tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89750424725662516782024-03-17T20:04:14.311-07:00White Wizard's WorkshopA blog for Dungeons the Dragoning and the crazy guy who made the thing.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-80244101983203381642012-12-25T16:02:00.001-08:002012-12-25T16:02:28.655-08:00Vectron Bless Us, Every One!I'm going to keep this short, as I have a lot more Christmas stuff to do, but here are the links to the Bookmarked versions of Books 1.6 and 2.2. Mad props to my editor and bookmarker, Lilicia. I give her all credit for the fixes, and take all blame for not noticing anything that still needs to be fixed. Bookmarking is a huge task because any time you need to make a change to the files the PDFs need to be recompiled and the bookmarks are undone. I wish you all Happy Holidays and I hope to have some more stuff to share soon.<br /><br />Book 1.6 - Bookmarked<br />http://www.mediafire.com/view/?vf8yb6hxtz0dcst<br /><br />Book 2.2 - Bookmarked<br />http://www.mediafire.com/view/?67z5c3x2qllxlfuLawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-50363140581728195952012-12-20T23:23:00.004-08:002012-12-20T23:23:54.125-08:00APOCALYPSE WOW!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_X4St_0OADDyhXvoWwZ1AQORfUeyxW26CFiNshGbK9xxeOsaXdf6N70l2_qO-B22wpSXO_ulV4PKzvFpzaBAylHoFliMLxd-amJJOODsa_zfma0OCRblCFqTz-FQHkebIqnVYjJedg/s1600/DtDoomsday.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV_X4St_0OADDyhXvoWwZ1AQORfUeyxW26CFiNshGbK9xxeOsaXdf6N70l2_qO-B22wpSXO_ulV4PKzvFpzaBAylHoFliMLxd-amJJOODsa_zfma0OCRblCFqTz-FQHkebIqnVYjJedg/s320/DtDoomsday.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
You know it's the end of the world when I actually get around to posting DtD updates.<br /><br />Newest Core Book:<br />http://www.mediafire.com/view/?6rqfsuhbrud8ut3<br /><br />Newest Book 2:<br />http://www.mediafire.com/view/?emwo4jdm34xvuyu<br /><br />Once again, I forgot to go and make a full changelog. However, you're going to want to look at Resilience (which has fixed a lot of problems with size), weapon proficiencies have been largely reworked, missing feats and abilities have been repaired, things that did nothing now do something, Specializations are more balanced, and some classes have been changed around.<br /><br />I wish everyone a merry apocalypse, and remember that it's not my fault. Definitely not my fault.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-42331312696907609702012-11-16T15:54:00.002-08:002012-11-16T17:46:36.852-08:00NaNoWriMo Halfway Point This is just a quick update to let everyone know I'm alive. I've been very busy with work and writing - nothing hones a writer's skill more than just writing. I didn't want to spam people with updates this year, but here's a link to the file itself. As per OpenOffice I'm just past 32k words (Word rates it a bit lower), and we're about halfway through the book and ramping up towards a climax.<br />
Also, people get stabbed.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7vl2merxagexod/NNWM2012a.odt">https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7vl2merxagexod/NNWM2012a.odt</a><br />
<br />
EDIT: Fixed link, I think. <br />
<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7vl2merxagexod/NNWM2012a.odt" style="color: blue; outline: medium none;" target="_blank" title="https://www.dropbox.com/s/i7vl2merxagexod/NNWM2012a.odt (new window)"></a>LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-65133816208913299982012-11-01T21:50:00.001-07:002012-11-01T21:50:27.780-07:00National Novel Writing Month, AgainHey, everyone. It's that time of year again. Something different this year - kind of an urban fantasy thing to see how that goes. I probably won't post this every day, but I'll try to generally keep it all here. Still not sure on the names I've chosen. Might change them later. But let me know what you think so far!<br />
<br />
Also, no title yet. God damn I'm bad at titles. Story starts after the break. <br />
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<br />
<a name='more'></a>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in; page-break-before: always;">
“Officer,
she's a nice girl. I'm sure she had a reason for it.” I looked up
from where I was sitting and groaned, running my hand down my face.
Great. I recognized that voice. And he wasn't someone I wanted to
deal with right now. I was already having a bad day. The cops had
taken all my jewelry – it was cheap shit, but I felt naked without
it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“How many of them did she kill?”
He asked, quietly. I snorted. I couldn't see him yet, but I could
picture him leaning over, shielding his mouth. If my hearing was as
bad as his, maybe I'd think that was stealthy too. But unlike my old
friend, I hadn't tried to wrestle a banshee.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Kill?!” The officer sounded
surprised. Clearly he'd never read my record. “She was just in a
fight. “Apparently there were four men, three of them thugs with a
record as long as my arm. They're all in the hospital-”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Not the morgue?” My friend
sounded surprised. “She's getting soft.” I sat up and looked out
the cell door as he approached, his boots making his footsteps heavy.
He cut an imposing figure, over six feet tall and wearing enough
leather to make him look either like a biker or someone with a very
specific fetish. That he was pushing seventy and was still in
fighting shape was a miracle. Not many people made it that old in our
business.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Admittedly, I wasn't dressed so
differently from him. Black helped make sure the blood didn't show,
and leather was just practical when you weren't sure if you were
going to get stabbed or not. At least the corset looked good on me.
Too bad my pale skin made the scars stand out more.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Silvia.” He said, looking grim.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Nathan.” I returned. “You're
still alive.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I keep putting off my retirement
date so they can't get me the day before I quit.” He smirked. “Now
come on. It's time to go. I don't even know how they kept you in
there.” I looked across the cell at the two other people they'd
thrown me in there with. They were cowering as far away from me as
possible.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I was enjoying the company too much
to leave.” I smiled. “Besides, if I broke out I think they'd make
me pay for the damages.” He shook his head.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“They shouldn't have tried to lock
up a witch.” I shrugged. They had some special cells for that. This
wasn't one of them. I could have broken out in seconds with my Curse.
I stood up and walked over to the bars.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“So why are you here? I'm stuck here
until they decide I self defenced those guys into the ER, but I doubt
you're just checking on me because you were worried.” He glanced at
the officer, then back to me.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I need you to come with me. I want
you for a job.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“A job?” I raised an eyebrow. “We
haven't worked together since that thing in the Amazon. Remember? I
almost got my leg torn off by a sea serpent, you got stabbed a few
times while I was delirious, both of us had a great time.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yeah. I remember. Every time it
rains.” He shrugged. “Don't care. I need a killer. I got someone
who needs help and I have obligations. We aren't going to work
together. You're going to work with her.” He tilted his head behind
him. There was a small, soft-looking woman behind him. She wasn't
exactly out of shape, but she didn't have much tone. She was wearing
a skirt. That told me right away she wasn't really a fighter.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“A client?” I was even more
surprised. “What's she hunting?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“This is a bodyguard job,” Nathan
clarified.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“That's not my usual line of work.
I'm a monster hunter.” I stepped away from the bars and sat down.
“I'll take my chances with the public defender.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I already paid your bail.” He
nodded to the officer. “You owe me, and this is how you're paying
me back.” The cop stepped over to open the door. My cellmates ran
for it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“You can't leave us in here!” One
of them yelled. “She's goddamn witch! I've got rights!”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“She's leaving, you idiots!” The
cop took out his baton. “Get away from the bars!” The thugs
backed away. I rolled my eyes. I wasn't that dangerous. Was I? He
unlocked the door and shoved it open. “Get out of there, lady. You
don't have to go with him but you can't stay here.” I stood up and
sighed as I walked out, glancing at my new client. She looked afraid
of me.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Tanja Wendell,” Nathan motioned
to me. “Meet Silvia Wolfe. She's your new bodyguard.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
As we walked out, I tried to keep
behind Tanja, but she always slowed down and ended up letting me
lead. It was annoying. Her red hair annoyed me too. I'd tried to dye
my hair, but it was black, and the one time I tried to bleach it I
ended up losing most of it. That was one hell of an awful haircut.
