Mini-Grand 5109 [Round 2: Aranina]

Originally posted on MSPA by Ixcalibur.

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Loading Mini-Grand Framework... Done.

Generating Administration Personality... Done.

"Once upon a time in a land far far away there were four characters."

Generating Characters... Done.

Four beings suddenly found themselves nowhere, able to see one another but nothing else. A synthesized voice came out of the nothing surrounding them.

"The four characters were pulled from their native lands to a featureless void wherein there was nothing to be seen but blackness in every direction. Here they were addressed by the booming voice of the narrator. 'You four have been specially selected.' the voice informed them. 'Technically speaking this is a battle to the death, but I have told that story so many times. I thought we would try something a little different. You bold four are noble heroes on an epic adventure.'

“The voice went on to describe each character in turn, abitrarily commencing with the orphan clutching the baseball bat. 'Oftimes in a story the poor orphan child turns out to be the hero of noble lineage. Well this time there is no noble lineage to fall back on but perhaps Aaron Incorable can overcome his run of poor luck and triumph in this new environment.'

“The next character to be introduced was the lich; Vhaegar. He was dressed in all manner of gold and finery with a pigeon perched upon his head. ‘Liches are stereotyped as evil and wicked, poor Vhaegar is just a man who did not want to die. Perhaps today he can play a different role from the one he normally plays and become a hero to inspire the people of this good land. Also due to certain limitations his soul is now in that pigeon.'

“Next up was a plain looking man in an overlarge coat. 'A hero would not be a hero if they did not have some adversity to overcome. Talmadge Tea has more than most. In some ways he is more gifted than he would allow himself to believe and it is only by harnessing that gift that he will prove himself a true hero.'

“The final character to be introduced was not as the other contestants were expecting the human with the slug on his head but the slug with the human attached to it. ‘This hero hails from a world, which I must admit is not the kind of thing I normally deal with. In his world the brain slug is the top of the line data storage unit; this one containing every peice of information about DifCorp, essentially it is the company in question. Though I have never seen it yet, perhaps the 'evil corporation' can redeem itself.'"

Generating Setting... Done.

The four generated characters suddenly found themselves moved, assembled at the entrance of a series of dimly lit catacombs.

"Our tale begins in earnest as our four heroes arrive at the entrance to the Great Catacombs. Their quest to defeat the evil Lord Ashkaroth can only begin once they have claimed the magical equipment guarded at the deepest depths of this deadly maze of traps and monsters.

In their hearts they know that tough times were ahead and that not all of them would survive the trials that lay within. But equally they knew that it was the only way they would have any chance at stopping Lord Ashkaroth.”

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Spoiler1. Solaris - Aaron Incorable - #024631
2. Jacquerel - Vhaegar - Darkslateblue
3. XX - Talmadge Tea - #E48807
4. Ch00_bakka - DifCorp - gray

Name: Aaron Incorable
Gender: Male
Race: Human Orphan Child
Colour: #024631
Biography: "Flames."
A young man sits in an alley. He is dirty, most of his clothes are ripped, and his eyes have large bags under them. His eye twitches. As he makes his heavy breaths, he continues to speak to the air around.

"When I look back on that day I remember the heat making me cringe and the smoke hurting my lungs, but I remember the flames more than anything else."
He shakes. The young man clings to his sole possession, a baseball bat, and hugs it to him even harder.

"Brushing up against my skin, prickling me and destroying everything I loved. Everything except myself, this jacket, and my trusty bat."
Rubbing it back and forth, the metal against his skin, eyes open wide.

"And my bat will never leave me, because he is what let's me talk to you all."
Slowly, the alley around him glows as semi-transparent people slowly appear.

The child laughs, still clinging to his bat, beginning to cry. He remembers everything vividly. His father carrying him out of bed and out of the house, leaving his jacket behind as he returns for the rest of the family. The screams of three trapped loved ones, consumed by the flames. And then the bat, showing him the way to them once more, and with the life he lived.

He hears voices. The dead telling him where to go, what to do, all ending badly, but he can't leave them. He needs them to survive. He can't leave the bat, it helps him. He curls up in his dark corner, hungry, alone, waiting. Waiting. For a sunrise that will never come...

