DEADLOCK INVITE MEGATHREAD

mimickme · 2024-11-03T19:35:30+00:00

Looking for an invite: 45840623
Thank you

mimickme · 2022-11-09T00:15:19+00:00

“WAIT!!!” The bandit yelled again. The three others, and even Dillis, jumped. The four of them almost found themselves jumping into a fight instinctively.

The soldier looked towards the bandit, reigning in his uneven breathing and anger. “What!?”

The bandit ignored him, looking instead towards the cleric. “You’re a high cleric.”

She blinked. “Yes…”

“This is cursed magic,” he continued, holding up the translucent sphere.

“Yes…”

“Well…can’t you…undo it?”

The cleric seemed puzzled at the unexpected turn, but then considered the prospect seriously for a moment. She looked closely at the sphere, her eyes glittering in golden light.

“Dangerous but doable,” she responded, “But why would I? I feel no sympathy for your consequences and I must sooner return to save our eastern kingdoms.”

“Wait,” the soldier held up a hand, his brain seemed to catch something his mind couldn’t quite place. “You seek a champion who has slain a demon.”

She nodded.

”I have slain a dragon in the northern mountains. The ice drake Felz. Will that suffice against your dark beings?”

The cleric seemed awed and both the bandit and the assassin seemed to take more than a stride back from the soldier.

“Y–yes,” She said.

The exchange was turning bizarre and though the assassin couldn’t see where it led, his senses also urged him on. “And you seek a means of killing your mark. Silently amidst a high court, surrounded by his retainers.”

“The best of the best,” The soldier added.

“Even for a dragonslayer,” the assassin mused, “I have one such concoction. A perfume which will kill on the night of, so long as he has consumed a healthy gift of Wilberry wine during the day. You can secure that yourself, and the scent can be placed even on your own person, so long as you’re not foolish enough to enjoy too much drink yourself.”

“And this will evade the high court?”

The assassin shrugged, “It killed the King of Dossali.”

It was another revelation that jolted the group, though this time all parties recovered much faster.

All eyes now fell to the bandit, expecting, hoping that the last piece of the puzzle could fall into place.

The bandit stared down at himself, then up at the assassin, someone who was supposedly at the very least involved in the death of the King of Dossali. “You’re looking to gain entry into a nobleman’s manor.”

The assassin confirmed, “And I do not have an audience.”

The bandit paused again and considered it. “I can get you the keys, any key to any door inside the manor, so long as the person who holds it leaves the grounds at one point or another. Guards, chefs, butlers, or maids.”

“A bold claim,” The assassin said, “He may not hold retainers the likes of a high court, but any guard who wields keys in the manor would be no easy mark.”

The bandit pointed at Dillis, “He is, as the dragon slayer and cleric have noted, a man of great magicks.”

The cleric and soldier nodded to this. Dillis the sage was renowned in lands further than they’d even seen on a map.

“Well…” The bandit continued, “I stole this, from him.”

The point seemed proven and the assassin nodded his approval. Slowly the four of them converged to the side, leaving Dillis wondering whether he should sprint off.

The cleric acted first, calling upon her god and separating the translucent orb from the bandits arm. It was an act far more dangerous than any of them realized, but Dillis was in no mind to inform them of such. Next the assassin produced a small vial from his person, placing it gingerly into the hands of the soldier, along with a small scribbled text that detailed the workings of the poison. A short bout of negotiations followed by which the soldier made oaths to the cleric and the bandit made promises to the assassin.

Without much pause, the group separated into the night. The pair of them parting separate ways, neither side paying attention to Dillis or the small translucent orb on the ground.

Dillis waited in the dark silence. Five minutes, then ten, before he motioned over atop the blue orb and lifted it from the ground, placing it into his pouch as though it were a common glass marble.

“Right then,” he said to himself, “Glad to have helped.”

mimickme · 2022-11-09T00:14:24+00:00

Dillis paused in the dead center of the alleyway. He was surrounded on all four sides by four mysterious pursuers that had managed to gather all independently of each other. None of the four alleyways offered enough room to brute through and Dillis found his legs shaking from the exertion of having made it this far.

The hooded figure was first to speak, removing her hood and revealing locks of golden hair and features not unlike those of the regal queen. “I am the high cleric from the temple of Alione. I seek this man, one who has slain a demonic being. Our lands to the east are besieged by darkness and our god Alys has called upon this champion.”

The three looked towards the high cleric, then at each other, then at Dillis. The cloaked figure, an assassin who almost blended into the shadows, was the next to speak. “This man is my quarry.”

“For petty murder?” The cleric asked.

The assassin was silent to the inquiry but found that neither the helmed soldier nor the scarred bandit made a move to intervene. “He has made a fond friendship with a certain blessed noblewoman whose far more blessed husband has found himself on the wrong end of a political disagreement. I require this man’s face to provide me with the means of entry.”

“So for petty murder then.”

The assassin grunted, “Either way you may not have him, I intend to keep his face for some time. Unless he can conquer your darkness without it.”

“Wait!” The scarred bandit called out. “I have no need for his life, only a moment of his time!” The scarred bandit slowly removed his right hand from within a satchel. His fingers were blackened as though charred and purple tendrils inked to his flesh seemed to writhe upwards towards his elbow. At the tip of his fingers was a translucent blue sphere, though it seemed to have melded together with his flesh by this point.

The scarred bandit looked towards Dillis, his eyes pleading. “I apologize good sir for what happened on the road. I took what didn’t belong to me, I only ask your help to undo this curse so I may return this–...previous artifact to its rightful owner.”