She hadn't said a word to me yet.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Silvia.” Someone said. I felt my
hackles raise as I turned to glare at the police chief's pet witch.
She was leaning in the doorway to her office. I was surprised she
hadn't come down to bother me while I was in lockup. Probably too
busy trying to pin everything she could on me.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Gloria. Have you figured out how to
turn lead into gold yet, or are you still working at the Dancing
Dragon in your spare time?” I smiled sweetly. She had been a
stripper for a few years. I still owed the vampire who told me that.
Every time I mentioned it she turned beet red.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I heard you were in prison. Again.”
Gloria folded her arms. “I didn't think you'd be able to make bail
without having a real job.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yeah, well not all of us know how
to work a pole-” Nathan cleared his throat. I stopped.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Can you try not to get arrested
immediately after I've posted bail for you?” Nathan looked back at
me. I nodded and shut my mouth before something stupid could come out
of it. Gloria just looked more and more smug. I tried to ignore her.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Fine. Let's get the hell out of
here before Mackie comes out to yell at me.” The police chief had
been on leave when I got arrested. I was sure that wouldn't last.
There must have been something pretty damn important going on if he
wasn't here yet, and that'd mean he was in a bad mood. Even when he
was in a good mood it was hard to deal with him.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Good.” Nathan kept walking. I
retreated away from Gloria, hoping I was only imagining laughter.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“So you going to tell me what this
is all about?” I glanced at Tanja. “She hasn't said a damn thing
about why she needs a bodyguard.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I'm still deciding if you're an
acceptable substitute.” Tanja said. I frowned at her.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What's that supposed to mean?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It means the first time I met you,
you were in prison. And within five minutes of getting out you tried
to get in a fight. I don't need a bodyguard who is going to get me
into trouble. I need one to keep me out of trouble.” Tanja wasn't
facing me. She was looking straight ahead. She looked disgusted.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Like I said before, I'm not a
bodyguard. I'm a monster hunter.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“And it's monsters I'm worried
about.” Tanja didn't elaborate. We stopped to pick up my things. A
box was dropped unceremoniously in front of me. The seven rings went
on first – it used to be eight, but I gave a werewolf the finger.
It didn't take kindly to that, and now I wouldn't be doing it again.
I hadn't even managed to kill that one, but I gave it a pretty damn
good scar. A few pounds of cheap silver bracelets came next, along
with some necklaces. Unlike Nathan I didn't wear a cross. It only
helped if you believed in it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Trust me, Silvia is good at killing
monsters. I taught her everything she knows.” Nathan smiled. I
rolled my eyes.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I hope so.” Tanja looked worried.
“Come on. I'll give you the details on what I'll be doing.” It
annoyed me a little that she didn't say we. I was used to top
billing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Tanja's office was at one end of a
strip mall, next to a dentist. There was no sign, just the address. I
looked around. “How do people even find this place?” She unlocked
the door to let me in. Nathan had left us at the police station to go
do whatever was keeping him so busy. My car was still back at the bar
where I had gotten arrested, so Tanja had driven us in her little
Japanese thing. It had been an awkward ride. But I probably wouldn't
have found the place if she hadn't done it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I'm in the phone book. And most
people actually prefer their private investigator to be discreet.”
The front room had a few chairs and magazines that actually looked
new. Guess she hadn't been here long enough for them to age properly
for a waiting room. The window had a nice view of the desert outside.
And that's about all we could see. I guess the rent was cheap this
far from the middle of Phoenix, at least.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Mmm. I was expecting something
more... exciting. With electronic spy gear and shit.” She ignored
me and opened the door to her office. Unlike the waiting room, this
was packed with paperwork. She motioned to a chair and then sat
behind her desk.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I got a job a few weeks ago by a
concerned father.” She pulled a folder out of a drawer and started
going through it. “His daughter left home a few weeks ago and never
came back. He went to the police already, before you ask.” She
tossed a photo down. “She isn't dead. Or at least wasn't when they
went looking for her. You ever heard of the Sacred Heart cult?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yeah. Bunch of freaks bought out an
old high school. No one knows much. I haven't been following it too
closely. They usually don't pay me to kill cultists, just monsters.”
I looked at the photo. Young girl, black, looked nice enough. Not
even any piercings.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Okay. Well her dad wants us to get
his little angel away from the cult. He's convinced they're doing
something... bad.” She shrugged. “I've been investigating them.
Last night someone took a shot at me.” She poked a finger through a
hole in her jacket. If that had missed her, she was goddamn lucky.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Oof. Look, Tanja, I don't know what
Nathan told you, but it's not like I can stop a bullet. Did he even
tell you about what my Curse is?” She shook her head.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“All he told me was that he trusted
you to do the job.” I sighed.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Okay. If I'm going to work with you
we better get all this on the table.” I touched the bracelets on my
left arm. Green light filled the room as my Curse forged them almost
instantly into a new shape. “Figuratively and literally.” A
handle wormed its way into my hand, the bracelets turning into a
blade as long as my forearm. I put it on her desk.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Hm… a form of transmutation.”
She touched the blade carefully. Clearly Tanja didn’t want to cut
herself. “A bit crude, but that speed was impressive. What else can
you make?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Big swords. Small knives. That’s
about it.” I shrugged. “It’s handy.” She frowned.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I don’t like violence. If all you
can do is stab people that won’t help me.” Tanja sat back. “I
run a decent agency, Miss Wolfe. No beating people up in alleyways or
hunting down monsters. My last few cases have all be following
cheating spouses around.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Yeah, well, you bit off more than
you can chew this time.” I shrugged. “Look, I don’t want to do
this either. You don’t want me to stab anyone, that’s fine. I
won’t. I’m doing this as a favor to someone else. I’ll try to
stay out of your way unless someone’s pointing a gun at you. Fair
enough?” She hesitated, then nodded.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Hopefully I won’t need your
expertise.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I hope so too. So what’s first?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I’ve been staking out their
compound. We’re going to-“ My phone started going off. I
awkwardly reached into my pocket as she silenced herself. I was about
to just turn it off, but I checked the number and hesitated. I
recognized it. It was Chief Mackie. Was he really going to call me
and complain over the phone? Or maybe tell me I was going to have to
come back and spend another night in the lockup. I gave Tanja an
apologetic look and flipped my old phone open.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Hello?” I asked, trying to sound
innocent.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Silvia.” His usual terseness.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“You know, Mackie, it wasn’t
really my fault. I was only defending myself. And I didn’t kill any
of them, so really I was holding back a lot.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I’m sure you’ve got a great
story for whatever happened. That’s not why I’m calling. I got
something I need an expert to look at.” I frowned, sobering up. He
only called me like this when it was bad. The Phoenix Police weren’t
exactly experts on monsters. I was.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What happened?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Just come and take a look. I’ll
give you directions.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Tanja was kind enough to give me a
ride, since I still didn’t have my car. I found the place easily
enough. All the cop cars and yellow tape made it obvious what house
the action was at. I waved to Detective Yosun as I walked up to the
barricade. A decent crowd had formed. Guess word got around quickly.
