I am always hoping my enemies turn into delicious chocolate chip cookies.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Split the difference and pray for a bounty of animal crackers?
This is shaping up to be a very long narration. Trying to give people a bit of a send-off. If they're missed, well, I'll just have to make tomorrow's all the bigger.
"Let's see. One puny little telekinetic, one trumped up playfighter with a toy sword."
Segat slowly parted his hands. The squadron ruptured, some stumbling, some flying into the air, all bleeding and wrenched and twisted. The scourge banished flesh and stone alike, leaving but a crater.
"I am part of a great wave of purity and purpose. Arcadia will be cleansed of the faithless, and The First will walk these lands again.
I am not merely of the faithful. I am the Faith itself. The power is within me and I long to share it with you.
Do not fear the might of the Triumvirate, for we are perfection, and we shall correct the great mistake that is society. We are your saviours."
He paused. A much, much larger group was heading towards him. A sea of green uniforms, some toting rifles, others crackling with psionic power. Itching for a fight.
Segat cleared his throat, and walked back through his surrounding entourage. "Come, my kindred. Let us retire to my personal craft. I grow bored of these docile, slavish fools."
Trying not to hurry, Segat and the other Cultists boarded the dropship and rocketed back towards one of the Armada's three main battlecruisers.
Kwychen navigated a swarm of Cultists as if they weren't there. In fact, they weren't. He made most of them vanish in wisps of purple flame.
When he'd finished with the dozen or so who'd dared to be in his path while failing to demonstrate sufficient respect and/or sheer terror, he turned to the next mob...
They were dead on the ground. Three figures stood over the golden-clothed fanatics, recharging rifles or cleaning blades.
J'dark made a motion, and an aura of light briefly shined at his finger tips. "Kwychen. Stand down, it's over."
"You really think 'Dunadan' was a good alias?" Cayrus asked. "Not much of a cover."
"Well, yes," said Kwychen. "It took you this long to find me, after all. Or maybe you knew you couldn't take me alone. Maybe you wanted to see if the Armada could soften me up."
They said nothing. Kwychen looked from the precision telekinetic, to the hulking cyborg, to the dexterous swordsman. All were approaching the stairs leading to the park's ornate (and currently ruined) fountain, which Kwychen stood before like a particularly sinister addition to the surrounding sculptures.
He sighed, as if they were a big inconsiderate inconvenience. "So you really want to do this? Very well. Let's get it over with, and then you can pretend you made any kind of difference."
Langly rushed him. Kwychen didn't so much sidestep as slide five metres, letting the hulking cyborg smash little more than an ugly carved... whatever it was supposed to be.
Cayrus descended upon him in a furious barrage of glinting steel, but each swipe was parried by a sudden flash of energy... and followed by a psychokinetic discharge that sent him flying out of sight.
Langly aimed a punch at the back of Kwychen's head and, without his opponent even seeming to turn, he found his outsized fist rebounding ineffectually against the man's elbow block. The arm looked thin and puny by comparison, but it was like trying to crack a lamppost. A casual flick of the wrist had the cyborg smashing through a discoloured heron statue and demolishing part of the fountain podium's highly wrought railings.
J'dark tried to skewer the transmuter with an intangible lance, only to find his psi deflected harmless away. He tossed out a bolt, a probe, a series of prying and clawing projections that attempted to bypass Kwychen's fields and rend his flesh, but each of them was parried with increasing ease.
J'dark lowered his hands, concentrating, preparing to give it his all, and Kwychen put a hole through his chest.
Langly emerged from a mound of fractured marble and dealt Kwychen a punch that would've tossed a car aside. Kwychen grimaced, head snapping back with the force of it, but suddenly he was upright again and holding the tall augmented man by the neck. His other hand drew slowly level with Langly's face...
Kwychen stopped. He glanced down, and saw a very long, very sharp blade poking out the centre of his chest.
"This body... was always finite..."
Cayrus suddenly pulled his sword free. Kwychen shivered. He closed his eyes and slumped forwards, collapsing into dwindling motes of light before he'd even finished tumbling down the steps.
