Rapid Reader

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

Val sees Ellie's bet and adds a sweet $50 to the pot.

The Wal Chronicles (Post Apocalyptic Supermarket Simulator)

Imma write a Honey Nut Cheerio Cerai (basically a cardboard knight).

UNTOLD STORY: Final Dungeon

Indeed, thanks for the fishes and so forth! I really enjoyed the concept and look forward to seeing something equally cool from you in the future.

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

I'm sure the baggage borrowers are friendly people.

Val's current feels

Val Thoughts

Val reacts

Veritas Lux Mea

^{Collaboration with the always lovely @Hellion}

Teg heard the drums. She had heard them before. She knew them. She knew the chanting that accompanied the drums. Ancient Terra. Earth. The Great Plains. She'd fucked up again. She knew it. She'd been shot. Sloppy. Very sloppy. She was annoyed. She was better than that. She didn't want to die. Not yet.

The horse stopped in front of her and Teg peered up at the rider. He was silent, but she could see the faint outlines of a smile beneath the bone white war paint that obscured his features. Teg had to admit the feathers in his hair did look pretty cool. She was less into the beads. Jewelry was dumb. The crow that sat on his shoulder cawed loudly at Teg. It sounded like laughter. It sounded like it was mocking her. Teg felt a sudden urge to punch the covid.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I fucked up. No need to be snippy about, you dick."

"CAW, CAW!"

"So what's the deal, you boys here to take me to the bright light?"

The rider shook his head slowly from side to side but didn't reply and instead pointed towards the crow. A more balanced, perhaps sane mercenary would have questioned the hallucination generated by neurons on the verge of death, but Teg didn't. She had expected Valhalla to be a little bit snowier, but she'd settle for a desert. Even if she really, really hated sand. It always got everywhere. The crow watched Teg carefully. She could tell it was judging her. She could feel its beady little black eyes as they stared right into her soul. She hated the crow already. Teg didn't notice her own hand reaching reflexively for where her extra gun would have been, strapped flush against the small of her back. But the crow did and he glared maliciously at Teg as she pulled at air. She didn't have her guns. Not in whatever place she was in.

Teg sighed, if she couldn't shoot the bird she'd have to talk. Nodding in the direction of the crow, she rolled her eyes with practiced ease, "Alright bird, I guess you're the talker. What's the deal here? If you didn't notice I'm pretty busy dying. I don't have time to chat with you about shiny objects or whatever it is you care about."

"CAW!"

"No, I couldn't just have shot that last pirate. I don't have eyes in the back of my head."

"CAW."

"Yeah, well if you think you can do better how about you go back instead of me? If you're such a bad-ass why are you here? You fucking bird brained asshole."

"CAW, CAW."

"YEAH! So what! That's not my problem."

"Caw!"

“I don’t care about any interstellar maps! How many times do I have to tell you!” Teg shouted, unwilling to let the corvid have the last word. She didn’t have time to respond before her world turned a new shade of midnight and she fell from the stars.

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Teg lurched to life with a pained gasp. Her breath was ragged. She couldn’t breathe. Not enough. The lights were too bright. Her vision was blurry and her eyes burned. She wasn’t crying. She wouldn’t waste time on tears.

The high-pitched alarms and whirring of gears within the medical equipment across the room first caused the Doctor’s attention to snap toward the ruckus, the heart monitor beginning to pulse at a steady time as it should. Kai’s gaze gradually traced its way along the large surgical table where Teg’s body had been laying lifeless, and noticed the subtle movements of bother her mouth and chest as air began to fill her lungs once again.

"S’tragotha..." The Ithlo -his eyes wider than normal this time- mumbled the exclamatory curse under his breath, unsure of just what was going on. “It can’t be.” He all but flew across the room to the bedside, where the mercenary’s body was going through convulsions as the need for air became greater. The Doctor wasted no time pulling the oxygen mask down from the ceiling and quickly placing the device over her nose and mouth, allowing for a controlled amount of breathing to naturally occur.

"Miss Taggart." Kai refrained from any hysterics, as wasn’t in his nature, but there was still an urgency in the tone of his voice. “Breath slowly, and do not get up.” If things were, in fact, beginning to move toward the positive for Teg’s condition, then the necessary protocols were to be in place to ensure her blood pressure and heart rate would optimize.

"I will not lose you again, Corinna." He whispered, surprised that he had used her first name, a name never uttered by him or anyone he knew since their meet. Regardless, he continued flipping switches on various consoles and monitoring her vitals as her body began to awaken.

"Kai," Teg said, rasping from beneath the oxygen mask, beckoning him closer with the weak wave of a hand. She waited until he leaned in closer before she grabbed ahold of the label of his shirt and pulled him close, dangerously close, improperly close for a human much less an Ithlo. "I need a drink."

The Wal Chronicles (Post Apocalyptic Supermarket Simulator)

You have my interest and sword, most honorable GM.

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

While I'd love to post again, I'm pretty swamped with a virtual conference thing until early next week, so if everyone else is at a good spot to move forward that works for me.

You can always blame it on Val crashing due her cocktail of magical LSD and champagne.

Forsaken

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Valanthe Vanatar

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"Cinder," Val said positively purring at the sight of the fire genasi. "How nice of you to finally join us. I was telling Ulleiss here how pleased I was to see you two again. It is a rare privilege indeed in my profession to be reacquainted with two such wonderful friends."

"Of course, my great joy at our reunion was only magnified by the prospect of being your colleague once more in yet another heroic endeavor that promises to leave us richer than when we began. Let us just hope that this contract doesn't end like that dreadful job in Lulkel. It cost me a fortune to get that dress washed."