The Detective let me through.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“The Chief called me up while I was
meeting with someone,” I said. “What happened out here?” He
shook his head and ushered me away from the crowd before talking.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Chief Mackie asked us not to say
anything. Guess he doesn’t want us spoiling anything.” Yosun led
me inside. That was when I noticed Tanja following me. Well, too late
to say anything to her now. I just hoped she could play it cool and
let me do my job.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And then we walked into a
slaughterhouse. The front room was almost dripping with gore. Blood
was soaked into the carpet, sprayed across a couch. A man was
collapsed on the floor, pale and unmoving. I could made an educated
guess where the blood came from. I hesitated at the doorway.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Silvia,” Chief Mackie said, from
the other side of the room. He nodded. “What do you make of this?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Looks like a goddamn mess,” I
said. “Is it okay if I…?” He nodded. I walked up to the corpse,
blood welling from the carpet as I stepped on it. Good thing I was
wearing boots. Even if they had already gone over things I didn’t
really want to touch the body if I could help it. I squatted down and
turned the head, looking for wounds. And found them just where I
expected. Big fang marks in the neck.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What do you think?” He asked. I
looked up at him.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“It’s supposed to look like a
vampire attack,” I said. At the same time as Tanja. I looked back
at her. She motioned for me to go on.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Sorry. It’s your show.” She
said. I sighed and stood up.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“There’s too much blood for a real
vampire attack. Vampires don’t make this kind of mess. The fangs
are just about the right size, but the neck really isn’t where a
vampire would attack. They usually feed from elbows or, if they’re
comfortable enough with their victim, the thigh. Neck is usually too
hard to get at in a grapple.” I looked around the room. “And
vampires don’t just kill people. They’re monsters, but they’re
predators. If they’re so hungry they end up killing someone,
they’re too hungry to leave this kind of mess.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Mm. Not bad reasoning,” Tanja
said. “There’s more than that, though.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Care to introduce us?” Chief
Mackie asked. I sighed.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“She’s a… private investigator.
We’re working together on something.” It was true, at least.
Tanja produced a badge. Mackie grunted. She took that as asking for
her to continue.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“There are clear signs this wasn’t
a vampire attack. For example, there’s a contusion on the victim’s
head. Vampires are able to charm their victims. They wouldn’t
resort to blunt force trauma. Additionally, there are signs of a
struggle from the blood splatter. There are also somewhere between
four and five sets of footprints. Vampires don't attack in packs, and
if they did, there'd be more than one set of fang wounds.” She
paused. “Of course, your points are valid too.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“How'd you learn so much about
vampires?” I asked. She shrugged, keeping her distance from the
body.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I like to read a lot. There are
some fascinating journals about the undead. The rest was simple
analysis. There's not much more to say, really. The victim was
clearly attacked here by a group of people he didn't know, there was
a struggle, they hit him over the head, then made it look like a
vampire attack. Clearly premeditated murder.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Premeditated?” I frowned.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“There's no sign of the weapons they
used. Probably a baseball bat or something similar for the blow to
the head, and for the fangs... I'm not sure there. It does look like
fangs. Something purpose-made for it I suppose.”</div>
LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-50632857591907241812012-10-29T15:58:00.005-07:002012-10-29T15:58:44.957-07:00Hurricane Special RantFor the last few rambling bits on game design I've posted, I've basically been justifying decisions I'd already made regarding design. For this next bit, I'm going to work on something I haven't touched yet - integrating pilots and mecha. And I'm going to keep a kind of stream of consciousness log as I do it. It should be interesting.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />Now I already know sort of where I want to go for mechs. I statted a bunch out as I was working on the Cthulhutech setting, so I have a good grasp of what they're going to look like - a number of equipment slots for each one, with a few choices for each slot, and each mech having at least a few unique pieces of equipment. It's an arrangement inspired by Team Fortress 2, where despite having the ability to switch a lot of equipment around, characters have distinct roles and play styles.<br /><br />The one part I didn't touch when statting them before, but have since figured out, was their stats. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do for the actual mecha stats before, but there was a clever solution staring me in the face. A human uses a d6. It's a nice, easy, very common die type. A mecha uses a d10. It's almost twice as large and makes for a nice distinction. I've long wanted to make a person's stats matter to the mecha, but how to do it? The obvious answer is to have the mecha not have its own stats, but rather provide a bonus to the pilot's stats. The answer to how much of a bonus lies in the die sizes used - a d10 has an average of 5.5, where a d6 has an average of 3.5. With four combat rolls, that means to have the same proportionate impact on combat rolls, mecha would need to have 8 stat points spread out over their four stats.<br /><br />Anyway, currently, characters as they're built have no special abilities relating to mechs. That needs to change - they're pilots after all! But the question remains as to how to give them these abilities. I don't want them to have to spend XP for them (at least not directly). I'd sort of like to have them improve over time in their ability to pilot, too.<br /><br />Now to some extent they already improve over time. Pilots can increase their stats, which improves the mecha's stats. So an option to improve mecha stats really isn't needed. What we need is more of a way to give players some abilities. But it could be overloading the characters - I don't want them to have to contend with a huge list of powers. I've been trying to minimize the number of powers that are just a bonus or remove a penalty, and make them more active. Psychic powers are a good example - they're not always on, you have to decide to use them.<br /><br />Some things that might be interesting for powers are analogs to the psychic powers that already exist, maybe some additional ways to use the tactical points and options I've already got in Warhawks rules, and so forth. Any other powers should really affect mecha construction - like letting you choose components from another mech's list or have two options in one slot or something. That could be really cool.<br /><br />Mechs don't get upgrades to armor, so upgrades to weapon damage would only make them glass cannons. Adding boxes would be extremely messy too, so that's also out as possible upgrades. Activated abilities like CQC and the other stuff I had in the beta test is probably the best way to go, but I really don't want a huge amount. Maybe the best option is to make people choose.<br /><br />I can make abilities and equipment pull from the same pool of points. I was already planning on having equipment be somewhat point-buy so I didn't have to worry as much about balancing them perfectly. If abilities also pull from that pool of points... well that'd solve my problem.<br /><br />Now the question is to decide how many points a person should get. And the answer becomes self-evident. I want it to grow over time, at the same pace as other advancement. So it should be equal to the total XP of the character. This will also let me have more powerful abilities at higher 'tiers', like how other abilities can be improved.<br /><br />So now we've got a framework to start with. The next, much longer step is to write out a long list of abilities.<br />LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-78011302575740307402012-10-24T20:03:00.004-07:002012-10-24T20:03:48.093-07:00Sanity and GunsSanity systems have featured in a lot of games. The easiest example is of course Call of Cthulhu, where you're much more likely to go completely insane than actually die of anything. In Call of Cthulhu, beasies and terrible things can strip away your sanity points. It essentially treats sanity as hit points for the mind, save that it's much harder to recover from.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />Dark Heresy treats it much like the same way, using a nearly identical system. You gain insanity and eventually get removed from play when you have too much. On reaching milestones or when failing rolls against terrible shocks to the system, you might have to roll on a chart and do some random thing for a while. There are some lasting effects, with characters gaining various mental illnesses, and it's almost impossible to recover, but that's lethality for you.