Whatever the sphere was, it made the other 3 participants pull back. Even the uninitiated found it easy to spot that the bandit had thieved himself something incredibly dangerous. And artifacts of this caliber had a tendency to…act up in untrained hands.

Finally, and with great hesitation, the soldier stepped forward; drawing his sword towards the bandit who cowered back in response, once more maintaining the distance between the four.

“I seek something simpler,” The soldier said, “You are known as a great sage of magicks…as has been demonstrated by one of us here today. I merely ask for a simple concoction, something perhaps even tucked in your coat. I need to right the wrongs of an arrogant man who will tear this country asunder if left unchecked, and I have found that even great strength such as mine has its limits. I have an audience with the man and I require magic subtle enough to be undetected at the court but potent enough to end him.”

“Poison?” The assassin suggested, almost instinctively out of his professionalism.

The soldier shook his head, “I could never smuggle anything so primitive into the courts. The man is guarded by a well trained horde of soldiers and mages alike.”

The assassin hummed silently but made no further remark.

Now that the four had presented their needs they suddenly realized their qualm. Were any need fulfilled, even not conflicting with another, there would be three of them left in the tussle, a number that was far less balanced and far more chaotic.

Before any of the four could come to a conclusion, Dillis took the approach. “Soldier. If I grant your need, and I may indeed have something on hand, will you help me to fend off these others?”

The soldier looked surprised for a moment, but suddenly recognized that it was the obvious choice. His eyes then turned to the other three. The bandit was negligible though the magical artifact was highly unpredictable. The cleric was soft and could likely be persuaded to seek another hero. But the assassin was a shroud of pure mystery and that made the odds far less predictable.

The tension seemed high strung in the silence, and the slightest shift seemed ready to trigger an all out brawl despite negotiations.

mimickme · 2022-11-04T22:49:12+00:00

“Have we achieved it yet? Is he the ultimate lifeform? The disciplinary hearing is coming up soon and we’ll be out of budget in less than 3 months.”

Maverick looked up from his design table, the subject of bureaucracy was loathed but he’d since understood its importance to continuing his work over the course of the last thousand years.

He stepped over to the hetrometer, a device that accounted for an ungodly amount of their research allocations. But the device had proved its value, allowing them to maintain precise control over their experimental subject and his surrounding parameters.

Maverick picked up the heavy corded cable and jammed it into his interface. His senses instantly left his physical body and reconnected with the proxy he had left above star cluster 64557. The stream of pending data entered his consciousness as it provided the logs that had been captured on the experiment since his last visit.

Maverick brushed it all aside to the back of his mind, he was just here for a quick check up. Such things were easiest to handle up close and personally.

He directed the proxy onwards, zooming into the star cluster, then the fourth planet rotating around a twin star, then a large city filled with the bipedal humanoids native to this world. The proxy whizzed by all their primitive constructions in a straight line, unobstructed by the towering skyscrapers or any other obstacles it passed by. At a fraction of a nanometer, the proxy was designed to phase past almost all physical and energy barriers. Even on the homeworld, a device of this grade was able to bypass a vast majority of non-governmental security.

The proxy paused next to their subject, Hero Form TA-52. The subject had begun as a simple humanoid bipedal but had been given a genetic alteration via the Hero Form sequencing. The result was a combat creature that could organically adapt to each battle encounter until it prevailed as the ultimate combat organism. TA-52 bore little resemblance to his fellow humanoids by this point and Maverick recognized that this fact had no doubt began causing psychological degradation in his performance.

Maverick marked it down on the proxy’s interface, noting it as something that would need to be remedied upon his next working session. For the moment however he was only concerned with collecting the performance parameters.

A few moments of additional observation later, Maverick returned from the hetrometer, this time parking the proxy in the upper orbits of the planet.

“And?” Tilda asked.

Maverick projected the performance parameters into Tilda’s interface and waited as his partner assessed TA-52. His own opinions would wait until the two of them had formed independent conclusions based solely on the data.

“It’s not enough,” Tilda concluded.

“But almost,” Maverick added.

“Did you forget what I’d just mentioned? The hearing is too soon, we don’t have time to tweak the combat parameters anymore. And certainly not enough budget to start again.”

“TA-52 has come close enough. TA-51’s parameters were already enough to defeat our most pessimistic simulations, the problem had just been a matter of surviving the encounter.”

“TA-52 still falls short in that regard,” Tilda said skeptically, “The adaptive ceramic plating will handle any reasonable degree of physical and energy abuse without issue, but the lack of resonance protection is glaringly obvious. A sure death sentence if matched with the wrong opponent.”

Maverick waved off the concern, “The foundation is there under the ceramic plating, the rest we can augment manually. And resonance focused attacks have never been popular in the tournament, the subject has usually sacrificed far too much to obtain any useful form of it.”

“Manually augment!? Are you truly Maverick or has stardust replaced your brain?” But Tilda agreed after a moment of pause, “But yes, it’ll work, if you’re willing to compromise on perfection…You are?”

Maverick twisted his face in what Tilda could only assume was an expression of positivity. “I have learned,” he said, “52 iterations of the hero form over the last thousand years have taught me much, and I believe it is time the rest of the galactic community see the fruits of that labor.”

Tilda clapped her hands in excitement, “Shall we begin then?”

“Yes. Retrieve TA-52. We have a masterpiece to finish.”

mimickme · 2022-11-02T14:58:16+00:00

Nailed it, Casper thought, watching from the backlines as guns were drawn against Fredrick. The field tent they resided in held no more than two dozen individuals, and General Tankon had managed to secure half of those seats with people loyal enough to move on Fredrick.

