The Relentless Slaughter [Round 3: Tormentorland]

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

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"There are horrors beyond horrors, and this was one of those nuclei of all dreamable hideousness which the cosmos saves to blast an accursed and unhappy few." - H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"

In a single, infinitesimal pocket of reality, a single mote of dust in all existence (though there is one who might protest this fact), there lies an impossibly extravagant mansion, composed entirely of the rarest and most valuable gemstones in all the multiverse. In one of the magnificently enormous mansion's countless luxurious parlors lay a man, dressed in the most exorbitant robes imaginable, made from materials only found in universes which has long since ceased to be. The Extravagant sipped from a diamond goblet the finest wine all of reality could muster as he spoke in a booming, ever-triumphant voice with the one calling himself "The Fool".

"You would like me to host one of these 'Grand Battles'?"

"Would you be willing?"

The Extravagant gave a hearty laugh. "Why yes, of course I'll take you up on the offer! It will be a glorious spectacle! Let the Phantasmagorical Scrimmage begin!"

- - - - - - - - - -

Not all multi-dimensional beings were so accommodating as The Extravagant, though. Out in the dark void of eternity lay far worse things, things which would convince any mortal that there could be no good in the multiverse. And at the heart of the horrors of existence, at the fringe of reality itself, lay the Spire. A twisted aberration of a structure, the Spire bent and folded through space as if all established laws of physics were merely suggestions. The mere sight of it would drive mortal men to insanity; its mere existence was a stain upon the fabric of space. These descriptions would be very apt for describing not only the Spire, but its chief occupant as well.

The shadowy, constantly-shifting (though vaguely humanoid) form of the Tormentor strode down a distorted hallway, lined on either "side" with strangely normal, 8-paned windows. Scenes from across the universe could be seen in the first 19 of them, though three were now for the most part at a stand-still, simply displaying a certain three life-forms from across the multiverse. The rest viewed scenes from the ever-infamous Grand Battles as they progressed. The Tormentor's multitude of featureless red eyes were cast upon each, as he gave an overt look of boredom. His boredom changed to laughter at a scant few scenes: an immortal police officer's unending torture, a soul-consuming eldritch horror... the interesting things. Shortly after exiting the viewing hall, the Tormentor's face took on an expression of utter disgust.

"Boring! BORING! Is this all the Grandmasters have to offer? Is this their idea of entertainment?! Where's the good stuff? Fates worse than death! Emotional trauma! Utter hopelessness! TORMENTATION! They barely have any of it! All they're doing is standing around and then dying quietly! BORING! I could do better without even trying!"

The Tormentor stopped immediately. His expression slowly shifted into a massive, jovial grin before he broke down laughing hysterically, a terrible, distorted laugh that echoed throughout the Spire. He picked himself up from the ground, knowing exactly what he would have to do. And he would enjoy it quite a bit.

- - - - - - - - - -

"...and this is Zeta Chris, a man who is sure to give a good show out there! That stick of his? It can transform into any weapon in the multiverse! That's right, any weapon! He's wandered the multiverse for countless years searching for one worthy of challenging him! Will this battle give him his wish! I doubt it! But you're welcome to try if you like! Now, then, up next is-"

Before the Extravagant could introduce his next contestant, several overhead lights spontaneously exploded, and a dark, shadowy mass poured in from the ceiling before coalescing into an all-too-familiar humanoid shape.

"Excuse me for a minute, contestants!"

"Hey there, Extravagant! I see you've got a nice little battle going on here. The Phantasmagorical Scrimmage, hmm? Very interesting!" As was obvious, the Tormentor was entirely sarcastic, a tinge of cruelty surrounding his every word. His grin seemed even wider than normal, and his countless eyes were narrowed in an expression of utter sadism.

"What is it you want, Tormentor? Can't you see I'm busy? I don't have time for your juvenile pranks right now!"

"Heheheh.... Juvenile pranks? Is that all you have to say, Extravagant? I'm almost insulted that you would belittle my art so much!

The Extravagant gritted his teeth. "What. Is. It. You. WANT?!"

"Oh, it's a simple matter, really. You see, the Grand Battles right now are basically terrible! Nothing interesting about almost all of them! And, well, I just can't have that. I'm going to run one of these battles the proper way!"

"Well, that's all well and good, but you're interrupting! Can't you see I'm trying to introduce my contestants here?"

The Tormentor glanced at all of the contestants, seated in the Extravagant's rather... extravagant... drawing-room. He chuckled at the sight of them. "You've even got yourself nine contestants! What, eight weren't good enough for you? Then again, of course not! You're the EXTRAVAGANT! Have to go one step above!

"If you want to host, go talk to the Fool yourself. Now, get out!"

"Well, Extravagant, I'm not very into the whole 'waiting game' deal. I'm not going to sit around while more pathetic Grandmasters start even more pathetic battles while I 'wait' to take my 'turn'! And that's why I've come here, Extravagant." The Tormentor's eyes narrowed as his grin widened.

"If you want me to step aside so you can host, forget it! This is my battle, Tormentor! Leave!"

"I think you misunderstand, Extravagant. I always get what I want!" The Tormentor broke out in hideous laughter as a multitude of arms exploded out of his body at essentially random angles. Before the Extravagant could so much as respond, one arm shot through his chest, which offered absolutely no resistance. Several more surrounded him, and in an instant, crushed the Extravagant into nothingness. The Tormentor's laughter increased in insanity as more hands shot out and entrapped each of the Extravagant's contestants, pulling them into pocket dimensions for holding. With a final giggle, he snapped his fingers as the mansion collapsed in on itself along with the rest of the dead Grandmaster's pocket dimension.

- - - - - - - - - -

The Tormentor reclined in his throne room, a room which managed to be even more non-euclidean than the rest of the Spire. He figured he might as well tell the Fool of his takeover.

"Hey, Fogge! Fogge! Heeey!"

The Fool appeared on the Tormentor's fractal-esque viewscreen, able to display an impossible number of things at once.

"What is it, Tormentor?" The contempt held by the Fool was obvious. And of course it should have been, after the... incident.

"Oh, not much. I just killed the Extravagant in a hostile takeover of his battle is all. I'm thinking the 'Relentless Slaughter'! How does that sound?"

The Fool smirked. "That's certainly an... interesting way to start a battle."

"I try. But anyway, I have preparations to make. Bye!"

The screen shut off, as the Tormentor began looking over the contestants he had swiped from the Extravagant. "...You know, it'd just be so much more fun if I hand-picked them for this! These nine can wait for later or whatever, I don't care."

The fractal-screen began to light up and display countless organisms from across reality, all ripe for the taking. He swiftly began to pick and choose, narrowing it down to just eight contestants, eight perfect contestants, for the perfect Grand Battle! The Tormentor broke out in insane laughter, laughter which echoed through the subconsciouses of eight beings across reality before shadowy hands appeared to drag them through the veil between universes...

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Yes, it's yet another Grand Battle thing, huzzah, jubilation, etc. You probably already know exactly how all this works, but I might as well lay it all down here for reference or something.

Eight players each submit a character to fight to the death over seven rounds, being thrown on their merry way across the multiverse with no advance knowledge whatsoever. At the end of each round, someone will die and the rest will move on to continue killing each other. Or not killing each other but inadvertently dying anyway.

Elimination of characters, as you probably know, is based solely on the quality of writing and the ability of the player to tell a story. Yes, this in theory means that a god with a poor writer could lose out to a turnip with an excellent writer. You are, of course, forbidden from killing another character; the player whose character has been marked for death will be given plenty of opportunity to write their own death post. If they take too long or decline, I will either offer the opportunity of writing the deathpost to another player or do it myself.

One of the mainstays of the battles, of course, is that you may write for any character and not just your own (though typically your posts should mostly follow your own character). Try your best to keep other characters in-character, and feel free to consult with the character's player if you're not sure what they would do in situation X. Godmoding is very much frowned upon without an especially good reason, and it's a good idea to keep track of what's going on to avoid plot holes.

Another important thing to remember is that you should never, for any reason, inflict permanent damage on another character (tearing off their leg, gouging out an eye, destroying important things such as legendary swords and the like, etc.) without permission from their player. If they have been marked for death, however, they're pretty much fair game for brutalizing if you are so inclined.

One last thing of importance, make it interesting! Sure, you can just make Beardy McSwordsman wander around and whatever, but if he does nothing interesting then his death becomes much more likely. Feel free to scheme with your fellow players in #grandbattle on Espernet. I may even set up a separate channel for RS if I am so inclined. Interact with others, take risks, do whatever it takes to really get involved in the story.

And please, if you're signing up, you are making a commitment to post at least every once in a while. Lots of characters die solely from inactivity, and frankly, that's just boring.

Don't forget, if you're working on a post, reserve! Just make a post stating you've reserved, and no one will post and screw up everything you're planning. There's no specific time limit anymore since really, no one actually finishes post in a couple of hours if it's not the beginning of the first round. Just don't take more than a couple days, and most definitely do not take a week without a very good reason. It just holds up the battle to the point of annoyance. Don't do it.

As an addendum, don't get too attached to your character. A horrible fate could befall them at any moment, after all. Have fun, kids!

And with that, signups.