<br /><br />A few video games have tried for the sanity angle as well, though the vast majority do it poorly. I never knew going crazy meant you got a wavy filter over your eyes, but that's what most games are telling me. Others try to play the player, like Eternal Darkness, and that's at least more entertaining.<br /><br />The how and why of including a sanity system into Warhawks came into play at about the time I was considering turning it into Cthulhutech. This is also why psychic powers got included - they're pretty important for Cthulhutech. But I didn't want to just have 'mental hit points'. There had to be more that sanity could do, right?<br /><br />For the actual sanity system itself, I decided to use my normal damage system as a base. You take mental stress, make tests against how much stress you have, and get Insanity Points when you fail (and then erase the stress). But it clearly can't remove dice - physical damage is removing dice already. So what can Insanity Points do?<br /><br />They can take control away. When you gain an Insanity Point, your character snaps. When creating your character, you choose a psychosis for them, the way they act badly under stress. Maybe they turn Sadistic, or Cowardly, or Psychotic. On receiving an Insanity Point, you are immediately affected by it and act on your psychosis. Every session after that, the GM can force you to act on your psychosis once for every Insanity Point you have. You can recover from Insanity Points over time, but if you ever have four at once, you're out, hopelessly insane.<br /><br />It's a fairly easy system, and it lets the player keep control of the character. There's not really any randomness to it, but it can still screw the character over if they have to play nice.<br /><br />For various reasons, I further decided that using psychic powers (and the effects of some psychic powers, especially ones like memory probing) cause mental stress. This serves as a limit on psychic powers, without being too... limiting, I guess. As long as you push it and drive yourself crazy, you can use a lot of psychic powers in one sitting.<br /><br />Additionally, I wanted to include an extra effort type of thing that characters could use for extra actions, more movement, and so forth. Like how Hawks can give themselves instability for bonuses. It uses much of the same ideas, but instead of instability gain, you choose to take either damage or stress.<br /><br />As a side note, maybe next time I'll discuss the ways games limit abilities like magic. There are a lot of ways to do it and it's an interesting topic.<br /><br />And now I'm finally going to talk about guns. Immediately on getting to the point where I needed to outfit characters I knew I didn't want to have to actually stat guns on my own. There are a shitload of different guns in the majority of modern settings, and for good reason - there're a lot of different types of guns in the real world, and those more familiar with firearms have strong opinions on the differences and comparisons between even quite similar weapons.<br /><br />Plus I really didn't want to stat out like a dozen guns. So I decided to take a different option. Weapons have stats, right? Well so do people and mechs. So why can't you build a gun like you'd build a person?<br /><br />Working from that idea, I figured out the things I'd need to really stat out guns well. Damage and range are obvious, as are accuracy and rate of fire. There's also the size of the weapon's clip (which is really just how many times you can use it before reloading). And to round it out, the miscellaneous properties a weapon can have, like a blast radius or being nonlethal.<br /><br />I also wanted to keep things simple and in-theme. As people and mecha use four stats, I could also give guns four simple stats. I decided to divide them up as:<br /><br />Caliber: Damage<br />Bullets: Clip Size and Rate of Fire<br />Barrel: Range and Accuracy<br />Special: Special Properties<br /><br />Each gun gets a number of points which, on creation, are distributed among those four stats. A pistol has only a few points, but is easy to use and can be duel-wielded. A rifle has no special properties and gets a medium amount of points. A heavy weapon can't be used on the move and is slow to reload, but gets the most points. Nice and easy, and it covers everything from a pocket pistol to a machinegun to a rocket launcher.<br /><br />As for how each stat works, Caliber, Bullets, and Barrel all function the same way - they directly improve something, then at every third point in them improve a secondary thing. For example, Damage starts at 1d6 when you have 0 points in it. 1 point is 1d6+1 damage. 2 points is 1d6+2 damage. 3 points it goes to 2d6, then at 4 it's 2d6+1. Special is the odd one out, and is just basically a list of choices, and you get a pick for every point you have in Special. <br /><br />So now that I've finally explained guns, you can see that I am very lazy and hate statting things.<br />LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-53883455851024899272012-10-19T19:54:00.001-07:002012-10-19T19:54:19.807-07:00RPG Design Ramble #2So, as I mentioned on the last installment of "Lawfulnice Rambles On Forever", we've mostly got character creation finished (at least the outline - details like a list of skills, statting out the abilities and so forth are still to come). But that's only a small part of the game - we've still got to figure out combat.<br /><br />Combat is generally one of the most important systems in a game, if not the most important. Even when combat isn't the focus of the game, whenever you end up with guns drawn on each other, it's instantly a matter of life and death. A lot of games get flak for having huge, detailed combat rules but almost nothing for social situations. But it's the life-and-death nature of combat that makes it needed, trying to put numbers to everything. Munchkins, minmaxers, they try to get every edge in combat, and having solid answers to "what happens if I hide behind cover" and "what happens if I run on ice" speeds things up in a tense situation and heads off a lot of arguments.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />Not that there's anything wrong with munchkins or minmaxers. I've done my time on CharOp boards. But as a game master I know I don't want to have to come up with every answer in combat. Social situations are much easier - you don't need rules for just talking to people. It is good to have rules for diplomacy, intimidation, and such, but they're definitely secondary. With a good group you don't need any social rules at all (but the same could in theory be said about combat rules).<br /><br />Anyway, we want to keep combat simple here, and we want to generally use the same system as mecha. Mecha has each of its four stats do something in combat, and has the player roll four dice and assign each one to a different stat. We've already decided how people are going to roll for initiative, so we know when people are going to roll their dice. We just need to decide how they assign them and what that means.<br /><br />So step one, we need to figure out everything that has to be determined in combat. And since this is a revision of the existing mecha rules, they'll probably carry over there if things work out. Now, we're looking at melee combat, ranged combat, psychic combat (thought I probably won't call it psychic in the end... I need to do more worldbuilding). And with attack and defense for each, that's six numbers we need.<br /><br />I've been kind of flip-flopping back and forth on this. There are two real ways to go with it. I can keep the attack and defense for each type of combat together, so it's easy to remember (like, physique for melee, intelligence for ranged, awareness for psychic or whatever). Or I can keep them separate so you have to choose between putting your high stat in attack or defense. (So if Int is for ranged attack and Awareness is ranged defense, and you've got a 6 and a 1, you have to make a hard choice).<br /><br />Despite the fact that our goal is to keep things simple, I want to start by considering the second option, splitting attack and defense. Now that'll give us six items spread over four stats.<br /><br />Physique Melee Attack<br />Intellect Melee Defense, Ranged Attack<br />Awareness Psychic Attack, Ranged Defense<br />Empathy Psychic Defense<br /><br />This arrangement gives us some interesting overlaps, and is nicely symmetrical. We do have two stats, though, that are currently a bit weaker than the others. We'll keep that in mind for later.<br /><br />But there's an important part of the combat equation that we haven't covered yet - damage. This is actually one of the hardest parts of the process. How many hits should it take before a person goes down? How dangerous is combat? What will happen as someone gets damaged?<br /><br />Games have handled these questions in a lot of ways. Hit points is a very common option, and one of the easiest but least-satisfying. With hit points you just make a number smaller until you hit zero, and then you're done. As long as it doesn't reduce you all the way to zero, a giant fireball and stubbing your toe have the same effect. Other games assign penalties (or even bonuses!) as a person takes damage to show that they're being worn down.<br /><br />Warhawks' mecha system has a damage grid that gets filled up as the enemy literally blasts away your armor and equipment. It's a compromise from making a system as complicated as Battletech but keeping the interesting ideas of 'armor placement matters' and generally taking damage more as a machine than as a man.<br /><br />Of course, that whole 'taking damage as a machine' thing won't fly here for the infantry scale. So instead of having a damage grid, we need to figure something else out. Fortunately, I do have an idea. We have four dice. One of the best ways to show that a person is being worn down is going to be removing some of those dice as he gets hurt. So the dice themselves are a type of very visceral, very tangible hit points.