"I'm assuming there's a reason you haven't arrested this scoundrel, Cinder," the large dragon commented, turning his head to face the genasi as she approached.

"Unfortunately it seems she will be a necessary evil on this particular quest. And for the gods' sakes, stop with your patronizing politeness," she replied, scrunching her face up in disgust at the moon elf.

"My poor, poor, misguided Cinder," Val began shaking her head sadly from side to side. Her lips pursed in a small frown, but Val seemed more amused than disappointed. "It is only patronizing because you choose to interpret it as such. If you had only paid attention to the many lessons I freely gave you, then you would have learned to speak properly many moons ago."

"Just cause I ain't from some highfalutin family with daddy issues doesn't mean I can't speak correctly. Not to mention it's incredibly pretentious, and who, besides the obvious company, would want to talk like that?" Cinder asked, though it didn't appear she really wanted an answer as she almost immediately started talking again. "Why are you here in the first place?"

Val rolled her eyes at the familiar accusation, Cinder was fond of bringing up parental figures, especially her father, a telling sign that Val noted. However, her parents were a subject Val preferred to avoid. Lest she somehow summon them to the present spot, dusty as it was, by merely mentioning them. The moon elf smiled broadly as soon as the conversation return to her favorite topic, her own self and her mysterious, ever-shifting motives.

"Oh, that is a wonderful story of redemption," Val exclaimed with a happy sigh and soft smile that would have brought tears to the eyes of a troll. "You see, having spent a several nights languishing in the sad jail of this supremely sad town, I had time to reflect on my many minor indiscretions. The old Val is dead Cinder! The still stunning Moon Elf you see before you is the new Val. A kinder, much gentler Val, full of innocence and unburdened by a long history of criminal accusations. My most recent iteration is a lovely creature that is here to do great good. She is driven through the purity of her own heart to restore the balance in this dusty wasteland and certainly holds no aspirations of robbing the party of all their wealth. Indeed, the good sheriff himself detected my positively impeccable innocence and released me with his most humble apologies and a lovely, rustic breakfast."

"..."

Silence greeted Val at the end of her story, and the Cinder exchanged looks with Ulliess. Mind you dragons are not known for their varying array of facial expressions but even he looked... Doubtful, to put it mildly. Cinder on the other hand looked like she was going to start laughing. And then she did.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," she sputtered in between chuckles. "I'm sure that if I went and talked to the sheriff right now he'd corroborate your story, hm? Say what a delight you are? Right. You forget that the only reason I'm on good terms with half the sheriffs in the country is because of our mutual desire to put your behind bars where you belong. 'Kinder and gentler Val' my ass. If you steal anything of mine, I don't care what the law says. I'm shooting you."

"I already have your heart, Cinder, what more of value can I steal from you?" Val replied with a sly smile. She felt magnanimous and therefore did not send a spell in Cinder's direction as repayment for the bounty hunter's most impolite laughter at her expense. It was a constant source of sorrow for the moon elf that Cinder did not blindly believe her. It made tricking her more enjoyable, but it forced her to put some effort into the endeavor. And Val had a natural inclination to abhor effort. She preferred easy marks that fell for her azure eyes and soft smile.

"Bold of you to assume I have a heart," Cinder replied. Unlike with the rest of the party, it took quite a lot for Val to actually ruffle Cinder's feathers. She was sure it was because Val was obviously actively trying to get under her skin while the rest of the party just blindly said absolutely idiotic things. "And oh, I don't know. All of my earthly possessions?"

"I would be a very bad friend if I did not note your carefully guarded heart," Val mused. She took a step forward and pointed towards Cinder's chest. "I feel certain it is somewhere in there, beneath some layers of ice, of course. Despite your attempts at casting yourself like some common ruffian, you're far too generous to be a real rogue."

Laughing to herself, Val tossed a coin into the air, and shifting her hand forward made it reappear behind one of Cinder's pointy ears before the illusionist danced it in front of her eyes. Winking at the dragon, Val whispered, "Fear not, friend, I will relieve you of the mortal possessions that burden you soon enough."

The coin vanished back into the sleeves of her dress and Val booped Cinder playfully on the nose. Bowing slightly, she darted out of range, "Now, Cinder, promise me that you'll behave. I'd be very sad if you ruined this new role for me before I even had a chance to try it out."

Cinder had made an attempt to grab the hand that booped her, having fantasies about breaking some dainty and pathetic fingers, but Val had moved out of range too fast. Alas, neither could deny they knew the other well.

"I'll be waiting for you to screw up, Val, and the moment you do I'm taking you in to collect that bounty. Then I can really retire, and never have to see your ugly mug ever again. Speaking of retiring if you mess up this gig for me, I will get very violent." She said that last bit as flame started to crawl onto her shoulders, courtesy of her hair. Ulliess made a noise that might have been a sound of amusement, though it was unclear exactly which part of this encounter had garnered it.

Is forum Roleplaying beginning to slow down?

I'm just here because I'm a hipster and like old and/or niche things.

Edgy comments aside, I do think there's a generational shift in the mediums that people use and as others have mentioned there's something inherently attractive to use a single communication tool (such as Skype or Discord). I can't really say that most of my generational peers seem particularly keen on using forums overall, much less on pursuing roleplaying forums.

If I didn't enjoy occasionally writing longer posts, so essentially if I hadn't dipped my toes into the Advanced section, I'm not really sure if there would be much reason for me to use a forum to roleplay. Note, I don't mean to disparage Free or Casual, but by nature of the shorter post length, Discord is no longer as annoying to use.

The Sunday Group - Bumps in the Night

What People Think Val Does At The Range

What Val Actually Does At The Range