The Grand OC III: Do Not Steal: Week.6: UNEARTH!

I kind of wish I had gone for an entry based on Elements of Style, but that would probably be much harder to pull off.

I imagine it'll be like metatextual tone-shifting power.

me making all of the short-form parts fantabulo came from me not knowing what species it should be so that's cool :}

@SinkingSailor very creative!

Anyway, here's the third-week theme:

GHOST

Username: above my profile pic
Name: Alder
Species: Spirit
Gender: Male
Color: oOo

Description: Alder looks calm when out of battle. he has armor on everywhere except for his face, so he can communicate with the person he is trying to protect, Lou. He looks like a normal human, besides being slight transparent. He can also feel what Lou feels, alongside his won feelings. He will protect Lou at all costs, even if it means he loses whatever life he still clings onto.

Weapons/Abilities: Alder has a full stainless steel armor set, capable of withstanding cannon fire. He has a broadsword that allows him to teleport to where he throws it, and sharp spikes hidden in the underside of his wrist pieces for stealth attacks. He can also phase through walls, and hold items like a regular human can. He can get hurt by human weapons, though.

Biography: People believe there are multiple levels of hell, the same works for heaven as well. Once you get to the highest level, some say, and you get assigned a person to protect. And if you protect them long enough, until they succumb to age, you are granted a second life, something other spirits can only dream of. Alder wouldn't know though. He never went anywhere when he died. It was just... black. And then he woke up. The place was unfamiliar, and it wasn't his home. And suddenly, for some unknown reason, he knew what he had to do. Protect whoever owned this place. Protect them until they died. It wasn't going to be easy, but doing things the hard way was just what got him killed, and he was glad to do it again.

Username: Still stuck in Pharms' trophy case.
Name: The Headless Norseman (Jack Snivler)
Race: Viking Ghost (Human in a very realistic costume)
Gender: Male (Male)

Text Color: A bold shade (but not really that bold)

Biography: It had all been such a simple plan originally. Just steal the diamonds, hide them near the old shipwreck, wear a very detailed costume of a headless viking and outfit it with various subtle lighting touches to make it look frightening, and scare off anyone who went poking around until you had a chance to find a buyer.

But Jack Snivler hadn't counted on two things. First, he hadn't counted on those meddling kids (and their dog) sticking around, even after he'd gone out dressed as a fisherman and told them his highly embellished version of the legend. He was sure they'd figure out what he was up to if he didn't amp up the spookiness.

However, that was all rendered moot by the second thing, which was that just after he put the costume on in preparation to scare the most cowardly of the kids, he disappeared.

Description: The Headless Norseman looks like a very large, muscular viking with a black void where his head should be. The "void" is actually a special black netting, see-through from Jack's side. He glows with power, at least until Jack runs out of batteries for the lights.
Jack himself is a tall balding middle-aged man dressed in simple clothes. He's way out of his league and he knows it. If he has to get out of the costume, he'll take on whatever persona he needs to in order to get things done.

Weapons and Abilities: Jack only has one thing going for him, and that's the fact that for whatever reason, the battle's host only introduced him as the Headless Norseman. Nobody knows it's a fake.
Aside from that, he can run fast, even in the costume. It was helpful for scaring off nosy people. He's also been a con man for a good chunk of his life, so he can always fall back on that if he needs to.
Jack really wishes the costume itself had some kind of powers. That said, he did rig up some good tricks for his hideout, so given the right equipment he might be able to enhance the illusion.

Username: Schurser
Name: Amily Ernaline
Race: Indentured Soul
Gender: Lady
Text Color: Hex code

Biography: At some indeterminate point in history, The Folks (whoever they might be) ruling the domain of Death got with the times and readjusted operations to be a better reflection of Life As We Know It. Most regrettably, this resulted in something of a capitalist purgatorium where so much of living felt like a very slow dying, and vice versa on the other side of the Veil. This proved an acceptable-enough arrangement for all the new arrivals, conditioned as they were to consider the Same Old Shit continuing into eternity a tolerable state of affairs provided they still go their weekends.

This still left the problem of all the old souls from before the restructuring, who in true old geezer fashion were kicking up a real stink at how things weren't how they used to be, and introducing far too much flair and color to the proceedings. The good and pious ones were given a nice gated community where they could play-act their old afterlifey ways, but the damned wanted something a bit more stylish.

Thus came a rather unusual job opening in the morning paper, to which one Amily Ernaline answered.

Description: Amily's a plain but sweet middle-aged human woman in appearance, with a grey perm that was easier to dye ashen than cover up individual white hairs. She's wearing a charcoal cardigan, white blouse, thick cableknit black tights, and suede boots, a scarf in a shade of yellow bright enough to almost be nauseating, and an oversized handbag containing all her accoutrements. She quite enjoys her job, considering it a damn sight more interesting than the office work she did in life and early death. The greyed-out world she harks from, with its greyed-out borders between once-delineated boundaries, makes Amily a bit clueless on the subject of actual irrevocable death slash cessation of existence. To her, being dead is just like being an adult 2.0, taking the commute to work shoulder-to-shoulder with the living. But, she likes to think she'd be up for a grand and exciting adventure. Nothing a romp through a couple of violent battle rounds won't address.

