Intense Struggle! (Round 7 - The Database)

Originally posted on MSPA by Aryogaton.

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Aegis woke up in a bed. The last thing he remembered was the Monitor explaining the logistics of the new round, and he was still recovering from the effects of the broken vat. Aegis tilted his head to the side and saw a modest room, adorned with little but the essentials of a bedroom.

He got up and noticed a piece of paper fall from his chest. Taking the obvious course of action, he took it and read.

You are John Willard, constable of the village. Your roles are to bring the accused before the court and to serve as a bodyguard to the judges while in session. Your wife is Goody Buckly.

Jeez, can you get any vagu-?

Additionally, your friend, Aeon Ferrous, has been killed in the battle he was in. He lasted to the final round.

What.

Aegis checked the backside of the note. Don’t I at least get to know how he died?! Ugh. He’s always so careful… Aegis threw the note down, and it promptly vanished. However, he then noticed that his gauntlets seem to have disappeared, despite the fact that he felt like he was wearing them as usual. He approached a nearby mirror to get a better look of this ‘John Willard’.

If he made it to the last round, I wonder who was the other guy. Must’ve been a pretty clever person to outwit him.

Aegis stared into the mirror, and an unfamiliar face stared back. John Willard looked very much like Aegis already, even to the point of being a constable.

I’ve known that guy for… fifteen years now? Can’t really remember anymore. I can’t let him out-do me in this competition though. This is a pretty good disguise… I should make use of it.

A knock interrupted Aegis’ musings, and he followed the sound of it to arrive at the front door. An unfamiliar man in rather loose clothes greeted him.

“Good day, Goodman Willard. I apologize for summoning you at such a time, but a witch has been found, and we would appreciate your help in apprehending it.”

“Um, alright.” Aegis began to exit the house.

“Leaving already! I think you’ve forgotten something!”

Aegis looked behind him and saw a woman holding a rifle. Assuming she was ‘Goody Buckly’, Aegis caught the rifle as she threw it to him.

“Be careful, you know what those witches are capable of.”

With an awkward smile, Aegis left the house. Immediately, he saw a crowd of people at two houses, screams and crashes coming from both. He arbitrarily chose one and ran towards it, rifle in hand.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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SpoilerShow

Hey guys, guess what?

Intense Struggle Season 2 has overtaken you in wordcount.

They are still on Round 1.

Get some more words out already!

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

SpoilerShow

Right, this needs to get moving again.

cyber95, you have one more week to make a post and settle on your character's disguise. Otherwise, I will decide on a role for you so the game can move on.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

B read the message in his hand.

You are James Struthers, the village apothecary. Your services have been in high demand of late, as a disease has been slowly spreading throughout the village. This is one of the primary causes for the heightened fear of witches recently.

You are generally rather sociable, but have lately felt isolated. Rumors have been spreading about the nature of your relationship with your neighbor, a blacksmith named George Brown. For some three months, you have been the only person he has contacted for any reason other than business matters. However, the rumors have somewhat subsided recently, as the witch-hunts have taken priority in everyone's mind.

Originally posted on MSPA by Draykon.

---

To the handsome man, in his clean black suit, it was no feat whatsoever to sense deceit or lie coming from another individual. The unknown factor emitted no deceit, he had made no effort to 'trick' the contract in any way.
This illegible scribble, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to anything that any sensible person would call language, was the unknown factor's signature. Actually, it made perfect sense, this person who had appeared from nowhere, and clearly wasn't a part of this world, left a signature that was also no part of this world.

“So we're in a world of human paranoia, right?” Drake finally said, rubbing his wrists. The handsome man had easily disconnected him from the chains, and unlocked the prison cell doors. Now they sat on the edge of a large area of woods surrounding the town.

“That's really a fun concept. It means there's a disconnect between the subjective reality and the objective one.” he looked over the black-clad man, gauging his response. The man's expression was indifferent.

“Guess this is a little different physics than you're used to then. Lemme explain. You've got your objective reality- that which definitely absolutely is- and your subjective one- that which, as far as everyone is concerned, is.”

The suited man continued with the same expression, so Drake continued.

“So, say, a man stores 10 tons of gold in his safe, and only he knows the combination. He gets some terminal illness, so he takes out the gold without telling anyone, buries it, and locks the safe again. Then he goes and dies. So now, as far as everyone this man ever met knows, there's 10 tons of gold inside a safe that no one knows how to open- since no one who isn't dead has any reason to think otherwise, in the subjective reality the gold is in the safe. But in reality, that gold's buried underground- since it's true, it's the objective reality... hey, this will be on the test you know!”

The handsome man's face might've moved a little at Drake's joke, but for the most part it didn't budge.

“Well anyway, when people start getting paranoid, and killing people for their paranoia, the result starts to turn into something that exists in the subjective reality, but not the objective one.”

“Meaningless. The 'subjective reality' you speak of is nothing more than human foolishness. It holds no bearing on anything.”

At that one, Drake couldn't help but giggle a little.

“That's a dangerous thought there. Objectively speaking, neither you nor I exist in Salem Massachusetts.”

***

“Come on! It's not something worth getting so worked up over! I mean really! How hard is it for a few little humans to go out and get their new Princess some prettier black clothes to wear?!”

It really should have been obvious. There were people around who weren't supposed to be fighting her, so they were obviously meant to be her servants! D'Neya WAS a princess after all! She was hoping that morphing a few tentacles would help show everyone her authority, but it looked to her like it'd just made everyone panic. A few of them were saying something about 'the Devil' showing up. Was this already his kingdom? Well, D'Neya had no intention of letting that stay. After all, she was clearly much more important than this “Devil,” no matter who he was.

***

“Elaborate. Now.” There was still no sign of emotion on the devilish man's face, but there was something more urgent in his tone. It seemed that Drake had finally caught his attention.

“Well, I know for a fact that I'm dead in the objective reality, but I still think, therefore I still am- even if only subjectively. I can't really do much though. The fact that you- someone who's never had any sort of encounter with me- is able to talk with me, free me from whatever, and do weird stuff like that shows that you don't have much root in objectivity either.”

"Bear in mind Unknown Factor, I am the master of confusion. It is utterly impossible to convince someone that they themself do not exist."

"Exactly. Therefore, the subjective reality is just as important as the objective reality, since you only exist in one- but you still 'exist.' I'm glad you get it."

SpoilerShow

I realize I'm probably doing a bit too much with the character that others would have trouble writing with, but I'm just trying to keep this moving a bit.

Also, to those still confused about Drake, this concept of subjective vs. objective realities is key to 'getting' him.

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

---

B sighed and looked in the mirror. There was a completely unfamiliar face in place of his own. Feeling it, he only felt what he usually felt. Furthermore, his outfit felt like the one he usually wore, and not that of whoever's role he was occupying at the moment. He took another look at the message. James Struthers... apothecary... lots of business. And questionable relations with the blacksmith next door. After the second look over, the note disappeared. B was not happy with his situation. At the very least, he knew a little bit about where he was. However, considering the oh so subtle hint towards there being actual witches, he really wasn't sure exactly what to expect.

Suddenly there was a knocking at the door, "Hey! James! Let me in, would you?"

This might be a problem. It would have been nice if he knew who everybody was that he was supposed to know, but as it were, he had no clue who his supposed friend was. Perhaps a customer, and most people in town knew his name? Maybe a close friend? Whoever it was, they seemed to need to get in. Deciding to think about it later and let the man in.

"Thanks. Something weird is going on out there. I heard screaming and crashing, and a few people shouting about a witch! I think this one's for real! Killing and evil magicks! A lot of it! It's dangerous out there."

"It might have been best just to stay home if that's going on, I think."

"I was already on my way over here when I heard it. I needed to pick up that medicine you said you'd have for me, which is why I was heading over. Can I grab that?"

"Oh, yeah. Right. It's just over in the cabinet right there. The one that says 'Prescriptions.' I hope."

The man headed over to the cabinet and opened it up. "Wow, James. Usually you're pretty strict about this thing. 'Nobody touches anything behind the counter except for me and me alone.'" He chuckled at his impression of B's identity, "You sure you're feeling okay? Maybe that George fellow has rubbed off on you. Then again, for all I know he might not be very nice himself. I wouldn't know. You're the only person I've ever seen around him."

B took a look at where the man took the medicine from off the shelf. There was now an empty space where a space labelled 'Thomas McArthur' was. He thought back to the note and the mention of a George Brown. Intrigued, B decided to press the subject.

"George is a pretty nice guy. Uh, if you don't mind me asking, Tom, what exactly have you heard about him?"

"Well, I don't really pay too close attention to rumors, but I had heard that you and he were getting... close. I don't believe it at all, I mean, nobody's talking anymore, really, but you might as well know what people were saying."

B was now somewhat worried about meeting this George person. While it seemed he would be the best person to trust, he really didn't like the ideas that this rumor presented. On the other hand, it is just a rumor... right?
"Okay, I'm going to head home. Beatrice is alone there, so I don't want her to be worried."

"Is it really safe going out there?"

