Welcome to Sburb! (Dead and Over)

[ArcNitemare]

>Greg:Try to find the Queen

The imaginary hairs on the back of your dreamselves' neck stands up as you watch the hundreds of golden ships take off to whatever their destination is.But it can only one thing.Trouble.You have to find the Queen,asap.

You run up to one of the Propsitian Guards near the entrance to the Palace and ask them if the Queen is in the Palace or if she is located elsewhere.You tell them that the Knight of Space needs to speak with her immediately.A trap may be lying in wait that she needs to know about.

 

[Pappytech]

>Arbitrary Guard standing in front of Prospitian Palace: Be accosted by kid in pajamas. ...Seriously? Why is it that people always come to you with their problems? "Oh Mr. Guard, my cat climbed up a tower. My ship ran out of gas. I really need to deliver this package; the fate of Skaia depends on it!"

Look, there's a reason you're not on board one of those ships heading for Derse right now; it's because you're pretty much incompetent. Like, at all. You can't fight, you can't pilot, you get sick at the sight of blood, you're just all around useless. But, since Dad was adamant you went into the military, you didn't really have a choice.

You thought you were lucky when you got this job. All you have to do is hold this spear, stand up straight, and don't move. Seriously, that's what it says in your job description, word for word. You're just here to look nice and official, not to actually get things done. And quite frankly, you're getting a little sick of everyone thinking that you can fix their problems.

After lecturing the pajamaed youth for quite some time about the merits of not listening to your overbearing parents and getting your degree in interpretive dance like you wanted to, Dad, you then spend another fifteen minutes explaining the wonders of due process to him. If he wants to talk to the Queen, then he needs to go to the Requests office in the Library and get a L78-XFG form. And it has to be a blue one.

Once he's got that filled out in triplicate, signed by three separate notaries, and has collected a tear from the Well of Souls, he can drop it back off at the Requests office. If he's lucky, in a few weeks his paperwork will be processed, and his issue will be brought up before the small council. Then they'll decide if it's something that the Queen really needs to hear about. If they don't then too bad for him. If they do, then he'll need to get a L78-XFK form, fill that out, and mail it to the large council. They'll get to it in about a year, and then, if he's bribed the right people and made the right connections in the meantime, he'll get five minutes on the Queen's schedule.

Until he does that, you're going to do your sovereign duty, and STAND IN PLACE!

 

[CJ1145]

>Dirk: Fire

You like to think you're already a MASTER OF FIRE with your gloves. You're fully aware that you're still useless if the gloves are destroyed, or, of course, the dreaded RAINY DAYS occur. But still, it's nice to dream. You take the PATH OF FIRE, finding it appropriate for your very-much ad hoc trials, HARUHARA BLADE in hand. Only Haruko-chan's brand of slapstick insanity can keep you light-hearted in a place as grim as this. You also hum a melody vaguely similar to The Pillows' "I Think I Can" as you walk in your marvelous yet somehow David Spade-esque SINGING VOICE.


>Future Dirk: Come Back

Well, you already left XL to his own devices. You think it'd be wishy-washy to come back and just leave again. Still, you actually hadn't gone very far by the time this happened, and you're in a position to help. So you compromise and activate all of your speed-enhancing abilities.

In a blur around XL, the two KUNAI are removed and replaced by a pair of tightly-wrapped BANDAGES to stop the bleeding. He is then moved to a distance still well within view of the battle, but far enough to avoid getting caught in the crossfire. The BLUR, that is, you, then leap back into the fray with the two mysterious figure, swinging your RAD KATANA through the face of any DERSITE dumb enough to get close.

 

[ArcNitemare]

>Gregon't have the time to deal with this

Ok,you can forgive alot of things.Popcorn getting burnt,milking getting spilled,couch getting chucked onto the roof,IMPS tearing up your books,friends who try to kill you...

But getting yelled at because this guy had overbearing parents who didn't let him learn to dance?..Ok you could forgive that too,but you would rather not get yelled at for that!