Weapons and Abilities: Amily works in The Special Department For Legacy Customers, and best as she can tell is the only Damned Beings Installation Technician in the department. Using an Epipen-esque gadget that she stores in her handbag, she can inject objects with an ectoplasmic slurry of shrieking damned, grudgeful ghouls, and general bad vibes, turning them into cursed objects. The trade-secret blend of damned energy means any specific curses will be a result of the vessel, and not the motivations of whatever souls-or-soul-fragments are jammed into it. Years on the job's given her a good sense of what kind of effects will be produced from cursing a particular object. Amily doesn't have many strong feelings about this line of work - she's vaguely aware if she finishes working through the considerable backlog and gets rid of all the Damned, she gets to retire. She's not actually sure what retirement is, but figures it'll be a nice change of pace.

Due to being a ghost, if not a particularly self-aware one, Amily can wander into local afterlives the same way a living person could wander from one neighborhood to the next. This lack of self-awareness also means any attempt to kill her like you'd kill a normal human might surprise her, until she remembers she's made of ectoplasm and not unduly affected by knives or bullets or head-on collisions with vehicles.

Username: Missing in action, presumed dead
Name: Gerald Silver
Species: Human-Form Psychic Manifestation (Former imaginary friend)
Gender: Masculine personality; was not imagined with matching organs
Text Color: 638 nanometers

Biography: Gerald Silver started 'life' as the imaginary friend of a psychically powerful young boy named Robert. Given the boy's propensity for warping reality into a knot, it was entirely unsurprising that Gerald began to take on an existence partially independent of Robert's imagination. The two were inseparable, proceeding to go on several adventures across the wild expanse of Robert's back yard, fighting ninjas, boarding alien pirate ships, and engaging in other bizarre adventures.

Then Robert died at the age of twelve, as one of his imagined adventures tragically proved all too real, and a ninja T-rex blasted him with a ray gun. In an instant, the myriad worlds Robert had constructed collapsed; starships in orbit of alien worlds self-destructed, pirate towns ceased to be, entire species of dinosaurs vanished from existence, and Gerald almost faded from existence himself. Instead, the sheer amount of time Robert spent dreaming Gerald into existence allowed him to exist independently of his creator, and he 'merely' found himself doomed to eternally roam a world he was only barely able to interact with.

The only good part about this whole mess, is that Gerald isn't limited to haunting specific locations, and can travel where he wishes. In the two years since Robert's death, Gerald has done a lot of that.

Description: Below is a picture Robert drew of Gerald Silver.


Gerald's basic personality template fits the common archetype of a 'bold adventurer' as imagined by a young child; brave, always on the lookout for a challenge or interesting treasure, and willing to bring along a sidekick or two to teach in his ways.

Since Robert's death however, Gerald has picked up several new personality traits, the first and most obvious of which is that he still isn't over Robert's death, constantly blaming himself for it, and repeatedly wishing he could see his creator again. There is also an extremely noticeable sense of frustration originating from Gerald's limited ability to interact with the real world, compared with how he was effortlessly able to traverse the realms that Robert dreamed up.

Weapons/Abilities: First and foremost, Gerald is mostly incorporeal; all but the most excessive physical attacks whiff right through him without inflicting any harm whatsoever. Extremely powerful energy releases such as direct lightning strikes or multi-megawatt lasers can have some effect however. Similarly, it is extremely hard for a purely physical being to observe Gerald, at most getting a vague feeling that 'someone is there'.

This incorporeality also makes it rather difficult for Gerald to interact with the physical world directly; under normal circumstances, he has to interact indirectly by invading a person's imagination. This isn't mind control, but it does allow Gerald to manifest various imaginary objects into his victim's perspective, which the victim treats as real in all aspects, even possibly walking over a nonexistent bridge and reaching the other side without falling. On the other hand, the victim can imagine their own constructs, which Gerald then has to deal with, as such constructs bypass Gerald's incorporeality.

There is one last skill in Gerald's arsenal, and that is to steal some of a victim's psychic energy after invading their subconscious. This causes some temporary mental sluggishness in the victim, but that is not the primary purpose of this technique. Instead, the stolen psychic energy can be expended to create imaginary constructs and force them into a sufficiently real state that anyone can interact with them as if they were fully real. This can even include autonomous self-sustaining creatures or surreal pocket dimensions if sufficient psychic energy is expended.

Theme song: Supercell - Aesop Rock

Alder (SinkingSailor) has a solid backstory and straightforward motive. It does kind of suck that he is kind of stuck in quasi-purgatory being a bouncer for a complete stranger. His simplicity gains The Sam Wün Adaptability Award/Medal because tying his personal arc with other characters (and the overarching plot) can be done quickly and neatly.

The Headless Norseman/Jack Snivler (DragonFogel) is the most amusing of entries because I am a sucker for Scooby-Doo levels of shenanigans and normie-ass characters way out of their league. He receives the Sonorachel Thematic Gold Record because of the hilarious concept and also because he’s so going to die/get traumatized at Round 3, tops.

