Epic Clash - COMPLETE!

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

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SpoilerWell in theory she is a zombie. Sort of. I based myself on the image Romans had of dead people. That is why she also hovers.

"This is hopeless." Asteira sighed rationally. "The cave is making more turns than democracy." Nostalgia and despair mingled in an emotional potpourri, as she reflected on her new self. "And this bloody ghost body isn't helping either. I'd kill for just one moment of weakness, wretched mistakes and insufferable morals! I'd give my life to become either dead or alive again!" In this embarrasing shame, she found relief. The power to gain control over the situation, as her mind controlled her heart, as she herself controlled the people. She became invisible. "Wh-" Startled greatly about her new powers, she barely noticed the tunnel circling around her.
Asteira spotted the groups closing in on each other, Thomas, Michelle and Nothing apparently heard each other. This means they were headed in her direction. "Superb timing, everyone."

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SpoilerAn explanation might be in order.
Along with her new, astounding physique, Asteira gained some abilities.
Invisibility - exactly what it says on the tin, for a rough 3 minutes.
Possession - This ability will be a treat. It allows her to control other people for a period of time. This period right now is restricted to a minute, and this control is restricted to words, not actions. In a way, it allows her to roleplay as another character on her turn. woo woo all aboard the loop train woo wooo!

Is this too much or is this okay?

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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SpoilerI'm not really sure I understand. What new physique? You're a little cryptic there.

The possession and invisibility are fine by me, the way you have them. Keep in mind that magic users may have various amounts of spiritual "sense" which may vary from getting a chill when you're close to recognizing that something spiritual is nearby, but in most cases it won't help them locate you. Experience and knowledge will play roles in this.

If Spender has a rulespace active (none for the moment) it will still affect her until she's FULLY intangible, though again she can resist the effect.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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SpoilerI've got no problems with those. I do, however, want to take this opportunity to clarify some specifics regarding Thomas.

There are four separate people inhabiting his body. They are each individuals, with their own personality traits, memories, and goals. They each have their own soul. They all have a unique eye colour, and any new minds that (somehow) enter Thomas will have one that is different from any existing ones.

Control over the body is determined by force of will. A personality can take over from another by overpowering them. The personality in control can also place another in control, but that other person can resist if they want. Personalities can also gang up on other personalities to transfer control. For example, if Eric is in control and Bern wanted to take over, whoever willed harder would have control. The four personalities are fairly evenly matched, however, so a one-on-one battle for control would usually result in a stalemate until one of the other two assisted one or the other.

Because they have lived with this their whole life, they all have very powerful wills. There would be no contest if one of them came up against a typical person. A sorcerer's mind-control spells would likely take at least one of them to combat, depending on the strength and skill of the sorcerer. It would take an astonishingly powerful and experienced being to be able to wrest control from all them and actually do anything with it.

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

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SpoilerI imagine she'd have some problems with Glere since he's rather unpredictable, and his consciousness isn't bound to his physical head, so that might prove an obstacle of sorts.

Originally posted on MSPA by Odinod.

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SpoilerJust wanted to let everyone know that I haven't died. I'll post something tonight, even if it's crap. Bioshock 2 has me in its hideous grasp. [img]images/smilies/mspa_face.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

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SpoilerAs I have said before, I don't have a problem with you adding new abilities to your character as long as they seem to fit with your theme and you write them well. Actually, just as long as you write them well, though fitting with your theme goes hand-in-hand with that.

Possession and invisibility do make sense, both with her role as a spectral being and her role as a manipulator. However, in the manner of a friendly tip rather than anything pertaining to the judgment of the round, I can say that, in my opinion, mind control abilities are extremely difficult to write for well. It also makes your competitors uncomfortable, as evidenced by two other players' first immediate reaction being to spout off facts about their characters that would limit that ability. That being said, besides the rather loose rules in the first post, this is an anything-goes sort of contest, and you are more than welcome to add the possession aspect if you think you can pull it off.