Once he is done with his 'little speech' about forms signed in triplicate and returning to playing statue,you shake your head and look annoyed at him.

Look I am sorry about what you have had to go through,but right now I have neither the time or the patience to deal with forms and the signing in triplicate there of.If you are just going to stand here,then that means you won't stop me from entering and looking for the Queen myself.

You shuffle past the guard,heading into the palace,but stop a short way and look back at the guard.And I will have to know that there is a very good chance that everyone of those ships could very well end up dead within the next eleven hours.Heel,we ALL could be dead.So how about you do something with what time is left?

You random point your finger in the air,for no reason then to look cool.Go to your parents,tell them you will not stand for being a guard,that you would rather learn to dance and you show them.Show them that dancing is what you want.Go and be the best dancer you can be!

With that,you turn back around and walk into the Palace,though you remove your finger from the air.That man will get his degree,whether he wants it or not!

 

[SamuelT]

 

[WafflesandBacon]

>Xavier: Try to make sense of the situation
So, you were being choked, then you weren't, then you had knives, then you had bandages, but you are't bleeding, and-Le sign.

>Xavier: Enter into battle with you meaty fists

 

[Pappytech]

>Dirk: As you stride through the threshold, the walls begin to glow with a strange, otherworldly light. Lines and patterns are traced through the rock, revealing pictures and words carved into the stone. Well, it looks like you'll have some reading to do as you walk.

A thousand years ago, before the war eternal, the Lands orbited Skaia. It was a time of peace, an era of prosperity that encompassed the Medium. Before the worlds of light and dark began their schemes, before the Fall, before the Storm, before the Song, before the Sinking, before the Scar, before the Death, all was good.

As you navigate the twisting halls and treacherous passageways, luckily avoiding any major dead-ends, you become aware that the temperature of your surroundings seems to be increasing; you soon find yourself beginning to sweat.

After a few minutes of walking, you come to two possible paths, one heading to your right, the other to your left. To the right, you can hear the sound of chains swinging back and forth. To the left, you can hear a strange rumbling noise. Is that... snoring?

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>AG: Wow... you feel kind of motivated! That kid's right, you should go stand up to your parents! Man, this was just the thing you needed to get you going; you feel like a new man! Your whole life is opening before you, the possibilities are endless. You're going to start a brand new adventure... once your shift ends.

>AG: Be AG four hours later. You would, except AG is kind of on fire. And missing his legs. And dead.

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>Greg: After dealing with that little distraction and entering the Palace, you manage to make your way to the Queen's Throne Room without anymore trouble. When you enter, she seems a little surprised to see you. She asks if something's the matter, and if you've spoken with your friend.

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>Xavier: ...Yeah, I'm going to use my powers of NARRATIVE CONTROL to clear up any confusion here.

Xavier's Dreamself is currently on Derse, watching as Rich's UNCLE and Greg's MOTHER decimate a squad of soldiers. HB, after assaulting our Mage of Life, had his hand cut off and... okay, now his head's off. Because Periwinkle's claws are sharp. Geeze, do not let that cat touch you. MOTHER has kindly loaned Xavier a pair of KUNAI, should he choose to join the fight.

While I am not adverse to Dirk F1 showing up to help, I'm going to say that he was not able to in this particular instance. Because I doubt he has the ability to travel from the Land of Sea and Crystal to Derse's moon that fast.

In summery: Xavier is fine and has two knives. UNCLE and MOTHER are kicking ass. Dersites are kind of fucked. Dirk F1 is nowhere nearby.

Let the shenanigans commence.

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Spoiler: OOC

Right... it's been a rough couple days. Car trouble finally got resolved, thank God, but still dealing with tests and projects and suicidal friends and angry parents and looking for jobs and relearning how to solder and scheduling appointments with tutors I don't need and so on and so forth. As such, my actions on here are probably kind of skewed right now, and I realize I'm not exactly being fair to a few parties. I'd like to apologize for that.