"The commotion is in the opposite direction from my house anyway. I'm sure I'll be fine. Stay safe, James. Oh, and it looks like you're starting to run low on medicines. You might want to restock."

Thomas left the apothecary and headed directly left. B would bet money that at least one of the other contestants was to the right where the commotion was going on. He looked in the cabinet, and as Thomas had said, the supplies were dwindling. He remembered Hal showing him a neat way to make makeshift penicillin once, so perhaps that would work... He would need some moldy bread, milk, corn syrup... and... B decided that this would be something to worry about later.

He grabbed a blank sign, and wrote 'BACK IN 30 MINS' on it. Sticking it on the door, he immediately turned right and ran into a blacksmith. He put two and two together quickly.

"Ack. Sorry about that, George."

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

Clara turned around as the man ran into her. Well, in actual point of fact, he hadn't run into her; he had stopped as though he had impacted, and she had a vague awareness that something had struck her from behind, but the man had stopped a few inches from Clara's actual body. She supposed that George was a larger person than she, and whatever sophisticated illusion the Monitor was employing had compensated for that so that people didn't appear to overlap. For a very brief moment, she was impressed; once this grudging respect passed, though, her mind rapidly returned to the situation at hand. She tried to remember what building she had just passed or who she had seen.

-

Clara walked down the sun-beaten and near-empty streets rather slowly for a woman on a mission. The very atmosphere of the place was tainted with defeat and fear, and it was difficult to muster significant energy for anything in the midst of such psychic gloom. She didn't particularly want to stand out from the other stolid shufflers that occasionally dotted the streets either; while she doubted people would accuse her of being a witch for moving quickly or with purpose, she simply didn't want to strike up an engagement with anyone. What if it was customary in this society to greet others with "Blessed be in the name of Glorgityschmorgle, Beast of a Thousand Young" or something? Clearly their religion was important, based on the Monitor's note, and she certainly didn't want to appear ignorant of their religion. IT sounded like that might be one of the biggest ways to look like a witch, which she was not keen on. So, she kept her head down and went with the flow.

It occurred, as she wandered the roads, that she really had no idea where she was going or how to find the others. Grand schemes and noble intentions were one thing, but knowing what you were going to do in the next five minutes seemed a bit more important right now; there was no way to organize a rebellion or spread information without knowing where her potential allies were. She nearly began casting a handful of choice divinations before remembering the dire-if-vague warnings about using magic. Clara, and the bulky man she appeared to be, stopped in her tracks for a moment, realizing for the first time the enormity of the task this secrecy presented and how much she actually relied on magic when outside her comfort zone. She quickly started moving again, but her face and the one she wore were furrowed with irritation. The blasted grandmaster had stymied her at every turn since she'd been entered into this battle; every nuisance only strengthened the urge to take down the conniving villain.

As she continued her wanderings, a peculiarly-fatalistic thought occurred. The monitor got his sick pleasure (or whatever he got out of this sadistic spectacle) from watching them fight; otherwise, he wouldn't do everything in his power to convince and coerce them to. It made sense, then, that he wouldn't concoct a scenario where it would be truly impossible to detect their opponents. Something, the pragmatic nun suspected, would come up; in short order, a villager would notice one of the less cautious contestants, or perhaps a disguise would fail. Maybe someone would simply disregard the Monitor's instructions and go on with the battle as it originally was. Something had to happen, or what was supposed to be an intense struggle to the death might turn into several days of tedious paranoia and careful role-playing. It was possible that that was the intention, but Clara somehow doubted it. With stiffened resolve and slightly-improved morale, she continued on her aimless way.

It wasn't long before a commotion a couple of blocks over caught her attention; not only was there loud noise and eventually screaming, but other people had noticed too and were moving towards that source in greater numbers and speeds than she had hitherto seen in Salem. She broke into a half-jog to see what the commotion was; it looked, from what she observed, like this area of the city was much like the rest of it had been: residential houses interspersed with businesses. There was a crowd building around a couple of houses, and there was a great deal of shouting and what sounded like the occasional scream or crash. Clara sped again and made it to the periphery of the crowd; she was standing near the door to an apothecary's, and couldn't advance further without physically pushing people out of the way. After a few moments of craning and wishing she were as tall as the person she appeared to be, she became aware of someone running into her.

Once she remembered where she was, it was easy to figure out the identity of the man who had collided with her; the realization came as something of a shock. Honestly, the last person she wanted to meet was someone as familiar with George as a close friend; she was absolutely certain that she couldn't maintain the pretense of his identity for any time at all with the scrutiny of one of his acquaintances on her.

"Oh, uh... James. Hello. I..."

Clara trailed off, having no idea where to go. It was fortunate, in a sense, that at that moment the air was pierced by another loud yell followed by a crash; after a second of shocked silence, there was a brief pounding and the sound of nearby sobbing. A piercing voice trilled over the crowd "Come on now, you're not going to let one little witch ruin your whole day, are you? You are, aren't you, you little ants!" Clara turned from her companion and muttered, "Someone has to do something about this..." loud enough to be heard over the clamor and pounding of suddenly-fleeing people. Grateful to have an excuse not to let a simple social dalliance betray her nature, the nun began pushing through the press of people towards whoever was causing the mess.

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

As the nun shouldered her way through the fleeing crowd, the scene in front of her gradually became visible; in front of the house that had so recently been the center of attention, there was the huddled, slightly-smoking corpse of some villager, over which was standing a thing, red-haired girl. Standing wasn't really the right word; she was actually hovering several inches above the ground, her bright hair flowing away from her head in a nonexistent wind. It was actually very reminiscent of Aph, and Clara briefly wondered whether this person was one of the real witches the Monitor had mentioned or one of her contestants; the thought was chased out of her head as unimportant, though, as she watched the woman take a potshot at one of the many fleeing villagers. Whoever she was, she had to be stopped.

The lightning bolt the witch had hurled careered at her target; it struck the man in the back, and he collapsed into a twitching heap with a piteous "Ulgh". Despite not being much of a fighter, and even less so without the aid of her magic, Clara knew that saving these people was just as important as saving the contestants; as long as she could still act, no more people would die for the entertainment of some cruel overbeing. She steeled herself and moved towards the girl, grabbing her cane from her belt and hoping it looked like George had taken the hammer from his apron. Without any kind of powers, she would have to take every advantage she could get, including surprise; she was somewhat ashamed that she was thankful the witch's last spell had turned her back towards Clara. The old woman raised the stick and swung towards her target's head; the girl apparently heard the attack coming at the last moment, and turned to raise her arm in defense.

Arm or not, it was still a powerful blow with considerable momentum and necromantic strength behind it. Accompanying the slam of doors and shutters as most of the crowd disappeared into their homes was a loud crack as the cane met flesh; the witch was slammed into the wall of her house, where she slid to the floor. After a moment, she shook herself and snarled before pouncing on her assailant; Clara barely had the agility or presence of mind to dodge, and was grazed by an electrically-charged claw as the girl passed. Pain lanced up her arm and her face set into a stony grimace as she turned to face the witch.

Clara adopted a defensive stance and began slowly circling, the shaft of her cane in both hands; the girl, for her part, followed Clara's movements, and began forming some sort of sphere of electricity in her hands. The two stayed locked in this dance for some time, the few remaining terrified onlookers watching silently, until Clara feinted as though to attack. The witch took the bait and launched her spell, allowing the nun to easily dodge and press in under her lowered defenses; the can was slammed lengthwise into her chest and shoved upwards, zombie-strength and reinforced wood colliding with unprotected ribs, and the redheaded menace was sent sprawling for the second time in less than that many minutes. She glared at Clara, face a rictus of fury, and screamed "Enough!"

She leapt with surprising agility back to her feet; rather than simply hovering slightly above the ground, however, she continued rising until she was some twenty feet off the ground. Sneering down at what she doubtless saw as some insignificant and insolent blacksmith, the witch spat "I'm going to make you beg for death." Clara could do little but watch as her opponent floated well above her, muttering and gesturing, obviously casting some kind of spell. With one final, emphatic word, the girl reached out in front of herself, acting as though she was grabbing something invisible; there was a flash of light from inside her fist, and what appeared to be a long bullwhip made of electricity formed. Laughing, she swooped down towards her hapless target to a small chorus of gasps from the remaining onlookers. Clara was able to stumble aside from the reckless charge, but only managed to avoid being struck by the glowing lash by sending herself splaying on the ground. Another strike forced her to roll over; several more followed, each dodgeable but all forcing her to stay on the ground. Finally, some villager's voice rang out "George, you're no witchhunter, get out of there!" There was a brief pause, followed by a deep, confident voice answering with "No, but I am."