T'breviator (bigro) is, from what I can see, a poor object-head sap who achieved this sorry state because a witch cursed him. Reading this is sort of like going 40 miles per hour on a road filled with potholes. As my teeth rattle, I shall toss the Dragon Fogel (the virtual reward, not the actual person) to him because those grammatical contractions must taken forever.

Amily Ernaline (Schazer), this poor, poor boo-reaucrat. Solid abilities, interesting quirk of what is essentially a wand that animate objects, but in a ghost way. Her backstory is intriguing, gives me The Good Place vibes – would The Folk intervene in a round? Apologies to this ghost, as the Godsworn Valley Universe In A Bottle will be delivered into her ever-increasing file-pile.

Gerald Silver (The Just Writer) seems whimsical at first glance but his biography and deal ensures his place as the most depressing entry in this GROC round. This slightly-displaced-from-material reality adventurer does have the issue of meaning interaction with people but his quasi-possession/object creation abilities guarantees the COFCA Employee of the Day Framed Picture.

*kicks down the door to the Host's booth*

Thank you so very much for the award, Mr. Pharmacy! Anyway, I'll be taking over this competition now for the next round or so.

This week's theme is:Nuclear

Username: I guess I'm still locked in Pharms' trophy case?
Name: The Bearer of The Wise Orb, but she prefers to be called Liz.
Race: Destined Savior according to the tribe's leaders, but really she's just a human.
Gender: Female, thankfully they haven't come up with an overbearing title for that one yet.
Text Color: #761533

Biography: For as long as she could remember, Liz had only known ruin. The world was desolate, and food was scarce.
As she grow up, her tribe was forced to search farther and farther for viable food. Hunting was nearly impossible, just because there were so few animals.
That was how Liz wound up scavenging in a ruin that had been untouched since long before her birth. It was a strange place, with walls of metal and more wires than she had seen in her life.
Somewhere in the depths was a great metal door.
It was partially open.
Within was a glowing ball of... something, sitting on a pedestal. Liz felt compelled to take a closer look, and approached it.
Suddenly, a small display lit up on its surface, revealing letters that Liz barely recognized. There were few books in the village, most having been used for kindling.
DONUT OUTCH
She couldn't tell what it said, but she found herself holding back her hand.
SUE GALVES
Liz looked around, and saw a heavy pair of gloves. She put them on, and then reached for the orb.
"Well, it's interesting," she said. "But it's not food. Where am I going to find food?"
The orb seemed to react. Liz couldn't tell what it was saying, except, somehow, she knew. She followed its directions (BARK TWO RUSFACE, THORN-BYE-THORNWEAST, PEEK KLAWING) and found a patch of soil with large quantities of plants growing from it.
There were so many plants, in fact, that once she went back with a sack full enough to feed everyone, the villagers followed her back to it and soon had more food than they knew what to do with.
And as new problems arose, the orb was able to provide answers to them, though only Liz seemed able to grasp its directions. Clearly having been chosen by the mystical orb, she was granted several grandiose titles, which she mostly didn't care for.
Really, she was happy enough to be able to eat without worry.
At least until she and the Orb vanished one day as she was asking why so many villagers were starting to get sick.

Description: Liz is a girl in about her twenties, dressed in very simple clothes. She hasn't bathed in a long time, nor has her tribe learned how to do laundry even after the orb helped them find water.
The Orb of Wisdom is a small ball, which has a strange glow to it. It also has a very small monitor where it writes its advice, but it's hard to read.

Weapons and Abilities: Though there were few animals, Liz did learn to hunt. She's never trained to fight humans, though. Nonetheless, she does have a crude spear and could probably construct other tools if needed, especially with the Orb's help.
Liz also has a strange innate understanding of what the orb is saying, no matter how nonsensical its output. She can barely even read the words as-is, but somehow her subconscious seems to grasp them.
The orb is probably very dangerous to touch without the protective gloves, but Liz wouldn't use it as a weapon unless she didn't have a choice. Besides, the orb probably wouldn't like that.

Patent Name: Fancy! New-Clear Service Bot – Domestic Class

Production Code: FE-N1X

Gender: Feminine

Color: Eye-catching Orange!

Biography:

♫ She can help, she can sing! ♫
♫ She can do every-thing! ♫
♫ Fancy! Fancy! New and Clear! ♫

Description:

The Fancy! New-Clear Service Bot was a series of autonomous robots designed to assist humans in tasks regularly performed in non-industrial environments. FE-N1X was once a typical example of the Domestic Class – a mechanical humanoid in the style of 1950’s-60’s animesque. However, the apocalyptic aftermath of That War was not kind to her appearance. Exposure to the elements stripped her skin and warped her armature, benting her shape into vaguely avian appearance, equal parts abstract and frightening.

FE-N1X still retains the approachably pleasant personality hardcoded into her during the manufacture process, although there is a melancholy countenance to her voice these days. She is eager to help and assist, although she has a deference towards human or human-near species. However, this does not mean she will blindly follow all orders – especially if it causes the elderly, the injured, and disabled to suffer more.

Abilities:

Housekeeping, elderly/disabled assistive care, and basic first aid. For life-threatening injuries, she will activate her built-in medical alarm. FE-N1X can lift the weight equivalent of a car and has that classic robot imperviousness but otherwise, is not much of a fighter.