<br /><br />So that's one part of the equation. As you take damage, you'll lose dice. But not every hit can make you lose dice or else combat will be incredibly deadly (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not what I'm going for). And if a weapon can only do from 1-4 damage, total, there's not a lot of variation. Even a single point of difference would be massive!<br /><br />So to decide if you lose a die, we'll have a form of accrued wounds. As you take damage, it goes into a damage pool that you have to roll against. If you fail, you lose a die and erase the damage you've taken. Remember those two stats that have been left hanging? We might be able to use them here. Since we'll want to roll this wound thing every time you take damage, to make it more tense, we'll avoid actually tying it to the dice you roll for your turn.<br /><br />The procedure is therefore:<br /><br />1) Get attacked<br />2) Compare their attack to your defense<br />3) If you're hit, take damage<br />4) Test against the damage you've taken so far<br />5a) If you pass, no bad effect<br />5b) On a fail, you take a wound.<br />6) Every wound you have removes a die from your rolled pool.<br /><br />Not bad. We'll further specify that any stat without a die assigned counts as having a '0' assigned (kind of a parallel to the '7' for a skill in that it's beyond the bounds of dice).<br /><br />But you'll also notice we've got /two/ stats to use. That's an opportunity. It lets us have both physical and psychic damage. Psychic damage can be used for fear, actual telepathic attacks, insanity, even combat stress and PTSD. All good stuff. And neatly separated!<br /><br />But clearly, being really scared or sad won't straight-up hurt you (unless you have a weak heart, I guess). So the psychic damage can't cause wounds as such. This is an opportunity for a sanity system to come into play. Too bad they all suck. Time to make our own.<br /><br />Next time, Sanity, and maybe I'll get around to Guns this time.<br />LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-87424693767068857952012-10-17T19:51:00.000-07:002012-10-17T19:51:02.608-07:00Game Design Rambling Part 1<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj677ELiZE1klqlqSugF7QRGkztOAtHRsOi-9Bca_RYKh5E8lDr0DedOYzear7NBhIPfwOpzAUcw5J2K6c7XtQzSIfr1vUkxfRPekKGDyZrhqA6xZzl0u0MRoqtgO6N4oFEIzVHFyI2Lw/s1600/Diagram1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>I don't think I've ever written about how I design a game, except in general terms. I don't know of many RPG projects in general that really have running documentation from start to finish. There are a lot of decisions and personal biases that come into play when making an RPG, and even ones in development that include a detailed changelog (like Pokemon Tabletop Adventures) rarely take time to explain why every decision is made. And there are a lot of decisions to make!<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />As you may or may not know, I've been working pretty hard (relative to how much free time I have, which is little) on a game called Warhawks. It's a mecha combat roleplaying game, and lately I've been focusing almost entirely on the part without the robots at all. And that's the part I'm going to try and talk about today, the decisions that have gone into shaping what it looks like now.<br />
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<br />I apologize in advance if I ramble or repeat myself. I just felt like explaining some things.<br /><br />Now, the first decision I had to make was what basic system to use. There are a lot to choose from. However, I did have one big guide already - I already had a system that I was using for the mecha themselves, and as part of the same overarching system, it made sense to have something with the same basic framework. Four stats, four dice per turn, rolling against a TN.<br /><br />I clearly couldn't use the same four stats, or the same rules. A human isn't a machine, and doesn't have 'maneuverability' or 'systems'. They also certainly don't take damage in the same way. So I had to pick four stats that could pretty effectively describe a person. After some thought, I chose Physique to cover pretty much everything physical, Intellect to cover their brains, Awareness for their senses and common sense, and Empathy for all their social skills. It actually made for a pretty good spread, and I haven't modified those four stats since.<br /><br />As for the rules, well, a human needs to be smaller than a mecha. And the best way to represent this in a physical way is to use a different die size. Where mecha use a d10, humans can use a d6. It's another common die type, and about half the size of the d10, so it's a significant difference.<br /><br />One of the primary things we want to establish at this point is the /goal/ that we're aiming for. I know it's a bit late in the process to START naming a goal, but you can see my priorities here - first, whatever we come up with needs to fit with the already-designed mecha elements of Warhawks. That's goal number one, to make the two parts of the game feel like they're part of a whole.<br /><br />The second goal, as I've established, is to keep it fairly simple and light. Mecha combat can be more detailed, but there's less of a focus on people and so we don't want to have to think about it too much. A third goal here is to prototype some changes I've been considering on the mecha rules. Playtesting shows that there are some problems with initiative. At the moment, initiative looks like this:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj677ELiZE1klqlqSugF7QRGkztOAtHRsOi-9Bca_RYKh5E8lDr0DedOYzear7NBhIPfwOpzAUcw5J2K6c7XtQzSIfr1vUkxfRPekKGDyZrhqA6xZzl0u0MRoqtgO6N4oFEIzVHFyI2Lw/s1600/Diagram1.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj677ELiZE1klqlqSugF7QRGkztOAtHRsOi-9Bca_RYKh5E8lDr0DedOYzear7NBhIPfwOpzAUcw5J2K6c7XtQzSIfr1vUkxfRPekKGDyZrhqA6xZzl0u0MRoqtgO6N4oFEIzVHFyI2Lw/s320/Diagram1.PNG" width="320" /></a><br /><br />That's essentially two initiative passes. It's easy to see it takes twice as long to resolve a combat round. Now that's not to say it's bad by itself - in a lot of ways it's quite nice and tactical. But it did require some workarounds, like being able to change your action during resolution.<br /><br />One of the problems I ran into, aside from each round taking twice as long as a normal initiative method, was that you essentially had to try and remember what everyone else was doing. If you were on the top of the initiative order, where your action would be resolved immediately, you'd have to remember everything everyone had done that round while deciding on your action - before they had actually done it! It was too much of a memory game.<br /><br />So, since I'm prototyping new things for the mecha game here, one of the first and most drastic changes I had to make was to eliminate the reverse declaration initiative. While great in theory, it's just too slow and cumbersome in practice.<br /><br />I am very reluctant to change something in a game that distinguishes it from what I usually call the "basic game formula" - something I define as being like DnD. I lived and gamed through the d20 dark ages where every third party company was putting out shit (and I do mean shit) for d20. After seeing dozens of games that used the same system, it's hard not to think of it as being a standard. And d20 was the first system a lot of people used.<br /><br />With this initiative mess, though, we need to keep things simple - remember that's our second goal - so we're just going to have to go ahead and use the default initiative system. Bigger numbers are better, go down the list and let everyone take a turn. Not original at all, but what can you do?<br /><br />The following obvious question is "what do you roll, and is anything added to it?" And that's a damn good question.<br /><br />The two choices here are one die, and all the dice. In this case, I have a few reasons for preferring all the dice at once - it makes sure no one rolls too many dice or forgets one, it gives way more variance than a single d6, and it gives high initiative people a better idea of who is most vulnerable (protip: the low initiative people are the most vulnerable).<br /><br />And as for what to add, no single stat really covers the variation in initiative - is it reflexes, situational awareness, a quick mind, a feeling of what others will do? So we'll add none of them. 4d6 gives plenty of variation on its own.<br /><br />And with all of this, we've so far managed to decide what order people go in (a major change to the system) and what stats to use.<br /><br />That's a start, but far from finished. We need a way to personalize the character more. So next we need a skill system. I don't want to go with some complicated system or make people add more bonuses or anything. I want a light system here. The less thinking and less referring to the rulebook the better. I see most rolls as just being 1d6+Stat.<br /><br />Instead of having skills add to that, let's make them more important. We can have them matter a lot without increasing the total range of results (as an example, since we're looking at 1d6+1-5, we have a range from 2-11) by having the skill simply skip the rolling step and give you a natural 6. But, of course, that would mean dumb luck could get you the same result. So we'll instead make it a natural /7/. It's one higher.<br /><br />We can't have them do that all the time, though, so we'll limit them to using the max roll ability a number of times per session equal to the skill's rating. Giving skills a rating here will let people display more or less proficiency and also give people something else they can improve with experience.