First off, Benndak and Metroid: Sorry for kind of leaving you hanging with the whole montage thing. It's getting harder and harder to write up senseless battle scenes where I just throw waves of Underlings at you, and you deal with them in a few posts. I feel like I'm not being inventive enough, giving you guys what you really deserve, mostly because I've invested most of my creativity in other people's posts. Hell, I haven't even posted your new levels yet. I'm going to try my best to get you guys some interesting challenges soon, but in the meantime would really appreciate it if you guys could go ahead and narrate some of this stuff on your own. Benndak, what you've been doing has been fun to read and pretty damn well written, keep it up.

Moving on, Waffles and Nitemare: While I haven't ignored you guys to the extent I did with Benndak and Met, I still think I've been doing some minimal effort with your stuff. Worse, I've been intentionally screwing around with your characters in an attempt to make sure that what I want to happen goes through, instead of letting you guys define the story. I... don't really have any excuse for that. I've tried to avoid doing stuff like that in the past, but have just found myself doing that more and more lately, mostly because I have this awesome vision in my head, and want to do everything I can to make it a reality. But that's not the point of this RP, not in the slightest. It's not about me fulfilling whatever creative fantasy I want, it's about me giving you all a setting and some antagonists, and you guys telling whatever story you want. So, sorry for being a little selfish, I'll make sure to work on that in the future.

CJ: Yeah, you don't get an apology. Hell, for all my other screw-ups, I'm actually pretty damn happy with how your meeting with Daedalus is turning out. If everyone else's encounters with their Denizens go this well, I'll be quite satisfied.

Sam: Um... yeah, I got nothing. Great art, I guess?

Well, that's about it. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. Still your friendly neighborhood eldritch abomination. Hope my less than stellar posting hasn't really annoyed anyone yet; I'll be working on it.

 

[CJ1145]

>Dirk: Go Left

You stand at the crossway to a new path, a place where hopes, dreams and the waking world collide.

OK, no, it's nothing that serious at all. But still, it's sounding like to your RIGHT is some kind of OBSTACLE COURSE, you guess? To your LEFT is the sound of what you are certain is some kind of hyper-MONSTER. As much as you'd prefer some acrobatics and peaceful parkour stuff right now, you remember that you came here to reach the top of your ECHELADDER. Not to have fun. You sigh, wondering if the others are having it this hard preparing for the final battle.

You walk down the LEFT PATH to find whatever waits for you. And most likely shoot it.

 

[ArcNitemare]

Nitemare:Refuse to accept apology as there is no need for an appology

Ok first off,I'm sorry if that statement comes off as hostile because I assume you it isn't.Infact its more confusion then anything else.How are you screwing my character exactly?Because I'm not seeing it.Everything my guy has done has been what I feel fits his personality.And as for the minimal effort,again I dispute this.I feel everything has been going well.

While I don't like to argue with the DM...I have to argue with you on these points.

In short,everything has been going well and keep up on the good work.

Ps. I'm kind of curious what vision you have for my guy


Greg:Speak with the White Queen

You come to a stop a short distance from the White Queen and give her a bow.

I apologize if I am interrupting anything important my Queen.But trouble is going down and I figured you would want to know asap.

You stand up straight,giving yourself a moment to collect your thoughts before continuing.I do not know if you got the message,but just in case.A short while ago the Black Queen sent out a message,apparently to all of the Heroes,that she has our guardians and that unless we surrender to her in less 11 and a half hours she will execute them.Which I don't believe she will keep her word and will probably kill us all if we DO surrender.I also believe this is one big trap and that the Black Queen may know that Jack is working with us,though I have no proof of this.As for my friend,if you are referring to Chas...It seems he has forsaken the Light and gone down the path of Grimdark.

AG:Be AG 3hours and 59 minutes later

Turns out trying to dance with your REGISWORD next to an open FIREPLACE wasn't a good idea.

 

[WafflesandBacon]

>Waffles: Agree with Nitemare
I'm pretty content with everything, going to Derse, nearly escaping a firey death, hiding in Derse society, pretty fucking awesome if you ask me. I honestly don't sense any 'screwing' with my character.