It should also bear to note that the sentence, "it allows her to roleplay as another character on her turn," made me double-take a bit. You, Wojjan, are already free to roleplay as another player's character on your "turn" (though I would hesitate to call the arbitrary divisions in the story based on who happens to be writing it at the time a "turn"), and they, yours. The distinction, I suppose, is that Asteira gains the ability to do so as well, with the implication that their dialogue no longer has to be in-character. Somehow that struck me as kind of meta. I don't know whether that's a bad or a good thing.

Anyway, tl;dr: You can use new abilities, but beware of the difficulty in writing the possession one.

Originally posted on MSPA by MyifanW.

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SpoilerI think by turn I mean the possession lasts the period of time she posts, or ends before she finishes a post. Either way, that could work, as it wouldn't cause another player to have no ability to play for a bit.

Also, I'm a bit sketchy on the idea of suddenly gaining a new power. I mean, I suppose it makes sense in context, but it can seem like an asspull. Still, writing is everything. If the new power or whatnot is well described and written, all is good.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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It also makes your competitors uncomfortable, as evidenced by two other players' first immediate reaction being to spout off facts about their characters that would limit that ability.

To be clear, I am not at all uncomfortable with it- to the contrary, I embrace it. I had been hoping that mind control would come into play, as it would provide an opportunity to further explore the dynamics of Thomas' minds.

In addition, suomynon's post seemed, a least to me, to be more focused on limiting the invisibility rather than the possession.

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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It also makes your competitors uncomfortable, as evidenced by two other players' first immediate reaction being to spout off facts about their characters that would limit that ability.

To be clear, I am not at all uncomfortable with it- to the contrary, I embrace it. I had been hoping that mind control would come into play, as it would provide an opportunity to further explore the dynamics of Thomas' minds.

In addition, suomynon's post seemed, a least to me, to be more focused on limiting the invisibility rather than the possession.

(Edited once)

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SpoilerI can't say I embrace it, frankly, but all's fair in war (love, too, but not so applicable here). Although, my advice actually applies equally well to Thomas, and Mr. Nothing, and maybe to Michelle a a suvivor-horror-genre if not a mage; any of those four could be expected to get a sense of an ill-meaning spiritual guest, especially after the first time.

My point was mostly technical anyway, as I try to keep RPing my character as pretty experienced with very supernatural things, while trying to make it a non-OP'd character. This is actually a bit difficult as I think I tend to write a bit of OP into my favorite characters; with Spender and his technology in particular, he already has a large database of spells that it would be very easy to turn into a Schrodinger's Gun. I'll do my best to set up any ability he has prior to a significant use of it so it doesn't seem pulled out of my butt.

My biggest problem regarding Asteira is finding a way in which my character couldn't immediately counter the invisibility, once he figured out that the spirit was there. Stripping an enemy character of one of its abilities isn't very sportsmanlike for me as a player, and it ruins the creepy atmosphere for me. However, I think the ability to notice and resist rulespaces will help with that, as that would be the easiest way to peg her with a nonviolent, area-effect spell.

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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Tired as he was, the explosion caught him completely off-guard, and the echoing roar disoriented and terrified him momentarily. What upset him most, however, was the raspy scraping that persisted for a few moments after. He wasn't trained in tunnel warfare, but he thought he knew what it implied, and he wasn't at all pleased to hear it echoing from nearly every direction. At least, he hoped it was only an echo...

Shit, shit, shit, don't collapse on anyone unless they REALLY deserve it, okay ice cave? Please?

He tried a local sensor spell again, knowing it wouldn't tell heads or tails as far as the cavern itself was concerned. It did, however, show him what he was looking for--an anomaly, an absolutely sharp edge in the otherwise smooth, if bent, gravity fields. Looks like one of their generators was hit. Let's take a look-see.

He paused and reminded himself to listen for the sounds of anyone and everyone else, trying to pick out their locations. Maybe half of them are close-by, and it would be a waste of a good stage exit to get picked up by Thomas or Emilio again. I'll go the long way around.

