost and Wildfire team up and go off in search of their wit and whimsy; Tenno claimed some strange need to disappear into the red light district; CAPTCHA slapped Bomoh upon the shoulder.

"Alrighty chummers, sounds like a plan. I could use a little escort on my own walkabout, if you don't mind my good man Bomoh."

Each of them received a matrix ping from her Persona, requesting access to any devices they obviously had upon them. Her Marks came as digitized slashes from rose thorns, but they merged into the device icons easily with the permissions granted. As the team split, she whistles to Frost as she makes a gesture. The Carnwennan hovered out of her pocket and skimmed forward in the air before almost 'jumping' up at Frost and into her hand.

"If you need an extra set of eyes, then just ping me and toss Carnwennan about. I can jump in at a moment's notice, and it'll give me a chance to interfere in other ways once I can spin up the sensor suite. Pour one out for Big D when you get to the bar."

She winks, stuffs her hands into her long jacket's pockets, then turns and starts whistling as she traipses into the city.

---

Bomoh gets to see a down-to-earth approach to legwork in action.

CAPTCHA's eyes flicker every few blocks, and she redirects her steps. Back in The Chosen Hiding Spot, her Steel Lynx hides in its crate with the Ares Duelist on standby to protect the box-- but here, in the city streets, she isn't walking with the eyes in her head. Rather, she is witnessing an overhead view from the Dalmatian drone as its powerful sensor arrays map the area around her and Bomoh. She makes a seemingly random turn down an alleyway and kicks the cardboard off the top of a sleeping man as if she simply knew he was there. Another time, she flips a credstick out of her pocket and into her hand and tosses it towards a young girl wearing a ripped up jacket with a jarring yellow facepaint, the simplest of waves for the girl to fall into step with CAPTCHA being the only introductory conversation made. A third time, Bomoh witnesses CAPTCHA step into a Stuffer Shack and buy a full set of vended clothing and boots; when the machine displays the prompt for a SIN to be displayed, she merely frowns for a moment before her Living Persona manifests over the display and winks to Bomoh before the machine vends its payload for her.

The first man she sits down with at an outdoor stall, a cup of hot noodles going from her hand to the homeless man's. She brushes white hair from her face and listens as he speaks;

"Mmm...Yep, uh-huh...Fightin' goin' on, but gone quiet-like." The man devours the food hungrily. CAPTCHA watches as he slurps from the steaming cup with such greed, as if someone were going to take the food from him. "Birdies started it. Birdies started it. Don't trust the quiet. City doesn't sleep, yeah? Mm... Yep, uh-huh, city doesn't sleep. Never asleep. Not since the lights outshined the...mhmm....outshined the stars."

The young girl, in fierce yellow warpaint, CAPTCHA spoke to in the bright fluorescent lighting of a subway bathroom. CAPTCHA lined out a dose of Novacoke on the dirty surface of the long sink and sat up onto the surface to kick her legs in the air as the girl leaned down to take a hit.

"Fuckin' A, that's right. What are you, the snowdust angel or something? Fuck me, yeah, alright. Damn. Vultures, yeah, I know about them. Fuckers muscled us Yellowjackets outta our turf. No skin offa my back to give someone a little leg up on 'em. Their boss is a mean bitch, and I don't mean your manic pixie slag type of bitch. I mean your evil bulldog kind of bitch. Fuck, what I'd give to string her up from a streetlamp--"

CAPTCHA kneels in an alleyway and slowly places the clothing down. She slides it forward, the outfit in its original vacuum-sealed plastic. She tosses the boots farther into the shadows, where the glinting eyes of a filthy man pierce into Bomoh and CAPTCHA. CAPTCHA raises her hands and backs up a few paces, before smiling easily. The shadow of a man lunges, too-pale arms and too-dirty nails scarcely visible in the blur of his movements as he snatches at the offered clothes. He recedes into the darkness, mumbling loudly.