Description: Aaron is young, dirty, a bit gangly looking. He wears some jean shorts and simple red and white sneakers. The only actual clothing of note is a large darkish green blazer jacket that belonged to his father. His black hair is somewhat long and he has large bags under his brown eyes. He carries a baseball bat at all times. He is extremely skinny, not very well nourished, but still has enough calories in him to run a few meters without trouble.
Mentally, he is not all there. The fire that killed his family gave him a fear of fire, because of it, he also tends to stick close to dark areas. He is absolutely obsessive about his bat, and will never allow it to leave him. He thinks of the bat as his only friend, and he trusts no one except for the spirits that it calls.
The bat itself is a simple, black, metal bat. It should be noted that the bat is cursed by a malevolent force, but not sentient, and that any voices that Aaron hears are a result of his own insanity.
Items/Abilities: As mentioned, the Bat is cursed with a malevolent force. This force creates a field of misfortune around the owner. This field serves to both make the owner’s life miserable, and to have them obsess over the bat. The field extends to people that the owner care for or is fond of, and will never kill the owner.
Aaron, can summon and talk to ghosts. After the death of his family, he gained this ability, and he believes it to be due to the bat.
Beyond this, Aaron simply has the advantage of being small and fast, and of being somewhat smart in school. He has no other extraordinary abilities other than being in a state of malnutrition and panic.

Username: Jacquerel
Name: Vhaegar
Gender: Male, presumably a eunuch
Race: Human (Lich)
Colour: Darkslateblue
Biography:

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SpoilerLich is the term used to describe a wizard who has, through an act of powerful and forbidden magic, stored a part of his soul in an object called a phylactery in order to gain immortality. As necromancy is generally frowned upon even if it is performed upon a consenting adult (it's hard to do something you haven't consented to do to yourself) most people just content themselves with dying but there's always a few who fear the end enough to justify to themselves retreating to the edge of civilisation and fighting off the occasional self-righteous adventurer. Vhaegar was one of those people, an aging wizard who wasn't particularly nefarious and had never really dabbled in necromancy but really, really didn't want to die. Poring over many expensive scrolls bought with the heirlooms of his staggeringly rich ancestors he finalised the ancient rituals before retreating to a secluded manor he'd had built in the mountains, locking his precious soul (now safely enclosed in an ornate golden box, filled with lead so that nobody would be able to steal it) in a chest with five locks (three physical, two magical) in a warded room fifty feet underground at the end of a trap-filled labyrinth with enchanted moving walls hidden behind a secret wall in a second, trick labyrinth leading to a fake but completely unmagical golden box in his basement.
Then he lived on his own in his manor for three hundred years, poring over old books, filling bottles with tiny ships, proscratinating on writing an autobiography and generally outliving everyone else, until he was pulled from his comfortable retirement into a battle to the death.

Unfortunately while he was confident his protections could repel any mortal attacker (they worked without fail for three hundred years, after all) the grandmaster computer proved a little too much of a challenge. The grand battle setting required the competitor's entire soul be present, so it was simply pulled out of its prison and stuffed hastily into a randomly fabricated new vessel.

This was a pigeon.

Description:

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SpoilerVhaegar is the top half of a skeleton, floating several feet in the air as if he was still walking around somehow. His hips have been removed as with everything attached and in its place his spine disappears into a golden band hung around with long streamers of tattered blue cloth (which end approximately where his legs would if he had any). Ancient scrolls, mysterious vials and other bits of assorted wizarding paraphernalia like some kind of necromancer utility belt. In place of eyes his skull is filled with a cloud of generic glowing blue magical fog which extends down into his ribcage. He also has a pair of spiked golden pauldrons, a gold-edged purple cloak that drags along the ground and a pair of large, impractical gold and purple striped horns screwed into the top of his skull. A collection of enchanted golden chains float in pointless circles around his ribcage.
Basically he's a pretty big fan of gold.

In life Vhaegar was actually a fairly law abiding wizard, only driven to practice the forbidden arts by his advancing age and desire to keep his wits for as long as possible. As the years passed though, as the flesh dropped off his bones and his only villagers were brash young men who thought to destroy the "murderous warlock" who lived in the creepy house and probably cursed all of their cows or something like that he decided he might as well live up to their expectations and put on the face they expected because no amount of reasonable discussion can convince a righteous boy with a sword that a walking skeleton just wants to sit on its own and read books.
He taught himself some basic spells to animate animal bones to wander around his house (anyway he was getting a little lonely), screwed a pair of intimidating horns to his head and made sure that whenever he had "guests" he made suitably nefarious boasts and created a couple of useless magical trinkets for them to destroy before letting them "vanquish" him, like putting on a show. As a hobby he actually found it fairly enjoyable.
Actual evil still doesn't really come naturally though, most of the time though he just acts like a generic crotchety old man.