Keeping his sensor in play, he turned and creeped up the wall and down the hallway, hoping he wouldn't run into anyone.

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SpoilerIce is actually pretty fragile, isn't it? If you get a good crack going in it, you might have some serious structural faults. And with the odd forces of gravity, who knows which pieces are now load-bearing...

Spender's sensor data won't help him very much pretty much unless he can already see you, although it will let him know the gravity of the local area rather precisely.

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

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SpoilerIn DDotSK, the cave itself is not ice, but rock. It was a normal rock cave, then the ice dragon was trapped inside by the viking and made it cold. I don't think it's ever made clear whether the rock genies lived in there previously, or moved in after Bjernfnre (the dragon) did, but the point is the cave is not composed of ice.

However, temperature fluctuation makes rock very brittle, so it still makes sense for the cave to be unstable.

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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SpoilerAh, okay.

...

Well again, with gravity pulling every which way anyway, you never know but that something that just broke was actually load-bearing.

Maybe the rock genies will scurry off and realign things so that it isn't anymore. Just sayin'.

Originally posted on MSPA by Odinod.

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SpoilerOkay, so please please PLEASE let me know if I ever mess up writing for any of your characters; PM would be preferred so it doesn't clutter up the thread. I'm just really nervous I'm not going to write your guys' characters as you see them. Anyways, here we go...

Also, I hope it's okay that I'm going along with the "gravity generators breaking down" idea. I liked the idea of being on the ceiling when they broke.

"The real question is..." Mr. Nothing said, a hint of mischief in his eyes, "Are you going to kill me?" His hand was still extended toward her, waiting for hers to take it. Michelle stood and trained her gun away from him, while still keeping it ready. This was a competition based around killing each-other, after all. She shook his hand quickly, taking a few steps back when the greeting was finished.

"No, I don't think I am. Although I will if I have to!" She aimed her gun at his head and made a "Pow!" noise, grinning all the while.

Mr. Nothing looked around nervously, stepping to one side so that the gun was no longer pointing directly at his face. A shot he would most likely survive, but the point remained that the regeneration would hurt like hell. He smiled back at her, attempting to quell the rising tension. "So what other people have you-" He was interrupted by a blast of noise that came from one of the tunnels around them; the ground shook, and stalagmites and stalactites, weak from the rising temperature, broke off from the ground and ceiling, falling and rising. He jumped out of the way of one that was about to land right on him. Unfortunately, this brought him closer to Michelle. And her gun.

He tried his best to keep his composure. "Wha...what whas that?"

"I don't-" Michelle was interrupted as the floor beneath both of them rumbled some more. It suddenly occurred to Nothing to wonder where down really was. Didn't they say something about gravity generators in the beginning? As soon as this thought entered his mind, he started falling up. Or down, as the case happened to be. He quickly reoriented himself and cast out his wings, flapping them hard in an attempt to prevent the fall. It was only after he had saved himself that he even thought about Michelle. He dropped down to the ground and looked around for her.

She was behind a large, cold rock, dusting bits of dirt and grime off herself. "Are you okay? How did you make it down here without being hurt?"

She laughed and smiled at him. "I can take care of myself just fine, Mister." Nothing made an incredulous face, then turned away from her and looked around. "This place is falling apart...the other competitors must be at each-others throats already. You think we should just stay here for now? You know, wait it out until someone gets killed and we move on to the next place?"

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SpoilerSo, again, hope I didn't screw up Michelle's character, and I'm leaving this open for either Michelle, Thomas, Spender, or Asteira to respond. Or anyone else, really. I guess it's just open, period. [img]images/smilies/mspa_face.gif[/img]

Originally posted on MSPA by McBatman.

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Schlump. Schlump. A strange slurping noise continually filled the air down the winding corridor. The vibrations from the dynamite finally began to wear off, the caves settling back into alignment, however unstable now. Glere rounded the corner, as a large stalactite fell straight for his head, only to vanish with a schlump. He lifted the corner of his cloak and gazed around. He let out a sigh, sometimes his shenanigans were too much even for his own madness, though, he found those moments to be the most fun, really.