"So, you're one of the 'perfect demigods' that everyone's been raving on about, huh? Part of the holy and great Triumvirate."
Segat turned around slowly, with a strange calm. He spoke with the same smoothness with which he moved. "Ahh, Rend, is it? Otherwise known as the Renegade? I was wondering when you'd arrive. Please, have a seat, would you?"
Rend walked around, examining the objects in the room, glancing at Segat sporadically. "No, I think I'm all right standing. You do know why I'm here, I assume?"
Segat grinned wide. "You're here to kill me. You cannot live with the fact that a being such as I, a perfect demigod, exists. Or, to be more precise, you cannot handle that I seek to use my power, my perfection, in the ways I have chosen."
Rend's eyes went wide with surprise. "I'm impressed. You've studied for today's test! To be fair, it's more that you are arrogant enough to call yourself perfect than any perfection you obviously don't have, but hey, semantics, right?"
There was no waiting. Immediately, waves of psychic power emanated from the two. Reality itself rippled from the stress between them. "What?!" Rend said, gasping for breath. Segat cackled madly, pushing his advantage, his psionic power steadily inching toward Rend.
"Your era has ended, Renegade! Even a transmuter is no match for a perfect demigod!" He pushed one last time.
"No, this cannot be... It cannot happen like this! You... you're... you're actually perfect...!" Rend shrieked before disappearing in an eddy of pure psychic hostility.
"Oh come on, seriously?" a voice said through the environment itself.
"Kwychen, why did you have to ruin the surprise?"
Segat spun rapidly, his eyes wide with surprise. "You...?!"
Segat was suddenly paralyzed, gripped in a level of psychic pain he had never imagined existed. He began to sweat.
Kwychen appeared in front of him.
"No worse the wear for dying, I see," he gave Rend a nod. "You let your guard down."
"Perhaps," said Rend. "But I didn't get killed by a man with a sword."
With a snort, Kwychen folded his arms and took a step back; a step back from reality. He phased into his own little dimension. Let Rend have his moment, he could have the next.
The Renegade casually sauntered over to the living statue, laying a comforting hand on Segat's shoulder. "Look, I know you were planning on winning. I know you were going to go off and do great things, I get that.
"But that's not what this universe is for. Subjugation is what we do to those we fear. Death, though? Death is a gift. Death is a virtue. Death is, quite simply, the epitome for which we should all strive." Segat's muscles were tensed to the point of snapping. His lip twitched ever so slightly as sinews and tendons writhed and vibrating beneath his skin. "And those goals you mentioned earlier? Well, I regret to inform you that you might not be going in the right direction there."
I'd ask you to go to your friends, the other 'perf-'"
He stopped himself from laughing. "Oh hell, I can't even say it."
He recomposed himself. "Ahem. I'd ask you to go to your peers, and tell them, but, honestly? That's a message I'd really rather deliver myself. One on one? You are as nothing to me. And that's the great irony; for all your 'perfection', you need other people to do your dirty work."
"I do my own dirty work. And I do it with a smile."
Rend made a gesture. Segat folded in on himself, again and again, until he'd crumpled into nothing.
Then the Renegade walked through the wall, and the entire warship set itself alight.
Arcadia watched as one of the Armada's colossal craft plummeted down in sheets of flame.
The ship held Domarians, High Councillors, and the elite mishmash that was the self-dubbed Strike Force. Despite their disparate backgrounds there was an air of celebration in the rec room. The rest of the Sector's intrigue and melodrama was forgotten amidst good food and far too much drink.
Right up until Kwychen appeared in the middle of it. There was much in the way of spilled drinks and coughs and spit-takes.
The Strike Force was not so easily intimidated. They knew that Kwychen was a mere shade right now, a hollow empty projection until he marshalled his energies again.
"Here we are again," Kwychen tutted, hands behind his back, strolling around like a captain inspecting his command. "Abandoning the war zone when the war has barely begun. Do you know what makes us different?"
"The difference is that you're dead," said Langly, flexing a bionic hand. "Good luck with that. You know, the being dead."