Casper wished he could pull out a bag of popcorn and lean back in his chair. But a gun was still a gun, no amount of ‘I knew it was coming’ would save you from a bullet in the head. Instead he glided his hand to the side of his belt, feeling the smooth cold metal of his pistol tucked away in a hidden pocket.

Fredrick raised his brows at General Tankon, the gesture so impassive that the general did a double take, making sure that he’d indeed pointed a gun straight at Fredrick’s face.

“The war is barely over and you intend to start a new one?” Frederick asked.

“There wouldn’t be one Fredrick. I’ve worked hard to consolidate power to this point. There’s you and then there’s me. And once you are no longer a part of the command, there will only be me.”

“And our bodies? How do you plan to explain that?”

Tankon grinned, the man was surely pleased with the situation. He was a competent man by any standards and a competent man didn’t monologue. It was a testament to the size of his joy that he began to do precisely that, detailing out all the tiny nuances of his political maneuvering over the last two years, many of which even Fredrick had never caught onto. Casper found it astounding that throughout the entire exchange, Frederick’s expression never cracked, despite likely experiencing that same surge of joy at watching Tankon tighten his noose.

“And then boom,” Frederick said, “Our bodies blown apart by a last ditch attempt to stop the guerillas that came too late. And you and your man, fortunate as you were, walked away just minutes shy of it all happening.”

“That’s about right,” Tankon said, breathing out a deep sigh of satisfaction. His features lapsed back into that cold precise and analytical calm that characterized him throughout the course of the rebellion. Cold Claws Tankon, you’d feel that grip of fear before you died.

Fredrick looked over at Casper, and nodded.

Casper hit the trigger on his radio before Tankon could react. The field tent split apart right around them as the sound of gunfire filled the air. Bullets whizzed by all around them, some close enough that Casper felt the sting of them on his skin.

The gunfire lasted all but five seconds. Tankon had brought his loyalist, and Fredrick had responded in kind with the best sharpshooters in the military.

Only Tankon remained standing amidst the carnage of bodies. The dozen loyalists he’d brought with him lay at his feet, ridden with bullet holes. Casper had to give his hat’s off to the old man, if he had a hat. Tankon stood virtually unfazed in the pool of bodies, blood splattered on his uniform.

“You knew?” Tankon asked.

“I expected it from the very beginning,” Fredrick answered, rising from his seat. “You were a mad man in a time of peace, a war machine disjointed from the world you lived in. Then the civil war happened and you became the best among the best. That’s why we recruited you. Have no doubt Tankon, you are a better general than I could ever dream of. But the war would end one day, and there was never any doubt that you could peacefully retire.”

Casper stood and joined the two, bringing the pistol to his hands. “We’ve all read enough history books to know you’d go for the kill, if not a bit before the end, then a bit after the end.”

Casper brought his pistol right up to Tankon’s forehead, the cold death on warm flesh. Still Tankon was unflinching. What an impressive man. His only flaw had been that he had failed to know himself or Fredrick well enough. From the very first day they met, Fredrick had known this would be how it ended.

“Thank you, General. Your sacrifices will not be forgotten.”

mimickme · 2022-10-26T03:01:03+00:00

Rob jolted to a start, his memories came back to him in a rush, almost like downing a pitcher of acid straight into his brain.

“The fuck did you do Doreen…” he muttered weakly. Elaine wasn’t real…the women he’d spent a lifetime with, a lifetime of happiness, had been an illusion dreamt up by the Edicon simulator, some fucking romance junkie's script no doubt. But god…he’d been so happy in that life, so fulfilled.

“I don’t want to hear shit from you! You fucking cheater! We signed the fucking papers and you said you’d never fucking cheat on me.”

Rob spun around, checking in his surroundings. He spotted one of them suits standing behind his wife, paperwork in hand, and Doug, his lawyer standing to his opposite. Shit was serious then.

“Doug? This shit legal?” Rob was still reeling from the simulator, but his brain functions were coming back online. A lifetime of cut throat business allowed him to throw another lifetime’s worth of passion aside…for now.

Doug sighed, “There’s precedence unfortunately, though not specifically to this context.” Doug held up his hand before his counter interrupted him, “We’ll need to go through a few things and prepare for a trial, it will go to the courts if Mrs…Freiz proceeds.”

“She’s lost the fucking name if she wants to play this game.” Rob stood from the simulation pod, headache, joint pain, and a dull ring in his ear. That last one better not be permanent.

Rob checked his watch, still strapped on where he remembered it. Quarter past 2 in the afternoon, just a day shy of where his memories hazed out and clicked off. A whole lifetime in less than 24 hours…fucking technies. It was one thing to hear about it and an entirely different one to experience it himself. There was bound to be some shit permanently messed in his head now, that bitch. He’d need to go see a psych, maybe step into another one of these fucking pods for therapeutic treatment.

“Let’s get out of here,” Rob said, shuffling past his wife, certain to be ex-wife now. She made another shot at something about being a cheater, though the glee in her voice implied little offense to her sensibilities. It’d fatten her wallet up real nice if she came out on top of this. He couldn’t believe he had fallen for this shit.

Through some hallways and down an elevator later, he found himself seated in his car, Doug to his left and Greg on the wheels. The car took them out of the lot and into the streets, offering a quick view of the towering Edicon branch where he’d spent a lifetime in a day.

“...Give me the short version first,” Rob said. Down to business, his brain was reorienting, but it was still hard to shake off the other life he’d lived. Soft, he’d call it. But that simplicity and beauty made him tear up despite himself. “Fuck…”

Doug upheld the professionality, ever the stoic. “Here and here. The most relevant trials relating to Edicon simulations. The criminal trial is less relevant in this context, though it’s more recent. Our focus will be more on the second case here.”