"Looks like I can switch this back then..." he muttered to himself, as he flipped his cloak back around. He had flipped it inside out to catch any falling debris, so as not to, you know, die. He took it off and shook it out behind him, as several large rocks, stalactites, and stalagmites fell to the ground in large number. Shortly, a loose wall of boulders and other rocks had sealed off the passage behind him. Amidst the rocks were various clocks, some odd assortments of clothing, and a few candelabras. He grabbed one that had fallen near the bottom of the pile and examined it.

"Ah good, still usable." he mused to himself, pulling out another match and lighting the five candles that rested on the candelabra. He looked at the passageway and surveyed the surroundings. It began to turn sharply to the right, and a strange archway had formed to his left. The rock genies apparently feeling up for some games of their own. He gave a light shrug and stepped through, suddenly mobbed by dozens of them.

"Aw, if you wanted a hug all you had to do was ask!" he said while laughing as he traveled through apparently solid rock before once again emerging into another tunnel. He stood up dusting himself off.

Suddenly, a soft sound of footsteps on the stone floor caught his attention, someone was now apparently closing in on him.
Goody! More playmates! he thought, smiling mischievously as the noise grew louder.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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After several minutes, the rumbling died away. Reaching out, Greg felt a thick layer of rocks above him, several feet deep in places. There were a lot of rocks, and more than a few were moving on their own.

Right. Well, now that it's mostly stable, we're going to have to extricate ourselves as quickly as possible.

Wait, why do we have to get out?, Eric asked, Why not just stay here until the end of the round?

Well, you've got plenty of skill in moving air, but I doubt you're capable of turning carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen.

Really, this pile is airtight?

Melting ice turns to water, and water mixes with dirt to form mud. I've actually stopped holding up the dome because it's structurally sound enough to be self-supporting.

Bern spoke up. Wait, then how will we get out if it's so strong?

I would have thought that obvious- we dig.

A surprisingly short time later, Thomas pulled himself out of a hole in the rubble and sat down on one side, breathing heavily. After a moment, though, he jerked up, actually seeing the room for the first time.

The far wall of the cave was covered in steampunkish machinery, complete with valves, gauges, and levers. It looked quite elegant, and it must've taken quite the skill set to construct it.

It had only taken a moderately-sized boulder to disable it, though. A fair number of pipes were bent, and a few were broken and leaking steam into the air. The two large turbines near the middle were still, and all the gauges were sitting at zero.

Greg looked up at the hole in the ceiling, which was the only way in or out of the cave. Well, he thought, up for some climbing, Walt?

Oh yeah, he said, that's like ten meters of rocky wall, piece of cake.

Get to it then, Bern thought.

Thomas blinked, then began clambering adeptly up the wall.

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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Spender's steps were light as he danced across and around the debris. He had been hoping to find a side entrance to the area with the damaged gravity generator, but twice now he'd approached it from directions that were blocked with rubble, and he didn't want to try blasting it or opening a portal; instead, he stalked in and out of the weaving tunnels, wondering if he would come across another way.

His sensors swept the area, but he still couldn't make sense of it; he had almost resigned himself to it. It was only when one of the numerous strange readings resolved itself that he paused and sought it. Just down the corridor, he found a piece of paper, in odd script:
[font=Courier New]

MICHELLE

SPENDER AND THOMAS HAVE FORMAD A PACT.
JAMES IS POSSIBLY IN ON IT ASWELL.
WATCH OUT, THEY ARE POWERFUL.
IT WOULD BE BEST FOR BOTH OF US IF WE AIMED TO STOP THIS POWERFUL TEAM

- GLERE

Spender made a barely audible tch and started to crumple it up, but paused. Glere was--the fishbowl-head? He was willing to assume the man was another Nightmare, based on that and the note, though he'd met stranger folk who turned out to be decent. But Michelle? She's supposed to have survived in a ruined world. If someone's putting strange thoughts in her head, she may be more than willing to assume people are dangerous and manipulative. Heavens knew he's seen the type.