Username: Agenparticle
Name: The Mighty Photon
Gender: Male
Species: Superhero
Color: MASCULINITY HAS NO FEAR OF PINK

Description: TIGHTS! So many tights! KAPOW! Faster than the speed of light! It's the MIGHTY PHOTON, here to save the day!

Were he not made from power and LIGHT, the tightness of his TIGHTS would surely block blood flow to his limbs~!

FIGHT! It's the MIGHTY PHOTON! He's here to RIGHT wrongs! He's here to FIGHT them all ALONG!!!! CRIPES! Here comes a VILLAIN - it's the nefarious DR DARK! He's taking over the LOCAL PARK!

Items/Abilities: With WHITE hair and BRIGHT dazzling teeth, a MAJESTIC UNDERBITE, he can chomp through concrete with a single BITE! It's the MIGHTY PHOTON!!!! THE MIGHTY PHOTON!!!!

DR DARK has no chance, the MIGHTY PHOTON removes his PANTS! That is to say, the DOCTOR'S PANTS, the MIGHTY PHOTON has no need for PANTS! DR DARK'S PANTS HAD NEVER BEEEEN!!!!

The MIGHTY PHOTON went back in TIME, undid those pants and all those CRIMES, the LOCAL PARK... is safe from DR DARK!!!!! DR DARK!!!!!!!! DEFEAAATED, by the MIGHTY PHOTON!!!!!!

Biography: The MIGHTY PHOTON got his powers from the SUN, by eating a radioactive BUN! Now he stands for LIGHT and FUN! It's the MIGHTY PHOTON!!!!!!

Username: Grand Schentral Station
Name: Administrator-Regis Chignolin Cattaga
Race: Grandmasterling
Gender: Who run the world?
Text Color: Chrome and Ozone

Biography:To quote someone who's been in this game longer than anyone else:

There are many ways to become a god.

Some create a universe and become one by default. Some do it by surpassing all others in their field. Others kill an existing god and take its place.

The Administrator-Regis did none of the above, but the Grandmaster with jurisdiction over her universe was most impressed that one of its charges had cracked the shell of her world and sought it out. It let her wander its demesne and pick out a welcome-to-the-multiverse present, surprised but pleased when she chose to return home with a treasure-bound book labelled Duosuavis Acidium.

Her triumphant return to the Council heralded a technological revolution in her homeworld, transforming the very universe into an Interstice-worthy ship to navigate the wider Multiverse. It was only as her world first Incursed upon another that some other entity decided her skills would be better-employed elsewhere.

Description: The Administrator-Regis is what peak performance in her long-abandoned species looks like: seven feet of muscle primed under a semi-flexible gunmetal carapace, Four toned arms, a halo of blue-black hair held back with a silver headband trailing a veil of jewelled chains, and pearls the same hue as her night-sky eyes studding each piece of her carapace. Over half of these pearls are outlined with a pair of curves to resemble an eye, each tattoo a commemoration of one major discovery she made back when the Council of Truth meant something to her. She wears the spiny-scaly starsteel tunic and cloak of the Enforcers Registic.

The Administrator-Regis was selected for her monumental task due to her exemplary qualities of ambition, self-assurance, and quick thinking. She'd be a force enough to be reckoned with even without the Duosuavis Acidium at her side.

Weapons and Abilities: Duosavis Acidium is an obscenely powerful artifact; its pages contain lists of materials and instructions to create anything, from paperclips to teleportation devices. Of course, the more complicated devices might require materials our dear Administrator hasn't heard of - luckily, there'll be instructions for those somewhere in her book too!

Behold, my entirely uninspired judgement!

Liz, bearer of the orb shall receive the Godsworn Valley Universe In A Bottle

Fe-N1X shall receive the Sonorachel Thematic Gold Record

The Mighty Photon shall receive the Dragon Fogel... just as soon as the tranquilizer darts finish taking effect.

Administrator-Regis Chignolin Cattaga... shall receive the special scrutiny of the host, as they don't seem to have stuck with the theme at all.

Hello, hello. This week's theme is...

...RETURN.

Name: Tracker Unit B00M3R
Race: Combat Android
Gender: Indeterminate
Text Color: #BBAC1C

Description: Humanoid appearance to facilitate infiltrations. Better-than-average musculature, both to support additional systems and to impress certain categories of human to better gain their trust.
Also provided with external gear to protect ocular systems from ultraviolet radiation. Gear has been designed according to human aesthetic preferences in order to avoid drawing suspicion.
Personality module currently set to "Tough Guy". Abrasive but generally cooperative.
Warning: Unit has not yet undergone loyalty testing. Recommend against deploying until potential for disobedience can be determined to be below acceptable levels.

Weapons and Abilities: Unit possesses higher-than-average strength and durability for a tracker unit. Carries a small projectile weapon, specialized for stunning targets who must be captured alive. Aerodynamics of projectile design makes retrieval nearly automatic. Furthermore, nanotech augmentations in projectile allow it to extract itself if necessary.
In addition, if escape becomes necessary, unit's consciousness can be transferred to projectile instantaneously. Nanites stored in projectile can rebuild unit over time.
Design flaw: Unit is meant to be able to alter exterior features with nanites. However, this has not been fully implemented yet. Appearance can only be changed by reconstruction of unit, which takes too long to be viable except in specific circumstances. Currently evaluating possible fixes.