"Eyesonya. Eyesonya. They-a be watchin, ah, ye, they-a be watching. Eyesonya. Eyesonya. Vulture-a prowlin', a-mouth waterin', a-waitin'. Vulture be lookin' for the carrion prey. Eyesonya. Eyesonya. Eyes all a-gleam. Prayin' and preyin' and peelin' and schemin'. Eyesonya. Eyesonya."

---

CAPTCHA sighs, staring into the racks of a vending machine. She chews her lip. Then, she reaches over and slowly presses the antiquated, still physical, interface of the machine with a deliberate and exceedingly meticulous series of buttons. The divine combination, C-04. She watches, almost enthralled, as the coil within the machine spins in place and propels a singular granola bar forward. She watches as it tumbles against the machine's translucent plastic barrier. When it thuds in to the bottom she yelps and jumps nearly half a foot in the air, before laughing maniacally and dropping to her knees to rummage into the bin to retrieve her snack.

She rises up and takes two steps to the side to lean back against the machine and gesture towards Bomoh with the granola bar as she peeled the wrapper open.

"Can you believe how much soy they manage to pack into these bars?" She lifts it to her lips and takes a dainty bite of it, chewing thoroughly before swallowing. "Ninety seven percent soy and soy-based product. Right there on the wrapper. Synthetically articulated proteins, soy-based flavor additives, lab-grown nuts. The only natural ingredient used in this drek is 'quadruple distilled water via reverse osmosis and charcoal filtration'. This thing was made with cleaner water than I get in my showers back in Denver. Mmm. Azzies put all this right on the label and people still eat this stuff."

She takes another bite.

"Kinda insane. I mean, I did this one job." She swallows thickly. "It was about fractional costs of soykaf cups. Had to hijack a train to delay the shipment of a competitor's Styrofoam. And people think I'm the crazy one. Ha."

She folds the wrapper over to save the remaining half of the bar, sliding it into a pocket on her jacket.

"Right. I think we got some useful stuff there, I'm starting to wonder if this gang fight was timed around our arget-tay's esence-pray. Something like that suddenly coming to Old Berlin status is pretty scarce. I grew up in a street gang like this, and usually it's blood on the streets until one side's gone limper than a drowned fish. Things are too clean. I'll tap the others, let them know what we learned, but uh...I'm thinking once they get us a van we just go knock on the door and see what's left behind. Whaddya think? Wanna do whatever that spirit-ghost-flight drek is that you mage-types do?"

She blinks and her vision goes briefly filled with augmented datum.

"Oh, man, check it out. One less slice of the pie. Tenno just shot me a message that he's out. That brothel must've had some wiz services to clear that kid's head up. Post nut clarity slaps like a sack of bricks sometimes. Good for him, woulda hated to see him get hurt."

Household Adventures, a Two Little Mice game

Artemisia and Bartholomew split, their paths leading them in opposite directions on the singular path of fate. The Forces watch in mirthful wonder as the tale unfolds thus;

Artemisia and Co

Old Abbott gives only a passing glance towards the Littlings as they head into the back after his granddaughter. His business at the bar was too important to leave completely unattended, so the group proceeds unmolested by the disgruntled and aging boggart as he goes about meticulously stacking bottles in their appropriate homes on the tall shelves.

Which means Artemisia finds herself in a new whirlwind altogether.

Elizabeth, running around the kitchen in an absolute fit. Her apron was stained. Her fingers burnt. Food and sauces sent atumble and into disarray. Something foamy was frothing out of a lidded pot and sizzling on a stovetop.

"That absolute-- I can't believe-- If he wasn't so damnably-- Gah!-- He's just looking for easy blame!"

She slams a large crate of vegetation goods against a countertop before realizing someone had come in on her tantrum. She points a finger at them.

"I'm gonna go out there and solve this myself. Don't even try to stop me. That D'arcy is going to get the wrong Little, mark my words, because I'm sure as spit that I've been 'earing some nasty sounds in the night. Sounds no Boggart'd make."