Username: Why do we include this on sheets? Who knows? Just do it because I told you to.
Name: Your character's name. Y'know, in case it wasn't obvious.
Gender: If it's a nonstandard gender, be sure to make note of it. "Yes" is not an acceptable answer, nor is "no".
Race: The species of your character. This can quite literally be anything. Giant, sentient, infectious spaghetti dinner? That's fine. Straw doll with dragon heads for arms? Fair game. It might be a good idea to give a description of your race if it isn't something standard like human, though.
Color: The color you'll be making your posts in. Backgrounds are also acceptable, but #FF0000 on #6E0000 is not.
Weapons/Abilities: What wacky implements of death does your character carry around? What madcap shenanigans can they pull off? Note that you don't have to set in stone everything that your character can do; some players have made a point of revealing new abilities later on when it makes logical sense.
Description: A simple description of what your character looks like, as well as a description of their personality. Fairly straightforward.
Fears: A special section for this battle only, seeing as you've been chosen by what boils down to the personification of fear. In fact, the only real stipulation of this battle is that your character must have fears of some kind. Having trouble deciding? This site might help you.
Biography: Describe your character's life prior to being tossed into this battle. This is a very important section, as it tells me what exactly your character's like and how you'll be writing for them. I'll be picking the characters I like best, so it'd be a good idea to catch my interest here. Obviously, there's no need to give your character's entire life story.

VICTIMS CHARACTERS:

cyber95: Rollo - brown
engineclock: Gannet - #345557
MalkyTop: Samael Corson - #6A8455
slipsicle: Vulm'mram'Vuul - #000000 on #F0FFFF
Wojjan: Dorin, Shik'skara, and guests - DodgerBlue, CadetBlue, and CadetBlue with italics.
Adenreagan: Lieutenant Matthew Zimmer - #C90A0A
Baphomet: Martin Holden - #888888
whoosh!: Ke - #D5CEC2 on #4D666F

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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I'm gonna SERVE y'all so hard

you gonna get

RE-SERVED

Originally posted on MSPA by cyber95.

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Username: xxxcYbEr9InE5IvExxx

Name: Rollo

Gender: Male

Race:Armadillo

Colour: Some kinda browny brown

Items: Rollo carries on him: Assorted snacks, an apparently infinite length of rope, a fishing rod, a microwave oven, a frying pan (with face shaped dents), and a flamethrower for quickstarting fires to cook over.

Abilities: Rollo is a cartoon character, and is privy to all the physics that come with it. If he gets squished, he can inflate himself back to perfect condition. If he explodes, he was probably pull himself together. If he doesn't realize he should be following, he won't. That said, he can die. He's no stranger to the dangers of a Very Special Episode, and this episode may be the most Very Special of all.
Less generally, Rollo can curl up into a ball and roll. Exactly what he can do with this depends on what's most entertaining, ranging from going real fast to being powerful like a wrecking ball. You can generally expect it to protect him from damage.
The jury is out on Rollo's cooking abilities. Sometimes he's been known to set kitchens on fire making toast, while other times he's cooked fantastic meals with ease. Like many thing about him, it generally falls upon the context in which he's cooking.
That said, no matter the status of his cooking abilities, he can always tell when there's food nearby, anywhere. It doesn't have to have a particularly strong odor, he just has a way of knowing. The explanation behind this changes often.

Description:
Rollo usually has two things on his mind: Food and fun. When he's not looking for a meal, he's getting into all sorts of mischief looking for something interesting. Naturally, he always brings friends (or unwitting strangers) into these messes with him.
Overall he's easy going, and rather naive, choosing to usually see the best in people, particularly if it's obvious that they aren't very nice.

Fears: As a cartoon character, he tends to look most danger in the face and make fun of it, but that's not to say he's completely fearless, just usually oblivious of real danger. That said, he has one fear that causes him to get nervous instantly. He sweats in the presence, and cowers in close proximity, sure of his imminent doom. He is, of course, afraid of soccer players, stemming from his size when rolled up, which is, unfortunately, the exact same as that of a soccer ball.
He also has the more standard fear of ghosts that many cartoon characters seem to have, but a previous incident has had him a bit more skeptical about whether or not it's ever actually a ghost. He now likes to check ghostly status, and THEN freak out.

Biography: Rollo was born to a faceless mother an indeterminate amount of years ago, and had a short stint as a toddler, but low ratings didn't have that last particularly long. After growing up completely, he's stayed the same age.
Episodes of Rollo's childhood mostly included things such as "Where Are The Cookies," in which he and his friends tried to find a box of cookies, and "The Mean Ol' Bully," in which a new kid showed up and got heavily censored for potentially being a bad influence on younger viewers. Overall, mostly ignorable.
Rollo first appeared on the scene as a side character in a short called "Short Order." He was paired up with a mouse, and the two of them ran a kitchen for a restaurant. In the end, thanks to Rollo, the whole building went up in flames. After that, he just started showing up more often.
Often alongside Rollo would be Wiz the Crocodile, Tracker Hound, and Missy Doe. Also often making a guest appearance would be David Beckham, mostly in an antagonistic role. In an interview, he's commented on having lots of fun on the show and hopes to appear in more episodes in the future.
Notable episodes of Rollo's life include "Ghost Trick," in which Rollo flees from a ghost for a good 10 minutes before realizing it was all a trick. Notable in that after this episode, Rollo remained skeptical about the supernatural whenever they appeared any time following. Another 'required viewing' episode is "Bend It," the first episode where it's established that Rollo has a deep fear of soccer players. Widely regarded as one of the best Rollo cartoons, it also featured the first appearance of David Beckham, Rollo's arch nemesis.
Rollo has a tendency to do crossovers. He's appeared at some point in seemingly everything, from Nickelodeon cartoons, to Marvel comics, and even had a major role in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit-esque film, "Untooned." With such a wide range of guest parts, Rollo is pretty good at adapting to things outside of his normal rating. He does tend to get a little bit uncomfortable in more violent settings, but under most circumstances, he's willing to make the best of anything.
Rollo can be watched in almost half of all universes that have both television and David Beckham.
He was recently set to have his very own feature length film, but that may have to be put on hold, as the armadillo had mysteriously vanished...

Originally posted on MSPA by granolaman.

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Retooling and re-entering in another game.

Originally posted on MSPA by XX.

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Username: XX

Name: Gannet, though he doesn’t care much for names

Gender: Male

Race: Modified human/ virus host

Color: #345557

Weapons/Abilities: The virus that inhabits Gannet possesses a bizarre ability to warp both its surroundings and its hosts beyond the limits of what should be physically possible, and, given the constantly mutating nature of viruses, its effects are largely unpredictable except for a few core attributes. The disease constantly extends its influence beyond the reach of Gannet’s body, seeking new hosts and mediums to spread itself- fortunately, the chance for the virus to accept a new host is extremely low, and once an individual is out of range the effects of the virus quickly wear off.

Unfortunately, this means that no organic being can come within several feet of Gannet without being partially infected by the Oracle Virus. The symptoms are gradual but can become severe extremely quickly if contact is not broken. A few minutes in Gannet’s proximity produces a slight headache, an hour results in mild confusion and a dulled sense of awareness; past that time, the virus induces a full delirium matching Gannet’s own as well as a strong sense of attachment to him as the virus attempts to realign with itself. All of these effects are temporary, though whatever happens to an infected person while under the virus’ delirium may not be.

Gannet also possesses a last resort attack that the virus will activate if it feels threatened enough, though it is only capable of performing it rarely due to the strain it places on Gannet’s body. Referred to by him as the “blessing of the Oracle”, it consists of delivering an overdose of the virus to a given target via direct physical contact. This drives the unlucky target completely and horrifically insane as the disease tries to bind to an unsuitable host and overcompensates for its effects on the victim’s body and mind. The results are barely recognizable as human (or whatever the victim's species may be) and lose all sense of their previous selves, except perhaps for an endless screaming terror at what they’ve become.

Description:


An “Eye of the Oracle”, Gannet functions as a scout for the larger organism that is the Oracle Virus. The part of the virus that controls him is a “seeker” strain, and manipulates its hosts’ instincts and senses so that they become unusually curious about everything around them and gain an irrepressible urge to explore their surroundings, gathering new information for the central host. To assist with this, the virus alters its hosts’ bodies to be able to handle the physical effort necessary for this type of reconnaissance, giving them unnaturally high stamina and strength as well as quick, nervous bursts of speed.

Physically, Gannet’s body has lengthened to the point of appearing eerily spider-like, and he doesn’t seem to have much of a problem clinging to surfaces that a normal human couldn’t. His virus-altered eyes are a disturbingly bright blue and seem to be the only part of him with any human expression other than his permanent enthusiastic grin. He wears whatever clothes he happens to find, though by now they’ve all been bleached to a light grey. Gannet is often seen shaking as his body fights against the virus’ “modifications” and constantly appears to be on the verge of collapse, though if startled all signs of weakness vanish as he prepares to address this new stimuli. Due to the degree to which his body has been altered, the removal of the virus would likely prove crippling to him, if not outright fatal.

Mentally, Gannet is happy. Always happy. The virus overloads its hosts’ brains with dopamine and other chemicals to keep them obedient to its subconscious commands, even as it sinks them deeper and deeper into a disease-induced delirium. Gannet’s perception of the world is extremely warped and therefore open to whatever suggestions the virus gives him. He regards nearly everything as something to be explored, fulfilling his purpose as an “Eye”. Lacking a specific command from the virus, he’ll simply attempt to gather as much information as he can about his current whereabouts and be on good terms with everyone around him. Given his perpetual delirium, this last part is somewhat more difficult than it sounds.

Fears: Whenever Gannet encounters anything the virus dislikes it forces him to fear it: in particular, it distrusts doctors and medical facilities in general. Coming across any will cause the virus to make Gannet panic and attempt to flee through whatever means possible. It also dislikes warm, dry areas and being too far from a source of water. Open spaces seem to cause it some discomfort, and if given a choice Gannet will almost always prefer to be surrounded by walls of some sort, mimicking the caves the virus incubates in.