Biography: Unit created to infiltrate and destroy human resistance cells. Specialized for tailing particular targets. Still in development. Features are not finalized.
ALERT! Unit location indeterminate. All communication and tracking systems failing to return information. No signs of human interference near last confirmed location. High probability of rogue action, either by tracker unit or by a supervisory system. Low probability of capture by extradimensional entity for gladiatorial combat.

Username: PaperHelmet

Name: Enter Paybach
Species: Undead Human
Gender: Male
Color: Mossy Green.

Description:
Enter is a slight man, just skin and bones beneath a layer of droopy pale skin that seems a size too big for him. His jowls hang from his face such that his eyes appear like gigantic frosted orbs, tinged blue with cateracts, yet he can still somehow see. The flesh that coats the inside of his mouth and eyelids is pitch black, stained by years of undeath. Short for a man and apparently hairless - though the curtain of moss and plant matter that rolls down his back and from his head like overgrown bangs acts to simulate hair - and wrapped in the same mound of beggar's rags he wore when he died, Enter's visage is equal parts unnerving and pitiable. The paranoid and hateful find him loathsome. The kind and curious ask to hear his story.

Weapons/Abilities:
Around the same time Enter rose from the grave, he developed the ability to place a special glyph on one object, person or area no longer or wider than he. He cannot place this glyph more than once at a time, but a placed glyph also never seems to disappear, nor can it be erased or removed. The shape of the glyph is difficult to describe, as its edges constantly fluctuate, but most see it as an arrow that twists inward, only to meet itself from behind in a way that cannot be physically replicated.
On Enter's command, the subject of his glyph is reverted to the state it constituted when the glyph was originally placed. All damage sustained, all knowledge gained, power acquired or alterations otherwise accrued by the subject are washed away as if they had never occurred. Enter has not yet found a limit to how many times he can do this to a single subject, though he is beginning to notice a steep decline in the mental state of living beings who've coerced him into "reverting" them more than three times in a day. This deterioration does not seem to occur when Enter uses the glyph's power on himself.
Despite initially displaying all the inherent properties of a corpse, Enter no longer rots or attracts insects. He does however sprout mushrooms occasionally. He finds them "tasty, in small portions".

Biography:
Contemptable, petty and without a shred of honor, Enter Gobach terrorized the countryside as an infamous highwayman. None were safe from his pillaging, and many an innocent met their end on his blade. In a final act of cowardice, Gobach threw himself from a cliff before authorities could bring him to justice, preferring to die on his own terms. But as fate would have it, the soil he died on was hallowed, enchanted by the good spirits of the forest. In death, his sins were sown into the earth to be judged by the spirits, who deemed him unworthy of peaceful rest.
Resurrected by ancient magic, Enter Gobach, despicable bandit turned revolting cadaver, was forced to walk the earth as a shambling shadow of his former self. Slow and weak, he could no longer rely on his violent impulses, and instead he was made to work and beg for shelter from the rain and sanctuary from hungry animals. Every attempt to end his misery only brought him back anew, and the power of his renewing touch was wasted on him. It was a curse set upon him by the spirits, an invitation for humanity to take advantage of him like he'd done in life, and a reminder that even magic couldn't ever undo the memory of his malice.
These days, riddled with guilt and humbled by time, Enter Gobach stalks the moors just outside civilisation with a gift he is endlessly hunted for, gladly sharing it with those who ask graciously. Years of receiving the short end have chipped away the evils in his heart to expose the potential for goodness locked within. Kindness, patience and understanding come naturally now, as well as a sense of duty. For no longer do vermin crawl inside him, nor does he rot or stink. Seeds take root in him and flower in the spring, and birds nest in his rags. These small blessings have convinced Enter that he is finally on the path to redemption, that, much like the soil that woke him, he has been hallowed by his deeds. One day, when the darkness of the world is all but vanquished, perhaps Enter will be permitted to return to the place of his death, where he will finally be rewarded with the eternal rest he longs for...

"Just bleed loud and red. I'll do my thing, and it'll be like nothing ever happened, keen? But listen, listen... I must ask that you really consider what it is you're doing here. Anything that happens to you, I can take back... If something happens to them? I can't take that back. No one can, and you'll have to live with it forever."

Username: Agentern
Name: The Library Thief
Species: Thief
Gender: he/him
Color: black as ink

Description: A furtive shadow between the flipping pages of a book, black on white, white under black. The figure of a man in a long, long coat, stretching into infinity. The man at the end of the good long yarn. The bevels on the serifs on the words "The End". The Library Thief never manifests in the world as you or I might know it, preferring the far more nebulous spaces in between library shelves, crouched like a spider, black coat pooling like ink under his feet. He might pass notes to you, but you will never see him as more than a flicker in the corner of your eye.

His hat is made of felt and prose.