His phylactery is a pretty ordinary looking pigeon if you disregard the fact that its head is also filled with burning blue fog. That tends to get it some odd looks from any other pigeons.
The installation of his soul doesn't seem to have affected its pigeon mind in any way and grants him absolutely no measure of control over its actions.
He is essentially a slave to its random, pigeony desires unless he feels like losing track of the location of his soul and having it eaten by an eagle.

Items/Abilities:

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SpoilerGiven that he is a lich, his main advantage is probably the inability to be killed until his phylactery is destroyed, though as it is now a pigeon that is somewhat more of a risk than it used to be.
He can be physically damaged (quite easily as he isn't much more than a skeleton) but is capable of regenerating any breakages even from reduction to a pile of dust within the space of a day. He actually surrendered his legs voluntarily, it's just so much more convenient to float everywhere and besides his manor has a lot of stairs.
His main area of expertise as a wizard was in the manipulation of frost, able to congeal shards of enchanted ice in mid air and throw them at people if the mood so took him, although more usually he just used it to win wizard ice sculpture competitions before he exiled himself by becoming a skeleton, so his aim might be a little off.

Username: NG

Name: Talmadge Tea

Gender: Male

Race: Meatbag human scum

Color: THE COLOR OF SADNESS

Description: A worried-looking man with sandy hair, a likable but forgettable face, and a quiet disposition. His hands shake constantly and there is a ragged wound on his side that is currently bleeding through the thick and ill-fitting coat he wears, underneath which is a suspicious-looking jumpsuit that has the code “740C40” stamped prominently on it. He’s the sort of person who disappears into a crowd easily and doesn’t tend to leave lasting impressions on anyone. If you were to ask him he might describe himself as a “professional bystander” or “a very confused person” or “please stop I don’t want to discuss this are you going to take me back I don’t want to go”.

Items/Abilities: Talmadge is an extraordinarily powerful psychic, theoretically capable of telekinetically lifting and manipulating tons of material at a time and crushing the minds of anyone resisting him with a minimum level of effort. He is, however, also extraordinarily insane and cannot consciously control his powers. Instead Talmadge hallucinates a figure he refers to as Proper, who he perceives as altering the world in random and not always beneficial ways. Talmadge can sometimes ask Proper to perform a certain task, but there’s a decent chance it will decide to do something completely different and blow up the nearest pigeon.

Biography:

Dear Hello,

please don’t I didn’t mean didn’t mean didn’t mean didn’t. want. please if I ask nicely if I ask will you stop

that’s enough of that.

came again today. proper. blew the door off this is how it goes i guess. threw it down the hallway. tore the tag out that was in me felt pretty bad but I’m alright, I’m alright, I found this book and now I’m writing in it. stole a pen. is that what they put me in here for i don’t remember. proper won’t tell me. He just laughs.

I don’t remember the sun it’s brighter than I’d thought i was in that room for ever. I think. I don’t know how long forever is proper probably knows I’ll ask him when i see him again. I miss the sun i miss going outside. the tag hurts pretty bad but I can see the sun now and that’s good. I miss the sun i miss not having blood in my mouth i miss eating and drinking and not needles

i’m outside now I found this pen and Proper is running in the grass. today he is a wolf I think he thinks that’s funny. wolf. canis lupus Canis Division I told them i didn’t know how but they didn’t

that’s enough

i’m going for a walk. I missed the sun.

Theme Song: Fitter Happier

I'm putting this here. Pffffff wall of text.