Biography: Among the black rocks of the cold northern sea, lurking between the rotted hulls of ancient iron ships and the crumbling walls of civilizations long since forgotten, there exists a curious phenomenon: the resurgence of Oracles, humans brought to divine madness and speaking the words of gods given to insanity and bloodlust. The origin of these figures is unknown, though it seems they can or will not exist outside this specific climate: the cold mist that shrouds their broken forms seems to carry some essence of the madness that gives them their prescience, and legend holds that occasionally a visitor to these oracles will not emerge from the sea caves they inhabit, having been chosen by the gods to serve their mouthpiece for the rest of their lives.

The actual nature of these Oracles is somewhat less divine than is generally assumed, however. The poor souls referred to as “Oracles” are simply victims of a highly anomalous mutagenic virus, one whose symptoms and methods of infection frequently defy logical explanation. Fittingly called the “Oracle Virus” by the extremely few people aware of its true nature, the disease grants a sense-heightening delirium to its central hosts, causing them to speak in a jumbled mixture of words and languages- terrifyingly, the main hosts are reportedly able to do this in more than voice simultaneously, and their observations frequently mention information about their visitors that was never revealed to them. The Oracle’s fondness for dens near cold oceans stems from the virus’ ability to travel through salt water and its vulnerability to warm temperatures; likewise, its aversion to open air means that the central host is always protected against outside threats. Its unnerving ability to alter its environment and hosts has never been explained, let alone the fact that the “predictions” delivered by its Oracles are, more and more often, seen to be disturbingly accurate.

Gannet’s life before becoming infected by the Oracle Virus is a mystery even to him; if pressed about he might dimly recall something about a ship and a long journey over the water, though it’s not something he’s terribly worried about. His earliest memory as a servant of the Oracle is crawling out into the sea air from deep underground, gasping and painfully aware of the brightness of the sun; the first living thing he remembers seeing was a gannet, a seabird that he arbitrarily named himself after to distinguish himself from the Oracle’s other acolytes. Having subsequently lost all sense of time, it’s impossible for him to measure how long it then was until the Oracle named him an Eye and sent him on a journey to gather as much information as possible about the areas of the planet the virus had yet to explore. At any rate, the virus as a whole did not have particularly high expectations for him to return alive, and when he vanished it simply assumed that particular host had been destroyed and appointed another in his place.

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

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Whooooooooooooooooooooop here gooooeees.

Username: MalkyTop

Name: Samael Corson

Gender: Male, most definitely, thank you very much.

Color: Can anybody say Green Hornet?

Race: Demon. Or a demon bound in a human body. A sort of 'fallen demon,' if you will. Can demons actually be fallen? Oh well.

Weapons: Nothing really. Usually people don't like it when you walk around with a weapon. Though his claws are probably sharp enough to use as a weapon, maybe.

Abilities: Samael lost most of his demon powers after being banished from Hell, but he still has power to control fruit. Why would a demon have the power to control fruit in the first place? No, that doesn't matter. In any case, this means he can materialize fruit and make ‘em fly through the air and alter their size and weight and stuff. It still seems a bit of a silly power, but this means he can make and wield a giant banana. (No jokes, please.) Some more passive abilities include his high endurance which is....a high endurance. He can just generally take a harder beating than most people. Also, still being technically partially a demon, he can see peoples’ sins and guilt. At full power, he would have been able to manipulate people through this (it’s demon magic and persuasion so work with it), but it’s not as though he would want to do it now even if he could. Having used to be assigned to perpetrators of Greed, he also has the ability to instantly appraise an object’s worth. By touching an object with his bare hands, he could also get ‘information’ from it. Usually any events that centered around it and who used it recently. (This power doesn’t exactly have a lot to do with Greed but it’s demon powers so live with it.)

Description: Samael looks like a very lanky teenage boy with abnormally long legs. It looks as though he's carefully balancing on them and when he runs, his legs seem to flail everywhere. His hair is a dark brown and is rather long, falling over his eyes. His skin is surprisingly pale and he seems to have a pentacle seared onto his chest. He wears a warm tuque with a folded brim and has it pulled low over his face. His sweatshirt is a faded gray, the hood is fuzzy (like a parka), his jeans baggy and worn and his sneakers untied and slightly uncomfortable. He makes sure to always hide away his clawed hands, his two-toed feet, his pointy ears and his red-iris-black-sclera eyes.

Samael has had more than his share of hardships, which is probably the result of being reincarnated hundreds of times. However, he had not grown bitter like most of the demons in Hell had expected. He had grown rather easy-going instead, able to shrug off most of the bad luck thrown his way quickly. And when you've crossed the Devil, a lot of bad luck comes your way. He is rather accepting of many things that life throws at him and, with his experience, has come to know the human mind fairly well, which has made him light-heartedly cynical. Or something like that. Still, he is a people person. He enjoys making friends with people and people tend to enjoy making friends with him. Going through school countless times also allowed him to learn just many things in general from mathematics to animation and, knowing that there are many more things to learn, he’s rather open to being taught. He isn't too afraid of death, knowing where he'll go and what will happen and, as a result, can often be recklessly selfless. Somewhat oddly, though, he can sometimes feel self-conscious about his outward appearance. He's also very picky about how people pronounce his name. ("No, no, it's Sam-ay-el....don't worry, I get that a lot.") Holy symbols don't really hurt him too much unless he actually touches them.

Fears: Not really something he dwells too much upon, but the thought that demons are just inherently evil is a frightening one. Samael is afraid to find out if his development as a person is just somehow fabricated and, really, if his punishment ever stops, he’ll get rid of this ‘mask’ and end up being the same as he was before. Or, somehow, his seal might break in the middle of an incarnation and he’ll just go berserk. And while several lifetimes of being persecuted has left him a little more open to other ideas and people, it has also left a rather deep fear of angry mobs and at least inbred suspicion of powerful, religious folk. Years of experiences of these two things has taught him that usually it’s not a good idea to use weird demon powers in public. Something more normal and still slightly related: fire. Not crippling, though.

Biography: One time, a demon took pity on a damned soul and freed it from its eternal torment.

Actually that didn't happen.

One time, a demon accidentally released a damned soul from its eternal torment. His name was not Samael. This demon, wanting to avoid the wrath of his Lord Satan, framed another demon, claiming he had pitied the soul. This demon's name was indeed Samael.

It was a bit of a silly idea to try to fool the Devil, but he was satisfied with how the demon had turned on his fellow and so turned a blind eye. Samael was tried instead, and he was given a chance to frame another, but he didn't. Not because he couldn't figure out how, but because he was reluctant to. The trial was over quickly and his punishment was to be banished from Hell to the mortal realm, bound to a human form. To make matters worse, he was to keep some demonic attributes so that other humans would know he was unnatural and avoid him or even try to kill him. Every time he died, he would go down to Hell, be taunted by his former colleagues and reincarnate. His lives were mostly spent in hiding. Usually when he was old enough to fend for himself, he would run away from his home and survive on his own, all the while nursing his hatred for pretty much everybody.

He continued reincarnating and began to plan to go on a killing rampage before getting hung, then charging at the Devil himself. Most likely, he wouldn't succeed, but at least it might end this circuitous torment.

As he plotted, though, he had lost track of how much time had passed. Religion lost power, science gained ground, and though people still may feel uncomfortable around those who were different than they, they were more accepting. He found this out after going to school in one reincarnation, staying away from pretty much everybody else as usual, when a curious girl slowly approached, having saw him looking rather forlorn. She tried to talk to him but he just ignored her, thinking she'll leave eventually.

Instead she snatched his hat.

She had probably intended to lure him out from the sidelines but was so shocked that Samael managed to quickly grab his hat back and pulled it over his face again self-consciously, but after a while, she said, "I think your eyes look cool."

It was slow progress, but he managed to just...let go. Started interacting with other people. Actually looked around and breathed the air. Stared at birds, watched leaves fall, jumped around in snow, so on and so forth. He made many friends, dated a few times, married once. He enjoyed life and simply took the insults unflinchingly in between. After several cycles of this, the other demons got bored and just forgot about him and he continued to reincarnate without much fuss.


Aaaand here are some doodles and such. Totally had others. Whatever.

Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.

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Username: Slipsicle

Name: Vulm'mram'Vuul

Gender: Male

Race: Alvum

Color: Background azure (#F0FFFF), color black.

Weapons/Abilities: Vuul is equipped with standard-issue Alvum Battlecleric gear, as well as a few non-standard personal additions, including:

One standard-issue Alvum plasma beam cannon - A cannon the size of and wielded by Vuul's third arm. Normally stored in one of the two heavy-weapons slots on the back of Vuul's armor. Fires a constant beam of superheated, ionized gas; essentially a directed stream of lightning. Can be fired continuously for five minutes before overheating.

One standard-issue Alvum plasma battleaxe - A double-bladed battleaxe the size of and wielded by Vuul's third arm. Normally stored in one of the two heavy-weapons slots on the back of Vuul's armor. Constructed of an incredibly dense metal alloy. Is nearly indestructible, and radiates heat incredibly efficiently. Both blades are edged with magnetically-guided plasma, which allow the battleaxe to burn through targets instead of merely cut.

Four standard-issue Alvum plasma beam pistols - Two for each of Vuul's right arms. Smaller and lighter than the plasma beam cannon. Also fire beams of directed lightning, but incapable of maintaining a continuous stream for more than one second. Stored in easy-access compartments on Vuul's armor around his right arms.

Four standard-issue Alvum plasma blades - Broadsword-sized and shaped swords constructed of the same material as Vuul's battleaxe. Also have magnetically-guided plasma ringing the edge of the blades. Stored in easy-access compartments on Vuul's armor near his right arms.

Forty standard-issue Alvum plasma grenades - Golfball-sized capsules containing magnetically confined condensed plasma. Upon activation, plasma is released from containment after a user-specified time period. Stored in easy-access compartments on Vuul's armor near his right arms.