He hadn't seen Glere yet, but the man having had intelligence on the meeting meant he'd seen it. In addition to that stealth, he'd pretty cunningly--or obtusely, but it wasn't a good idea to assume--rephrased the discussion to be wickedly suggestive.

What was being watched? What would be misconstrued? What was already being misconstrued?

"Politics," he swore under his breath. It barely registered that his voice came out as a bitter hiss.

He quickly formed a coin and cast it, then watched as tiny flames licked up the paper until it was ash.

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SpoilerHey! I didn't forget about that note. Funny.

In the chatroom a couple days ago, Myifan suggested that my character is written too complexly, what with the rules to my magic and so forth. Do other people think so too? I wrote like that mostly so that I can't sneak by and be too godmoding; in theory, the ATM device could produce any spell, and he certainly has the experience to use it well, so I needed SOMETHING. Writing him to be too badass OP is tempting, but he IS only mortal.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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SpoilerIn the chatroom a couple days ago, Myifan suggested that my character is written too complexly, what with the rules to my magic and so forth. Do other people think so too? I wrote like that mostly so that I can't sneak by and be too godmoding; in theory, the ATM device could produce any spell, and he certainly has the experience to use it well, so I needed SOMETHING. Writing him to be too badass OP is tempting, but he IS only mortal.

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SpoilerThe big issue here is that you want other players to be able to use your character relatively easily. Especially in a fight scene.

Complex rules make your character less accessible to other players. If they feel your rules are too hard for them to keep track of, they won't feel comfortable having him use his abilities. But you want them to do that, because they'll give him good tricks that you might not have thought of on your own.

So the question for the other players is, "do you feel Spender's abilities are too hard for you to work into your own posts?" If most players find themselves saying "yes", it's a sign that you should simplify your rules.

Originally posted on MSPA by MyifanW.

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SpoilerYeah, DFogel explains much better than I do. However, I also have to say it's also kind of a hassle knowing what your character is doing, when I have to attempt to understand a new spell or something every time. But, this is easily fixed if the spells are simpler, or at least commonly understandable.

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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Spoiler[img]images/smilies/pc_tense.gif[/img]

The big problem is that I don't know how to phrase his abilities in a way that people will understand because I don't have a good grasp on what they need to know. I spend so much time fantasizing that some things just seem obvious to me that won't be to others.

He can create a spellcoin at will, and once he's touched it, he can cast it within the next few seconds; other people can too, once they know the trick. He's capable of using holographics to manipulate energy, create spaces with special rules, or create things that seem physical even though they're just magic. They can read the caster's mind and react to it vis a vis magic. Once the coin is cast, it lasts for whatever duration, but it's spent, and there's no reclaiming it. One coin has one spell, fixed at creation. (Schrodinger's gun still applies of course)

If I have everything... the rest is either flavor (like the avatar spell) or creating things for him to deal with, like the restriction on sensors and pocket dimensions on this level. Most of his spells are not particularly distinct, so I'm not going to complain that you didn't get his Generic Energy Blast ™ correct. I only like to list spells that establish cool things as canon.

And frankly if you try to write him and get it wrong it's not likely you'll be completely misunderstanding the character. I'll probably grump about the details you got wrong, but too bad for me. So don't feel like you can't go out on a limb.

You'll probably do better trying to make his magic use follow his character, anyway. Theatric, guarded, with a mix of all-business and good intentions; if you can think of an ability he should have, he probably has it, whether he uses it or not.

Does that help?

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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SpoilerPersonally, I like having the specifics available, and, from what you've written so far, it's fairly clear what what skills you've shown us do. The specifics, at least for me, enable a much more accurate depiction of your character.

My only suggestion is a one-or-two-sentence description in plain language. For example, "Avatar replaces the caster with a hologram which is controlled like a video game." Details in addition to that are useful, but having a simple explanation is very useful as well.

Walt clambered out of the hole in the floor and stood for a moment, catching his breath. Well, what now?