<br /><br />We'll also make allowances for a long list of possible character abilities which we'll let people get a la carte. The key thing here is that none of them will affect mecha combat later - if we give people abilities that will affect that, they'll always take it over any other power. It's not even a question. So if we keep things separate, people don't have to choose. We don't need to detail them yet - and the process of making the list is basically just sitting and brainstorming a long, well, list.<br /><br />Character creation we also want to keep simple. At the very start of the process, I was considering a type of lifepath system. A lifepath system has some big benefits - it gives you an idea of where your character is from, what he's done, and lets you tie it all together. But it's also somewhat constraining, and one overpowered selection can seriously warp things.<br /><br />We'll cut it (for now at least, I might revisit it later) and go with something easier. Six points of stats to distribute, limit people with a max of +3 (for now). We'll make a list of skills for each stat, and let people choose a number from each stat equal to that stat's bonus (so with +3 physique, you choose 3 physique skills). And we'll let people choose, say, two Abilities from that list we came up with.<br /><br />There's just one step left - gear. Almost immediately on getting to this development step I realized I really don't want to write up a huge detailed equipment list. Especially with a modern game, there are a /lot/ of possible guns and such, and that sort of goes against the quick and simple thing we're going for.<br /><br />I'm going to take inspiration from another game here. Legend of the Five Rings has a fairly elegant system for starting gear. Characters start with a few things and a Travel Pack. For this travel pack they just basically list a bunch of stuff and say "Pick ten of these". The items don't need rules or even descriptions - everyone knows what a hat or perfume or playing cards are, after all.<br /><br />So I decide what I'm going to do here is something similar. I'll give everyone some Requisition Points for gear and let them just take what they want, with most items just taking one point. Guns are a special case here. Since guns /do/ need stats and I don't want to stat them out, I'm going to make the players do it for me.<br /><br />Next time, I'll explain what I decided to do with guns and thoughts on combat.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-23557797295699930072012-07-12T18:37:00.001-07:002012-07-12T18:37:36.465-07:00Dungeons the Dragoning Updates Incoming<div><p>A lot of the comments on my previous entry going over what I had been working on were, naturally, wondering if I was stopping work on dtd. No worries there. Actually, things have taken an upswing there. I have someone helping me with the next version, and it has been nice to get another pair of eyes on things.</p>
<p>Expect the new version soon, with some big changes!<br>
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</div>LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-85245062861182930262012-06-17T22:30:00.000-07:002012-06-17T22:30:13.005-07:00Update - Still Alive, Triumph, Portal References, Etc.Hello, Everyone!<br /><br />I know it's been a while since my last update here. I've been hard at work on, well, way too many things. I have been putting three games together, and while none of them are anywhere near done, I wanted to tell you about them partly just so you all knew I was alive.<br /><br /><b>RUN N GUN</b><br /><br />I've spoken about this one before. Run N Gun is a fast-paced action RPG that is designed to be tactical and encourage system mastery without putting ivory tower design or dead ends into the game. I'm hoping to get a playtest together for this soon. I just need to get up to actually doing it.<br /><br />Basic Game Fluff:<br /><br /><i>"Hear the fame of that one!<br />Alone he rushed into his enemies<br />and saved his country.<br /><br />Hear the fame of that one!<br />He ran, destroying everything he touched."</i><br /><br /> RNG is a game of running, jumping, and shooting, in the classic fast-paced style of old-school platformer games like Mega Man and Metroid. It's designed to be fast and tactical, owing more to split-second decisions and maintaining speed and momentum than positioning. Not just what to do, but when to do it.<br /> In the world of RNG you're a person in a suit of Armor. That's with a capital 'A'. Armor is the most advanced weapons systems on the face of the planet. Or any planet. It's a combination of alien technology and human know-how, every suit unique and made to the specifications of its user.<br /> Armor is the only efficient way to defeat Armor. Elite teams are sent to take down rogue armor wearers and hyperpowerful cyborgs and aliens. Bounty hunting, assassination, these are the things Armor does best. Someone wearing Armor can fight through an army to reach their target.<br /><br />A brief history of Armor<br /><br /> It wasn't that long ago that humans were confined to a single solar system. It was only a hundred years ago that the first permanent extrasolar colonies were founded, a short time ago on the large scale of things, but more than long enough for the human scale. Generations have grown up, lived, and died away from Earth.<br /> Space travel has become a normal thing, thanks to a little gift from the vastness of space. A certain long-period comet, long noted and then ignored, became a focus of the scientific community when it was determined it would strike Jupiter in the space of only a decade. Telescopes were turned to study it, and what they found with that closer look was impossible. It was no comet, but a wrecked starship. An alien starship.<br /> It was the most amazing find in human history, and it was going to crash right into Jupiter. An international effort was scrambled to find a way to correct its course, to study it in what time was left. A small craft latched onto the ship and gently corrected its course, slowing it and bringing it past the orbit of Jupiter to rest between Mars and the asteroid belt.<br /> Human science was advanced centuries in mere decades. The energy crisis was solved in short order and even the lightspeed barrier was cracked after a few unsuccessful tries. The future looked bright.<br /> The first few alien races humans encountered were older races. This was very lucky for us. They helped humanity correct some very major flaws in their starship designs and gave much-needed help in terraforming and colonizing worlds. While they remained somewhat distant and aloof, they worked with humanity and are by and large our allies.<br /> That's when everything started to go wrong. Some had wondered just why the powerful and peaceful elder races only controlled a few planets each. It started with space pirates. They raided colonies, razing everything just for fuel and valuables. This was humanity's first encounter with Armor. Armies were smashed by small, elite teams. Fotresses fell to single men.<br /> The first human Armor users appeared during this time. Gifted by our alien allies, prototypes developed from captured pirate samples, relics found in ruins. And that's where you all come in...<br /><br />Hen Ogledd<br /><br /> Hen Ogledd was settled about seventy years ago. It was, according to the myths of the other races, once used as a prison planet and dumping ground by the Tizona, a species that is little more than legend now. And that was more than enough to get the Galatine Corporation to fund a colonization effort based around promoting and supporting archaeological digs.<br /> Little or nothing was actually found, though rumors spread about the anticipated cache of technology and artifacts that the locals becan to dub the Thirteen Treasures. Rumors soon circulated, triggering a second wave of fortune hunters and worse, attention from space pirates and the dark empires at the fringes of known space.<br /> Despite the massive influx of people, Hen Ogledd was largely unexplored when things started to change for the worse. Space pirates ravaged the colony, looking for relics that simply didn't exist. Most of the population was forced to retreat, defend themselves, or die.<br /> After the pirates left after failing to turn any kind of profit, and things had more or less returned to normal, Arondight arrived on the planet under a pretext of exploiting the planet's abundant mineral resources. This was a boon to the locals, providing an influx of supplies, products, and materials for expansion. Trained, educated specialists were sent to the planet and huge mining equipment was deployed. Of course, covert archeological activities were the real reason Arondight is on Hen Ogledd. They were looking for the Thirteen Treasures.<br /> New outposts were founded around mining resources. Refineries and large industrial facilities were brought in prefabricated and became the cornerstone of communities. Slave labor in the form of off-world conscripts were brought in as a cheaper option to more expensive mechanical laborers.<br /> Arondight's efforts paid off where the Galatine Corporation's hadn't, and they found traces of artifacts and information that ultimately led to open conflict between the two companies. Arondight was forced to withdraw, for the most part, and the convict slave labor broke free from their camps to terrorize locals, just another horror on the long list that Hen Ogledd has to offer.<br /> It's now ten years later, and rumors say that the first of the Thirteen Treasures of Hen Ogledd has been found and is in the hands of a powerful bandit leader. Teams of elite bounty hunters, armor users, and treasure seekers have come looking.