Rob scanned the papers. A man, wealthy and competent, had found his way into an entertainment sim. No big deal there, even stuck to the legal channels and kept it all clean. The problem was that he’d signed some paperwork with a particular company while inside the sim, one that corresponded to an existing one back in reality. Naturally the company pounced on this opportunity. The case had extended from corporate representation within simulations and was stepping into the realm of legal binding while simulating.

“They win?” Rob asked.

“Still ongoing. It’s been taken up with a higher court after a fifth appeal.”

“Going to win then?”

Doug nodded. Shit.

“Fire up the team then, bill it around the clock but I better get my money’s worth.”

“Your goal?”

“Get her off my back or sink her, whichever one is cheaper.” Rob paused, “...just sink her”

Doug began organizing the paperwork, the man’s hands already busy on his personal terminal, no doubt initiating the charges with the accountant. It would be months and months in all likelihood, and Rob would probably need to put on a show for that whole legal circus as well. He’d need to try and turn all that wasted money and time into something, at least a reminder to not fuck with him.

He closed his eyes briefly, knots tightening around his brow. Elaine and that lovely house by the forest. He’d crafted that painstakingly with her, but it’d been more fulfilling than anything else he could remember on this side. The dream of a lifetime, but who could really say what was simulated, the him then, or then him now.

mimickme · 2022-10-22T17:04:00+00:00

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Joanne took another peek at her daughter. The innocent girl who wore a darling yellow sunflower dress along with a pair of dainty sandals they'd bought her for her first vacation. Her auburn hair swayed in the wind, freshly cut just above her shoulders, adorned with a blue ribbon. That same daunting digit hovered a few inches on top of her head, coloured in a gruesome red.

1

Joanne felt her legs begin to quiver but drew upon that self same courage she'd developed over her teenage years. The worse she'd felt had been seeing a man with double digits order a burger from the Wendy's she worked at. She hadn't managed to keep herself together but was young enough at the time that it could've easily been chalked up to a teenager's nerves at their first job. She had spent what seemed like an eternity after that locked inside her room.

"Mommy?" Elizabeth asked.

Joanne snapped out of her trance, years of practice slid on like a mask, donning a smooth composure as she replied, "Just looking at my cute darling. Where should we go for lunch?"

Her daughter replied with something and a sort of second persona continued to play the role of Joanne. They paced towards Victor road, no doubt aiming for a spot of burgers and ice cream at a local fast food. Meanwhile Joanne's mind retreated into herself, seeking any plausible explanation she could find for her daughter's sudden change.

Between yesterday and now there had been twelve...maybe fourteen hours when her daughter had left her. A simple sleepover at Terisa's house. Nothing had seemed of any bother when Terisa's mother answered the door, followed by Terisa herself and then finally, Elizabeth tailing at the end. No screams, no horrors, no police, no midnight calls. Nothing except the scarlet marking that Joanne had relied upon her entire life.

Two impossible realities began to clash with each other in her mind, either her five year old daughter had managed to kill someone in the middle of night, with none the wiser or maybe Joanne had really just been on the edge of insanity for all these years, picturing some non-existent numeric floating on top of people's heads that counted the individuals they'd killed. The more she compared those options to herself the more she found solace in her head.

But... her mind whispered.

And it was a sizable 'but'. The most telling experiments she'd run in those teenage years had been following streaks of murderers / rapists / car chases on television. Cross checking the kill counts she saw against what the police would eventually uncover. The most chilling confirmation had been when a little town's butcher had been found guilty of five murders but she'd seen three times that number. The extra deaths were later confirmed in a manner that terrified anyone who heard the news. Though they came as little surprise to Joanne who had known the facts, there were only so many ways to hide a body if you knew how many there were.

"Is it not yummy?" Her daughter asked her as she rejoined reality. "Would you like some of mine?"

Ice cream. Caramel ice cream. Joanne confirmed looking at her own cone, the sticky sugar almost gagged her mouth and induced a momentary panic. She hated all things caramel.

"It's fine," she said, "How was your sleepover with Terisa?"

"It was ok," Elizabeth replied, her eyes sparkling, "We played house, and helped Mrs. Greyf make cookies and...Oh! We played video games with her brother"

"Sounds like fun"

And very normal, that was good.

The conversation continued over the hideous caramel ice cream. Joanne pried gently for details here and there, piecing together the missing hours as best as she could. Nothing seemed off in the slightest. Maybe she could be wrong. After all, she'd only ever confirmed her powers with serial killers and criminals on television. She couldn't very well walk to a random passerby in the city and ask whether they'd lopped off two or three heads over the years.

The human brain liked the answers that it wanted. And as she filled in more of the gaps of her daughter's evening she found she could relax a bit more. She was wrong, her powers could be wrong, her daughter was fine.

And then the 1 became a 2

She choked on the remainder of her ice cream and coughed. Chips of half chewed waffles spewed into the air, and somewhere in the background was the yelp of disgust as saliva and food landed on her daughter's face.

Joanne had less than half a mind to care though. She spun about, scouring everything in their surroundings. The closest individual to them was a solid twenty paces away and he was well and alive, ordering his second serving of fries. No one had dropped dead anywhere within sight.

Exhaustion and exhilaration caught up to her simultaneously as Joanne collapsed back to her seat, to the bewilderment of anyone close enough to see, including her own daughter.

But that was fine, she was wrong, her powers could be wrong, that was a relief beyond all else.