And quick as that, she's tying her hair up and pulling her apron off, taking a few moments to shut the stove off and wash up in a deep sink.

Bartholomew

Bartholomew does not have difficulty finding his destination. Indeed, there is already a crowd moving in the direction he susses to be his own; his arrival at the Great Imperial Army Garrison reveals it to be metaphorically besieged. An angry mob, to be succinct, stands between him and the building. Indeed, it stands between the company of D'arcy and the safety of the garrison as well. As Bartholomew approaches, a matter of sheer convenience-- or perhaps, Fate-- occurs.

D'arcy pushes forth, his soldiery with him, and as he clears a path towards the garrison through the crowd his squad split away to keep the path clear. The crowd is split, but for a brief period it would be simple for Bartholomew to pursue D'arcy through the clearing into the garrison's entrance. Shouts and yells from the crowd rain, and tensions grow.

"I'm telling you, it's not a Sluagh!"

"Who else would nick a mouse from the Hearth?" A retorting roar erupts.

"Lieutenant, what leads do you have?" A nimble Sprite of the Sylph variety, a thin woman, squeezes before D'arcy with a notepad and pen in hand- only to be struck with D'arcy's withering glare. She sheepishly sinks back into the crowd when guided by a soldier to clear the path. A stone strikes off a guard's helmet, and pistols are drawn. The crowds shrink back from the path and pistols are lowered; reason holds, for now.

Within the building, D'arcy permits himself a moment of nerves. Should Bartholomew have followed him in, he witnesses the young lieutenant running a hand through his hair as he drops at last onto his feet and rests his wings as he steps to the side to peer out through the shuttered windows of the garrison.

"I need to solve this. Now." He murmurs, checking a pocket watch. "Before a war is on my hands."

Household Adventures, a Two Little Mice game

I have begun writing a post, I shall have it up tomorrow

The Wild Beyond Witchlight

I appreciate the poke, pings keep me honest.

The Things We Fight For

Lictor was adjusting the settings of his tactical HUD into a comfortable opacity in the final moments before the disembarkation. It was a familiar and comforting adjustment. One that brought him forth from the fog of memory. Younger hands and younger eyes faded from his senses until his weathered and gloved hands were all that was left to his mind. The same motion, smooth after thousands of identical moments of practice. The act was pure muscle memory, but in this moment he allowed the act to be deliberate and to center him for what was to come. In the same breath he completed the adjustment to perfection, his pistol seemed to rise from its holster and into his hand before rational thought could notice. His hands did not tremble or waver as the sidearm held its lethal trajectory towards Dombay's head. Lictor's finger was not on the trigger. He did not speak. His aura had shifted subtly in the span of that single breath. The sudden presence had triggered something deep within the veteran warrior. For that briefest of moments, a cataclysmic weight had shifted in the universe and driven Lictor's body into action.

His hand relaxed, the pistol deftly flipping in his palm as he returned it to its holster.

"Fucking hell, stardust, take the stairs like the rest of us. Save your energy for this fight. I don't want to be carrying your head back to the Dawn for rejuvenation."

Lictor may be a White Dwarf, but his reflexes were still as lethal as ever. He shifted atop the mech and took a knee. The bay doors opened. Orders came through. It was time to kill. He toggled the safety on his rifle. He touched a hand over the strap of Carnifex's scabbard.

---

His voice rang through the shortwave communications with a rumbling authority after Antares' speech;

"They're a-comin'. Kill them all."

From atop Kyra's steeled vantage, Lictor knelt and surveyed the battlefield. A lot was already happening at once, and he naturally maintained his perch with the incredible speeds the rookie pilot was sustaining. Eight-Ball was on a rampage, and whilst the laughter coming through the shortwave was less than ideal he could see the burst of practical effectiveness the young man was putting on display. A clean swathe had been blown open towards the Bishop, and the girl was moving like a homing missile towards the Spearman currently acting as a battering ram through the front line. Lictor shifted focus to the HUD and the display of area mapping overlayed with friend-or-foe designation pings. Dombay was on the move, and Zhegiang was in the vicinity. Three rookies to the brazen spearman. Lictor shifted and slammed a fist atop the cockpit to get Kyra's attention. His blow reverberated through the machine to physically thrum against her flesh.