Username: Ch00 Ch00 Train
Character Name: DifCorp™. Also known as Dif, Mister Dolmann, and The Company.
Gender: Refer to DifCorp as an "it".
Race: Corporation. Yes, an entire corporation. It makes total sense. Also a brain slug on a human. But thats in purely a physical sense.
Color: "gray". It's soullessly delicious!
Bio:

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SpoilerDifCorp™ was founded (as the Dolmann Industrial Finance Corporation) in the year 2017 by one Wallace Humphrey Dolmann. It was originally a small accounting firm, but quickly grew (through TOTALLY LEGITIMATE business practices (no, really)) into a mega-corporation that owned many, many smaller corporations. In 2069, the name of the company was changed to DifCorp, and the name Dolmann Industrial Finance was forgotten. In 2082, Wallace Humphrey Dolmann died, at the age of 132, and his grandson, Charles Petty Dolmann, took over the company. Under Charles' direct, the company grew even faster, and by the time he died in 2170, at the age of 151, it might as well have been a world government. In 2245, DifCorp's board of director pushed the company to extend lives even longer, so the could be immortal. In 2260, a method of immortality was discovered. Body-snatching. The minds of those who wanted to live forever were transferred to small, slug-like creatures, which would attach to the heads of the unlucky people whose bodies the Directors would inhabit. In 2317, some bright researcher realized that since the slugs were essentially enormous data storage devices, all of the files of the company could theoretically be stored on one such slug. It was done. A freshly decanted slug had all of the company's files imprinted on it, and was placed onto the head of a young Dolmann scion. The boy was immediately overwritten by the Company. Massive layover occurred, since the boy was able to serve as the entire accounting and legal department. Millions of lawyers and accountants were reduced to begging in the streets. The dawn of the Corporate Man had come. At least, until 2490, when the slug and its newest host vanished. And the entire world economy collapsed for about two days before the backup slug was implanted onto a new host.

Description:

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SpoilerDifCorp™ is actually just a small green-grey slug. About three inches long, one inch wide, slimy secretions, long spiny half-robotic tongue, internal supercomputers... Just like a normal slug. It is attached to the body of Julius Alexander Rawlings Dolmann, who is a human male. Julius is about six foot eight (people are TALL in the future), and has black hair and dark skin. His eyes have been replaced by what appear to be a pair of shiny eyeglasses, a pair of computer screen giving the corporation live stock market feeds (of all its daughter companies, and its two competitors -- Johnson Shower Curtains And Science and Generic Menacing Zaibatsu [whose founder, Lui Yi Fu, had a sense of humor and a talent for prediction when he founded GMZ as a small chain of convenience stores in the early 22nd century] -- as well as certain small companies that the Big Three allow to live), easy access and projection of fancy stockholder-appeasing graphs, and a variety of enhanced-reality programs, from restaurant reviews to targeting recticules.

The corporation actually has a very distinct personality, developed from many years of mind-numbing tedium punctuated by the occasional assassination attempt or inter-Corp war. It tends to be a large ham when announcing a new product (just like the avatars of JSCAS and GMZ), and has quite the sense of humor, enjoying satire directed at itself immensely. It always spends some time reteaching its new bodies the comforting Midwest accent it has developed over the years, and tries to keep up the image of being a guy (-slug-thing) that the average person could trust to feed their cat while they were away on vacation.

Items/Abilities:

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SpoilerDifCorp™ has several bionic enhancements in its host. In addition to the aforementioned glasses (which have lowered functionality away from some sort of wireless network or power grid), it has medical nanobots, which can fix up most injuries given time, and a computing device built into its sternum that gives it way more computing power than any organism actually needs. Its neurons have been genetically modified to continue to grow, so it learns much faster than a human of its host's age would. It also has several mainly cosmetic attachments, like a jaunty metallic eyebrow (a long-range radio transmitter), a glowing circular depression in its chest (video projector -- no, it does no need to take of its shirt to project things, this is a backup in case its glasses malfunction), and two funky antenna behind its ears (just cosmetic). It can calculate at extremely fast speeds, and is a very good lawyer. And not much else. Oh yeah. The slug can attach itself to a new host, killing its old host and completely overwriting the personality of the new one. The shades are symbiotic, and can be transferred. The rest of the attachments cannot.

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SpoilerSo this one is a little experimental. The rounds you are going through will have an ongoing story to them (your battle against Lord Ashkaroth) and will all take place in the same world. Don't feel like you have to act like heroes though, do the usual grand battle thing or whatever.

By the end of this round you're going to need to be at the point where you can snag some cool stuff from the catacombs, as usual the worst writer will die, but the others will get cool shit to aid in their battle against Lord Ashkaroth.

Word limits are optional. Try to stick around about that length but I’m not going to be terribly pissed if you exceed them every now and again.