Arm raised to deal a blow straight to Clara's face, the witch pivoted in midair to see the audacious speaker. Down the street a ways, standing dramatically with his back to the sunlight, was a tall man in a plain, black robe, a wide-brimmed black hat, and a small golden pendant that was impossible to make out at this distance. "Madeline, I am appalled. Have the Devil's vile promises dimmed in you the light of God's love? How could you turn away from His teachings; are these fleeting powers truly worth your immortal soul? And what of your mo-" The speaker was interrupted by a furious growl from the witch coupled by a swing of the whip; though he was much too far away to be struck by the lash itself, at the arc of the swing it loosed a small bolt of electricity straight towards the man's chest. He made no move to dodge, and simply raised his hand to whatever amulet he was wearing. The lightning jerked off at a right angle as it approached and grounded itself harmlessly in the dirt. "His light shines through me."

After that simple phrase, the man began chanting in a language Clara didn't understand; she caught words like "spiritu" and "tutela", but failed to glean any kind of message or purpose from them. She struggled to her feet as Madeline began sailing towards the newcomer, whip raised and teeth bared, and broke into a run despite knowing there was no way she could catch up before the witch reached him. Madeline moved ever closer, but the black-clad figure simply stood serenely, chanting; there was a moment where it looked like he would be struck, which stretched out in slow motion, the witch whipping the scourge towards his face. Before it could land, though, the moment simply... Stopped.

Everything around Clara took on a soft, golden glow; there was no sound and no movement, just an odd sensation of stillness in the pit of her gut. She had to force her foot to land, even though she was already midstep; every motion was like pushing through treacle. The chanting man neatly sidestepped, carefully avoiding touching Madeline or her whip, and shot Clara a glance.

"She's not one of ours, and you're not what you seem either. What's going on here?"

Originally posted on MSPA by Aryogaton.

---

As Aegis walked on towards the chaos, he examined his rifle, attempting to quickly figure out its proper way of use before attempting to fire a bullet. He personally favored his gauntlets over firearms when choosing a weapon—they were much more reliable, versatile, and easy to control, if perhaps limiting in their reach. Frustratingly, Aegis’ large and clumsy hands could barely hold the weapon properly. His gauntlets, fortunately, did not prove to be too much of a hassle—with a simple thought, they morphed back to Aegis’ wrists to allow his bare hands free, though this was hidden completely by the illusion.

Aegis stopped once he could see exactly what was going on. In front of the house before him, there was a very young girl, looking surprisingly innocent with no emotion on her face. It was easy to see what the commotion was about—the girl had several black tentacles sprouting from… somewhere? Visually, the point where ‘little girl’ ended and ‘nightmarish monstrosity’ was rather ambiguous, as if the girl’s form could not decide whether it wished to stay consistent with the innocent-looking figure, or go for broke by wrapping around all of the tentacles. To Aegis’ right, another girl—this time looking teenaged—was hovering in the air and tossing lightning about, clearly enjoying herself. Aegis decided to dismiss the second girl when a man sneaked up to her and hit her hard with a hammer.

Noticing that the tentacled girl still had not noticed him, Aegis raised his rifle. He was not particularly trained in marksmanship, but deducing that the two metal sights had to line up with the target for an accurate shot, he aimed at the girl’s head and pulled the trigger.

“No!”

The bullet hit the windowsill on the house behind her, missing its target by several feet. Immediately, the girl’s head jerked towards Aegis, who looked behind him with a face of wild irritation. The outburst came from a crying woman, inexplicably not fleeing.

“Don’t kill my girl…”

Aegis cursed to himself and fumbled with the rifle, not noticing a tentacle whip forward before it wrapped around his neck and pulled backwards. He stumbled for a moment, dropping his rifle.

Goddamn demon-child! I swear if I see any more sorceresses or-

…

I’m getting beat up by a girl. Aeon made it to the last round and I’m getting beat up by a goddamn girl.

Aegis righted himself, grabbing the tentacle around his neck. There was a soft cracking sound as Aegis swung it around and behind him, violently yanking the girl towards him. He caught her by the neck with the other hand, and the girl’s tentacles disappeared. Aegis picked up his rifle.

For a brief moment, the girl’s emotionless face gave to a subtle widening of the eyes, as Aegis threw her in the air and with a wide motion, swung his rifle around, hitting her squarely in the chest. She flew backwards and crashed through a window of the house. Aegis ran through the door immediately after, knowing that that would not have been enough to kill her.

If Aegis had bothered to check, he would have seen the woman behind him collapse to the floor, other Salemites rushing to her aid.

Originally posted on MSPA by Draykon.

---

“Ughuuuh.... irritating.”
Everything from the very beginning. Being pulled out of her castle, away from all her servants. Tossed around all these different places like some kind of doll.
It hadn't really occurred to D'Neya. But this entire ordeal, this entire battle, was irritating.
“I deserve... so much more than this.”

As Aegis burst through the door, D'Neya steadied herself. Doing what that moron from the beginning told her was out of the question. She had no intention of fighting the other contestants.

But didn't Mr. Book give her instructions about the others? Team up with those weaker, kill those stronger.

Well that was fine. The other contestants... from the beginning they'd all been so weak.

Aegis stood at the ready, but didn't make the first move. D'Neya glared at him. He didn't look like any of the contestants. There was no reason not to kill him... and yet she didn't want to kill him.

No, it's because there was a reason. Things have reasons, so if she didn't want to kill him, there was a reason.

“I'm not going to kill you.” she finally said aloud, vocalizing these thoughts.

“You're not one of the others... but... you smell just like him.”

It wasn't smell. On the contrary, the entire town smelled terrible, this man included. But it was a different sense. In fact, wasn't it the same thing that had been the difference between Mr. Eon's book and Mr. Moron From the Beginning's note?

That thing that Mr. Eon had and Mr. Moron didn't. Come to think of it, everyone had that about them. And for everyone it was different, except for this man it was the same as the one for the big man from earlier.

This thing that D'Neya was 'smelling' on everyone... she had no idea what it was, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized it had been there from the beginning.

And, on top of smelling a single one for every person, she was smelling two more... without people... standing right there in the room.

--

“So what do you think of her? She's been a little project of mine for awhile now.”
From the beginning the Devlish man had had no trouble hiding his form. But for Drake, invisibility was relatively new. He had to manipulate particles on a quantum level for the first time in quite a while, and it was certainly difficult. But he was getting used to using his powers again, so he managed to hide without much error.

“Reading her thoughts... she seems reluctant to act on orders.” was the Devlish man's simple reply. At that, Drake giggled.

“That's actually the whole point. See, she's like a rebellious teenager? She sees authority, and she instinctively ignores it. But then someone approaches her as a friend, and she's a lot more willing to listen. It's the first real progress.”

“What practical application could there possibly be for instilling such an attitude?”

“It's a quirk of her race really. Think of it as a complicated magical ritual over an extended period of time.”

Both men stood a few more moments, carefully looking over D'Neya. The Monitor's illusion only extended so far, and they were able to see both forms now. The illusion of the Salem girl had stabilized, as D'Neya retracted her tentacles.

But D'Neya herself seemed different somehow. Her movements were no longer the happy skipping motions from before, but much colder, and more elegant. Carefully and elegantly, she moved straight past Aegis and out the door, ignoring him entirely.

The illusion that served as Drake's body showed his true expression, as a sinister smile crept across his face.
“If she lives long enough, maybe I'll have a God indebted to me by the end of the battle.”

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

---

SpoilerShow

Oh man I almost missed this one. A Grand Battle should never be buried into obscurity!

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

---

B ran through the crowds towards the commotion. He had lost track of where George had gone, but he did notice him heading towards the scene as well. As far as he knew, most of the people here didn't have any spectacular powers, and he doubted that whoever the original owner of the persona he inhabited would be happy if his, er, friend got killed. If anything, he could try to protect as many people as possible from whoever had decided to go psychotic.

He arrived to see some floating lady do battle with George. Whoever he was, he definitely could hold his own in a fight. B couldn't help but look on in awe for a moment at the display of aggression. Soon, however, the battle was taking a turn for the worse as George was looking to be in trouble. B was about to intervene, when somebody spoke up. A strange man, claiming to be a witch-hunter. He had an eerie sort of calmness about him.

The floating girl, apparently named Madeline, sent a bolt of electricity flying towards the man in the wide brimmed hat, but it strangely just avoided him entirely. Maybe the people here did have powers? No, it couldn't be, because all the observing townsfolk looked just as surprised and shocked as B was. Then he started chanting something.

Just a few moments later, everything flashed gold for a moment, and the strange man was gone. Madeline got over the disappearing man relatively quickly and went straight back to her target. Unfortunately, it seemed George was also missing

"Where did-"

She was interrupted by a hammer to the back of the head. Madeline howled in pain for a single moment. B saw her charging something up, and made his choice instantly. Whoever George really was, obviously he was pretty important to James Struthers. The least he could do while borrowing his identity was keep his friend safe. B charged towards the fray, and just as Madeline shot a ball of energy towards George, he jumped in between the two.

On the ground lay an almost incinerated red jacket with the letter "B" just barely still visible. Next to the jacket was a strangely familiar looking newt. The crowd responded in yelling.

"SHE TURNED HIM INTO A NEWT!"

Madeline couldn't help but look at the result in a bemused manner, leaving her unaware of what was coming next.