<br /><br />Outdated Files so you can see where it's going:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?v0awcp7xcauhf8p">http://www.mediafire.com/?v0awcp7xcauhf8p</a><br /><br /><b>WARHAWKS</b><br /><br />For over a year now I've been tinkering with ideas for making my own mecha RPG. I've seen games that abstracted them well as player characters writ large (AdEva, GGG), games where they felt like machines (Battletech), and games where the rules were so fucked that I don't even (Cthulhutech, Mekton Zeta). I've wanted something that plays with the pace of a normal RPG, but still feels like machines.<br /><br />Warhawks is going to be my attempt at that. Just as an idea of where this one is going, I'm aiming to capture the feel of the Gundam series... as seen from Zeon. You have weak grunt units, and you're fighting against difficult odds. You have tactical advantage on your side that lets you deploy artillery strikes, sneak attacks, and so forth - but a lucky hit or two and you're rolling a new character.<br /><br />The basic rules for this game are that every mecha has a damage grid - sort of like the grid in Warmachine, where as you take damage you lose boxes, and losing all the boxes of a system eliminates that system. However, unlike Warmachine, these damage grids will be able to take damage from any direction. I'm currently planning on using a WoD-style initiative, in that the lowest initiative declares his action first, working up, and then it's resolved from the fastest down.<br /><br />As an amusing note, I'm finally getting to use some headcanon I came up with for my Lego mecha a decade or more ago.<br /><b><br />SECTION 27</b><br /><br />Yes, this thing refuses to die. I'm still working on it. After watching a certain webseries about board game reviews, I got back into the mood to get on this thing. While its current state is prefectly acceptable and playable (and pretty fucking awesome), I think I can make it even better and more simple. I'm going to get my card/RPG game to work, damnit, even if it kills me.<br /><br />Anyway, that's what I've been working on for the last few months. Life and work has been hectic. After my promotion, and the huge expansion my division has been under at work, I've had less time than I wanted to work on things. But I love my IT job, oddly, and I've never been more satisfied with my life.<br /><br />Now I just need to get working on my hobby!LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-80879836081970609332011-12-25T13:39:00.001-08:002011-12-25T13:39:31.062-08:00I GIVE YOU PRESENTS Merry Christmas, everyone! I've decided to get in on the Christmas spirit and release not one but two books, the revised Dungeons the Dragoning core book (Version 1.5) and the first full public release of Book 2: For a Few Subtitles More. I've bookmarked them using Infix PDF Editor, which saved me an assload of time doing it manually.<br />
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<br />
Dungeons the Dragoning Core Version 1.5:<br />
http://www.mediafire.com/?7a818758q47pruw<br />
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Dungeons: The Dragoning: 40,000: 7th Edition: Book 2: For a Few Subtitles More Version 1.2:<br />
http://www.mediafire.com/?jj1dn48xno2rolk<br />
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Get 'em while they're hot and let me know what you think. A lot of small changes were made to each. I daresay it's the best release yet!LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com59tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-3763411897993954772011-11-20T15:00:00.000-08:002011-11-20T15:00:18.341-08:00National Novel Writing Month 40,000IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE ALTERNATE FUTURE, THERE IS ONLY KRIEG. AND ALSO PAX.<br />
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We're at 40k total words, in case you couldn't guess.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> Arma was far behind Tilda. She couldn't fly with the speed of a jet fighter, after all. She ran down the streets, using her perfect sense of direction to keep track of where Tilda was through their bond. She took every fork in the path in an instant, with no hesitation at all. She was letting her training and Anunnaki powers run at full power. She could make correct decisions in an instant, something a human's gut instinct could only play at.<br />
She could hear the sounds of combat. Tilda must have found the enemy already. She felt a pang of worry. She hadn't had a chance to give Tilda any real advice on this battle. And knowing that this was going to be one of Messer's creations, she could guess that it was going to be intensely powerful. Arma needed to get there, as soon as possible.<br />
The flows of orgone became twisted and strange as she closed on the battlefield. The air was saturated with energized orgone, but it was running like a cyclone instead of hanging suspended as a fog. Something was aggravating it. And Arma could only imagine one thing it could be.<br />
“Pax,” She muttered, as she found herself on the field of battle. The white-armored warrior was standing, his guard down, in front of the Verbesserte. The idiot. Well, with that kind of strategy he wouldn't be a problem for long.<br />
Then she spotted Tilda, crumpled on the street, unmoving. Her hearts leaped. She ran over, trying to keep near walls to avoid being noticed, and made her way to her partner. Krieg's armor was still up, and it was still putting out energized orgone. Tilda had to still be alive, and the weapon might have been the only thing keeping her that way.<br />
Arma knelt down next to her, looking her over. The armor was cracked and broken. The helmet had a crack in it so wide she could see Tilda's eye. Arma gasped in horror. This was worse than she had expected. She reached down to the weapon for a moment, then pulled her hand away. If she turned it off now she could treat her wounds, but... she might kill her if the armor was the only thing holding her together.<br />
She bit her lip. She left the armor on. It felt like the correct decision. She could tell Tilda was alive, and she had to keep her that way. She put her hands on Tilda's chest. She focused her own flow of orgone, trying to push more of it into the woman's body.<br />
Just for a moment, she considered turning Tilda into a Verbesserte. There was still time to do it, and it would certainly save her. But... she stopped. Tilda hadn't wanted to become enhanced. Arma wasn't sure if she'd let her go through it even if she had wanted it. The process could warp a human's mind. She looked at the shark thing circling Pax, who was trying to reason with it.<br />
“Please wake up...” Arma whispered.<br />
<br />
Donna's head hurt. Her teeth hurt. Her stomach hurt worse than anything else, though. She was so hungry. Everything looked like food now. She wanted to eat, and didn't even care what it was that was filling her belly. She tried to tell the man talking to her, but all that came out of her mouth was the roaring of her empty gut.<br />
He just kept saying words. She couldn't hear them. She was too hungry for words to make sense. She wanted to make him stop. Trying to listen just made her feel famished. Donna's arms felt like bee hives, buzzing with activity. She lifted her hands... she didn't have hands anymore. They were gone now. The angry bees swarmed from her arms, searching the street for threats and stinging them, flying at them and exploding.<br />
The man in white screamed something and ran at her. She wanted to yell at him and tell him to stop. Part of her still knew he was a man who had been trying to help her, but the rest only saw him as meat. Meat that wasn't even fighting back.<br />
He shook her shoulders. She felt it all the way in her guts, what little she had eaten rattling around and only reminding her how much more room there was to fill. She wanted to cry, but something was wrong with her eyes and the tears just wouldn't come. She moaned and opened her jaws wide. She had to eat. She couldn't hold back now.<br />
<br />
“You've got to snap out of it!” Charles screamed, shaking the woman by her shoulders. “You changed back before! You can do it again!” The monster let out a terrible wail and lunged, biting down on his left shoulder. Charles screamed again, in an entirely different way.<br />
It felt like his shoulder was in a vice. And someone had attached fangs to the vice. And the fangs were pushing their way through the tough armor, slowly but surely. Blood started running down his arm. He punched the shark, hitting it in the nose. The monster let go, the remains of the cape getting caught in its teeth and tearing away.<br />
Charles took a few steps back, gasping and almost fainting from pain and shock. Everything seemed to swim in his vision now. He stumbled a few steps more before collapsing to one knee. He had never experienced pain like this. It was paralyzing and cold, and it took everything he had just to keep from passing out.<br />
“Please, I just...” Charles gasped. “I just wanted to help you!” He couldn't move his left arm at all. His fingers twitched. Even the slightest motion sent electric shocks of agony through his body. He could tell the orgone output from Pax was helping him keep it together. The pain was already starting to fade to a burning throb.<br />
“You idiot!” someone yelled. Charles looked back to see a reptilian woman cradling Krieg in her arms. “You can't reason with it! It's totally lost in the power! It can't even understand what you're saying now!”<br />
“That's not true!” Charles said. He struggled and got his feet back under him. “She listened before! I got her to change back!”<br />