Items/Abilities: The Library Thief is not a thief of gold or jewels; the Library Thief is not, in fact, a thief of libraries; the Library Thief is a thief of words and of thought and above all, a thief of time. Ever look up from a book and wonder where the time goes? The Library Thief has it now, in a little pouch under his coat along his infinitely-long belt. The Library Thief seeks books, for stories give him power; he compels those he follows, in their shadows, to read; many a soul has lost themselves on the train or on a walk, and found themselves lost and at his mercy.

Biography: $5 for every day overdue

Name: Lily Jones
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Colour: #54966A
Biography: It was a bright and shining day and everyone in the village had turned up for the celebration. There was a banner hanging up in the village square that said “Welcome Home Lily” that Nigel and Alan Bradshaw had made. Iris Fletcher from The Gray Hare public house had made a whole platter of sandwiches and of course was providing a glass or two of brandy to all those of drinking age and a nice big jug of ice cold lemonade for the kids. Henry Wedgwood had dragged his old baby grand piano out from his garage and was playing all the old favourites.

The gathered crowd cheered as they saw Lily making her way up the village path, heavy backpack upon her back, her forehead streaked with sweat. Her face broke out into a big wide smile and she hurried up the village path towards the awaiting crowd, throwing her arms around the closest person (Phillipa Shipley from the butchers shop), and she continued to hug everyone, one after another until she ran out of people.

“Tell us all about your travels Lily.” Morgan Hornby continuously implored. After Lily had managed to put her heavy backpack down, take a seat on one of Arthur Black’s battered lawn chairs he’d brought out for the occasion, and take a nice sip of brandy she obliged her.

On a cosmic scale Lily’s adventures were not that interesting or unique. She travelled to meet new people, see new places, see the world. She had some funny stories and she recounted them eagerly, but you really had to have been there. Of course it was always nice to be home, but for Lily home was where she hung her hat and she was of course moving on again in the morning.

Everyone was a little disappointed but nobody was really surprised. They drank more than just the glass or two of brandy that Iris had provided, encouraging her to go and open another barrel when they started to run dry. As the day slowly turned into night Nancy and Miriam Hazelton cooked up a delicious roast chicken meal for everyone, though given the numbers involved most got just a bite or two, whilst Lily eagerly and gratefully devoured a whole plateful. Arthur played all of Lily’s favourites, ending exhaustedly after Scarborough Fair.

As the night wound down Morgan offered Lily to stay the night in her spare bedroom, which prompted the whole crowd to offer their accommodation for the night. After a couple of minutes of bickering the crowd dispersed back home to stumble into their beds. Lily went home with Morgan to her little house on the edge of the village and got some much needed rest.

The next morning Lily and Morgan ate breakfast together. They laughed about the events of the day before, and then it was time for Lily to go again. Morgan stood by her garden gate as she watched Lily go, a smile on her face but a tear in her eye as she watched her leave. As Lily disappeared over the horizon this bittersweet sadness was replaced with unease. Like a loose tooth Morgan tried to put it out of her mind, afraid what poking at this uneasiness might reveal.

In the early afternoon, Iris Fletcher from the Grey Hare public house stopped around. Morgan brewed them both a cup of tea and they sat across from one another in the dining room.

“Lovely to see Lily,” Morgan said. “even if it was just a flying visit.” Iris nodded absently in agreement.

“An absolute pleasure to see Lily.” Iris said. “... but… did you maybe think there was anything odd about her though?”

Morgan looked puzzled. “Like what?” she asked.

“Like…” Iris hesitated. “Who was she?”

“Lily?” Morgan hesitated. “Well she’s Lily… obviously. You know Lily, right?”

“Right.” Iris agreed. “Obviously I know Lily. It was wonderful to see her… just… I just have the weirdest feeling like I’d never actually met her before.”

Morgan laughed. “Never met her before? But it’s Lily…” Morgan trailed off and neither woman spoke for a couple of minutes. “It’s not as though I’d invite a perfect stranger to stay in my house. It’s not as though the entire village would show up for a big party for someone we’d never met before in our lives… right?” A long desperate pause.

“Of course you’re right.” Iris said resignedly. “Probably just getting old. Don’t know what I was thinking.”

Weapons/Abilities: Everyone knows Lily. Wherever she goes she always finds friendly familiar faces more than happy to share their things and welcome her into their homes.

Description: Lily has a very familiar face. She was long red hair, pale skin with freckles across her nose and emerald green eyes. She usually dresses in plaid jackets and jeans and big brown boots. Lily is kind and easy to talk to. She’s very open and honest. She’s terrible at keeping secrets.

Username: Sai
Name: The Overrider
Species: Coach
Gender: Vehicle
Color: A rich mahogany frame with fine leather upholstery

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has some part of their past that they wish they could undo. Few, however, were as obsessed with fixing their mistakes as famed carriage inventor Coro. After a lifetime creating faster and more intricate coaches, Coro astounded the world with his prototype self driving carriage, a marvelous device of self-correcting gears and mirrors that would allow a carriage to steer itself when provided a sequence of directions. At first, it was a mere novelty - a crude, lumbering device, capable of jerking forward in small, scuttling bursts as it sought its way across the ground, but as it improved it grew swifter, eventually growing swift enough to eschew its initial system of sails and counterweights for a powerful engine of steam. Then it grew swifter still, until Coro's Carriage outpaced even the swiftest of horses.