During the chaos, B scurried away out of sight into an alleyway. He was pretty sure the townsfolk wouldn't appreciate what came next if they saw it happen. I mean, what would people think if the apothecary turned into a dragon right in front of them?

Loud flapping could be heard in the distance from the fight.

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

Clara was understandably taken aback by the sudden halting of everything around her. The oddly-dressed man who had ostensibly made it happen began to approach, clearly waiting for an answer. The nun hesitated, unsure of how to respond or even whether she should explain anything; what if this was some kind of typical witch-hunting test? That seemed pretty unlikely, though, since those people who had been the target of "Madeline's" wrath were pretty clearly dead, but... There was just no way to know what was typical or acceptable here.

In the end, she just stammered out "Er, well, I'm...", shifting nervously as he moved slowly closer. It was apparent that the man had no easier time of moving around than Clara did, which was a small relief; at the very least, if her displayed aggressive intent, she wouldn't be at the significant disadvantage of being markedly slower and less agile than he was.

Fortunately for the old woman, he apparently took her confusion and reluctance to speak as a cue to fill the silence himself. "Worry not," came his soothing, calm voice. "You have nothing to fear from me; you are more likely to come to harm by the citizens' hands if they discover you are not who or what you appear."

Clara's eyebrows raised with mild surprise. "You can see who I am? I was told we would be indistinguishable from the people we were supposed to appear to be."

He shook his head slightly. "No, by all accounts you look to be the local blacksmith, and nothing can visually convince me otherwise. I am simply more adept at realizing when I am being misdirected than the average man. It is interesting to me that you and the girl whom I would yesterday have called Madeline are clearly veiled by the same source and method, yet you are apparently attempting to stop her and protect the townspeople. This is the primary reason I didn't simply neutralize you both at the start."

The old nun made a contemplative noise under her breath as the strange man continued. "So in the interest of not potentially making things worse than they already are, I'd very much like to know what's going on. I presume you and your opponent are not from the Order?"

Clara shrugged as best as she could in the thick air. "I doubt it. I'm not sure what order you're talking about so... Probably not. I'm still not sure I should say what I am doing here, but–"

"Well, I wouldn't really expect you to admit it if you were with the Order, but... Clearly I'm not going to get anything out of you if you don't trust me. It's in both of our best interests, presumably, that I explain.

I am Reverend Nathaniel Greene, and I'm what the people here call a witch. That is to say, I have any ability that might be considered unusual or supernatural by the average person. The dominant religion in most of the civilized world right now explicitly forbids magic and condemns its practitioners, saying they gained their abilities from trafficking with Satan, the Lord of Hell. I and others like me in this area formed a group, to support and protect each other, and ensure that those who would wish us harm for our nature or knowledge do not discover our presence.

Some years back, a group of our members decided that a better use of our abilities would be to subjugate those who had feared and oppressed us; naturally, the vast majority of the group was against such evil and barbarism. Those who desired domination splintered off, began calling themselves the Order of Osiris, and working to expose those of us who disagreed with them to the general public. This current witch-hunt was instigated by the Order in an attempt to further weaken us and Salem as a whole.

It's all we can do to protect ourselves and keep some semblance of order and balance here, which of course means that your intrusion is both a surprising and unwelcome one. Overt use of magic like this is bound to have lasting consequences and seriously endanger everyone here. So I'll ask again: who are you, why are you here, and what are your goals?"

Clara considered the question for a moment, but at her most fundamental level, she was a friendly, trusting person. Deception and the like didn't come easily to her, and she was having a hard time rationalizing keeping anything from this man who had told her more than he really had to.

And so she told him.

She told him everything, hours or days (who could tell?) of kidnapping and dicta and combat and backstabbing and heartbreak came tumbling out in the golden stillness of the Reverend's spell.

And when it was over, he looked pensive, eventually volunteering "It would be ideal for both of us if certain of your companions could be quickly eliminated."

It was unspoken but understood that the implicit message there was "I could kill you now and it would be the best for me and my group", but it seemed that Greene was not the type to murder in cold blood.

The two conversed for what would have been a few minutes more had time been flowing, laying plans, considering options, and worrying. When all that could reasonably be said had been, Greene nodded and walked away, ready to do his part in the pair's plan. Clara positioned herself and waited for the time-stop to fade, raising the cane again. When the gold tinge disappeared, she struck.

The fight continued; Madeline turned someone into a newt, which seemed to confuse her as much as anyone else, confusion Clara took as an opportunity to strike again. She wasn't really doing significant damage to her witchy foe, but it didn't matter.

All she had to do was stall for a while.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

SpoilerShow

There has never been an Ix. He is not here and has never existed. Although if he had, he probably could have made a better post than this. Substituting is hard. Here's a post to try to get into it.

[color=#FF40F]So things were spiraling out of control, sort of. At least, the universe seemed to be throwing her pitches that followed an impossible path. Or whatever analogy would be perfect for this situation. Aph didn’t care. If things were getting weird, she wasn’t one to just sit and ponder things out, she was one to get angry.

Or rather, angrier.

As the townspeople suddenly decided that now was not a good time to hang around and watch an interesting witch-blacksmith fight and subsequently get turned into a newt, they fled in various directions, some indoors, some towards the outskirts of town. Eager to vent, Aph rose even higher, hopefully out of reach of any blacksmith’s flailing hammer, and just fired electricity everywhere, apparently under the assumption that if she aimed at nowhere in particular and at everywhere at once, she was bound to hit something, or, even better, someone.

She was barely paying any attention anymore. That was the only explanation for why she didn’t notice a frigging big dragon barreling towards her in the sky. The first thing that clued her to its presence was the sudden abundance of fire. The townspeople who still happened to be around stopped and gawped. None of them had probably ever seen a dragon before. (No, wait, that sounded weird…all of them had never seen a dragon before...? That's better.)

Aph drifted lower, away from the dragon, who seemed reluctant to land for some reason, before starting to rain lightning bolts from below. Was it ‘raining’ if it was coming from below, though? Because usually raining meant coming from above, right?

This line of thought was interrupted by another hammer to the head. Aph whirled around, but the blacksmith was already backing away and dodging lightning bolts with the usual annoying fleetfootedness.

Argh. Go too low and she would have to deal with a smelly old man who was somehow harder to kill than he should be. Go too high and she would have to deal with a dragon. Why was the world so frustrating.

You know what would be nice.

A bomb.

She briefly wondered how exactly one goes about making a bomb, but stopped. She was magic. She wasn’t about to get held up by something stupid like rules. If she wanted to make a bomb to erase the whole place off the face of the earth, then SHE WAS VERY WELL GOING TO.

She rose higher again, cackling madly, electricity running up her body and collecting in an increasingly-growing sphere above her, somehow writhing and alive…

From above, a dragon tail whapped her over the head, making her stumble and lose concentration. She snarled as the dragon whimpered a little from the sting of the shock. Nobody was letting her have her fun.

As she thought this, the blacksmith came from behind again and hit her on the side.

Not. Helping.[/color]

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

SpoilerShow

Right. This round has been going on for months and people keep not posting. Time to get serious.

I'm giving you a deadline. Next round starts April 10th whether you get anything else done in Old Salem or not.

Originally posted on MSPA by Aryogaton.

---

Oh… kay…

Aegis didn’t quite know how to respond. As D’Neya strolled by, not even sparing the tactical glance at her apparent opponent, Aegis looked at the sandwiched fight occurring not too far away.

The lightning-spewing girl in the middle began to generate a concentrated orb of something arcane, while the dragon approached from above.

Since when was there a dragon in this town? This is ridiculous.

The dragon made a tail swing towards the girl. She narrowly missed being flung into a house at the cost of losing control over the half-made arcane whatever, which was tossed upwards.

Aegis had an idea. It was stupid, but acting intelligently was not exactly the top priority in his mind at the moment. Aegis took a few seconds to gauge the trajectory of the orb and ran behind D’Neya. Hardly pausing a moment, he seized her by the head and flung her upwards. A second later, she collided with the incoming ballistic, and the combined force of her momentum and the explosion left her on a trajectory coincidentally headed towards the three-way fight.

Aegis gave a chuckle, and began walking towards the fight as well.

-----

“A god?”

“Yes.” Drake made his best effort to look impassive. As he and the Devilish Man watched, D’Neya was pitched an obscenely large distance into the air. Drake focused on her trajectory. “This… may not impress you at the moment, but I have no doubt in D’Neya’s abilities.”

“Correct. I am unimpressed. However, I believe you mentioned that there exist entities greater than gods.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Furthermore, you have led me to believe that you are quite familiar with these entities.”

“Yes…”

“And you have been killed by one of these entities. One of the more powerful ones, in fact.”

“In the objective reality, yes.”

“You have an unfavorable status with regards to these entities, then?”

“I wouldn’t say that. Well, I have a significant history with a number of these—let’s call them ‘Grandmasters’, shall we?—but this is little more than rivalry, albeit in a larger scale. Except, perhaps, the one who killed me; my ‘status’ with him is more of a… an attempted and failed usurper.”