"You don't get it, do you? My kind cannot experience true death. The Renegade gets all sad about that; it's one of the reasons he's so desperate to share death with others. Vicarious living, of a sort. No, the real difference is that we can see things in the long term. The big picture. Mortality tends to get in the way of other people doing that. Although I hear J'dark is in the infirmary. Didn't cope too well with my little gift?"
Langly took a step forward, but Cayrus placed a hand on his arm. But the other was on his hilt. Force of habit; Cayrus knew Kwychen was too intangible to touch anyone. Or be stabbed.
"It's over," Fechlis said gently. "At the very least, you could appreciate how—"
"Over? Over?" Kwychen sighed. "Good god, how you people ended up as superpowers... This is anything but over. Hurrah, part of the Triumvirate is dead, oh yes, let's all applaud the geniuses who nodded along while their leaders marked him for death and go get drunk and place bets.
Incidentally, we killed Segat. You couldn't even manage that part yourself; he flees to his cabin on a battlecruiser and all of a sudden the masses lose heart and can't pursue. Typical.
"You," Kwychen pointed at Fechlis, "and especially you," he added, jabbing at Shalmelo, "run home and congratulate yourselves if you will. But make sure your masters come back in force. If the Cultists triumph, they will begin a ritual."
The group exchanged glances.
"What's so bad about the ritual?" Shalmelo finally gave their confusion a voice.
"I'm an immortal transdimensional psychic abomination. When I tell you something is bad, how about you just take it as a given."
Kwychen vanished.
Night 6 casualties
Dunadan019, Kwychen, hit with absolutely every kind of offensive ability
tastypastry, the Operative, murdered with extreme telepathic force
Void Slayer, a Telekinetic, wiped out by horrible psychokinetic energies
SeGaTai, the first of the Cultist Armada's Triumvirate, fled the citizens of Arcadia and found something worse
Departing Arcadia in Victory
Cayrus, jdarksun, Langly - The Strike Force, eliminated the Cultist Overseer and Kwychen
FecklessRogue, (posthumously) REG Rysk - The High Council's representatives, faction outlived the Renegade and Kwychen
shalmelo, (posthumously) Tayrun - the Domarian Legion's representatives, faction outlived the Renegade and Kwychen
All Outsiders and Chaotics have been removed from the game.
It is incredibly late here, but I'll try and get PMs sorted.
As is sometimes the tradition in phalla, I may end Day 8 early if it looks like all the players come to decisions and resolve things in such a way that one side emerges victorious.
And I'll probably have another over-long narration to go with it
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
I was just asking myself the same question.
Egos. There's nothing really in his early vote record on the magic box. Two throw away votes, two big bandwagon votes. But I think he's being quiet and that's his mafia schtick. Plus he managed to survive getting amplified damage thrown at him last night.
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Peccavi claims to be an Arcadian telekinetic who trusted Wiet a little too much in the beginning. I don't have any proof that he is lying or telling the truth.
I will also go with Egos pending further scientific evidence.
I've been completely honest about my actions in the thread, and there's nothing else I can really say in defense. Taya had some sort of resistance on day 4 that prevented me from damaging her, and if I were mafia, there would be no reason for me to take a potshot 4 damage against her.
0
AnialosCollies are love, Collies are life!Shadowbrook ColliesRegistered Userregular
I can somewhat vouch for Peccavi. As for the Egos vote, I agree they are suspicious, but is there any reasoning Lucedes is any less so?
Sorry for being gone today, errbody. Weekends are tough for me (moved 2 people on Saturday...awesome). Will read through and try and figure this all out tomorrow.
Posts
Also, I will trade a slice of pizza for 5 cookies!
"Let's see. One puny little telekinetic, one trumped up playfighter with a toy sword."
Segat slowly parted his hands. The squadron ruptured, some stumbling, some flying into the air, all bleeding and wrenched and twisted. The scourge banished flesh and stone alike, leaving but a crater.
"I am part of a great wave of purity and purpose. Arcadia will be cleansed of the faithless, and The First will walk these lands again.
I am not merely of the faithful. I am the Faith itself. The power is within me and I long to share it with you.