One nonstandard-issue Alvum chainsaw-claymore - A large claymore, edged with a mechanically operated chainsaw. Kept in a customized holder on the back of Vuul's armor.

Five standard-issue Alvum combat knives - Constructed of the same material as the battleaxe and plasma blades. Hidden in various easy-access compartments around Vuul's armor, for use by his right arms.

Two standard-issue Alvum gauss rifles - Fire magnetically-accelerated depleted uranium rounds. Stored in backup easy-access compartments on Vuul's armor, near his right arms.

One standard-issue Alvum ration/survival kit - Includes water filters, basic emergency shelter tools and materials, and one year's worth of rations in the form of nutrient packs. Stored inside Vuul's armor.

One standard-issue Alvum Powered Battlearmor - White, finely-polished, highly reflective, reactive battlearmor. Easily absorbs and dissipates heat and other kinetic forces. Augments Vuul's natural strength, speed, reflexes, and endurance. Includes in a ring around the top of Vuul's flat head an enhanced sensory strip, feeding various types of data to Vuul's neural cortex. Includes an intravenous feed which supplies Vuul with nutrients, stimulants, and other necessary chemicals to keep his body operating at maximum capacity. Includes in the chest an incredibly powerful speaker which augments the volume and sheer concussive force of Vuul's natural voice. Has a number of other features geared towards ensuring its wearer's survival and effectiveness. Completely covers Vuul's body.

Also included are a number of extra clips, battery packs, and other less-essential odds and ends, including religious idols and ritualistic paraphernalia.

Vuul is also trained in advanced battle tactics, and is incredibly competent in their execution.

Additionally, Vuul is trained in many types of unarmed combat.

Description: Vuul is a Battlecleric of the Alvum Imperium. The Alvum themselves tend towards a tripedal biology, and have evolved into a biologically-enforced caste system, with each caste having different physical appearances and behavioral patterns. Vuul is a member of the Warmonk caste, and has a different appearance and mentality from other Alvum castes. He stands at four meters tall, with a two meter shoulder width. He has three legs, each with two joints. One is where a knee would be on a human, about half-way down the leg. The other is approximately where the mid-calf would be, and bends the opposite direction. His feet are hoof-like. The legs themselves are thick and strong, and are attached to a hip section which is capable of independent, 360 degree movement from the upper torso. Vuul's upper torso is an upside-down trapazoidal shape, with the narrow end meeting the swivel-point of his hip section. Out of the left side of his torso protrudes a single, massive, double-jointed arm, which reaches nearly to his first knee and is one meter in diameter; essentially, an arm with two elbows: one where we would expect it, and another where a wrist on a human arm would be. Vuul's forearm continues past this second elbow to end with a thick three-fingered hand, on a standard ball-socket wrist. Arrayed around each elbow are three stubby toe-like appendages. On Vuul's right side, two smaller arms, also double-jointed, end in six longer, more spindly fingers. The right arms are separated by about a half a meter, vertically. They are positioned on his right side one above the other. The lower of the two right arms extends to just below Vuul's hip section, and the upper one extends to just above the wrist on the lower one.

The top of Vuul's trapezoidal upper torso is topped by a flat, circular head. There is no neck. The head is ringed with a sensory strip of some sort, allowing Vuul full 360 degree vision, hearing, and smell. On his chest are a series of differently-sized holes, which his species uses for communication, and Battleclerics use as a weapon. The Alvum are possessed of an incredible set of lungs, and their speech apparati are configured such that listening to one sounds like someone playing an organ at foghorn-level volumes while on a runaway train whose conductor is leaning on the whistle all while a tornado is bearing down on you. Their speech is, as such, highly musical, though Battleclerics have been trained to use their voice as a weapon, especially when augmented by their armor's speakers.

Underneath the armor, Vuul's skin is mostly greyish-brown, with very little physical marring. He wears a black combat suit, designed to increase the functionality of his armor while allowing comfort and ease of movement, and serves as an environment suit when his armor is not present. On his back (the side of his torso without the breathing and speech tubes), just below his head, there is a large slit which, when opened, reveals several rows of very sharp teeth. This mouth is where Vuul consumes solid food, when not being supplied with nutrients by his armor. The mouth acts more like a blender than a mouth any human would be familiar with; the muscles convulse and undulate rapidly when "chewing", turning most solid food into a runny paste within a matter of seconds. This mouth is covered by Vuul's armor, as it is unnecessary so long as the armor is on and powered.

The end of his plasma cannon, and the hilt of his battle axe stick out over either shoulder. They are stored on the back of his armor, upside-down, forming a large "X" whose center is a storage mechanism, which both holds his weapons and repositions them on his back for ease-of-access. The hilt of his customized chainsaw-claymore is just visible above the top of his flat head, and is stored in a specialized scabbard built into the back of Vuul's armor.

Biologically, Vuul's body has many redundant systems, well-protected vital areas, and a bone structure mainly consisting of very thick, dense bones running through the center of his body. They are difficult to break and heal quickly. His skin is thick and dense, his muscles are strong and heavy, and his body overall is incredibly dense and durable.

Mentally, Vuul has decades of military training and experience to draw upon. He rarely panics. He rarely hesitates. He always presses the advantage. Given that his voice is a weapon, he only talks when he's using it as one. His mind is always focused on battle.

As the Alvum are warm-blooded species who have had spaceflight capability for roughly one hundred thousand years, and in that time have heavily modified their caste system on the genetic level, it comes as no surprise that every inch of Vuul's body and mind has been designed with one goal in mind: to be the perfect fighting force.

Alvum Battleclerics are more than just the backbone of the Imperium's military might; each Battlecleric is an army unto themselves.

Fears: Fear of having no place in the Hierarchy. All Alvum are biologically and sociologically programmed to belong to some sort of group with a clearly defined leader, and Vuul's greatest fear is to belong nowhere, to have no purpose, to have no one above or below him, to have no god to fight for.

Biography: Alvum are a peculiar species, in that they instinctively organize themselves into what they call the Hierarchy. There must always be someone above and below. Every Alvum is fiercely loyal to their superiors, and expects the same loyalty from their inferiors. The Alvum also have an instinctual tendency to associate religious importance to their superiors; the more powerful, accomplished, or higher up in the Hierarchy a superior is, the closer to Godhood that superior becomes. The current Alvum Emperor is always viewed as their deity manifesting on the physical plane, and is thus referred to as the "God-Emperor". Every Alvum attaches a small amount of their religious worship for the God-Emperor to their superiors, slowly giving more and more religious importance to each superior higher up on the Hierarchy. Alvum biology has evolved to support this behavior. Alvum were, at some point in their evolutionary history, a symbiotic species. They naturally secrete and are susceptible to a series of air-born chemicals which serve as an identifier for all Alvum, and is unique to each member of the species. All Alvum which fall below a particular Alvum in the Hierarchy, or indeed any Alvum which views any other Alvum with any religious connotations, will begin to secrete a different type of air-born chemical, specially tuned to be compatible with the Alvum above them in the Hierarchy. The chemical will begin to boost the Alvum's mental capacity, strength, speed, endurance, metabolism, immune system, and many other traits. The Alvum will age slower, think faster, require less sleep, become more imaginative... essentially, the more an Alvum is worshipped by his or her inferiors, the more powerful that Alvum becomes. In return, the inferiors gain access to a kind of groupthink, as the chemicals saturate their distributed-cerebrum system, and they feel bonded with one another, so long as they have that same superior present to hold them together.

An Alvum isolated will always find a superior to become loyal to; someone they view as being more powerful, more accomplished, more wise, or just in general better than themselves. The higher up they view that superior on the Hierarchy, the more religious importance that superior will have.

Vuul himself was a Battlecleric of the 4th Imperial Guard Regiment, "Emperor's Fury". His regiment had seen action in several large-scale wars (as the Alvum Imperium is always expanding and always conquering). He'd been stationed aboard the Imperial Alvum Navy ship IAN Judgement, on his way to quell a rebellion on a recently-acquired alien planet when he was abducted.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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Name: Veronica Miles
Gender: Female
Font color: #444400, but I'm also going to have to reserve #000000 on #00BB00, #000000 on #FF88FF, #000000 on #FF8800, #000000 on #AAAAFF, and #000000 on #FFFF00.
Race: Human
Weapons/Abilities: Veronica has powerful psychic abilities, mostly in the area of telekinesis. However, using them fatigues her.

Description: Apart from the psychic abilities, Veronica is just a typical Southern girl, albiet more physically fit than one would expect, due to the requirements imposed by her powers. She was summoned while wearing a fancy pink Sunday dress (not completely by her own choice), but she has leather boots underneath it. She wears her long blonde hair down, and it hangs straight; none of that curly stuff that some of her friends like to make theirs do. Her irises are normally pure gray, but whenever she uses her psychic powers they change color. She's smack dab in the middle of the average range when it comes to bust size, which is still better than most of her friends. She just turned 19 a month ago, although she insists that she has "knowledge beyond her years."

Veronica has a rather tomboyish personality, although she's careful not to reveal it while in "polite company;" most of her friends and family, even her parents, know her as a "sweet little girl" instead of an outgoing, freespirited young woman. And while she would never admit it, she sometimes (okay, often) hears voices in her head that aren't her own, usually that of a rather stern and much, much older woman who calls herself Thera, although other voices, like that of an equally old man's, have accompanied her with increasing frequency in the past few weeks. Usually they stay silent, occasionally they comment on things happening around her, and whenever she's in danger they're always constantly offering advice, a lot of it too quiet to hear.

Fear: Veronica's greatest fear is that of being truly alone. She has gotten very used to the voices in her head, and the idea of being separated from everyone including them has turned into her worst nightmare.