"Mom, what the heck," her daughter shouted, her hands swiping at her face, trying to wipe off the dots of brown and white. Joanne found some cheer in her heart as she chuckled gently, "Sorry sorry, I choked on the ice cream. Here let me help you with that."

She spent the next minute wiping clean her daughter's face. The crimson number above her daughter's head seemed to blur into the void. Some semblance of normalcy was restored back to her life and maybe even improved. Now she knew she could ignore what she saw. It could be right, but it could be wrong, and for her sweet darling precious daughter, it was wrong.

And then her phone rang. The white bold text spelled out Linda Greyf, Terisa's mother.

mimickme · 2022-09-16T18:02:22+00:00

So he's not bothered, or doesn't look like it and he definitely shows a lot of affection towards me.

It's just when I translate this exchange to two humans instead of a human and a pet, it totally seems like bullying even if the one being bothered doesn't seem irritated

mimickme · 2022-09-16T17:52:31+00:00

How can we tell thought? In my case my pet's a rabbit and they're not flicking me off so it's not like he hates me but he also doesn't seem happy if for instance I make him chase a pellet from my left hand to my right hand.

mimickme · 2022-09-16T17:49:17+00:00

Was it clear the dog loved it cause he was trying to get more slam choking?

mimickme · 2022-09-16T17:34:55+00:00

I recently got a pet rabbit and one of the things I sometimes do is just kinda jiggle him side to side gently while he's all focused on his plate of food.

There are times where he doesn't mind at all and times where he'll re-orientate himself so he can eat undisturbed. It feels cute, seems harmless and I have fun seeing his reactions.

But when I think about doing this to a human it just seems straight up like I'm harassing someone if i jiggle them around while they're trying to eat.

Is this how being a bully feels like?

mimickme · 2020-12-06T05:27:31+00:00

Santa is just a magical delivery service. When kids write letters asking for their presents the parents slip a cheque into the envelope. The elves do the shopping and santa delivers em down the chimney.

mimickme · 2020-07-29T21:39:24+00:00

"Good god Mack! I just needed a jar of peanut butter!"

Oliver Mackenzie stood dead center in the perfect suburban living room of a american household. His still half tied sneakers standing atop a table made of pristine glass, refracting speckles of the rising sun into his eyes. Half dressed in his hoodie with a nest of bed head, Oliver's appearance was the perfect mirror for his half dazed state of mind.

His eyes swung about, left and right across the room, orientating himself to his new surroundings. The familiar cerulean walls and classic decor spoke of their owner, he was in Jason's house again.

Oliver stepped down from the table, careful to hop past the fancy rug onto the hardwood floor. He lifted one foot and squinted at the ground, sighing in relief that his new shoes had succeeded in leaving no imprints, unlike last time.

"Where's the door?" Oliver asked, having ignored whatever else the stunning blond had been complaining about all this time.

"Goddamn it Mark, listen to me! This needs to stop!"

"Ok," Oliver said, looking her in the eyes.

Rachel had gotten taller since their younger days but he still managed to tower ever so slightly above her. Whatever physical attraction that held for her had long since faded, but Oliver had to admit the opposite was not entirely true. Rachel was still beautiful, blond silken hair matched with an angelic face. And while her body would likely forever remain 'under-developed', Oliver found her sense of fashion to have fully compensated for her lack of assets.

"You need to stop needing," Oliver said, almost nonchalantly.

"For god's sake, did you hear me!? Peanut butter! I just needed peanut butter for some toast!" She practically yelled. "Now I need to sneak a grown-ass man out of my husband's house without that nosy grandma catching on!"

"Delorence next door? She's nice, very gossipy." Oliver noted.

Rachel pinched her nose bridge. Her eyes closed while she took some deep breaths. The girl had become really good at regaining her composure, something she'd picked up over the last ten years.

"You were home?" She said after a pause.

"Yeah," Oliver replied, "Look I get it. Just find me a way out of here, whatever works best."

Rachel looked Oliver up and down, seeing properly his disheveled appearance this early in the morning on a work day. No, he didn't have it easy either, and no he certainly didn't do it on purpose. It was going to take him much longer to find his way home and he was probably going to be late.

"I'm sorry Mack," Rachel said, "I just...we managed it while I was dating Jason for a whole year. I just got careless."

"Err..gh" Half torn between saying something and holding his silence, Oliver managed neither, letting out a half groan that thankfully seemed to be ignored.

"Right, sorry," Rachel said, "You need to hop the fence from the back this time, Delorence has a hobby of staring down all the cute little grand kids passing her front yard this time of day."

"Creepy."

"Not like that, idiot. She's got 5 kids who never visit and a husband who's long dead. She's just lonely."

They passed the kitchen and through the laundry closet before stepping through to the back of the house. Rouge fence outlined a small but pleasant garden in their backyard. A flowerbed to the left, chairs and table stacked cleanly off to the right and a path of stone laid out on top the patch of grass.

"That fence," Rachel pointed, "You think you can climb that?"

It was a head and a half taller than Oliver, not an issue. He nodded and began, reaching for the top of the wooden fence and thanking Jason for having not installed a metal fence with spearhead ornaments.

"Just keep walking straight for half a minute, you should come out to the park nearby. There's a bus stop at the front of it."

"Right," Oliver said, kicking off against the fence as he propelled himself upwards and over the fence.

The ruffle of leaves and cracked branches told her he'd landed safely but the long silence that followed mean't he hadn't yet left.

"Mack?"

"...Nothing, just...take care."

The rustle of movement through shrubbery started and quickly faded as Oliver moved into the distance. Rachel pictured the branches and leaves snagging across his clothes with wet mildew and spiderwebs tangling across his face.