The Devilish Man paused for a moment.

“Your motive for the participation in this particular battle is to establish a ‘god’ as your loyal underling. This necessarily means that you are weaker than a god, else such a motive would be redundant. It follows that you are neither a god nor an entity greater than a god. Yet, you have rivalries with such entities and attempted to usurp one. This is a contradiction.”

“Uh. Hold on a moment. Yes, you are correct in that I don’t have the kind of power the Grandmasters have. My rivalry with some is more of—well, consider that one Grandmaster is a subordinate of another, and I am a subordinate of this Grandmaster. I rival with the subordinate in this way. As for D’Neya, the power that her ritual completion would grant me would allow me to traverse and consolidate my abilities to become a Grandmaster’s equal, or even superior. If you are free to explore every facet of reality, there are countless ways to do this, but currently, my only reach is D’Neya.”

The Devilish Man said nothing. Drake deduced that his explanation wasn’t sufficient. All in good time. For now, let’s focus on the matter at hand.

-----

“You think yourself a humorist, do you?”

“Gah!”

Aegis turned around. Just a few feet away, a black-robed man stood rather nonchalantly. He looked unfamiliar, but then again, every contestant was supposed to look unfamiliar at this point. Aegis noticed the distinct lack of footprints indicating where he came from. Damn, another wizard.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Before you react, and as much as I doubt any statement I make will convince you otherwise, I will simply say that I am not a ‘contestant’ in your battle.” What. “My name is Reverend Nathaniel Greene.”

“Impossible. If you’re not a contestant, then how do you know that I am?” Whoops. So much for cover.

“I talked to her.” The man motioned to the three-way fight.

The girl with the lightning? How the hell did he talk to her? Must be able to read minds, then. Wait, he could still be lying. Ugh.

“Simply take solace in this: I do not concern myself with ensuring your death. I am simply a native of this land, and I am far more concerned in the fact that it has been made your battlefield.”

“What?”

“All I ask is for you to tell me your side of the story. Then we may potentially discuss a way for you to proceed in the game and for me to be rid of this chaos.”

“What? I’m not a schemer! I’m not much of an explainer either. Just… if you really want us gone, go kill one of them” Aegis motioned towards the fight “and we’ll all disappear. Or do you want to fight me?”

“Please, try not to be impulsive. I simply—”

The reverend instinctively dodged a preemptive fist and withdrew several feet, out of Aegis’ reach. He withheld, suspecting that Aegis was not malicious, simply brash. If he could simply calm him down, he could po—

Greene’s thoughts were interrupted by a large sword, ostensibly appearing out of nowhere. Dodging again, he withdrew several more feet than before.

-----

“Oof.”

D’Neya landed on something. It didn’t quite feel like dirt. In fact, it seemed to be moving, and quite randomly at that. She sat up and looked around, mildly surprised to see sky just about everywhere. She stood up, easily keeping her balance on top of the violently-swerving dragon.

The girl made her way up the back of the dragon, tiptoeing between its wings. The dragon’s hand swept back and scratched a few times, but otherwise was kept amply busy by upside-down lightning.

D’Neya sat down and got into a comfortable position. She extended several tentacles, which swiftly wrapped around the dragon’s snout.

“Giddy-up, draggy!”

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

---

The fight was getting... More and more complicated. What had started as a simple stalling tactic, a dragged-out series of hits and running, was quickly becoming a confusing brawl. The appearance of the dragon had been bad enough (although with the slight bonus of forcing Madeleine to split her attention), but the other girl, whose tentacles were distressingly reminiscent of D'Neya's, added another variable into an already dangerous and hard-to-keep-track of situation. Lightning bolts and dragonfire were flying through the air, and several houses had already been set alight. By all accounts, the dragon seemed only interested in Madeline and the probable-D'Neya perched on its back, but it was almost certainly foolish to count on it to stay that way. How was one woman, deprived even of the little magic she had, supposed to save those houses and their inhabitants, stop the witch from hurting anyone else, and tame a dragon? An important destiny was one thing, but even prophets needed tools to carry out their god's will.

In between dodging erratic electrical arcs and swinging the cane cum hammer, Clara considered dropping the disguise once and for all and simply using what powers she had to help minimize the damage this barbaric competition was doing to this poor community. At this point, it was unlikely that anyone would have the time or ability to persecute her, between the dragon and the witch who had actually been killing people; on the other hand, manifesting magic might solidify Madeleine's focus and convince her to solely target Clara until she was out of the picture. For that matter, it was possible she was underestimating the citizens' ire at practitioners even of magic used to douse their burning houses...

There wasn't really a lot of mental space available for this line of thought; it was hard to have moral dilemmas and internal arguments and fight a homicidal witch at the same time. So, despite her back-and-forth, Clara effectively ended up sticking with the method she'd started with.

---

Reverend Greene maintained his dance with Aegis for something like a minute; he dodged carefully while making no aggressive moves and calmly trying to convince the man to talk. After a time, though, he became frustrated, and stopped dodging.

"Enough!" he shouted imperiously. With that word, he extended a hand and caught the blade, is skin ignoring the adaptive steel's honed edge as though he had grabbed a stick. His voice boomed in Aegis's head, silent to the rest of the world: My first and only real goal is to save my flock. If you wish to make it so the best way for me to do that is to kill you, so be it. I doubt you could withstand a magical onslaught in the midst of all this chaos. I would much rather find a peaceful resolution, but you may yet force my hand.

Aegis frowned, but the man's words finally got to him. With a tug, he freed his sword and returned it to its gauntlet form, then took a few steps back from his erstwhile antagonist.

"Fine. What do you want to say?"

---

The brawl couldn't really be considered to be going well for any of the participants, with the possible exception of D'Neya. Clara was still frustrated by the collateral damage and anxious about the reverend's hinted-at plan, Aph was battered between two infuriating opponents and felt as though the world was conspiring to keep her as chained as that perverted wizard had, and B had an annoying girl latched on to him in a place he couldn't reach with his stupid dragon arms. In fact, the fight had degenerated to the point it could barely be called a fight anymore, and was more "several people being angry at everything around them with a light smattering of shared violence". Fewer yells and screams broke the air, as most of the townspeople had fled the area most of the devastation was centered in, but quite a few ululations of rage and frustration burst forth from several of the battlers, even unaware as they were of the true nature of their opponents.

No one fighter could land a decisive move, given how split their attentions were, and nothing promised to change that any time soon.

---

"As I said, I wanted to hear your side of the story. To see if you could help me put an end to this without needless bloodshed."

Aegis snorted derisively. "If you already heard from one of them, there's not much else I can say, and you ought to know there's no way to move things on without violence. And if you really want to protect your 'flock'..." He glanced over his shoulder at the roaring dragon and the lightning-spewing girl. "You've got more important things to do that talk to me about my feeeelings."

Reverend Greene sighed and stepped back. There was clearly little to be gained here either through wheedling, through diplomacy, or through intimidation, and it wasn't in his nature to kill an innocent man.

"You may be right."

With that, he began walking quickly away, intent on setting into motion what he was sure would rid his town of this intrusion. HE wished it hadn't had to come to this.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

SpoilerShow

Hey guys, a reminder - you've got one week before I end this round!

If you want to post, now's the time!

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

SpoilerShow

OH LOOK IT'S THE TENTH

Deathpost reserve.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

"Hmm. Still somewhat childish in nature, I see," Drake mused to his disinterested companion. "Nevertheless, her development is promising..."

His nonexistent body froze in place.

"This is all very fascinating," the devilish man replied, "but I believe there's someone who wants to see me. Business before pleasure, you understand. Don't let me bother you, I'll take care of this quickly. We can pick up where we left off."

***

Aegis wondered where exactly the Reverend was going. Why had he walked away from the battlefield entirely? Was he just going to let them continue to fight until somebody died?

Aegis shrugged, and started making his way towards the others. Well, if that was the man's plan, he might as well help out a bit.

***

Reverend Greene walked towards the church, and sighed. This was not a decision to be made lightly. But what else could be done? Perhaps, if he was fortunate, the matter would take care of itself, but there was simply too much danger for the town if this battle continued.

The Reverend had hidden a magic scroll, retrieved from the Order of Osiris. It could produce an enormous fireball, one that surely held enough power to destroy one of the unfortunate invaders.

If not more.

And any unfortunate residents of Salem who happened to be in its path.

He knew using the scroll would have dire consequences. But he had few other options.

And then one of the other options appeared in front of him, smiling.

"Tell me, Reverend," said the devilish man. "Just how much would you like to avoid using that scroll?"

Nathaniel Greene clenched his fists. He knew what the man's price would be, but compared to everything he risked by unleashing the scroll's magic...

It was a bargain.

He nodded.

"And which one would you like me to take care of?" the other man asked, still smiling.

"The one... in the guise of Madeleine," Greene said, sweat dripping down his brow.

"Then we have a deal," the devilish man replied, laughing as he walked off. "Don't worry, I won't ask for payment in advance. I know you won't go back on your word."