Biography: Veronica grew up on a Mississippi ranch with her parents, both of whom were psychics with slightly-below-average powers. To her parents' despair, she seemed to lack any sort of psychic power--at least until her sixth birthday, when she levitated the cake onto the ceiling. Her parents were absolutely thrilled, and happily cleaned up the mess and got her another cake. However, Veronica didn't tell them about the old lady's voice in her head that had suddenly gotten a lot clearer the instant she levitated the cake.

Within a week it was clear that telekinesis was Veronica's psychic forte. Objects were constantly flying around the house, and it took a very nasty incident involving a priceless china vase before Veronica's parents could convince her that her psychic powers were not something to mess around with. Six-year-old Veronica grudgingly consented, and her parents began teaching her to use her powers to their full potential. And 13 years later, her parents found, to their dismay, that she had vanished in the middle of the night.

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

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Name: Liang Fangzi
Gender: Female
Font colour: #902090
Race: Jiang Shi
Abilities: Can hop pretty dang high.
Weapon: Ceremonial Knife
Description: Tall and emaciated. Legs fused together. Shoulder-length white hair, skin coated in a thin layer of bluish-green fungus. Bones occasionally jut out at awkward angles, most noticeably near her elbows. Wears tattered, pathetic "royal garments": Moth-eaten and faded robes, a crown of rusted tin, jewelry made out of worthless pebbles and glass, and most notably a "sceptre" (more of a rotted stick with a pool ball duct-taped to it) adorned with an ornate sigil.

Personality-wise, is incredibly pessimistic and self-conscious, generally depressed with the odd outburst of anger. Doesn't appreciate much of anything anymore.

Fears: Worms, maggots, etc.; other undead; dark, enclosed spaces

Biography:

Show Content

SpoilerLiang Fangzi was, for the first twenty-five or so years of her life, a more or less ordinary farmer. Yes, she took the time to read things other than almanacs, and yes, she did have a tendency to throw her hoe onto the ground in favor of a daydream every week or so, but aside from that you'd be hard-pressed to differentiate her from the crowd. The first turning point in her life was finding an old translation of The Prince and the Pauper, laying half-buried in a puddle of mud. As soon as she had finished it, the idea of rising to royalty practically took over her mind-- whenever she wasn't occupied with something, and usually when she was, she would be imagining some preposterous circumstance or convoluted scheme that would put her on the throne of her very own little kingdom. She became lost in this fantasy until one night, she saw a shooting star, and officially wished that she could be a queen, never expecting it to come true.

Interestingly enough, a man was currently on that shooting star, traveling through space looking for potential tortures to inflict, and finding the various wishes shot towards him a perfect opening. A plea for superpowers was met with a slew of vastly more powerful archnemeses; a plea for true love would soon leave the asker regretting not specifying "requited"; a plea to become famous led to armies of paparazzi, the likes of which the world had never seen, massing up and practically massacring innocents to get a scoop; and so forth, until finally a wish to be a queen clicked into place. The man on the comet-- who was at the moment watching with glee as each wish reached its horribly ironic end-- took particular note as the woman who sent her hopes on the star fell to the ground, writhing in pain, before dying, spending roughly two months in the ground decomposing, and finally returning. Yes, her wish had been granted, alright-- she had all the trappings of royalty, and she had vassals literally springing out of the ground to serve her. A smirk played across the watcher's face as Liang realized that her legs had fused together, that her bones were tearing through her skin like a carving knife through tissue paper, and that she couldn't remove her new rags no matter how powerfully she tugged at them.

Over the course of about five years, six months of which were spent getting used to hopping around everywhere, Liang slowly got used to her new form, though she never managed to come to terms with her fate. When she was spirited away to the battle, she was simply hopping around in circles in a (well-lit) cave, counting how many laps it would take until the end of the world, too fearful to come out for what reaction the living might have to her presence.

Originally posted on MSPA by Wojjan.

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Can you say four thousand words of profile?

Name: Dorin (door in), Shik'skara (chic scar-ah) and guests

Color: Dorin (Dodger Blue), Shik'skara (Cadet Blue) and guests (Cadet Blue, italic)

Gender: gal, brick and demons

Race: Biologically speaking Dorin is a human, but living in the seclusive cult of Geengezichten (gain gas ick tun) for so long has practically earned her and her group a separate race, or at least a very own tribe.

Backstory: If someone had told Dorin this morning she would end up as a sacrifice by noon, she would have believed it completely, for she had been making arrangements for this day since months before. Every official paper to denote her death had been neatly filled in, be it with a queer look courtesy of the receptionist. An understandable reaction, since not a lot of people turn in files to announce their own coming to pass. The local media were informed when and where the public ceremony would take place, but around this time a week ago they had asked to document the private event. Their knowledge of the secret ceremony was mostly due to her own mentioning of the word public, though, so she couldn't really blame anyone but herself. She had promised to arrange an acolyte's cloak for the man.

She remembered this as she got dressed in the morning. She had always liked that green tabard – acolyte's cloaks were always green, to denote their youth and possibility of growth – because it meshed well with her more or less wavy more or less red hair. She plucked at it a bit and realised that her hair really was a mess today. Pulling the white gown over her head, she came to notice exactly how much she missed the color green. But hey, you can't fight maiden fashion, she supposed. If she were one to break with tradition she probably wouldn't be here today.

It was nearing eight in the morning. Shik'skara whispered to her briefly that everything was in order for her big day. She could relax now.

“You can relax now.”

“I know, Shiggy, but I'm still nervous! What I'm doing today is technically suicide!”

“Don't use those words! Not one suicide ever bettered the world!”

Shik'skara, being en entity of ether, didn't speak English as a first language, and as such wasn't that fluent in it. He would be understandable most of the time, but he's bound to screw up at least once or twice in a conversation.

“Yeah, but still...”

“Just calm a little! You've arranged everything to leave. The only thing you need to do now is visiting him.”

“You're right. I'm just a little fired up, that's all. Hey Shik, do you think I could drink a glass of water before the ceremony?”


“Well, you're supposed to be immaculate at the ceremony, but that's still long away. You can, I guess.”

For these past few days, Dorin had grown used to the stares she more often than not harvested walking around unsupervised in the hallways of Kerke, her sanctuary of sacrifice. Kerke was mostly for economical reasons the host of the cultural event about to take place, and used its altar in the church of the same name and the underground complex for the Geengezichten also of that same name as a makeshift sacrificial slate. And while this explanation ripped out of context may leave the event sounding a bit bare, it would do well to know Kerke had, has, and continues to have the largest and probably the most ornate church in what could possibly be the entire universe.

The public ceremony was to be entirely fake. For all to see Dorin would walk up to the altar covered in rose petals, and have a seat on it. Then promptly she would be engulfed by a latex dragon in a blaze of holy spotlights, leaving behind only a packet of blood. As you can hopefully tell, this wasn't the actual ritual. No, right behind the altar from which she would roll immediately after God activates the lighting was a trap door leading to the basement, which in reality was the underground community mentioned before. After some staircases further down, there would stand or lay or whatever a hole does, a hole. Facing perfectly north would be a staircase leading up again (which makes you only wonder why all the descending was necessary in the first place) and at the end of that the true sacrificial dais would be.

An intriguing, recurring fact in every documented entry on this decennial event is that the Exempt – so they almost mockingly called the sacrifice of her generation, as if to say she was Exempt of living – always becomes entranced by the experience, and as if she forgot anything else in the world existed would lose track of whatever happened around her (one case even describes a fire entirely ignored, the resulting destructing but nevertheless a successful ritual) and almost run up the stairs on their own, without needing any incitement of their guide. Details, of course, vary from case to case.

Today, Dorin would finally find out why exactly that was. The young girl, almost fifteen of age now, was in no way scientifically inclined, but it wasn't a desire for an explanation rather a natural curiosity that led her interest to that particular point.

Dorin had reached the society's consumption room, as it was so cleanly labelled. For some reason, the water cooler didn't feel out of place as the centerpiece of the cult kitchen.

A man in a green cloak approached her.

“Dorin! Hello!”

“Corban? What are you doing here already? The ceremony isn't until...”

“I know, I know. I just wanted to check if I could get inside already. Security's probably gonna be tougher right before the service, right?”

Dorin was about to ask how he had gotten in in the first place, but then she spotted two or three counterfeit flyers under his arm.

“Advertising,” he laughed. “Works every time!”

“Shhh! Keep your voice down! If they find out about you they'lll totally kill me!”

Corban made a quizzical face. Such a statement was hard to take seriously coming from Dorin right now.

“So when will the ceremony be?”

“Full day.”

“A full day?! Where am I gonna sleep?”

Dorin shook her head. “You really don't even try to blend in at all, do you? Full day means noon.”

“Oh.”

With such an “oh” and nothing much more awkward silence swallowed the conversation. They both drank, and with neither of them able to discuss the weather conversation resorted to complimenting the quality of the water. They made smalltalk. Very smalltalk. Talk minuscule enough for the other to simply overlook it and not respond or even nod their head. Suddenly they both realised they should be going somewhere.

In Corban's case, he should be retreating to a solitary broom closet. His notebook was loaded with speculations and theories about elements and traditions in the cult as a whole but most importantly during the sacrifice itself that couldn't and probably shouldn't be processed as rationally as he was intending to. Nevertheless, Corban was a person who simply won't ever take no for an answer. Some may say those people are the most dangerous of all, but in his case they couldn't be more wrong. Corban was assertive and at worst a bit rude, but he was a good man.

So he was sure he would uncover every detail about this group, about the Geengezichen. He knew not only having over time graduated as a journalist but also knowing the Exempt in person since childhood were a good way to start on that lifelong dream. He sometimes felt bad about it, because in pessimistic moods it seemed to him as if he was using her to his own goals. Now, optimistic as ever, he knew he was here first and foremost to say goodbye.