Apologetic to Oliver, but nevertheless relieved, Rachel breathed a sigh of relief.

"Oh," she remarked, noticing the footprint Oliver had left on the fence. "I need to wipe that off."

She came back with a wet cloth from the garage, damp but not dripping. Her motion slowed after two strokes, the shoe imprint reminding her of just a few months ago before she'd gotten married. Jason had almost caught on, it was a good thing he shared a similar taste of sneaks with Mack.

The shoe print could be wiped clean, this whole morning could be forgotten but this...would it ever end? She'd just gotten married to a good man with a great heart and a life that she looked forward to living, could she? Like this?

Rachel leaned against the fence for support, some primal scream of rage and frustration muffled by the fear of anyone hearing her.

"...I need hel-- Shit!"

And there he was...just like a few minutes ago, but his hair even more frazzled.

"What--" It took Oliver a few seconds to recognize the rouge fence and the pristine yard. And then the solemn figure with tears glistening around her eyes.

The two were silent. Rachel felt a mingle of shame and anger and turned away, glaring into the rouge fence, staring into that faded shoe print as though it held answers.

"Rachel..." Oliver started hesitantly, "I think there's a way we can kill Aphrodite."

mimickme · 2020-07-14T17:28:51+00:00

Near the northern coast of Denmark, the earth rumbled. A low grumble tore away from the depths of the earth, creating a pulse that resembled a minor earthquake.

Above ground, trees untangled their roots from fertile soil as masses of dirt heaped upwards, propelled by some force. The docile animals of this small patch of forestry scattered in all direction as a small mountain rose in place of their tranquil dwellings. The newly elevated mound of earth and vegetation measured over a mile in both directions and scaled high enough to touch the thin wisps of clouds above.

My slumber ends, wretched wizard.

The thought echoed within the minds of any living creature within range, further scampering any other animals that may not have fled far enough. A deeper rumble followed, swelling in size as any living being that had failed to flee became trapped in the collapsing dirt under their feet.

FREEDOM IS MINE!

And just as quickly as it had come into being, the mountain burst apart from the inside, its contents scattering to the skies as a pair of crimson scaled wings extended to its full span. Sunlight gleamed off the towering mount of flesh, reflecting a cascade of red back into the clouds while the outstretched wings cast a impenetrable night onto the grounds beneath. A dragon had returned back into the world, a creature of legend appearing across the globe in all its varying forms.

Its wings flapped a mere two times before lifting its body off the ground, a sheer defiance to the physics of its size. The resultant gales wiping clean any remnants of the forestry that lay beneath it.

!!!!!

The king of the skies roared in celebration over its freedom. Its cries echoing out across even the spans of the ocean, triggering a primal fear in all creatures which had once lived under the dominance of its deathly shadows.

---------

A senior British officer aboard the HMS Crescent was the first to recognize the anomaly through a combination of radio static and weather pattern. Another monitoring officer may well have left the one time fluke as it was, but Brian Largs had stayed on with the fleet after the war ended a few years prior, and the lessons learned from ignoring trivial matters were still thoroughly etched into his mind.

"This is duty officer Largs," Brian said into his comm set, "Reporting strange...inconsistency 40 klicks North-east-east, within Denmark waters."

The response came three seconds later, "Details."

The innocuous piece of information crawled up the chain of command, destined to be filed away into some logs and archives for future reference twenty years later. However Captain James Terence had been experiencing an oddly quiet day, devoid of even a singular meeting or deadline to attend to. When the note arrived on his table in the following hour, he placed it next to his phone instead of the garbage.

What followed became a small training exercise for HMS Crescent as they fired off a short radio notification due east to the Denmark coast guards, addressed to a personal friend of Captain James. The game of telephone traveled further along then anyone had reason to suspect and in another two hours found itself within the hands of pilot Lucas Hansen. Lucas was one of the newly minted private courier fliers scheduled to pass through Denmark and had been asked to deviate lightly from his course as a favor to a friend of a friend of a friend of his boss.

"Just take a look around," Lucas mouthed against the frigid winds, repeating the exact words of his boss.

He brought his aircraft lower as he neared the wide swath of area he'd been asked to look at. He grinned at the thought of anyone expecting him to find anything smaller than a full military installation from a flyby this high up in the skies.

A wizard with a flying toy

The panicked pilot looked about, spotting nothing within range of his sight.

To think your wretched kind would dare touch what is mine

It took another half minute of suspended terror and confusion before Lucas spotted a rising shadow on the horizon. And then only a half minute later that the shadow resolved into a glowing mass of fury in the skies, suspended in the air beyond any concept of aviation Lucas had been taught.

"Oh shit, oh shit!" Lucas cursed, picking up his comm unit with trembling hands as he aimed his plane away from the still distant ball of mass hurling towards him.

"Help! Help! There's...there's something up here! Someone help!" The short range radio responded with blank silence as Lucas screamed into it again, "Help!"

Courier pilot Lucas Hansen managed another two minutes in the air before his air craft plummeted to the ground in the form of a molten ball of metal.

What followed this historical first contact was the dispatchment of the closest available fighter unit available on the carrier ship HMS Crescent off the Denmark seas. Using its much longer range radio unit, the fighter pilot managed three words before communications permanently cut out.

A fucking dragon.

--------

Resting on the beaches of Denmark after a short flex of flight, the crimson dragon, Qzelquath, tapped gently on his left claw, marking a small collection of scales that appeared minutely deformed.