"Detour to flank. Get me to that Spearman."

He pinged the location on his HUD and shared the destination to her control rig.

"I want to be back to the front with those kids before they get themselves killed, Newman, so give it some ass. This is the tip of the spear."

The mech lurched, and Lictor rolled with the movement this time. He fell back off the head of the machine and fell down its back, reaching out with a single hand and onto the back of the waist. He swung on his arm and mounted the hip as Kyra sent the machine into its altered course, rifle rising into his hands as he braced back against the metal. Another step, and the optimized machine fell into its blistering stride. Comms chatter echoed in his ears as wind tore at his exposed flesh. Acidic ichor tang filled the air as Aberrant and Human blood mingled in the diminishing atmosphere. Plasmic discharge singed ozone as an Abberant battery cascaded into an adjacent combat sector. Gunsmoke overwhelmed all else.

The gun felt light in his hands. The rumbling of the machine's indescribable stride harmonized with his own braced form. Carnifex was warm on his back, even through the scabbard. He thumbed the fire selector into semi-automatic. Kyra's next mechanized footfall carried them over a tide of Legionnaires. Lictor surged into action.

A sickening squelch of ichor plastered itself across the battlefield as Kyra took a very direct path across the battle line towards the disrupted flank. Those Abberants that did not become mere splatters of flesh underfoot clung to the sides of the mechs legs and began to try and inefficiently gnaw into the armored plating on the legs. A few began to scale up the mech even as the wind tore at their flesh. Those were the first to die.

Lictor leaned over the left leg from his position at the hip, and as its footfall struck the ground he fired two pinpoint shots. The first struck the highest Legionnaire square in a barbed foreleg joint, snapping its grip free mid-climb. This made its maw widen in a scream of rage; the second rifle round went through the roof of its mouth. As its body went limp and tumbled from the mech, Lictor shifted aim and fired a methodical stream of high velocity rounds down the left leg until the Legionnaires that steadily clambered onto the mech's limbs every few steps grew wise to the lethal precipitation. Pressure mounted at Lictor's back. He stopped firing and ducked without looking.

A scything limb struck where he had stood just a moment before- yet his avoidance was languid and relaxed. His duck lead to the release of the rifle, allowing it to fall in its sling against his chest. The next moment he surged upwards with a punch that cracked through carapace and left a viscous detonation in its wake. His momentum did not stop. He followed through with his punch and threw the Legionnaire from the mech and far to the ground below. The next breath he was grasping onto the ladder at the base of the spine and swinging himself around the waist of the machine to the right leg, where the impact of his kick rocketed the next Abberant to scale over the machine's armored legs flying into the horde below. He took the situation in at a glance. His HUD revealed that his desire for speed was being met; Kyra's brazen path across the horde was faster than he had even anticipated. It just meant he was having to get his hands dirty. Another footfall hit the ground. Another few abberants began the climb. More bodies fell from the mech in fruitless endeavors of bestial madness...

Kyra leapt, clearing the last few hundred meters to come hurtling like a meteor through the wall of Abberant corpses on the left flank. Lictor braced for the impact by gripping onto the ladder on the spine and letting his rifle fall limp in its strap. A mist of ichor exploded into existence, painting Kyra's machine a new hue of blood-gunmetal as she stuck the landing and skidded across the oncoming wave of flanking monstrosities. Lictor's visor kept his eyes clear. Discipline kept his mouth shut. Instinct drew him forth towards his foe. This lapse of speed, the skidding, trench-digging, impact of the mech's feet into the ground served as Lictor's dismount.