He had up to now always thought to himself, he shall be the first to reveal these secrets, but after this talk with Dorin and the evil eye of her guardian crystal he was weirded out in a way he had never felt before.

In Dorin's case, she really didn't need to go anywhere. She just couldn't be seen spending her last hours not only with someone of her close material plane (every of her ethics teachers would have broken down on the spot) but to make things worse, a novice acolyte most people wouldn't even recognise, and to make things even worse, a novice acolyte who wouldn't turn up in any once-over through the annals. And besides, she really didn't feel up for chitchat either. It felt as if she was waiting at the doctor's for a report she knew was going to contain bad news.

Dorin had sometimes described her environment as Kafkaesque. Everyone does once or twice. To her, it was a way of coping with her fate as a sacrifice, a way of refuge for those moments she felt... Come to think of it, she wasn't even sure at this point what she felt back then. The closest approximation, she thought and was surprised to hear herself think, was downright selfishness. Such an ugly word. No, it was more like a primitive, almost instinctive fear of dying and desire for survival, that at some times was able to engulf her will and plight to self-sacrifice. That fear, however, has long since died out, or at least has been extinguished by something else. Something grander.

“Who is that, Dorin?”

The maiden flinched. Lost in her own thoughts, she had for a second forgotten Shik'skara was even there, and was following the conversation. What was worse, she couldn't lie right now either: Shik'skara would notice her uneasiness, and her entire alibi would fall apart. Whatever she did, she couldn't panic, that would just wreck her chances completely.

“Dorin, are you there? I asked who is that?”

“Oh, him! He's a close friend of mine.”

“Really, I didn't see him before!”

“He's from way before I became a maiden. He recently enlisted in the guild, after hearing I was to be this generation's Exempt. I think it's just to say goodbye to me. It's funny, actually, when you think about it. He's the only person I got better contact with after becoming the Exempt.”

“Dorin, I'm sure he's a good friend, but he's still a novice! I don't think you should...”

“Shik. I'm dying today. Please let me say goodbye to my friend.”

Shik'skara blinked inside his crystalline hull, chimed and bobbed up and down in the air for a while, as if in thought. To an outsider, the crystal would have seemed some sort of otherworldy volitant reflective windchime. Dorin noticed that Shik's always very soothing to watch while he's thinking. The orange wisp inside of him lit up in the azure shell and bathed the world around him in contrast. It was really a sight to behold, almost worth throwing every brainteaser in the entire world in his direction.

The heating sprang awake, preemptively sustaining the kitchen's temperature. Maybe it started raining above ground, Dorin guessed. It was hard to determine the weather through temperature alone in those dreary days of early spring.

“Shatter me.”

“Whuh? What?”

“I'm a piece of crystal. Shards break every time. They'll know you did it, probably, but it can't be enough to evict you. Until they assign you the new Shard you can do whatever.”

If it were possible to hug a Shard, Dorin wouldn't have waited a second in doing so. But alas, Shik'skara would have to settle for her most sincere thoughts of gratefulness. That's why her answer surprised the guide.

“You belong with me. I'm not gonna kill you just to meet some friend. I'm not gonna let you throw your life away.”

“Are you sure? You don't need me at this point, I'm sure you'll...”

“Shik. I'm dying today. Please let me say goodbye to my best friend.”

The words were the same, almost spoken with the exact same intonation, but the meaning was entirely different.

“My answer is and will remain a no.”

If it were possible for a Shard to hug, Shik would have immediately.

“You are a so kind person, Dorin. On time I wonder why did they even give you a Shard.”

“Because I know I couldn't have done without.”

Dorin's last moments were spent in her room, chatting with her one friend to whom saying goodbye would be the hardest task today.

~

The last rays of actual sunlight were blocked by the floor behind the altar flipping back into place. After her gaudy yet phony ceremony things would have to go very fast. Fake or no, the incantation's first words were already spoken, so the priest had to continue. Dorin hastily shook off her clothing, stained with fake blood as she rushed in her white sleeping gown she wore underneath down the stairs, accompanied by the same priest from the earlier festivities, who was gaspingly continuing the spell.

Four verses were muttered, and at that moment Dorin set foot into the sacrificial hall, and at the same time the torches at the top of the staircase lit up, resounding through the room in ethereal tongue the words “Eskei, Dorin'ets.”

The young lady had chills all over, but then again it wasn't exactly blazing hot in the bottommost chambers of the complex. No one ever spent a lot of time here, it didn't have to be.

Dorin looked around. To her surprise, the room was actually quite bare. In the middle stood, laid or whatevered the hole she had heard about, along with the infamous staircase up. It looked exactly as others had taught her in the endless studies Exempts undertook, but a lot less ornate than she herself would have imagined. Less special, in a way. It really seemed any ordinary staircase.

Her vision stopped skimming over the room to slid back in front of her, or rather slightly higher up from there, it stopped to center on the strange array of torches on the dais at the top, and the blur hovering above those. If she wouldn't have paid close attention, and squinted a little, it would have seemed to her exactly the same color as the inside of her crystalline guide.

The priest continued the summoning, but now he spoke in a much less hurried tone, paying close attention the the strange language's details, as if this part of the sermon was much more important. Someone waved there hand in the poor girl's general direction, to motion her it was time to start walking. She climbed up, slowly. Her thoughts jumped from one subject to the other as she ascended, each step of the road more arduous than the last. Every few steps, she would hear the calming voice of Shik'skara, it told her she was doing well. Doing the right thing.

By the time she reached the midway point, the sound of the incantation and the mild murmurs of the crowd down below were drowned out, but not by anything new. The sound dissipated, reaching only to her in dim syllables, only barely and only sometimes.

Corban stood in an indent of the chamber, beneath a single torch that wasn't even lit, trying to draw as little attention to himself as possible while still intently eyeing the ritual from the back of the room. He had, all things considered, a good view of the room from someone of his rank in the guild. Dorin had told him he was pretty much the scum of the group, but amazingly enough people were pretty dang kind to scum in these circles. He made a mental note to allude to those circles in his article and use it to refer to the structure of the complex as well as the people he was dealing with. Truly genius, Corban! Disguising his notebook as a sketchbook the young man duly drew the situation. It was time to reveal the truth.

The blurry figure at the top, Dorin saw, appeared slender and to her eyes to have four legs, and something of a snakelike body. It was small, and appeared to hover, but definitely didn't have wings.

The definitely-not-a-dragon beckoned, and rather curious, Dorin approached it. Some people in the audience might have been unsettled at the sight of Dorin slowly picking up speed, the eldest in the community knowing it was a common occurrence. And after all, they didn't matter anymore. Shik'skara remained silent, so she was sure it was okay. He had always been a much better friend to her than any other being, including Corban. Especially Corban! The nerve of that guy, using Dorin for his own selfish goal, caring more for the truth than for her! It made her want to... No. She calmed down. It didn't matter anymore. He didn't matter anymore.

Nothing mattered anymore.

As Dorin lifted her last foot onto the altar, a sudden gush of wind and light took her and refreshed her face. At first the young girl backed away, not used to the harsh circumstances of the overworld, but she soon felt the light was nothing like what she had felt an hour ago. It was warm, almost kind. That same draft also blew and burnt away the fog before the deity, revealing its true form. A small, golden lizard crept over a larger black ball, skittering left and right, playfully but still loomingly hissing at Dorin. Its beady eyes glimmered in the abundance of light. It spoke.

“Ba'ei, Dorin'ets, vehei'to. Vei'ma ki foi'ma skamt'mo riba'ri'eks.”

“Shik, you there? I didn't understand a word of that.”

“Yeah, they real gods won't waste the time on mortal languages. He asks you have to step forward and give him your body. Hang up.”

The crystal now addressed the god. “Meki so'o? Ontai Dorin vei'a nai'to?”

“So'oi, skara'ets-schiksei. So'ei Pantarei, paskai evai'eks-oinei. Ontai meskai'o paskai'iks paitei'ets?”

“Ti, Pantarei'eks.”

“Stit-ei. Pantarei, paskai-skeitis-ei, ka'ei Dorin ta'o veki ka'ei. Vehei'ma!”

Shik'skara didn't seem sad, mostly because he couldn't seem anything at all. He was sad, but the only way he had to express it was a slight hint of grief, remorse almost of poor decisions passed, which hid itself in his words.

“Go now. Pantarei says you go.”

Dorin smiled at the crystal, and for the first time since meeting it reversed the roles. “Bye Shik. You're my friend, I want you to always remember how much you meant to me.”

Dorin took a step forward. Her head hung low under her hood, masking tears, final streaks of hair stroking and tumbling off her shoulders as she lowered these in her ever present mixture of courage and fear.

Dorin took a step forward, but looked back one final time, feeling uneasy when she felt her faithful companion for the first time didn't follow behind her.

Dorin took a step forward, and had no place to look other than directly at the god's red eyes which she had up to now desperately tried to avoid. She looked up at the welcoming smile Pantarei gave her. It felt odd, but she was used to odd.

Dorin took a step forwards and forgot about the wind and the light and everything of the material plane and all the sadness in the world. It all didn't matter anymore.

Dorin took a step forward and fell headlong into a gaping abyss.

Dorin fell, wondering one last time if there wasn't any other way. Wondering if there was a certain series of choices that would have led to her not dying today.

Dorin fell and felt her body ache, pores randomly tearing open into rings of light, dotting her body in an otherworldy pattern, constantly growing and hurting her and-

Dorin fell no more as she was entered into a battle to the death.