Do not fear the might of the Triumvirate, for we are perfection, and we shall correct the great mistake that is society. We are your saviours."
He paused. A much, much larger group was heading towards him. A sea of green uniforms, some toting rifles, others crackling with psionic power. Itching for a fight.
Segat cleared his throat, and walked back through his surrounding entourage. "Come, my kindred. Let us retire to my personal craft. I grow bored of these docile, slavish fools."
Trying not to hurry, Segat and the other Cultists boarded the dropship and rocketed back towards one of the Armada's three main battlecruisers.
Kwychen navigated a swarm of Cultists as if they weren't there. In fact, they weren't. He made most of them vanish in wisps of purple flame.
When he'd finished with the dozen or so who'd dared to be in his path while failing to demonstrate sufficient respect and/or sheer terror, he turned to the next mob...
They were dead on the ground. Three figures stood over the golden-clothed fanatics, recharging rifles or cleaning blades.
J'dark made a motion, and an aura of light briefly shined at his finger tips. "Kwychen. Stand down, it's over."
"You really think 'Dunadan' was a good alias?" Cayrus asked. "Not much of a cover."
"Well, yes," said Kwychen. "It took you this long to find me, after all. Or maybe you knew you couldn't take me alone. Maybe you wanted to see if the Armada could soften me up."
They said nothing. Kwychen looked from the precision telekinetic, to the hulking cyborg, to the dexterous swordsman. All were approaching the stairs leading to the park's ornate (and currently ruined) fountain, which Kwychen stood before like a particularly sinister addition to the surrounding sculptures.
He sighed, as if they were a big inconsiderate inconvenience. "So you really want to do this? Very well. Let's get it over with, and then you can pretend you made any kind of difference."
Langly rushed him. Kwychen didn't so much sidestep as slide five metres, letting the hulking cyborg smash little more than an ugly carved... whatever it was supposed to be.
Cayrus descended upon him in a furious barrage of glinting steel, but each swipe was parried by a sudden flash of energy... and followed by a psychokinetic discharge that sent him flying out of sight.
Langly aimed a punch at the back of Kwychen's head and, without his opponent even seeming to turn, he found his outsized fist rebounding ineffectually against the man's elbow block. The arm looked thin and puny by comparison, but it was like trying to crack a lamppost. A casual flick of the wrist had the cyborg smashing through a discoloured heron statue and demolishing part of the fountain podium's highly wrought railings.
J'dark tried to skewer the transmuter with an intangible lance, only to find his psi deflected harmless away. He tossed out a bolt, a probe, a series of prying and clawing projections that attempted to bypass Kwychen's fields and rend his flesh, but each of them was parried with increasing ease.
J'dark lowered his hands, concentrating, preparing to give it his all, and Kwychen put a hole through his chest.
Langly emerged from a mound of fractured marble and dealt Kwychen a punch that would've tossed a car aside. Kwychen grimaced, head snapping back with the force of it, but suddenly he was upright again and holding the tall augmented man by the neck. His other hand drew slowly level with Langly's face...
Kwychen stopped. He glanced down, and saw a very long, very sharp blade poking out the centre of his chest.
"This body... was always finite..."
Cayrus suddenly pulled his sword free. Kwychen shivered. He closed his eyes and slumped forwards, collapsing into dwindling motes of light before he'd even finished tumbling down the steps.
"So, you're one of the 'perfect demigods' that everyone's been raving on about, huh? Part of the holy and great Triumvirate."
Segat turned around slowly, with a strange calm. He spoke with the same smoothness with which he moved. "Ahh, Rend, is it? Otherwise known as the Renegade? I was wondering when you'd arrive. Please, have a seat, would you?"
Rend walked around, examining the objects in the room, glancing at Segat sporadically. "No, I think I'm all right standing. You do know why I'm here, I assume?"
Segat grinned wide. "You're here to kill me. You cannot live with the fact that a being such as I, a perfect demigod, exists. Or, to be more precise, you cannot handle that I seek to use my power, my perfection, in the ways I have chosen."