As was always the case with new technology, Coro's device which had begun as a novelty soon became the basis for more dramatic change. Coro's Carriages first became the new model of transportation for any wealthy enough to afford them but soon after, Coro's former assistant Lofo, who had long since begun overseeing production as Coro tinkered with minor changes, developed a new line entirely. Only barely recognizable as holding Coro's design at its core, the massive new carriages were now outfitted with thick steel plates and with ports installed for cannons. He had created a world-changing weapon of war. Coro emerged one day to see them rolling out into the streets and despaired at what he, in his negligence, had allowed to happen. He knew that it was too late to stop more from being built, as even if he were able to stop Lofo from building more, someone else would take up where he had left off.

While perhaps this use was inevitable and perhaps one day Coro's Carriages may have become the basis for all long distance conveyance and overland shipping, Coro never thought of anything more than undoing what he saw as his great mistake. And so he developed a new carriage. It was one that in many ways was more primitive in appearance than the models that now rode the streets, but it had an oddness to its movement. After verifying that it could run at all, Coro climbed inside and began to drive it. A very strange test drive ensued, as the vehicle seemed to at once move quickly, and yet remained in the same place, its wheels whirring until the carriage somehow burst apart, falling into its component pieces. Coro himself was unharmed, but collapsed to his knees as the carriage came undone with shocking cleanliness - not a piece missing or broken. He looked about him at the ready to assemble carriage around him and simply wept. Any who saw his despair might think that he had failed. But, in truth, he hadn't. Coro had tried to make a carriage that moved not only through space, but through time - and it did. Only it could not travel back to before it was created. And so Coro had brought to the world another invention, but had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he could not undo his mistake.

The Overrider is capable of traveling as a self-driving carriage, but it can move backwards in time as well. However, it can only travel back to where and when it has already been, moving backwards in a linear path that leaves its occupants back where they had been. Older, perhaps, but hopefully wiser and ready to try again.

I'm digging up this thread from the depths with a new round:

Unearth something interesting this week.

Username: Agen, the unoriginal Trans
Name: Bissara Cheims
Species: Human (?)
Gender: Female (???)
Color: What then, will you do, when these homunculi announce they have no further need of us?

Description: Bissara did not come out of the Vague unscathed. Her brown eyes don't focus right, and that has nothing to do with the floating nano-displays inside; a good portion of what she did carved out and short-circuited heuristics in her mind that will never heal. She speaks with eloquence, a lovely alto voice that makes you want to follow her, but a great deal of the semantic content simply isn't there anymore. She is a leader - she looks like a leader - she is decorated like a leader - but she doesn't remember what she did to earn these symbols. Olive skin. That meant something once. It's very dirty. Her blue uniform is immaculate, tiny animalcules ejecting dirt even as it accumulates, but no such additions inhabit the surface of her flesh.

Hate. She remembers hate.


Weapons/Abilities: A little Y-shaped mechanism, chrome and gold, sits in her grip. It's a handheld intrusions manifold injection device, she remembers. She used it on the Master Elevator either a second or a hundred years ago. A evoluting master key, adaptively overriding the security countermeasures there, soothed the system; she'd descended.

Down to the Core.

Her uniform, aside from being self-cleaning, contains a myriad of defense mechanisms against NS44.9 and other nanotechnological means of attack. It is, however, not bulletproof. There's a hole just below the folded collar of the blue shirt, right above her sternum. It's spotless, naturally, but the wound underneath had been bleeding hard. Her sternum hasn't healed right from being shattered. While her flesh harbors a number of nanos for repair and diagnostics their connection to any control mechanism has been severed and they're only so much specks of germanium and gold, without...? Without something. The pockets of the black pants hold a number of lightweight tools and parts. She remembers how to use maybe a third of them.

The whole Earth had been connected. Once.

It had to go.


Biography: The Vague, NS45.0, Mictative Associative Degeneration, "That", the Coreout - all just names for what happened to humanity at the end of an era. In the beginning there was NS1.0, a transmissible nanotechnological innovation that crossed the blood-brain barrier, giving people on-demand access to the Core, the sum total of human knowledge, the successor to an Internet of Things - and humanity rejoiced. The Core, internet of flesh, silicon and carbon together, forged towards the stars. Connected so finely, people who would grow close grew closer, and ultimately some bodies could not be distinguished as anything more as separate limbs of the same mind. At its peak, the Core went from fourteen billion individuals to perhaps a couple thousand (the Ascended, the Archetypes, the Attractors). To access the Core was to become it. Of course there was fear, and hatred, but Fear was an Attractor like any other, and swallowed up potential saboteurs like candy. NS2.0 refined the algorithms that now stood equal to the posthuman wetware intelligences, and uplifted them, too, to godhood.

Yet humanity in and of itself encompassed a variety difficult to completely encapsulate. Those still left in their own minds built defenses, enclaves and nano-scale attack systems which repelled NS3.0, then NS4 and 5, evolving alongside one another; soon humanity became that which had crossed that blood-brain barrier, and those who had not. Bisarra belonged to the latter. Born to the Cheims enclave just after release candidate NS44.9, she grew up with a hatred for the Ascended that burned brighter than any of her peers had ever seen.