We should get back to evaluating the others, Greg replied. We were on our way to investigate two of the other contestants, so we may as well continue doing so.

Do you happen to remember which way we came from?, Walt asked.

No. These tunnels were difficult to tell apart before, and they've changed radically. We're going to have to pick a direction at random unless, Eric, can you hear anything?

Eric took control for a moment, amplified the sounds around them, and listened. After a moment, he thought, Nothing. I guess we'll- Wait.

There were sounds of footsteps, quiet even when amplified to his ears, coming from somewhere nearby. They stopped, and there was a barely audible tch, followed a few moments later by a bitter hiss of "Politics."

Eric stood for a moment, then pointed down the tunnel. About five meters away was another tunnel branching off of this one, straight down. Walt muffled his footsteps and quickly walked over, kneeled down, and looked over the edge. He could see Spender standing there, looking at a small pile of smoking ash.

Eric shifted his hold slightly, and a few pebbles slipped and began tumbling down the shaft. Well, so much for stealth, he thought.

"Psst! Spender!", he whispered. "Up here!"

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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Spender started at the noise, and turned at the whisper. Thomas was a ways up a vertical shaft and around a bit of a bend, one that might have offered concealment otherwise. Just him. Well, it could be worse.

"Yeah, just a second."

He paused and examined everything he could sense--from his sensors, his ears, his nose, but he couldn't make out anyone else nearby, glass-headed or otherwise. He resisted the ill-tempered urge to waste energy covering the distance with a magic assist, and instead turned and made his way part-way up the wall, up to the point where the gravity was weakened from the damaged generator.

He tested his weight on the wall, then free-climbed up partway, until his hand passed through what appeared to be solid, and fairly normal rock.

"Sssshh---" he started, then recovered. "Well alright, we'll do it your way, then."

A quick circumnavigation later, he continued up the wall until he got back around to Thomas. He took a deep breath and pulled himself up onto the ledge, then stood.

"Yeah, I'm here," he said glumly, standing and stretching a couple sore muscles. He paused for a moment, then asked, "You haven't met Glere yet, have you?"

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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"No, we haven't," Eric replied. "We actually haven't seen many of the others at all, which is surprising, given what we're supposed to be doing."

"Indeed," Spender replied. "Given some of their descriptions, I'm shocked this round hasn't ended already."

"Maybe it has and we just don't know it yet. We heard an old-style projectile weapon fire earlier, and if someone was wounded, they could be dieing slowly."

"Hopefully they deserved it," Spender said absently, looking around. After a moment, he grinned, his gaze alighting upon something shining through a hole in the floor. He thought about the space he'd been circling, looking for an entrance, and that seemed to be right in the centre of it. "Say, Thomas," he said, "What's down there?"

"Oh, that's where the gravity generator was. Or, one of them, anyway. It was hit by a boulder, and it's pretty banged up."

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SpoilerMinor Grammar Note: Whenever Thomas talks, he refers to himself plurally. "We," "Us", etc.

Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.

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"Lovely." Spender smiled tightly, but it was fake. "I don't suppose there was another way in or out of there?

"Not that we could find," Eric admitted.

"Truly." He wasn't hiding his grouchiness very well. "Well, I suppose that means I won't likely be interrupted in my work."

"Work?" Eric gave him a quizzical look.

"Come see," he said, and strode towards the hole in the floor. He slipped his hand comfortably into his jacket as though to reach an inside pocket, and it came away with three small coins. He flipped one to Thomas, who caught it, then took the second and third and held them between his fingers, moving his hand downwards as though putting the two into imaginary coinslots. To Thomas' attuned ears, they seemed to make a slight electric buzz, then disappeared.

After a moment, two things happened; Spender lifted off the floor, and a floating rectangular shape appeared in front of him. With hardly a pause, he took the rectangle in hand, flipped over in midair, and dragged it down through the hole in the floor, propelled by what Thomas assumed to be some form of flight spell. When he went over to the hole to look, Spender was setting the box up next to the gravity generator, where it seemed to expand into a set of scaffolding with several wiry anchors that buried themselves in the nearby rock.