He dropped into the bloodmist even as Kyra regained her pace. She was free of her taxi duty for sixty seconds. The fall from the mech's waist was long enough for Kyra to already be several paces away before Lictor hit the ground. He fell into a crouch, eyes piercing through the bloodied visor as he pulled the strap of Carnifex and loosened the blade on his shoulder. The weapon slid down his arm where he caught it in his hand, holding the scabbard below the hilt. He rose to his feet and spat onto the ground, Aberrant ichor mixed into his spittle. The mist was settling as the Abberant surge regained its footing.

"Check fire. Lictor on site. Keep fire wide of the breach." He barked into the shortwave communications to the nearby soldiers. "Bishop sighted. Execution in progress."

His visor flared, sighting the telltale warnings of a--

Carnifex glowed as he drew it forth from its scabbard. The partial draw cleared enough of the protective material to reveal two feet of the wide, flat, blade which he raised defensively before his body. The laser struck the flat of the blade squarely. Lictor felt the surge of power radiate into him through the blade. Carnifex cleared the scabbard in full. Lictor pulled the scabbard back up onto his shoulder and tightened the strap as he held the now-bared blade in hand. The mist cleared at last. The tide of Abberants was already nearly upon him-- and his prey was surging with it. Lictor planted his feet and whirled Carnifex in hand.

The first swing arced through the air. With it, Lictor expelled the radiation he channeled. A bright light emanated from Carnifex, the blade itself growing dull as this liquid mono-cord of energy flowed from its edge. The arc radiated out from Lictor, following the sword's swing, into a widening semi-circle of death. It was as if the air were a pond, and Lictor a stone cast into it; the ripple of energy eviscerating the Legionnaires directly before him. The Bishop's barrier held. Lictor's next swing, blade now dull, was to deflect the tip of the spear.

The blow would have pierced through a mech's armor or a bunker's shell- but it did not land where the Spearman intended. What appeared to be an almost lazy circling ward with Carnifex caught the spear just behind the head of its lethal point and smashed the Spearman's aim skyward. The point passed over Lictor's shoulder and buried itself deep into the earth just behind the immobile man. His blade halted against the spearhaft, and his left hand rose to half-sword the wide blade as the Bishop was trapped in this precious moment of inertia. He could feel the strength of the Bishop trying to wrench the spear down and crush him- but he rose against it. His slice followed the spearhaft, Carnifex's edge burning into a glorious blaze as he wrenched forth. Carnifex met the barrier and demolished it, its fiery arc honing the sword to a razor's edge.

The Bishop's spear-arm was split in twain down the length of its forearm where it severed completely at the elbow. The bishop leapt back as Lictor followed through on his slice, the half-sword maneuver whirling into a scything blow as his hand fell back to pair with the other on the hilt of Carnifex. The initial arc missed and the Bishop leapt over Lictor to reclaim its spear- but Lictor planted his foot in an earth-trembling stomp and halted his whirling slash, immediately turning to swing the blade vertically upwards as the Bishop landed with its remaining arm grasping the spearhaft. It pulled its weapon free at the precise moment the foremost six inches of Carnifex carved vertically along its spine from hip to neck at a slight angle. The Bishop collapsed forward. The golden arc behind Lictor faded after these precious few seconds of cleared space.

He stepped forward onto the Bishop's back, stomping down onto its exposed and severed spinal column as the monstrosity still tried to rise despite the complete failure of its body. Carnifex rose aloft-- the dulled blade already beginning to glow again from within. Carnifex fell in a blazing arc. The bishop was split fully in two, its horrible symmetry besmirched only by the devastation of its right arm. Lictor took six paces forward. Each step brought the scabbard down off his shoulder, cleaned the blade on its shroud, then returned it to its secure housing within its leaden home. Each step brought the tide of Abberants through the breach in the flank closer to his position. Each step brought the thunder of Kyra's mech closer.

She only had to slow down slightly for Lictor to leap upwards and catch himself on the hip of the Mech.

"Rejoin the front." He barked to Kyra as he braced to reload his rifle.

Household Adventures, a Two Little Mice game

I finally reopened my books tonight, knocking some of my dust off. gonna try and get the cogs spinning soon.