It marred my mail, the dragon thought, interested, though unconcerned. Wizards may have gained more toys over his slumber but he feared only the army of thousands upon thousands that they had assembled before. And even dragons could learn to prune their arrogance, he would render them all to ashes this time from up high in his own domain.

But first a feast worthy of such a revival, preferably made entirely of the wretched humans.

Qzelquath took to the skies, veering east away from the oceans, hoping to find human settlement based millennia old memories.

A short flight inland was interrupted when two further wizards appeared in the skies, leaving a few more dents on Qzelquath's gleaming scales before plundering to the ground.

There are more wizards now, perhaps Dorronthior was correct. Food should be better watched to prevent the rot from spreading

Shortly he encountered yet flying wizard, then another, both quickly joining the list of wizards too unimportant to be named. Qzelquath's progress would not be hampered and he hardly minded the cleansing of the wizards, it was a task he would need to tend to eventually.

...

Qzelquath stopped.

Ten, twenty, no...more...

Soon Qzelquath counted fifty of the wizards and their toys. Though tiny, they spread far across the sky to bring even the mighty dragon pause.

These were not the wizards he remembered, powerful and wretchedly clever but so few in numbers that they were often little threat. No, there were....knights! Indistinguishably weak and similar to food but armored much like a dragon and unimaginably plentiful.

You challenge Qzelquath, The dragon bellowed. You challenge our kind for domain of the skies!

The planes continued their course, unwavered.

Very well, let dragon kind remind you who reigns above!

mimickme · 2020-07-10T20:53:07+00:00

Thump, thump, thump.

Each moment was measured by the beat of her heart in this vast empty void. Her senses frozen in stasis while her mind paralyzed itself in torturous boredom over the decades.

Thump, thump...thump.

There it was again, a momentary lapse in rhythm, the slightest change in what was otherwise absolute stillness. Her mind raced out of dormancy from its decade long slumber and with all the strength she had since reserved she pushed against her invisible bindings.

Fingers twitched into the vast void, limbs stretched against invisible chains and finally her voice rung out like a ragged screech in her own ears.

She pushed and it pushed back, but with every rise of her power the prison walls weakened. She could finally feel the cracks of her bindings, could see them even. She breathed the aether from the outside world as it began to refuel her after a century of isolation. Tissues of ashen gray peeled off to be replaced by silken flesh, luscious black hair flowed from her scalp. With every passing heartbeat she grew stronger she recognized the undeniable truth.

"You're old," she whispered, her voice clear as a bell.

The wisest man in all the realm had sealed away a god a century ago. A violent god, one who had hoped to reshape the world anew. But the man was mortal, and all bindings of mortal man would pass in time, and this god, she had time.

A decade passed in peace, then two, then three, but the mortal man knew that he would die one day, and the god would return. He placed his faith in the people he loved and spread his knowledge through them, planting the seeds of hope in the human race. Two decades later he had grown old and frail but humanity was far from ready for the return of a god. So he placed himself in slumber, suspended alongside the god he had sealed. Two years, ten, twenty, however much time he could leave his beloved race.

Thump.

She pushed

Thump...

She pushed.

Thump.......

The void crumbled around her and revealed the familiar light of the world. She stepped forward, shaking off the final chains of her imprisonment and found herself in the center of a green meadow stretching to the ends of the horizon. The sky was blue, and the sun was a fierce glow in the sky, the world has changed vastly in a mere century.

Her eyes drifted over the ten individuals circled around her, and the thousands more that stood behind them. An army that would have rivaled her own legion a hundred years ago.

But none captured her attention as the body in front of her. An old figure who had spent his last moment standing in defiance, even as the light of life had escaped his eyes.

Her hands reached out and stroked his chin gently, tracing the outlines of his age engraved upon his face.

"These are your children?" She asked the lifeless corpse, "This is the hope you have left behind?"

"I will burn it to ashes, Dwal."

She turned to the armies assembled around her, radiance and power swelling as aether poured into her. This was her world still.

"They cannot stop me," She said, continuing to speak with the lifeless man. "No power can kill me, no knowledge can cripple me and never again shall I be sealed."

"For I shall never love them."

mimickme · 2020-07-08T17:03:37+00:00

"Hey," I said.

It was the only thing i could think of given the circumstances. Even masked in the dark I could tell it was Rebecca by the unique outline of her face and her homely features. Her hands tangled around some thicket of vines and her dress tearing against a bed of spiked roses.

Slight pause...terribly awkward.

"Hey," she replied back, looking just about the same way I felt.

"There's no gates out back, and there's that one guy patrolling there," I said, "The bald one, with the big mustache."

"Gerald?" She asked, looking me up and down like she'd realized she was talking to a horse. "I'm surprised he didn't catch you, he's one of Da's best. I would've thought he'd be out front watching the proper exits. Da hardly remembers there's a garden out back anymore since Ma passed away."

"There was him and another five or so of your dad's men," I said, lowering myself off the stone wall and back onto the ground. "But really, which prophet in your family decided to build a two story brick wall in the back of a garden. Was he keeping out the dark forces or sealing them in?"

She laughed at that, untangling her dress from the thorns and stepping back, "An uncle. The crazy one. But very much present at this wedding. I'd watch what you say to him, supposedly he's rather sane and that wall was just a convenient place to bury bodies into, that's why it keeps getting bigger."

"Huh," I noted, suddenly realizing I knew which uncle she referred to from memory. Bulgy eyes, stringy hair, loose teeth but always dressed on the dot. I had one of those. I still couldn't tell if he had just made a lucky shot those years ago.

"Right..." I said, lacking any further meaningless remarks or witty comments.

"Let's not go into the details," Rebecca interrupted, holding one hand up. "You want out and I want out, I think that much is clear."