So, don't sweat it, Co-

Wait, Collins?

Collins!?

Spoiler: New Pappy headcanon

>XL: Get cocky again
Pfffft! Derse guards? No sweat! You've taken down pimples worse than these guys!

>KNIFETECH LVL 43: DELIVERY FROM GODMONSTER~NO GIVESY-BACKSIES
You begin your frantic yet controlled flurry on the guards.

 

[MetroidNut]

>MetroidNut: Admonish GM for attempting to apologize for character neglect.

My last post prior to this was six days ago. SIX DAYS. And it was a hastily-cobbled-together paragraph. You cannot out-character-neglect me; I am simply the best there is.

>Rich: Eagerly and patiently await montage that your cohort apparently expects.

 

[WafflesandBacon]

>Fourthwall!Xavier: Be completely jealous of the canonical Prince of Derse
Goddamit! Why can't you be that awesome?

 

[Pappytech]

Spoiler: OOC excuse for lack of updates

>Pappytech: Finally be done with the amalgamation of projects, tests, homeworks, and social crises that have eaten up most of your time this past week.[/b]

Yeah, so I'm offically a game programmer! Granted, it's an unoriginal platformer with horrid controls, terrible level designs, and graphics that are quite literally colored rectangles, but I still programmed a working game! And I took some tests and stuff.

Anyway, finally got this week's workload out of the way. Just in time to drive across the state and head to VisionCon. And then to drive back Sunday and start next week's crap. Yay.

So... I'm going to bet I can get a halfway decent update in later tonight, probably after midnight knowing me.

And yes, Dirk is pretty damn awe-inspiring.

 

[CJ1145]

CJ: Be confused whenever someone mentions canon-Dirk

Oh I don't need a command for that. I suppose there must be some kind of downside for the startling number of coincidental similarities between my Dirk and the real one.

Also, Pappy, congratulations! Feel free to take your time, as is practically my motto, real life takes precedence to games.

 

[Pappytech]

>Dirk: The Land was strong, mighty, potent. Its cities stretched across the horizon, realms of knowledge and power the likes of which few have ever seen. Consorts and Visitors alike reaped the blessings of greatness, jubilantly striding into the future. They raised amazing monuments, built beautiful citadels, forged bastions of peace and serenity. And over all of this, the Builder watched. His consul was a guiding force, his strength a just and impartial judge. Under his watchful eyes, the Land prospered.

After following the twisting, curving path for a ways, you find yourself emerging into a large, open area. The walls spread out, forming a massive arena, easily a couple hundred yards wide. Likewise, the ceiling rises until it towers above you, stalactites reaching down towards the ground far below.

In the center of this space, lying on the ground in a ramshackle pile, is a rather large chunk of metal. From this distance, it looks as though it's some discarded suit of armor, forged to fit a being of gigantic proportions. As you draw closer, you amend your assumption: It's meant to fit a beast of gigantic proportions.

Thousands of metal scales, no more than a few inches in size, have been slotted together, forming a near impenetrable shield. The armor branches off from a main body into four legs, a spike-covered tail, and a impressively long neck, ending in a massive head.

Upon closer examination, you find that the armor seems a bit too large, even for some beast thirty times your size. Sure, good defense is important, but how the hell would you even get this thing on? You can't spot any openings or hooks or latches or anything, and... why is the armor moving?

Oh. Not armor. Robot.

The mechanical beast lumbers to its feet as you leap backwards, just in time to avoid being crushed beneath one of its razor-sharp claws. The neck flexes and twists, swinging its head around until you face its side; a thick plate of steel slides back, revealing a red gem shining with otherworldly light, staring right at you. The monster's jaw opens slightly, fangs scraping against each other as smoke and heat pours out of the opening.

With an earth shaking roar, a pair of wings suddenly sprout from the creature's back, a framework of metal rods and some material that flows like cloth. Just before the beast charges towards you, you spot an enormous jagged scar, haphazardly stretching across nearly its entire back. At one end of the disfigurement, you can see what seems to be a massive blade, with a black hand still grasping its hilt.