Abilities: Leaving the ceremony in the middle of being ceremonised has left Dorin's body a portal through which beings of ether, gods and wisps alike, can pass through and be given a form again. Each of these beings speak the same language as Pantarei and Shik'skara, the speech Dorin doesn't understand. Luckily, someone else does. Shik'skara, while a few feet away from Dorin at the time, still served a mental connection with the girl and was teleported to the battle alongside her. He can serve as an interpreter. Hence the odd formulation in Name and Color fields.


These beings hurt Dorin immensely while passing through, but once they have exited they can decide to stick around after some persuasion, and depending on the entity's strength can grant her anything from neat abilities to practically divine powers.

Disabilities, or the section formerly known as Description: Aside from what the ritual has inflicted her with, Dorin moreso has inabilities. Living since the age of 8 in an underground community she only ever picked up the most basic of concepts, like how snow is frozen water and what causes the next tissue to pop up, and it otherwise completely oblivious to technology any more advanced than her hair dryer in her bathroom.

Wearing a long, ornate gown and high heels especially for the sermon will often have her trip and fall more than she usually does, being generally already somewhat of a klutz. Her figure is shorter than the average woman, though you could of course assign that fact to her still being quite young. The heels, although, make up for that. Her hair is a beautiful shade of chestnutty red, a strange color that seems to change every time in different lighting and from summer to winter and on which it's incredibly hard to just paste one specific name, long but gracelessly wild as by the empedoclean beliefs that proliferate in her community: Let nature do its will with you, you as the slave to the four elements in their eternal cycle of love and hate, and do not revert what changes they decide for you. When translated as if a holy scripture it reads: Don't untangle your hair or make any drastic facial changes, you are entropy's bitch and that's the way it's supposed to be. Wiry, unkempt and heavily entangled are her autumn curls. Her body, however, disobeyed the law that come to think of it apparently only held up to haircuts, and is perfectly clean due to her being obliged to wash it every day and pretty herself up beyond recognition. Not that she minded, of course. The start of the day was to the young girl its highlight.

You wouldn't recognise her usual care for her appearance today, though. Where she spent hours every day getting her hair to look halfway decent, now it is covred wih the cyan-lined hood of her white gown. And what I describe to be a gown isn't exactly any ordinary dress either. Folded around her body and held up by practically one string and a safety clip is a white linen fabric, not unlike an ancient toga. As already stated, it's held up by a string sewn onto it on one shoulder, and the folds in the dress are clipped together by a brooch, decorated with three black feathers. Why in the world they chose black for the ceremony was to her and anyone else but the designer himself a mystery.

Dorin is also at the same time terribly naive and naively terrible at conversation of any kind. Often too timid to speak up and having the slightest hint of a stutter in all of her words, the young lady's conversational skills soon collapse into “oh”s and “huh”s and elongated “sooooooo”s before bashfully and abruptly ending altogether on “I better get going.”

And all in all her current predicament, being sacrificed, meeting a god, dying but not quite yet and now serving as a gate between two worlds won't help her predicament. Expect her to panic quite a bit.

Fears: After arriving on the scene of the battle, Dorin will suffer an immense uncertainty over what exactly she had done wrong during the sermon to be treated to a battle to the death by a god, and fear of what might have happened to her society after in her eyes failing the ritual. She'll be left with a bunch of questions regarding her role in the world, the worth of a life in general as well as – and this is pretty funny in an ironic sense – a fear of holes.

Four thousand words of profile.

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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This already looks like it'll be fun to watch.

I'm not going to enter, though; I'm waiting for the next battle.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pick Yer Poison.

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MrGuy, please tell me you don't actually intend to use blackish-red on black as your font color? I don't want to have to highlight all your posts just to read them.

Originally posted on MSPA by gloomyMoron.

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I'll reserve but I won't be able to write until after work (so not for at least 9 hours).

Originally posted on MSPA by Adenreagen.

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Username: Adenreagen
Name: Lieutenant Matthew Zimmer
Gender: Male
Race: Orashald (Orashaldi plural)
Color: How about this color: #C90A0A?
*edit* there were too many color entries in the blue-teal-grey range, so I'm changing. If it's too close to cyber95's, let me know.

Biography: Hailing from Gredenarith, the fifth planet in the Meltat system, the Orashaldi people began as a social experiment involving colonization and isolation of hundreds of thousands of individuals. The centuries, nutrition, atmosphere and climate of the planet slowly changed their physique, though they are still human.

On the first month of the millennial year of colonization two important events in Matthew Zimmer’s life occurred. First and foremost, he was born. Second, a crusade began between the surviving religions on the planet. Though the war raged on for the first thirty years of his life, he was raised as normally as possible under a tyrannical religious system. He was part of a program to end the war that involved converting children and enrolling mid-teens in the military until they were forty. Matthew, though as eager a zealot as any and a prodigious reader, proved inept in all serious forms of combat so was given a job as a field messenger.

It was at this point in his twenties that his unusual talent began to assert itself. Matthew had always had a passion for the sciences, from botany to herpetology to chemistry. As a messenger, however, he found little time to apply his knowledge in earnest and could only do so when not on duty. On one crucial night, Matthew Zimmer had started a fire to read by but was called away to help spread word of an early morning attack. While he was gone, the fire slowly grew out of control when it seared his chemical set and spread throughout the camp, at which point the wind shifted to carry the fire straight toward what was later found to be an ambushing battalion. After thus single handedly "killing" several hundred trained men, he was given an honorary field promotion to Lieutenant, which he has gone by ever since though the title has no authority behind it for him. After his promotion, he was moved into research and development of newer and stronger weapons to use, and often stayed up for days at a time working on several projects. He was also the one who volunteered to field test some of the explosives and ammunition that he himself developed. His work improved flares and grenades, and several varied takes on incendiary and explosive ammo. Though some of them were useful, none were strong enough to use on a mass scale, which was fine with him. He did his work for the enjoyment it brought him, not to end the war that gave him such a job.

As a man of science and religion, Lieutenant Zimmer was a strange combination of devout and free-thinking. When the war ended in the winter of its twenty-ninth year Matthew chose to apply for an apprenticeship at his hometown’s alchemist. His time spent learning from textbooks was soon put to practice and he discovered that Alchemy was nothing like the sciences he read about. It was much more. While there was much studying and learning procedures, the lure it held for him was that it was, to him, the embodiment of religion. There was life and death, creation and destruction, corruption and purification, a sense of eternity. The only setback was that much alchemy was still trial and error, and failure didn’t suit Matthew. Every setback in his trials, every time he worked for gold and wound up with lead was seen as a personal failure. The idea that something could be done, and had been done, sent him into a downward spiral when he couldn’t do it.

With his short attention span and fear of failure, he often devoted relatively little time to experiments that needed either more time to mix or more effort to perfect. This was a surprise blessing, as within five years of his apprenticeship he was promoted to a Master Alchemist when he was the first alchemist in millennia to turn lead to gold and discover the elixir of eternal life, among other things. Some of the discoveries actually needed days or even months of inactivity to bind, and many were accidental when he combined mislabeled ingredients together.

As a bonus of his profession, the Lieutenant is able to carry some of his creations on his person. To that effect he has added numerous straps to his favorite vest, each one holding a vial of a separate creation. His prize vial is one that appears to be large-grain salt but truly, when combined to anything other than itself, creates just enough of any substance it contacts to fill another vial. Another, it’s opposite, is an Alkahest. Though still imperfect, it has the power to dissolve MOST substances it contacts. He also has a transmuted cloth that he uses to clean his tools and vials that nullifies any residue left on them. In his off time he entertains at parties.

The strangest part, as others see it, of Matthew Zimmer’s achievements is that they were formed from the stuff of coincidence, accident, and luck; many consider him a fraud. Brilliant, but a fraud. Few of his achievements took much work or were truly “done by” him; they just seemed to happen from anything he did. It has strengthened his zealotry for, as Matthew sees it, his Maker is guiding his hand and protecting him, that he always has and always will be an active piece in His design.

It was during such an event in 1037 C.G. (Colonization of Gredenarith), where he was demonstrating to a new apprentice the reaction of combining vinegar and baking soda (actually mislabeled water and pure potassium, respectively), that he was pulled away into the multiverse.



Weapons/Abilities: Lieutenant Zimmer carries two knives, one that is a five inch pocket knife, and another that is affixed to and extends past a clockwork revolver, curling up so the tip of the blade is scant millimeters below the path of any bullet fired. This has the combined purpose of providing a sight, doubling as a close-combat weapon and, most importantly, a place to combine alchemy with ammunition.

Alchemy in practice has certain goals in mind: turning metals to gold, the elixir or eternal life, gaining wisdom and the creation of new substances that possess unusual properties. Though he has done the first three, his expertise is in the fourth. His prize creations, a salt-like substance that creates more of whatever it contacts, and an Alkahest (universal solvent) that, while imperfect, can dissolve most substances, are always carried with him. As an alchemist he has an advanced understanding of the combination of science and magic and is able to transfigure most metals by blending them on a molecular level. Not just limited to metals, Matthew has made herbal medicines from plants and created the miniature golems.

Matthew has also unknowingly had the talent to trigger chain reactions in events that have often had unpredictable consequences, but always ended up being in his favor. Seeming accidents, like the fire that led to his promotion, or his discovery of the Elixir of Life, have led to his recognition.


Description: Matthew Zimmer has always fancied himself as an alchemist and holy man first, but in his city, a man of his status must of course be presentable. To that end he has tried to mix form with function, never wearing something that was not both conducive to his profession and society. He is dressed most presentably in Earth’s Victorian style clothing: black leather coat, brown vest with numerous custom straps to hold vials, white ruffled shirt, brown trousers, black work boots and gloves. Regardless of the fact that such clothing went out of style over a millennia ago, Zimmer has always fancied himself to be quite “dashing” in them. As for his personal appearance, Zimmer is shorter than average for his race, roughly 5’7” and slim. He also has dark brown hair, which is fairly short since it is constantly being burnt during work, and amazing manual dexterity. Lieutenant Zimmer has always had a relatively short attention span and is slightly absentminded, but always tries to act the gentleman in spite of his short temper. His religion preaches about success over failure and strength in the face of conflict, and Zimmer holds his religion as his highest ideal. However, when put in practice, large setbacks have always sent him into a depression, and minor ones into a rage.