Rend's eyes went wide with surprise. "I'm impressed. You've studied for today's test! To be fair, it's more that you are arrogant enough to call yourself perfect than any perfection you obviously don't have, but hey, semantics, right?"
There was no waiting. Immediately, waves of psychic power emanated from the two. Reality itself rippled from the stress between them. "What?!" Rend said, gasping for breath. Segat cackled madly, pushing his advantage, his psionic power steadily inching toward Rend.
"Your era has ended, Renegade! Even a transmuter is no match for a perfect demigod!" He pushed one last time.
"No, this cannot be... It cannot happen like this! You... you're... you're actually perfect...!" Rend shrieked before disappearing in an eddy of pure psychic hostility.
"Oh come on, seriously?" a voice said through the environment itself.
"Kwychen, why did you have to ruin the surprise?"
Segat spun rapidly, his eyes wide with surprise. "You...?!"
Segat was suddenly paralyzed, gripped in a level of psychic pain he had never imagined existed. He began to sweat.
Kwychen appeared in front of him.
"No worse the wear for dying, I see," he gave Rend a nod. "You let your guard down."
"Perhaps," said Rend. "But I didn't get killed by a man with a sword."
With a snort, Kwychen folded his arms and took a step back; a step back from reality. He phased into his own little dimension. Let Rend have his moment, he could have the next.
The Renegade casually sauntered over to the living statue, laying a comforting hand on Segat's shoulder. "Look, I know you were planning on winning. I know you were going to go off and do great things, I get that.
"But that's not what this universe is for. Subjugation is what we do to those we fear. Death, though? Death is a gift. Death is a virtue. Death is, quite simply, the epitome for which we should all strive." Segat's muscles were tensed to the point of snapping. His lip twitched ever so slightly as sinews and tendons writhed and vibrating beneath his skin. "And those goals you mentioned earlier? Well, I regret to inform you that you might not be going in the right direction there."
I'd ask you to go to your friends, the other 'perf-'"
He stopped himself from laughing. "Oh hell, I can't even say it."
He recomposed himself. "Ahem. I'd ask you to go to your peers, and tell them, but, honestly? That's a message I'd really rather deliver myself. One on one? You are as nothing to me. And that's the great irony; for all your 'perfection', you need other people to do your dirty work."
"I do my own dirty work. And I do it with a smile."
Rend made a gesture. Segat folded in on himself, again and again, until he'd crumpled into nothing.
Then the Renegade walked through the wall, and the entire warship set itself alight.
Arcadia watched as one of the Armada's colossal craft plummeted down in sheets of flame.
The ship held Domarians, High Councillors, and the elite mishmash that was the self-dubbed Strike Force. Despite their disparate backgrounds there was an air of celebration in the rec room. The rest of the Sector's intrigue and melodrama was forgotten amidst good food and far too much drink.
Right up until Kwychen appeared in the middle of it. There was much in the way of spilled drinks and coughs and spit-takes.
The Strike Force was not so easily intimidated. They knew that Kwychen was a mere shade right now, a hollow empty projection until he marshalled his energies again.
"Here we are again," Kwychen tutted, hands behind his back, strolling around like a captain inspecting his command. "Abandoning the war zone when the war has barely begun. Do you know what makes us different?"
"The difference is that you're dead," said Langly, flexing a bionic hand. "Good luck with that. You know, the being dead."
"You don't get it, do you? My kind cannot experience true death. The Renegade gets all sad about that; it's one of the reasons he's so desperate to share death with others. Vicarious living, of a sort. No, the real difference is that we can see things in the long term. The big picture. Mortality tends to get in the way of other people doing that. Although I hear J'dark is in the infirmary. Didn't cope too well with my little gift?"
Langly took a step forward, but Cayrus placed a hand on his arm. But the other was on his hilt. Force of habit; Cayrus knew Kwychen was too intangible to touch anyone. Or be stabbed.
"It's over," Fechlis said gently. "At the very least, you could appreciate how—"
"Over? Over?" Kwychen sighed. "Good god, how you people ended up as superpowers... This is anything but over. Hurrah, part of the Triumvirate is dead, oh yes, let's all applaud the geniuses who nodded along while their leaders marked him for death and go get drunk and place bets.