***

B was getting frustrated. The lightning was bad enough, but having a little girl riding on his back who he couldn't reach was another. Stupid dragon arms! Why couldn't they have longer arms?

Then he remembered he didn't have to be a dragon.

***

The devilish man appeared where none of the combatants and none of the villagers could see him. It was a talent of his.

He held a musket in his hands, took aim at his target, and fired.

***

From Clara's point of view, the scene was difficult to sort out. First, Aegis had come charging in, drawing Madeleine's attention.

Then, where there had once been a dragon, there was suddenly a sparrow, and the young girl who had been riding the dragon found herself flying towards the ground.

Specifically, towards "Madeleine".

A moment later, there was the sound of a gunshot.

In the space of an instant, D'Neya landed on Aph and knocked her to the ground, intercepting the shot.

Judging by the strange colors D'Neya started to glow afterwards, it wasn't fired by an ordinary gun.

***

The devilish man cursed. How could he, of all people be victim to such a turn of bad luck?

And then it struck him. He returned to Drake Eon.

"You did this," the devilish man said. "You interfered."

"Interfered? I don't know what you're talking about! I just know I don't appreciate being dis-"

BANG!

The devilish man grunted derisively at the spot where Eon had stood a moment before.

"And I don't appreciate being toyed with."

***

It would be technically correct, but somewhat imprecise, to say that what happened next was the death of D'Neya.

The bullet which struck her had been designed to disrupt a magical being, scattering their energy. It was reasonable to assume, after all, that the Monitor would count this as ending the round.

However, as D'Neya had been so near Aph when struck, the effect was somewhat different than intended. The energy flowed out of the Twilight Sprite, and was naturally drawn to the nymph.

Aph stood up, slowly. She had no time to reflect on the presence of her new tentacles, however, before the four combatants vanished from sight.

***

"No charge?" the Reverend asked, surprised.

"I hit the wrong target," the devilish man said, this time without a smile. "I respect the letter of my agreements, Reverend." He turned to leave.

Nathaniel Greene sighed.

"And I respect the spirit of mine. The fact of the matter is, I wanted them out of the town, and you made that happen at my request."

The devilish man paused before replying.

"Then here's my price. Live with yourself, knowing what you tried to do. I think it's fair to both of us."

He vanished, leaving the Reverend alone with his thoughts.

SpoilerShow

Whee for tying up loose ends! New round soon, writing this wore me out.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

---

The four surviving combatants appeared in what appeared to be prison cells. But the technology was more advanced than any of them were used to. The walls were metallic, and the bars were made of some form of energy.

"Welcome to the Cervaled Fall Prison Colony," said the Monitor's voice, speaking suddenly as always. "This time, the rules have changed slightly. Your goal is to escape this prison - nothing more, nothing less. Regardless of how many of you meet your ends in here, this round will not conclude until all surviving fighters escape. I am very interested in seeing how a new objective changes your behavior.

"As for Cervaled Fall itself. It is an extremely technologically advanced prison of my own design. For the benefit of gathering data, I have copied individuals from throughout the multiverse to serve as prisoners here. You may even recognize some of them. You may use any available means to make your escape."

The Monitor's voice went silent, and the contestants were once more able to move.

SpoilerShow

Welcome to Cervaled Fall! This prison, as stated, was designed by the Monitor personally; expect all sorts of crazy high-tech traps.

As it's Round 5, this place also serves as the cameo round, with numerous inmates based on other Grand Battlers of your choice, or perhaps dead characters from this battle; or any other characters of interest you want to stick in. There may also be some prisoners who are intended to be here.

Despite the Monitor's conditions, there will only be one death here, and it's already been decided - it's Aph, due to Ixcalibur's resignation. However, the next round will not start until you escape. How you coordinate the timing of the death and escape is up to you.

Have fun!

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

---

SpoilerShow

Summary of post: Malky doesn't know how the hell Aph acts anymore.

[color=#FF40F]Looking down at herself, Aph quickly noticed that she was herself this time, and not some stupid snively girl. Good. She was purely herself and not forced to hide behind some stupid illusion.

Mostly herself, the tentacles reminded her. They waved serenely in the air, as though they weren’t horrible monstrosities with no business being attached to her. She tugged on them. Besides feeling squishy, they didn’t do much. Oh, it hurt, that was something.

After all the shit she’s had to put up with, she really didn’t feel like having tentacles. The tentacles in turn thought she should wear a cute dress or something. Which was stupid, because for one thing, dresses aren’t just lying around waiting for some stupid girl to pick them up or anything like that.

They argued bitterly for a short time before being interrupted by a weak “Hey.” And that’s when Aph finally bothered to see what sort of place she was in this time.

She had never really been in a jail cell, so she couldn’t have known that usually they weren’t rather large and circular and usually the prisoners weren’t chained up to cold slabs with weird, heavy electro-manacles (or whatever). One of the prisoners had a muzzle and was looking very sullen about it.

“Hey,” one of them said again, a really skinny one propped up in the center. He was half-naked and more likely than not, pretty cold. Two thin lines seemed to be coming out of his back, held tightly in place with even more steel-electric crap. They looked like they really wanted to move. He was wearing a smile that attempted to be friendly but was obviously designed for a killer something. Aph apathetically stared at him. “Yeah, you, chick who just appeared, do me a favor, eh? Why don’t ya just come over here and let me out. That would be real nice.” His voice was so…weedy. She hated it. Whoever these losers were, didn’t matter. She needed to get out, not go around getting buddy-buddy with strangers.

The bars thingies stung when she touched them and she quickly realized that a bit of lightning didn’t help at all. She couldn’t squeeze through (would defeat the purpose of bars). Well, new tentacles, wanna suggest something useful now?

Make friends! They can definitely help you out! And then later you can kill them all!

Building up relationships beyond pure hatred? But that’s haaaaaaard. And people always try to take advantage. Always. No exception.

So take advantage of them instead! Make friends, make friends, so fun! And then they die!

Oh fiiiiine.

Aph turned around to stare down the man’s disconcerting smile once again and gave one of her own, a smile that didn’t bother being genuine and hid no disdain. “Why hello there, those manacles look uncomfortable. Want me to undo them? Undoing them would be good for escaping. And escaping is good.”

If there was anything Aph would admit, it was that she had absolutely no normal conversation skills.

The man in front of her paused before saying, “I would really like that. And I’m sure my friends here would too—“ He was quickly interrupted by a sudden blast of lightning attacking one of the restraints on the strange line things coming out of his back. While it did end up breaking the restraint, it also had the unfortunate side-effect of electrocuting him a little. Just a little. “--ooooooooh Jesus CHRIST,” he finished rather emphatically. Even with his protests, though, the vector that had been freed quickly started vibrating until it was too quick for Aph to see. A few seconds later, the rest of his manacles seemed to undo themselves. Or at least explode themselves. The man landed on the floor, bleeding slightly at the wrists and ankles as his vectors had not quite done the job carefully enough. He didn’t seem to care. “Right. Thanks. I’m Mike.”

“You want my name?” Aph giggled, staring modestly at Mike. “Go screw yourself,” she added with another girlish giggle.

Mike, now completely assured that the pink floaty chick was completely bonkers, just shrugged and said, “Right. I’ll go free those dragons over there. You go over to spikey-head.”

“Alriiiiight, but boss me around again and I’ll tear off your head.”

The tentacles gently explained to her that this wasn’t exactly how they thought she should act.

“Shut up.”

“What?” This was from the other man, a rather weakly creature with stupid hair that looked all spikey. His hands were completely encased in metal. Like little metal hand-coffins. He looked unimpressive. “Uh. Wait. You aren’t…uh, just gonna cut these off or, uh, just try lightning them off, are you?”

“I can try both! Won’t that be fun?” Aph asked as her sword suddenly sparked with electricity.

“Wait, um, I don’t think, this isn’t going to result in me losing my hands, is it?”

“I dunno!” And before any more protests could be made, Aph swung her sword downwards. The man yelped and jumped up to his feet really quickly, pulling his hands with him. Despite the lack of cooperation, Aph managed to cut the hunks of metal without harming his hands beyond a light burn. Which he made a big deal out of. Aph decided not to listen.

On the other side of the room, two dragons were having an argument with Mike, although only one could actually talk coherently.

“…Look, you need that muzzle off, I can easily cut it off.”

“I’m pretty sure she would rather get it off in a safer way.”

“Lrrmn mmmruh kkuuurrrmmm!”

“Come on! What’re the chances that we’ll actually find the key or code or whatever to open it up? Didn’t you say that her head can regrow or something?”

“Yeah, but she’s not a big fan of having to go through it.”

“Ugh. Whatever.” Mike glanced up at the other two as they walked over, but didn’t otherwise acknowledge them. “Right. So. Let’s get out of here.”

“And do you know how?” The red dragon said rather sarcastically. Aph only briefly noted that there were two dragon heads apparently attached to some large doll. The doll looked like it was staring at her and smiling. It wasn’t one of those lewd suggestive smiles or a superior smile, just a really happy smile. Staring at it actually calmed her down a little.