It was her that drove them to action, finally, against their oppressors. Brilliance struck as she observed samples of NS44.9 under nanoscopes, studied the way at which it piggybacked on proteins and osmoted across membranes into axon and sodium-potassium channels, sent low-energy radio packets and high-energy lidar bursts, and she disentangled the work of the Archetypes' architects with only the power of one mind. She saw a way to unearth the potential humanity had buried in ascension. She created, nearly from whole cloth, NS45.0. It fed on memory, and connection, and excreted fear. Not the sort that would just join Fear, the Archetype, though - that had been the trickiest part. Balancing the desire to belong against the absolute terror of being known - only an individual could understand it, and only an individual could return it to humanity.

Yet. There were challenges. Challenges to Bissara, though, had only been inducement to try harder. The new release candidate she'd built had to come from within - from the Core. And someone had to deliver it.

The Core, by then, really was the Core - all Humanity ran on the spinning rust within the world, eutectically etched on the iron of the inner core of planet Earth, powered by geological processes still running from when the planet formed. Convection currents in the geodynamo read out the will of the Attractors, encoded in the entirety of the environment from the Very Large to the Very Small. For a single moment of a mind, enhoused in meat, to struggle against the new gods, was something so futile as to be unthinkable, especially to beings that think they have thought everything there is to think.

Bisarra was under no such illusions. It had to be done. This story itself is not so much a prelude as it is an attempt by her to remind her of how she got to where she was and who she was going to have to be. Even as she left the enclave and felt NS44.9 invade her, she left this and other reminders of her in her, so that even as she was subsumed into the Core she would lead herself to it. Not fully herself, she walked into the maw of the beast she hated and let it strip her of her in her name.

And it was so that when someone still named Bisarra launched release candidate NS45 and raised the walls again between every single person in the entire world, the mnemnovore would take the her of her too in the ensuing chaos. Like an archeologist, she'd unearthed the nature of humanity... but at what cost?

If she'd been able to remember, she would have said it was worth it.

Given that this month's topic only yielded one profile Bissara Chaims wins every award by default. I especially think it deserves The Godsworn Valley Universe In A Bottle Award due to the interesting overall concept and the small ways in which the profile builds on and alludes to the world created by this virulent singularity.

SpoilerShow

I took the opportunity to write an unearth profile of my own and I'll post it here for anybody interested.

Name: Scorching Light
Gender: N/A
Race: ???
Colour: Sad sorrowful yellow thoughts can be easily treated with our quick and simple process

You may be suffering from the Regrets. Many individuals eventually develop this disability; to see their past actions and feel pain, discomfort, or unwellness of psyche. You can be rid of these undesirable sensations not through complex reevaluation of your actions but through quick and simple process guaranteed to protect your mental landscape from nuisance thoughts. To partake of this service please visit central point of your landmass to receive blessing of Scorching Light.

You may be suffering from Forgetting. In life many individuals sometimes forget important information due to degradation of memory vessel; the brain. If you’ve ever wished to remember location of important object or forgotten small moments with loved one or just beautiful dream you only have the lingering remnant of. We can help you! Quick and simple process will grant you all of those forgotten memories you wish you had. To partake of this service please visit central point of your landmass to receive blessing of Scorching Light.

- A pair of messages amongst many transmitted across a huge plethora of platforms (including all radio bands, television broadcasts, mass email received by almost every recorded email address) on repeat for 24 hours starting at 05:00 GMT on the 20TH June 2033. These sample messages are presented in English but they were broadcast in numerous other languages, each of which displayed odd grammatical construction.

Accounts of those who went to the specified locations are varied. Almost all reports indicate an enormous twelve foot pillar of brown-yellow light with spindly translucent limbs. When spoken to these entities were semi-coherent, confirming that they were what had been referred to as Scorching Light. Otherwise they were evasive answering most questions by offering solutions to the ‘general malaise of life’, the ‘burden of thought’, the ‘hidden dangers of repressed cognition’.

Those who approached would be touched on the forehead by of the entity’s many limbs and small golden orbs would spill from their mouth, which were then snatched up by further limbs emerging from the pillar.

Those touched by these entities would leave with their memories altered in some way. Some had large chunks of their memories missing, others would report hundreds if not thousands of small lost memories resurfacing, recovering often years of their lives. Almost everyone who experienced it would at the very least report a jumbling of their memories, sometimes remembering certain events years before events that chronologically preceded or followed it. Thorough dissection of accounts of this incident don’t seem to show any correlation between the given reason a subject approached the being and the effect they experienced.

A couple of rather sensational accounts describe managing to get hold of one of the golden orbs and in doing so experiencing a full sensory glimpse into the most personal aspects of other people’s lives. A couple describe seeing illicit affairs, the moments of murders, or less dramatically secret crushes, computer passwords, pin numbers. Holding any of these orbs however seemed to create a hostility within the entity and several individuals were hospitalized following the incident, scratches from the entity leading to persistent and often fatal infections.

At 5:00 GMT on the 21ST June 2033 every recorded instance of Scorching Light from every landmass across the world disappeared without a trace. No further communication with this or similar entities has been recorded in the time since.