Incidentally, we killed Segat. You couldn't even manage that part yourself; he flees to his cabin on a battlecruiser and all of a sudden the masses lose heart and can't pursue. Typical.
"You," Kwychen pointed at Fechlis, "and especially you," he added, jabbing at Shalmelo, "run home and congratulate yourselves if you will. But make sure your masters come back in force. If the Cultists triumph, they will begin a ritual."
The group exchanged glances.
"What's so bad about the ritual?" Shalmelo finally gave their confusion a voice.
"I'm an immortal transdimensional psychic abomination. When I tell you something is bad, how about you just take it as a given."
Kwychen vanished.
Dunadan019, Kwychen, hit with absolutely every kind of offensive ability
tastypastry, the Operative, murdered with extreme telepathic force
Void Slayer, a Telekinetic, wiped out by horrible psychokinetic energies
SeGaTai, the first of the Cultist Armada's Triumvirate, fled the citizens of Arcadia and found something worse
Departing Arcadia in Victory
Cayrus, jdarksun, Langly - The Strike Force, eliminated the Cultist Overseer and Kwychen
FecklessRogue, (posthumously) REG Rysk - The High Council's representatives, faction outlived the Renegade and Kwychen
shalmelo, (posthumously) Tayrun - the Domarian Legion's representatives, faction outlived the Renegade and Kwychen
All Outsiders and Chaotics have been removed from the game.
As is sometimes the tradition in phalla, I may end Day 8 early if it looks like all the players come to decisions and resolve things in such a way that one side emerges victorious.
And I'll probably have another over-long narration to go with it
Egos. There's nothing really in his early vote record on the magic box. Two throw away votes, two big bandwagon votes. But I think he's being quiet and that's his mafia schtick. Plus he managed to survive getting amplified damage thrown at him last night.
Still waiting on those cookies...
ooOOoOOoooOOOoooOOo
1: Munkus Beaver
2: I needed a name to post.
3: Baidol
4: SeGaTai
5: Smoove Operator
6: Spoit
7: Wiet
8: kime
9: Peccavi
10: Gumpy
11: Langly
12: Melding
13: Tayrun
14: tastypastry
15: Cythraul
16: Taya
17: Egos
18: REG Rysk
19: Pharezon
20: ObiFett
21: HeavyVillain
22: Cayrus
23: shalmelo
24: Bedlam
25: SLyM
26: Assuran
27: 38thDoe
28: Shabooty
29: sportzboytjw
30: TheRoadVirus
31: romanqwerty
32: jdarksun
33: Phyphor
34: The Anonymous
35: Infidel Ringo (sub)
36: Rend
37: Winky
38: Lucedes
39: Anialos
40: The Ender
41: Retaba
42: Alegis
43: Void Slayer
44: Dunadan019
45: schuss
46: Figgy
47: vertroue
48: FecklessRogue
49: Nirya
50: That Dave Fella
51: corvidae
52: MrTLicious
5: Smoove Operator
9: Peccavi
15: Cythraul
16: Taya
17: Egos
35: Infidel Ringo (sub)
38: Lucedes
39: Anialos
41: Retaba
I think that is right.
So are we down to the last two mafia, or do we think there's more?
Great work, shal!
OOoooOOOOOooooOOOOO
I was the very first vote on SeGaTai yesterday. I was in the Wiet wagons on both Day 1 (as Infidel) and Day 2.
I am Arcadian.
Get in touch with me, please.
I will also go with Egos pending further scientific evidence.
STRIKE FORCE RULES
OoOOOoOOOoOOOOOOOOOoO
Still a win!
/stabby stab stab
oooooooOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOO
Henri Emmanuel Gratien St Pierre in Where No Man Has Gone Before
Lord Augustus Cumberbatch in Eclipse Phase
_____________________________________________
HoTS: Schmutz#1686
Interesting, we'll see what else comes out between now and when I get to work tomorrow.
But who's vouching for you, would be my question here.
Nobody! Not that I know of anyways. All the people I was talking too have either died with the color I thought they would or left victorious.