PrivateVentures

Enter the Grid

An idea: what about weapon speed?

✫ Beautiful Betrayal ✫ Hetero and Lesbian pairings ✫ High Casual + ✫

@Miss Gallagher Hey, don't get discouraged. No one visits my thread much either.

Mass Effect: Underworld

@BlackSam3091 I think I got it just about perfect.

Mass Effect: Underworld

@BlackSam3091 Yeah, sorry about that. I'll see what I can do. I didn't think a lot of it through, which now, is readily apparent.

In my defense, I tried to cover the gist of what's going on so Rithy could write up a post.

I feel like it's an okay summary at least.

Mass Effect: Underworld

The next half hour to three hours, (Ellis was never sure exactly how long it took), were a blur.

Orange and blue holographic drones whirled around him in a fever-dream tornado of bright light, deep vital scans, and bumping his suit around.

Ellis' painkiller shot three times in two minutes, far beyond the ordinary LD50 for the chemical. Ellis dreamed.

An asari held him while he suffocated, removed from his shell, exposed, naked, on the surface of a lush planet. Unclothed, possibly feral krogan stood around them. Tuchanka? Ellis thought. Pre-Nuke? The asari comforted him. She was familiar, but only vaguely. The rifle next to her. Her armor. It was as though the memory were clouded somehow.

You're gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be o-

FLASH

A neon light roared across the sky, the glory of a god, laying waste to all in sight. In the white light, three figures stood, silhouettes against the nothingness of nuclear war.

A turian. Ellis cried out but to her he had no voice. He fought to stand, but had no limbs. He choked and flailed- his skin was gone, burned away.

The Asari screamed and faded into the light. The turian was now male. He was tall, strong, commanding. You're lucky we traced you, or I'd have shot you on sight.

The turian became the Illusive Man. He ashed his cigarette into Ellis' screaming mouth.

Everything went black.

Swallowed in the dark.

Ellis awoke, gasping for breath, a cold sweat stinging his pseudoskin, icy burning in every nerve. He lay on a forklift, a makeshift stretcher, apparently, judging by the paramedics scanning him. He glanced down. They'd repaired his knee, but only barely, likely using resized schematics from a YMIR or some similar mech.

A sudden ZZZZZZZZZZZZZHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! startled him from the right. A technician with a drill of some sort. A new arm! White and glossy and new! A little orange loading bar popped up in Ellis' visor, signaling the pairing of the new appendage. It completed quickly.

The new arm was slightly smaller, a tad slower, a little weak. And it was white. "NERO, system check."

A distorted male voice answered.

"Damage to central components have limited my capabilities. Suit has been fitted with modified LOKI mech arm. Professional opinion: it will suffice. NOTIFY: Unable to connect to Cerberus Information Server."

"When in Rome." He could feel another headache coming on.

Naturally, his painkillers shot again.

"Tell Vella. She's... good. Gotta go- Metro Pee Dee... NERO, go to... Scotland Yard for me."

His last words before blacking out again.

He awoke, once more, still laying on the forklift. Except now, the forklift sat in grass, by a tree. The tracks showed that someone had driven it up and simply left it there. Ellis looked around, still stationary. It was getting dark. "NERO! It's dark. Did we miss it?" The sign read 'Metropolitan Police'.

"Allies have not arrived. Seasonal changes account for early evening. "

Ellis groaned. "How long until they get here?"

At least you're not late.

"Undetermined. Unable to connect to Cerberus Information Server."

He stood, stretched his back, relishing the little pops that come from stress relieved, and tried out his new arm, leaving a big Ellis-handprint in the tree, finger-grooves running deep. He smiled.

He didn't know London well, and was not particularly inclined to explore. Deciding he'd better rest, he sat and waited on the forklift.

Mass Effect: Underworld

@MrDidact I need an Aegon quote for an Ellis fever-dream. Something vague, melancholy, and deep as sin.

But I need it from Aegon.

Never mind. Got the perfect one.

Pens and Swords (PV's literature dump)

Uncertain

Science.
The art of knowing.
In the end, nothing is truly known. What we percieve as knowledge is simply memory of past cause and effect, not even a semi-reliable indicator of future causes or future effects.

In the end, we know nothing.

Prologue

It was a snowy January morning, a new day at the start of a new year, same old shit.

One of my snowmobiles had blown a track. My tools had water dripped on them overnight from a leak in my shed, and had frozen together, in one solid Phillips-headed, wrench-tailed mass, ahered to the inside of the toolbox with the tensile strength of God himself. It took three hours to crack it open. When I finally did, I wiped off ice shavings and glassy shards, and noticed that I'd had six AA batteries in there too. All busted. The ice had veins of battery acid, converging in little nebulae of toxic sludge.

Fuck this.

Ravnica: A Magic RP

@JaceBeleren
Don't be too flattered :P

I'm easily excitable.

Mass Effect: Underworld

@Rithy Hye, why don'twe collab?

Good god, those typos. Sorry, I'm on a touch screen.

To Teluval, Farewell - Accepting One More Character!

Very interested. I love deep worlds, and particularly cosmic fantasy. I'd love to get in on this. If you'd like a writing sample, I've got a thread in the gallery, Pens and Swords. It contains a number of my unfinished first drafts. They're still in progress.