Thomas looked at the coin; it had a golden triangle on the face, with a pair of triangular gray wings and a triangular gray tail, all set on a deeper gray. This would be where we decide if we can trust him, I think, pointed out Greg to himselves. That is the "magic machine" that man told us about... but this coin could be anything. Do we use it?

"You can stay there if you like," called Spender amicably, although he was already elbow-deep in the mechanisms. "It's not like those things ever go bad anyway. Ah, I see, is that...? No, but if this was going to..." his voice cut off a bit as he futzed a bit more.

Eric pursed his lips and looked around. Not a good idea to sit up here if I'm going to be talking to him. You never know where people could come from. If I'm down there, at least they can only come from one direction. Still...

A few minutes later, Spender looked up from the machine to see a sweaty-looking Walt finish climbing back down the wall. He grinned a bit, but reinserted his upper torso into the generator. "I meant what I said about the coin; you can keep it, throw it out, whatever you like. It's just spare change to me."

Walt blinked, and Eric looked at Spender, trying not to breathe heavily. "You know, you don't strike me as the mechanical type," he said, wiping his brow.

"It's just part of being part of the EDA. You see reality, and you see illusion, and you have to know which is which; that's why, you gotta know how they both work. Something like this..." Spender knocked on the machine from somewhere inside, and it echoed like his voice. "It's interesting, because it reveals how much of this place is truth, and how much is fantasy." He paused only a beat. "It's like this one time, I remember. We were investigating a probable invasion somewhere in northern Colrad, you see. It turns out that the incoming aliens--they bring fantasy into reality sometimes, you see--they had invaded this industrial complex, and..."

...

Somewhere in the meandering tale, at least three of Thomas's brains broke. Eric found himself quite puzzled at the idea that feathers, given voice, could sing opera but not rock, and Walt was fascinated by the idea of a robot getting a hangnail. Greg was still trying to piece together how all the explanations worked together well enough that Spender could talk about it in a way that didn't immediately sound insane. Bern was struggling not to think about any of it by any means possible.

All the while, Spender worked, dissecting the machine from the inside and examining its power supply and its various mechanisms.

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SpoilerI kind of assume that he spends at least a good fifteen minutes telling that story, so interrupting it immediately wouldn't work.

In other words, rest of you guys, your turns.

Originally posted on MSPA by Lighing.

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"Hmm, this rock isn't a good disguise..." James came out of the rock and went down a cavern and stopped to see Michelle. "Oh, finally I get to kill someone!" He pulled out his sword, but when he looked back at Michelle, Mr. Nothing was there. "Hm, I can only kill one... Which one would be the easiest and yet, the strongest." James turned to a wall to see some blood, it was frozen to the wall. "This blood isn't natu-" He stuttered as he looked down to see that a rock had been jammed through his armor, and his leg. "It wasn't there a second ago! Wait a second.... It must have been the genies... Must've angered them from killing the rocks...." James ripped the rock out of his leg and crushed it. When he turned around they where still there. "Ugh, better stay here and wait till I find someone who can help me..." He said in a crackly voice. James sat down and sheathed his sword.

Originally posted on MSPA by Alice.

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Spoiler

"Hmm, this rock ins't a good disguise..." James came out of the rock and went down a cavern and stopped to see Alice. "Oh, finally I get to kill someone!" He pulled out his sword, but when he looked back at Alice Mr. Nothing was there. "Hm, I can only kill one... Which one would be the easiest and yet, the strongest." James turned to a wall to see some blood, it was frozen to the wall. "This blood isn't natu-" He stuttered as he looked down to see that a rock had been jammed through his armor, and his leg. "It wasn't there a second ago! Wait a second.... It must have been the genies... Must've angered them from killing the rocks...." James ripped the rock out of his leg and crushed it. When he turned around they where still there. "Ugh, better stay here and wait till I find someone who can help me..." He said in a crackly voice. James sat down and sheathed his sword.

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SpoilerMy character's name is Michelle