Oh, yeah, the monster is totally charging you by the way. Should probably do something about that.

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>Chas and Rich: Chas is level 48: Spawn of Oros! Rich is level 26: Rookie Reckoner! +Copious amounts of boonbucks.

Well, this is nice. This is actually quite relaxing. Just a wide open field, full of flowers and sunshine and bunnies and the like. Oh, and about a dozen OGRES and BASILISKS. And a rather enormous CENTAUR. Who is giving you kind of an evil eye as the two of you shake off the MONTAGE LIMBO related jet-lag. Actually, appearification-lag might be a more accurate term.

Anyway, proper descriptors aside, you do find yourself facing a small force of Underlings, and the Centaur. Said horse/human hybrid, predictably, possesses the body and legs of a horse, and the torso, arms, and head of a man. In order to avoid any uncomfortable sweat-related issues, we will gloss over the beastie's other physical traits, and skip right to the part about the STRONG-BOW AND ARROW it has pointing at Chas' face.

Well. Have fun with that.

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>Greg: WQ explains that she was talking about Dirk, and seems perturbed by your news. She discusses the situation, saying that if this is all a trap then perhaps attacking Derse is the best course of action. Hopefully the Prospitian fleet will do some decent damage, enough to support the heroes.

>AG in 3 hrs, 50 minutes. This is gonna be the best dance lesson ever. You're sure glad this black-carapaced guy in a weird uniform and armed to teeth who just repelled through your roof offered to teach you.

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>Xavier: Your paradoxical attacks help the Guardians to take out the Dersite soldiers. Presumably you impale HB's decapitated head on some spike/pole.

What do you do next?

 

[WafflesandBacon]

>XL: Parade HB's head around and start a revolution
As awesome as that sounds, there are still people's lives at stake! You still have to find Dirk's SISTER, Chas' FATHER and your FATHER, and such a frivolous act as that would just ruin everything!

>XL: Refuse to acknowledge the absurd kitten
You fail miserably.

Apparently, this little cutie helped in the extermination of Derse guards. Look at it, licking the blood of her paws. So cuuuuuuuuuute!

You have named it LIL' RAS', regardless of any prior moniker.

>XL: Ask the guardians about the whereabouts of the remaining guardians

 

[Pappytech]

>Xavier: Instead of answering your question, like some kind of normal, rational person, the woman in black instead holds up one her hands, her fingers spread out. As you stare at the five fingers, you start to wonder what the hell's going on, before she suddenly retracts her thumb.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

You're thrown off balance as a tremor rocks the ground, as a gout of flames and smoke suddenly pours out from one of the nearby buildings. The man and woman begin to charge towards the building, the man sticking to the streets, the woman leaping from rooftop to rooftop.

LIL RAS playfully bats around HB's hand.

 

[MetroidNut]

>MetroidNut: Totally be not dead.

The TIME POLICE won't get me so easily.

>Rich: Strife!

Oh god that thing is even worse than the spandex.

>Rich: Strife?

You want to rip your gaze from its horrible, glistening, sweat-covered body.

>Rich: Strife...?

But you can't.

>Rich: CHORALE OF CHEER

Your horror fades away, replaced by overwhelming cheerfulness. Life is great, this CENTAUR is kind of really creepy but who really cares. Then, slowly, your mind begins molding your emotions into a more useful form; your cheerfulness becomes the fuel for a steadily-growing determination.


>Rich: STRETTO BURST

You use your STRETTO BURST on the CENTAUR, surrounding its legs with MINES (placed high enough to prevent the CENTAUR from simply stepping over them). The beast is unscathed, but effectively trapped. You leave Chas to avoid the arrow himself - you're certain he can handle it.

With your foe ensnared, you quickly circle around it, approaching from behind in the hopes that its attention will remain focused on Chas. You take out your MP3 PLAYER and prepare to subject the CENTAUR to the most MIND-BOGGLINGLY CONFUSING file in your arsenal:

Spoiler: The entirety of this scene's dialogue.