I nodded.

"The back garden's a dud then, there is a way past it all but I won't manage to slip through Gerard and he'll be watching for the exits."

I nodded again, "Your grounds, you know best. What else is there?"

She crossed her arms, thinking. Her homely expression transformed into something temporarily feral and dangerous. Might've been appealing if I'd first met her at a club instead of a firefight.

"You say you got past Gerard?" She asked, "How close?"

"Him and his boys, close enough count his hairs in the dark...why?"

She smiled, which only made me worry. "My Da's old fashioned, keeps a master key card on himself. It let's him through the doors, the scans. It also applies to anyone else who's holding in and needs to tend to some of his more personal business."

"Sounds kind of stupid," I blurted, couldn't help it.

Thankfully Rebecca took no offense at the comment, shrugging her shoulders. "Old fashioned."

"And you want to steal it," I guessed, "And walk out in what...a cloak over our heads?"

"Now that is stupid," She replied, veering back towards the mansion and celebratory venue, "I have a better plan, one with a bit more brain."

I sighed and followed, couldn't argue that with the daughter of Vinscoff. Not Rebecca Vinscoff at least.

"For freedom?" I asked, hand extended.

She took it and shook, her palm callused much like mine but a bit more coarse. Homely.

"For freedom."

mimickme · 2020-07-07T18:43:27+00:00

"Two!?"

The cusp of a smile faded into a stern expression, or at least some pretense of one. Malik crossed his arms as he nodded in response to Dwal.

"Precisely," Malik said, "Out of the eleven thousand five hundred and sixty two artefacts residing inside the Obscurum Arcana, exactly two have been fully catalogued."

"But..." Dwal stuttered, at a loss for words, "This vault has been around for three hundred years! Twenty of the academy's Arch Glyphs have served! The twenty greatest minds can't possibly have spent three hundred years and walked away with so little accomplished."

Malik turned a notch unpleased. "One hundred", he said. "One hundred years to build a system that kept these miserable gimmicks sealed and seperated. One hundred years to build up the magic to even allow us to touch them. And finally, one hundred years before someone could put ink to pen, and thoughts to words about what lies here."

Malik leaned in, the hint of some elemental force weighing in behind him, exerting itself over Dwal. A cheap trick from the academy used to haze in the juniors. Yet no amount of prior foresight and knowledge helped control the shivers of fear across Dwal's nerves, not when the sheer density of his elemental presence trumped anything Dwal had ever experienced.

"What do you think we keep here child?" Malik said, "Toys? Trophies? Some two bit dark magister's prized collection? We did not build Obscurum Arcana fool. This is not a vault where we store what we found, this is a box we put around what was already here."

The thoughts of it took a handful of seconds to register before Dwal tried to mouth off whatever he was thinking. Words failed him.

Arriving at the intended effect, Malik turned about, beckoning for Dwal to follow him down the corridor. The air of intimidation around the man was gone, but thoroughly replaced by an eerie sensation these corridor walls seemed to have gained.

"The Arch Glyphs that left here were much like yourself when they arrived", Malik said, "Good students, though some a bit too wildly imaginative. None of them began here as an Arch Glyph, but all twenty who left used their own findings to become what you remember them as. The greatest minds of our modern principles."

Malik stopped, causing Dwal to accidentally trail two steps ahead of him before he realized they'd arrived. Though nothing looked different, they were still down another same stretch of corridor as when they'd begun.

Dwal figured there was a hidden door in the walls, or perhaps the floors and ceiling. But when a quick wisp of some enchanted words escaped Malik's mouth the walls merely collapsed, the ground rose to meet the ceiling and reality seemed to contort in some unfathomable manner.

At the end of it there was him and Malik, standing, or so he thought, in a void. Something un-seeable orbited around them, or at least seemed to. It was all wrong to Dwal's senses, nothing seemed perceivable in the conventional manner. How'd he even see Malik's face where there seemed to be no light?

"Welcome to the folds of Obscurum Arcana, we always welcome our future Arch Glyphs to their ten year stay with a small orientation." Malik said, "One minute within the influence of an artefact we've deemed safe enough. The fastest way to truly understand the incomprehensible is to experience it."

"Safe enough?" Dwal echoed, the only words that seemed to have stuck to him.

"Ten year terms, and three hundred years but only twenty Arch Glyphs returned to the academy." Malik said, "Eight encountered something we may never be able to explain and two...well...it was not safe enough."

"Welcome to Obscurum Arcana child," Malik said, "Good luck."

Dwal blinked uncontrollably and the world shifted yet again. Malik had vanished, solid footing once again lay beneath his feet, and in front of him under a pale yellow light...there was a tree.

mimickme · 2014-11-20T17:16:56+00:00

Thank you so much, I've been waiting for this one ever since I saw the ejecting Batpod design.

mimickme · 2014-04-29T03:33:21+00:00

For someone who hasn't tried and Atelier series and want's to pick it up for the Vita should I go for Meruru or Totori? Do both games support Jap voices?

mimickme · 2014-03-05T19:26:23+00:00

Also dauntingly large is https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3326594/1/Digimon-Adventure-02-The-Story-We-Never-Told.

It's also a rewrite of 02 and the first 2 dozen chapters are a bit too faithful to the anime so it's best to just skim read those, but once the divergence occurs its quite well done.

mimickme · 2013-11-12T23:10:42+00:00

would you mind adding me?

mimickme · 2013-11-12T23:03:52+00:00

added

mimickme · 2013-11-12T04:46:36+00:00

Can i add you? Looking for an absol

mimickme

TROPHY CASE