“I’m more of an improviser, really. Stay on our toes, we could probably get out.”

“Hah. We’re only Class 3, you know. Just Violent And Dangerous. That’s probably not enough to break out of a high-tech, high security prison.”

“Uh,” Spikey-head spoke up, raising a hand tentatively as though he were in class. “I’m really not violent or—“

“Oh shut up. We all know you are. What? It’s all a mistake? You aren’t meant to be here?” The red dragon’s sneering tone was enough to shut Spikey-head up. “Right. Anyways, we need to get more power in our group. We should probably get to the Class 0 sector.”

“What? Those guys?” Mike snorted with quite some derision. “They aren’t trustworthy, you know. None of ‘em are.”

“They’re extremely powerful and probably want to get out as much as we do. They need our help to escape and we need theirs. We’ll have a mutually beneficial agreement. Although it will probably be best to locate some files on them to see which one would be the most…stable. Okay. Let’s take inventory. We’ve got acidic blood—“ the red dragon was very careful to ignore the muffled protest from his friend, “—if we ever need it, potentially fire-breath in the future, water manipulation, shapeshifting…Mike, anything else besides those…ah, vectors?” Apparently not. “Diego. What can you do?”

“Honestly, I can’t really—“

“Don’t give me that crap.”

Spikey-head Diego mumbled something about ‘air’ and ‘small’ and ‘kill you dead.’ Aph didn’t pay attention. The doll’s smile was actually really relaxing.

“And you. Uh. You.” Aph looked up and scowled, already forgetting that she was supposed to be acting or whatever the tentacles had suggested. “What about you?”

“You already saw what I did, didn’t you?” she shot back sullenly.

“Well, I suppose, but isn’t there—“

“No.”

“Ooookay then.” Realizing the conversation was now over, the dragon walked over to the cell door, or rather the doll did, really, but whatever. “I think these bars are activated electronically through this…thingy out here. Maybe, uh, you there, you could—“

“No.” Aph was nudged by one of her new tentacles, if that was even possible and quickly added in a clearly faked vapid tone, “I meeeaan, those bars’ll tooootally hurt me, you knoooow?” The blue dragon made some rather sarcastic-sounding noises, but if the red dragon had any comment to make, he didn’t make them and instead continued blabbering on and on. Blah blah blah.

Mike apparently got fed up too and stomped over to the wall right next to the door. There was a loud screech that echoed throughout the room, with sparks flying off the wall, trailing up, right, down, until it reached the floor again. He pushed it down and stared pointedly at the dragon.

“I—well—there should have—“ Whatever the dragon tried to say, Mike didn’t bother listening and strolled right through the hole. Almost immediately, a mechanical voice intoned, “ESCAPED PRISONER FOUND. MIKE SHAUN. PLEASE STAY WHERE YOU ARE. OFFICIALS SHALL SOON ARRIVE TO CAPTURE YOU AGAIN.”

The dragon pointedly stared at Mike.

“How the hell was I supposed to know they wouldn’t notice an entire wall fall over but notice me just walking out?!” With the way things were going, Aph decided that now was the time to take advantage of what these losers had already done and immediately flew out the newly-made door and randomly turned left down the corridor, ignoring any shouts from behind, not caring whether the Class Whatever prisoners followed her or not.

Wheee, wheee, isn’t making friends and betraying them fuuuun?

Yeah, sure, whatever you say, weird tentacle things.[/color]

Originally posted on MSPA by TelltaleSpleen.

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Reserved for cyber95 because I don't feel like logging into the right account to do so.

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

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B flew into a wall.
He should have been prepared for the round change, but he was focused on what was happening below him at the time. It looked like D’neya had been killed. B was a little bit shaken, both from the sudden impact against metal, and the fact that he’d seen somebody else die. Even after having made a kill himself in this game, he didn’t think he would ever get over the idea of death. He thought of the lab. The day that C showed up, and freaked out. Most of the people killed were not very nice, but most of them also had families, friends. He considered some of them his own friends, even if they probably didn’t share the same sentiment.
B shifted back into his normal, human form, and felt a draft on his chest. He managed to get his shirt incinerated in the last round with that stunt of his. He meant to take off James’ shirt but the illusion didn’t seem to discriminate. Shoeless and shirtless, he thought perhaps he could find something to work as a cloak somewhere. Would provide ample coverage without being too in the way of transformation. He was about to walk forward when he noticed the electrical beams in his way. It wasn’t until that point that he got the idea to look at his surroundings.
He was in some kind of metal jail cell. Kind of futuristic looking, really. He would consider turning into something really small to get through, but with electric bars instead of the traditional iron, he wasn’t willing to chance it, particularly when such small forms would be more susceptible to death from strong jolts. The Monitor said something about escaping, so he should probably figure a way to do that.
“Hey!”
What was that? Somebody else is in here?
“Hey you! B! To your left!”
B was startled by his name being called, in particular from a voice he hadn’t ever heard before. Looking through the less electric bars of a window going to the next cell, he saw a dark blue glow of a mechanical eye, and stepped back a bit. He was eased a bit when the shadows lifted from the rest of his face to show a more friendly demeanor than the eye alone suggested. “H-how do you know my name?”
The short man smiled and pointed at B’s shoulder. “Well, I didn’t know it was your name, but it’s written right there! “
B looked at the tattoo of the letter B on his right shoulder. He’s pretty sure it was so that the people who created him would always have an identifying mark, as if the front of his hair being naturally bright red wasn’t an odd enough identifying feature already. “Who, uh... who are you?”
“Oh right! I’m Gadget Solune! Nice to meetcha. Would be nice if it were under different circumstances, though. I’m guessing you aren’t from where I’m from. I mean, that Cabaret guy that was next to me wasn’t either-“
“Cabaret? He’s alive!?”
“Yyyyyeah. Was he supposed to be dead?”
B was confused. On one hand, this meant that maybe he didn’t kill anybody after all, but on the other hand, he was clearly not a good guy. And was next to Gadget. That implied he was gone now, so there wasn’t any guarantee that he’d look the same. Although he may very well smell the same... He’d have to get out first to find out.
“Gadget? I need to get out of here.”
“We’ve been coming up with a plan for that ourselves, but it’s been taking a while. ...say, can you turn into anything else? I had a friend who could turn into a snake whenever she wanted but that’s about it. You limited to that one thing?”
“Uh, no, I can turn into pretty much anything really.”
“Great. Hey, Maxwell, have you figured it out yet? If not, I doubt that it can be disabled through the-“
Another voice shouted out from across the hall, this one with a British accent, “It’s certainly right here, but this friend of yours is making it rather difficult to concentrate, as great a source of light it is.”
“Don’t take it too hard on him, it’s a new world for him, he’s excited.”
“Yeah! Gosh I can’t wait until you figure this out and get us out there’s probably SO MUCH NEAT STUFF out there!”
“Wonderful. Really, all that needs to be done is one red and white striped wire should be disconnected, but it’s rather small and difficult to get at.”
B was confused. What was going on and who else was over there with the British guy? How was the world new to Maxwell’s companion? These perplexed thoughts were interrupted by Gadget.
“Alright, B, if Maxwell figured it out, you can get out, and get the rest of us out of here, too. If you can turn into something really small, get down into that panel over in the corner of the room, and take out the wire that Maxwell mentioned. It should be near the bottom of it somewhere.”
Okay. Red/white stripey wire. Couldn’t be too hard. B shrunk down and got a bit furrier as he became a rat, and went over to the panel mentioned. The cover of the panel opened a lot easier than it should have been able to, particularly from the inside, but within the panel was a tangled mess of wires that were impossible to make out each individual one. This may have been a bit more of an ordeal than he bargained for. Nonetheless, he dove into the wires, looking through the dozens upon dozens of wires for one specific one. It felt like an hour, but it must have only been a few minutes, B did eventually find a wire striped like a candy cane. Thinking more at the delicious candy associated with the colors, and less on what had probably been touching the wires, he took a big bite, severing the wire cleanly. A strange electric sound could briefly be heard from outside. Struggling back out of the wire filled panel, B found he managed to turn off the electrical bars blocking his escape. He quickly shifted back to his normal self once again. All this changing so quickly was starting to get tiring.
B walked out of the cell and decided to get a look at the occupants of the cell across the hall. There was a kinda tall, thin guy in a trenchcoat and a fedora, and next to him was what appeared to be a desk lamp, hopping up and down in excitement. He quickly conceded that at any point he figures nothing more could surprise him, he would quickly be proven wrong.
“Good job, B! We’re only in Sector E, not considered dangerous or violent, so security is pretty low. There should be an electronic key somewhere at the end of the hall.”
B simply nodded and walked down the cell lined corridor. Other than him and his new ‘friends’, the cells were empty, but at the end there was an arrow pointing to more Sector E cells, so perhaps this was just a single branch of the sector left mostly unused. Probably meant less surveillance than other parts anyways. There was a desk nearby, with a card key on it. He grabbed it and went back to the cells of Gadget and Maxwell. Swiping the card through a device near them disabled the electricity immediately.
“Thanks, B!”
“Uh, no problem. Oh, uh, and I don’t think I’ve been introduced to you either?”
Maxwell shook hands with B, “Maxwell Deakin. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
A small, kinda squeaky voice was heard below from the desk lamp, “And I’m Brightly!”
Gadget smiled and shook his head at the lamp, “That would be my doing. I can give souls to, well, anything really. Cabaret pulled that out of his cloak as he was taken away, so I worked my magic on it.”
B quickly grabbed the conversation thread there, “Cabaret was taken away? Where? Why?”
Maxwell shrugged a little, “Well, he just so happened to pull a chainsaw out of his cloak at some point, and there was a swift relocation order put on him. I assume he’s in one of the higher levels at this point. You were looking for him, I believe?”
“Yeah, I was. You guys know more about this place than I do, can you help me find him?”
“Sure thing! Think you can help me out in return?”
“Uh, maybe. What is it?”
“Well, my friend Whir got taken, too. While we’re looking for Cabaret, can you help me look for him?”
“I can probably help you out with that.”
“I’ll come. Perhaps you can help me find a cup of tea somewhere around here.”
B laughed a little. Somehow, despite all that’s happened, he’s managed to make a few friends here in this screwed up place. Maybe this ordeal wouldn’t turn out so bad after all.
“So, B, we going? I think I know how to get to Sector D, but from that it’ll be trickier.”
“Yeah, okay, let’s go. Oh, uh, Gadget, Maxwell. You can call me Ben.”

Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.

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SpoilerShow

I decided that it would be fun to categorize all the characters we've got so far, so here we go. All of the below assumes that anything that can be taken from the characters, in terms of equipment, has been, so "danger" levels are determined by innate abilities and skills not tied to specific equipment:

Class 6, sector F: Minimal Security Risk
Nathan Finley
Emily Trenwe
Professor Armidillo Reccxer
Annaliese Nibbs
Lilian Finch
Benjamin Jetsam (he took the form of a robotic prison guard and was promptly deactivated)
Norman Randall Pollet
Red (he is a lobster)
Tim Broderburg
Clarice Broderburg
Alison Broderburg
Ethan Broderburg
Baby Emma Broderburg
Nancy Little

Class 5, sector E: Nonviolent and Low-Risk
Eximo Pulvis
Maxwell Deakin
Cabaret
Gadget Solune
Jordan Smith
Annabell
Lainey et. al
B, apparently
Steven Taylor
Xadrez
Geoff Wilson
Sir Arnold Scarlet
Sarika
Miq
Doctor Kaja Lorrden
Zachariah "Zom" Shaw
Rollo
John Smith
Cailean Lachlan
Ashley Hayden

Class 4, sector D: Violent but Low-Risk
Aeon Ferrous
Galus Lee Matthews
Xeno Photon
Whit O'Donal
Hatman
Alex Corendal
Cpt. Vasily Rurikovich
Aegis Cupris
Emilio Nahaz
Special Agent Coy Spender
Dr. Anarchy
Weo
Timothy Swhales
Wardell Paraswon
Acacia Scammer
Lloyd Conrad
High Priest Muriegro
Riko
Ripper Blackmask
Bellona Achillia
Dove
Tor Kajan
Saint Scofflaw
TinTen Naamxe

Class 3, sector C: Violent and Dangerous
Alcarith
Cobra
Mike Shaun
Zeke
Grimm
Itzal Argi
Eemp/Right/Rong
Larus Mutabilis
Bae
Trickster
Aph
Sen
Alexander Streisand
Blitz Weiker
James Raven
Thomas Packston
Michelle Davis
Calm
Diego Red
Arkhal of the Silver Hammer
Jennifer Tull
Keleth
Maxwell and Sikarius
Apathy
Greyve
Loran Twilight
Steinwaffe
Lucas Maxl and Co.
Pluck
Dekowin
Karen
Marcus White
Eureka Finch
Tamerlane
Luron Timerius
Laura Scourge
Kargrek Strongarm
Phil Girnham
Kerak
Velobo Calidad
Huebert Henderson
Tria
Brooklyn Taylor
Blazaard
Samael Corson
Vulm'mram'Vuul
Martin Holden
Ke
Gamehost 6
Gabe Farrell
Envoy
"Lucky" VII
Guarinn

Class 2, sector B: Highly Magical, Unusually Dangerous, or Social Risks
Lutherion Maw
Amethyst
Samuel Therion
The Sunset
Sister Clara Jungfrau
D'Neya
Iris
Jacob Helix (not exactly "highly" magical, but magical teleportation requires mana dampening)
John Swift
Mr. Nothing
Hand of Silver (without his newmatter fabricators and most of his removable weaponry, he's just a social risk)
Ziirphael (now that he's stuck in one body, he's just highly dangerous, not incorporeal)
Konka Rar
Felix Atrum
OTTO and O'rlyath
Sereno Dementis (only because this level is where all the solitary confinement cells are)
Sirius
Holly Tallbirch
The Countess
CH4-12-L13
La Aguja Del Dolor
Thatix
"Amy"
Soft
Vandrel Reinhardt
Murdoch Miles
Lieutenant Matthew Zimmer
Parsley Krose (anyone who can turn walls into bread requires mana dampening)

Class 1, sector A: Contagious, Incorporeal, or Mental Risks
Dorukomets
Vexmagog
Asteira
Ekelhaft
Kracht
Photographer
Zephyr
Thane
Reudic Ostaceae
Zachariah "Zach" Shaw
Simphonia
Nemaeus
Gepetto Morti
Gannet
Dorin, Shik'skara, and a whole bunch of very-crowded ghosts
Elimine Fraze and her cat (mostly due to the cat's smoke form)
The Convolution
Etiyr

Class 0, sector S: Special Containment Required
Gestalt
Vyrm'n
Manikin
Glere
Gormand
The Ovoid
Voitrach
Will Haven
Jeremy Brackett
Algernon
Ouroborous
Syvex
Scott Williams
Cole Aran
Ur
Balance
Dr. Tengeri Nyoka
Crepitans Bloodbark
AMP
Yanis Carnea
Quantos Xodarap

Clara had actually been mid-blink when the round had ended, and due to The Monitor's transportation system and protocols, her eyes had stayed sealed shut when she had been deposited in the new setting. They stayed forced closed as his droning voice gave them the minimum of information he felt they needed, and weren't released until it faded. Once the paralysis faded though, she kept them closed for a few moments anyway; she'd been placed in a sitting position on a barely-soft and rather-cold surface, back against a harder and colder one, but at least no-one was killing anyone else. Or at least not doing so in front of her. It was pleasantly peaceful by comparison, and she breathed slowly in and out, more out of habit than necessity.

Her reverie was quickly ended by another mechanical voice, this one certainly close by and physical in origin. "Ah, I was wondering when I would get a cell-mate. Only the 'social risks' end up in solitary confinement."

With a small sigh, the nun opened her eyes; the room around her was small, rectangular, and made entirely out of a dull-matte metal that glowed faintly blue. The door was just another plate that ostensibly withdrew into the wall or floor, and had no mechanism for operation on this side. She couldn't glean any more details at the moment (and what she did pick up was all incidental and subconscious) because all her attention was focused on the figure opposite her.

It was a skeleton, dressed in a tattered robe and missing an arm; one of its eye-sockets was glowing, but the other had a handful of fine cracks emanating from it. It was sitting slouched on a bunk on the far wall, remaining arm folded in its lap, and didn't move as it continued speaking. Even its jaw stayed completely motionless, but there was little doubt it was the speaker, given the direction the sound came from and the lack of any other potential source.

"Welcome to Cervaled Falls, the last place you'll ever be. We'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on. Quite a lot, if you understand."

Finally, it moved, standing up and crossing the room in two strides then extending a necrotic hand. "Konka Rar, lich. Sorcerer too, but it seems inappropriate to wear the title given the situation. Lord, once, but that's universes away now."

Clara reciprocated the gesture, pumping the skeletal arm with no hint of distaste. "Sister Clara Jungfrau. Mother Superior, I suppose, in another time and place."

It was impossible to read any reaction on the skeleton's face, given the lack of muscle or motility. The social ritual finished, the pair disengaged and sat back down. After a moment, she broke the silence again. "If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean that it seems inappropriate to call yourself a sorcerer? I've never heard of anyone losing that kind of power."

Konka Rar cocked his head and gestured to the boxy little cell around them. "Mana dampening. It's in the walls, it's all around us. I'm surprised you didn't feel it when you arrived. I couldn't cast a cantrip if I was holding the world's largest powerstone on the full moon that was also the equinox and standing waist-deep in the blood of unicorns."

Clara blinked. She hadn't really been in a mental state to notice it, but now that she calmed her mind and focused, she felt... Nothing. Not the flow of mana, nor the comforting promise of Schleier's presence in the back of her mind. Nothing at all. It was slightly unsettling. Worse, it was worrying. Without magic, what could she do at all?

She was just an old woman in a metal box.