Fears: Raised from birth to believe in a great Maker, Zimmer, like all Orashaldi, is intensely devout. Even though he doesn’t realize it because his people are all have the same beliefs, losing his belief in his God would be destructive to his whole way of life, as everything he does has ties to religion. He also has an intense fear of failure, for it causes him to lose his already short temper and has caused him to have depression in the past.

Originally posted on MSPA by MrGuy.

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MrGuy, please tell me you don't actually intend to use blackish-red on black as your font color? I don't want to have to highlight all your posts just to read them.

Of course not, my dear PYP~

Originally posted on MSPA by Baphomet.

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Username: Baphomet
Name: Martin Holden
Gender: Male
Race: He would identify himself as human, though I suppose that's debatable.
Color: Maybe a medium gray
Weapons/Abilities: Well, he weighs about 600 pounds and is made of metal and memory polymer, I guess that counts. His legs and his spine are reinforced and upgraded to lift/throw very heavy things, run fast, and jump high. Oh, and there's a giant cannon in his left arm. He doesn't exactly remember how to use it, though.
Description: Looks about like a human man, early twenties. He's about 5'7", lean to muscular build. Perpetually has a sort of quietly puzzled expression. Brown hair, brown eyes. If you catch him in a strong light, you might notice that his skin's tone is perhaps a bit too uniform, with none of the colored veins under the surface that most people bear. His left arm and his legs are both clearly robotic, and you definitely get the impression of something weapon-like in the arm, though exactly what is probably unclear. He was in the middle of yet another medical exam when he was abducted, and he's currently wearing nothing but boxer shorts. Blue, with penguins on them. As for personality, probably the first thing I should mention is the short-term memory loss. After we identify that elephant in the room, we might see some of the room's other furnishings, like a tendency to over-think everything and a general unease around authority figures. Likes to draw and considers himself a creative sort.

Fears: Quite a bit. Things that can kill him. Things that can hurt him. Girls who are too attractive for their own good. Large dogs. Rejection. Oddly, things in the uncanny valley, though he might arguably fall in it himself. He reads a lot of scary stories at night, so if we wanted to get specific we might say something about horrors in darkness whose menacing natures are clear, but whose methods of exacting that menace are not.
Biography: After certain advances in the creation of mind-upload android bodies making them anatomically accurate and biologically viable, as well as physically customizable, the public started to think maybe it was a good idea. The process is still very much a medical procedure in the same vein as any brain surgery; nanobots are physically injected into the cranium, where they spread throughout the brain and take over the functions of each individual nerve cluster, forming connections and neural pathways in the same sort of framework as the original. Once complete, the original biological matter of the brain becomes biological waste and is carefully cleaned from the new, more sturdy and compact nanobot swarm. The process is non-repeatable and the result is a mechanical object that can then be plugged in to the android body and hooked up to the thousands of sensory apparatus, and feel just as at home as it did in its previous body. It's almost a shame that the trans-humans kept their humanity after all, because The War started on yet another set of humans' baseless fears and fervor.

Many objected to the draft, like Martin, but draft evasion in this time was nearly impossible. Who was he to refuse when they offered to make him a trans-human free of charge? The trans-human casualty rate was much lower than the human one in The War, and at least he wouldn't have allergies anymore. They said they'd give him a regular arm and normal legs when his term was up. Unfortunately, like any surgical procedure, there is a small risk of complications. While the brain was replaced without incident, a cluster of nanobots was damaged when inserting the military protocol database that replaced basic training in trans-humans. Every once in a while, an errant subroutine overwrites his short-term memory with these protocols, and he forgets everything that just happened to him. With enough repetition, things will stick in his long-term memory, especially faces. That is to say, he will probably remember that he's seen you before, but he's not too likely to remember what your name is.

Originally posted on MSPA by whoosh!.

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Username: whoosh!

Name: Ke

Gender: Female

Race: Arachnid Remembrancer

Colour: This one.

Weapons/Abilities: Ke can fly, being as light as a 80gsm sheet of A5 paper. Her method of flight is much like the way a squid swims. Ke will breath in air, then respire it by shooting it back out as thrust. She tends to float on winds if she's in a particularly floaty mood, but she has hooks on the ends of her eight legs that stop her wantonly blowing away when a breeze blows past. However, being a spider, she's also very capable of spinning webs, (and producing spider silk for other uses) and immoblising prey if she feels the need. Her mandibles are nothing to be sneered at either.

Description: Ke is about as tall as a human when fully straightened out, but when walking she only comes up to a little above a person's waist. She's hairless, sleek, pure white, (almost translucent) and has an impressive sheen not unlike mother-of-pearl to her exoskeleton. There are a few black markings around her mandibles and cethalothorax, but these, along with her glittering black eyes, are the darkest points of her appearance. She has membranous sails on her back that fold and unfold like wings, but these have little practical use other than to offer some method of controlling her direction when in flight.

Fears: Ke is one of the millions of her kind that are children of Nyame, the original keeper of all stories. Following the loss of these to the spider god Anansi, he sent out his children to find more. They all have their separate forms individual to them. Ke chose hers out of admiration for the spider god, and the manner in which he liberated the first stories. As such, Ke has devoted her life to seeking out the tales of the universe she inhabits and recording them, so that they may never be forgetten. But when she dies, who will remember her? She fears, more than anything, that everything she did or will do is pointless, and that she will fade into nothing once she no longer lives. She's also rather sensitive about being trapped due to her exotic appearance garnering interest and a need to imprison her, apparently. Many humans have tried to make a pet of her, but few were remarkable in their attempts.

The ones that were, however...

Biography:'When the Spider of Memory, Ke, first tumbled from the sky and out of the arms of her father, she fell upon the court of an opulent king. There she found a comfortable place within this court, this heart of lies and deceit, to start recording her stories. In return she was an oddity, a pretty spectacle for esteemed visitors to the palace.

However, it could not last. Eventually she grew bored of the same permutations of petty rivalries and lacklustre politics, and made her intentions to leave clear. The king responded with smiles and bows to the strange creature, but he was as two-faced as the rest of his vindictive court. Elaborate traps and steel doors surrounded her while she slept, and ten battalions of soldiers surrounded all this. Ke had become the king's prize. He didn't intend to lose her now.

And so Ke was required to stage her first escape attempt.

The first two tries were unsuccessful, both relying on brute force and how quickly she could spit her silk at the numerous men rushing towards her. The third time, however, needed only patience and the removal of a few bricks. After all, while the king had been certain to consider every angle surrounding the spider, he had failed to realise that her natural instinct was to go up. Her scrapings and scratchings were hardly inconspicuous, but a five-foot layer of steel surround her cell made sure that none of that noise escaped to where others might hear it.

Ke pulled herself out of that small gap and floated away unseen on the wind, through a sky smeared with the rushing and fading colours of day, and landed on a beach many miles away.

For a year and day she lay on that beach, watching the clouds go past and the world ebb and flow, only leaving her spot in the sand to hunt birds and fish. She was confused. Her father had entrusted her to remember the secrets and tales of the world, but she had been betrayed and imprisoned by the only humans she knew. Ke could not trust them, not anymore. But if she couldn't even speak to the keepers of these stories, how would she liberate them? Desolate, she chose to do nothing.

Eventually her apathy was broken by the ship wrecking upon the shore. She was sleeping at the time, curled up amongst the rock pools, but the raging roar of the thunder brought her scuttlign towards the shore. And there, outlined against a crack of lightning that seared the sky, she saw a story. A myriad, even, waiting to be remembered and recorded.

As she leapt and dived into the water, cleaving the soaring waves, she realised that the fear was meaningless. The stories were all she would ever have.

And what more could she want?'

- Extract from The Caged Spider and Other Stories

Ke went on to collect many stories, all of varying lengths and truthfulness. However, while she chose to compile a few, she keeps all of them remembered perfectly. While this would seem remarkable, it is only natural that a collector of stories sent by the sky god himself would be adapted to the purpose in some way.

But although the stories were kept in perfect condition, the nature of their collection began to blur for Ke. The joy she once experience in her collecting became humdrum and everyday. So, in a way, it could almost be regarded as serendipitous that she became trapped in a fight to the death.

If she survived, this would certainly be a story she would never forget collecting.

Show Content

SpoilerIf this makes sense then fabulous. Wooziness will not get the better of me just yet.

Originally posted on MSPA by Not The Author.

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Well, this was a reserve, but since I didn't get in and will likely be using this guy farther down the road, I figure I'll keep it a surprise for those of you that missed it.

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

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Signups are now closed. I'll wait for NTA and Gloomy to submit their profiles, then it's torment time.

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

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Let it be known that I am choosing profiles at 9:00 pm CST, about one hour from now. Reserves have until then to fill!

Originally posted on MSPA by Anomaly.

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[Third post in a roooow]

Victims selected! We're starting this thing tonight!

Don't get discouraged if you weren't chosen, of course. The profiles were all great, and it was a pretty hard decision to make.

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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Looks exciting! Can't wait to see what you guys do!

Originally posted on MSPA by Dragon Fogel.

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Looks like a strong lineup. I'm looking forward to seeing this kick off!

Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.

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Looks like a strong lineup. Except for one person.

That person is me.

Originally posted on MSPA by Akumu.

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Looks like a strong lineup. Except for one person.

That person is MalkyTop, who is good at everything she does.