“You-” The reptilian blinked and looked at the monster. “I admit that's pretty impressive. But you have to understand – it's not thinking like a person right now. It's thinking like an animal, in pain. You must have used body language or something before. Or maybe it just wasn't hungry.”<br />
“What, you're just saying it was a fluke?” He was able to take a few steps, trying to keep his distance.<br />
“No. But there was more to it than just words,” the reptilian corrected. “And right now that shark has had a taste of you. She can smell the blood in the water. If she isn't in a feeding frenzy, she will be soon.”<br />
“Damnit...” Charles couldn't trust the reptilian, but had to admit what it was saying had a ring of truth to it. “I'm not going to kill her! Not for you! Not for anyone!”<br />
“You're going to get killed, then!” The reptilian was holding Krieg like someone it really cared about. The person using it, whoever they were... must have been another reptilian. That was the only explanation there.<br />
“No. I'm going to save everyone,” Charles said, to himself. He thought about what she had said, though. Treating it like an animal. He could do that. He was good with animals. He just had to stay calm, use the right body language, and use something to feed it and keep it distracted.<br />
Something besides himself.<br />
<br />
Tilda opened her eyes slowly. Everything was a blur. The display in her helmet was broken, but she could still see. Someone was holding her. Charles? Her vision focused.<br />
“Arma?” She asked, weakly. The reptilian looked down.<br />
“You're awake!” She smiled. “I was worried.”<br />
“Is the Verbesserte...?”<br />
“No. Not nearly,” Arma looked down the street. “Pax is just being annoying at it. At this rate, he's going to get eaten.” Tilda tried to sit up, her chest feeling like things were still burning and torn.<br />
“Yeah, that figures.” As Tilda sat up, Arma gave her a hand getting to her feet. “That idiot. We're going to have to save him.”<br />
“Are you sure you want to?” Arma asked. “He almost killed you once. If we let the Verbesserte take him out, we don't have to deal with him again.” Tilda frowned. She wished she hadn't felt a sudden urge of temptation to do just that.<br />
“No. We're going to have to save his stupid feathered ass. He may be an idiot but...” She trailed off. Arma raised an eyebrow.<br />
“You know who he is,” Arma said. “Well. I think you might even be sweet on him. How unbecoming of a newlywed!”<br />
“Hey!” Tilda frowned. “That's-” Arma laughed and waved dismissively.<br />
“We'll talk later. I think we've got more to worry about. I'm just glad you're okay.”<br />
“Great. Now how do I beat this thing? Torpedoes don't work. I can't get in close to it. It can shoot me down if I'm flying.” She looked at Pax and the blood starting to stain his white armor. “And that thing can bite through damn near anything.”<br />
“Not anything,” Arma said. “I bet it can't bite through tank armor.”<br />
“Tank-” Tilda paused. “Another channel?” She looked down at the weapon around her waist. “I guess I need to change anyway. This armor is done.”<br />
“It should have at least one more channel,” Arma said. “Go ahead and switch to that. Pax will keep the Verbesserte busy one way or another. You'll want to move quickly if you want to step in before he becomes brunch, though.”<br />
Tilda spun Krieg's dial, searching for another station. She went almost to the end of the scale before she found it, a marching song. She couldn't place the composer. The broken armor glowed and dispersed, turning into energy and dust before it collapsed again into a new form. Tilda felt the sidewalk under her crack at her new weight.<br />
“What the hell-” she said, as she felt herself bear its full weight for just a few moments. Then the strength of the armor caught up, and it was as light as a feather, but slow, every motion geared down to move the new, extremely thick armor covering her. A cannon hung from her right arm, underslung and massive. As the armor cooled, it turned a sand yellow.<br />
“Like I said, a tank.” Arma looked. Tilda took a cautious step. It felt like she was on roller skates. She looked down. Treads. “If I had to take a guess, I'd say a Tiger, maybe a King Tiger. One of the most advanced and powerful tanks of its time, and without the material or supply problems. I'd like to see it bite through that.”<br />
“I wouldn't,” Tilda said. “I'd really prefer if it failed to bite through it, in fact.” She flexed her fingers, her hands now covered in thick gauntlets that almost felt like crab claws or pincers. She smiled, feeling a little better. It'd do.<br />
<br />
Charles looked back as he saw the blue light. Krieg was back on her feet and... in a suit of armor much more massive than any she had worn before. That reptilian woman was saying something to her. He turned back to the shark monster. He had to end this quickly before Krieg made things worse.<br />
“Okay. Let's just stay calm,” Charles said, keeping his tone even. “We're all in this together.”LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-1314628025011317812011-11-19T18:12:00.000-08:002011-11-19T18:12:17.627-08:00National Novel Writing Month Zero-One-NinerToday's update is late because of dragons.<br />
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Story is once again after the break. Tilda ruins everything.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> “What the hell is that?!” The detective driving said.<br />
“It's Krieg,” Charles whispered. How had she been able to find them? She must have had some way to sense the deadly orgone energy of the monster – no, the woman – he was sitting next to. Krieg looked into the car with her helm's glowing blue eyes. She put an armored boot on the car's bumper, lookng almost casual in her stance.<br />
“I am here for the monster,” Krieg said, the weapon distorting her voice to sound synthesized and ominous. “Sorry about the sudden stop.” Yates unbuckled and got out slowly, Krieg ignoring the woman. The detective drew her gun.<br />
“You're under arrest for interfering in a police investigation and assault on a police officer,” Yates said, hiding her fear well. Krieg looked at Yates.<br />
“Really? A pistol?” She laughed. “The police should be thanking me. I killed the last two monsters that were attacking this city.” Krieg stood up straight and casually motioned to Yates. “These things are too dangerous for the police to deal with. It's safer if I take care of them.”<br />
“We've already handled it,” Charles said, getting out of the car. Krieg looked at him with visible shock, despite the full-face helmet.<br />
“Charles?!” Krieg said. “What are you doing here?!” She took a step towards him. “Don't tell me that you're mixed up in all this!”<br />
“I don't know how you know me,” Charles said. “But I've already handled this.” He slowly reached down to Pax, and flipped the switch. Once again, a storm of orgone surrounded him, falling inwards and accumulating like snow into a bodysuit before forming armor. He took a deep breath as the cape appeared over his shoulder, hoping he wasn't going to have to fight Krieg. He'd had enough fighting today already.<br />
“So that's it,” Krieg said. “You're Pax.” She looked down. “Well. That's disappointing. I thought you had more sense than this, Charles.” She looked back up. “I don't want to hurt you. I'm not here for you. There's a Verbesserte here and I have to kill it.”<br />
Charles couldn't help but glance at the car. The woman was shaking in terror. He couldn't blame her. She started to glow. He had to calm everyone down before this got out of hand.<br />
“Krieg,” Charles said, holding out empty hands. “Please. Just let me handle this my way. She's not a monster. She's just a victim. You're a victim too. You're being used by them just as much as this poor girl is. Why don't you deactivate that weapon and we can all go together? We can get this sorted out and no one will be hurt.”<br />
“Not interested,” Krieg said. “There's more at stake than you know, Pax.” She spat the name like a curse.<br />
“Then you can tell me, once we're somewhere safe,” Charles offered. “But this isn't the time or place for this.” He stepped forwards. “Krieg, this is a very delicate situation. If we can bring her in willingly, get some answers from her, we might be able to save a lot of lives and get to the bottom of this. We're both doing this to save lives, right?”<br />
“I...” Krieg hesitated. “Yes.” She sighed. “But this is going to go badly, and a lot of people are going to be killed. The only way to deal with this for sure is to destroy the monster.”<br />
“She's not a monster to be killed. She's a victim who needs to be saved.” Charles looked back. The woman was hyperventilating. He needed to get Krieg out of there. He turned back to her, holding up his hands to try and physically push her away from the car. “You're making this worse. We had this handled. Just get out of here before she ends up transforming again.”<br />
“I think that ship has sailed,” Krieg said. She took a few steps back. The glow from inside the car was getting brighter. The detective inside the car frantically tried to unbuckle himself from his seat. But the latch caught, and he was trapped, unable to escape before the light reached its peak and a set of massive jaws bit down, tearing the car seat in half along with the man sitting in it.<br />
“No!” Charles screamed. The car exploded, darting shapes flying out like a flock of birds. The shark Verbesserte climbed from the wreckage screaming in fear and anger. It slowly stalked towards him and Krieg.<br />
“I guess you've got this well in hand,” Krieg said, her voice dripping with sarcasm despite the electronic distortion. “I should have known your stupid plan wouldn't work.”<br />
“You can't fight fire with fire!” Charles said. “We have to-”<br />
“Of course you should fight fire with fire! You should fight everything with fire!” Krieg's engines started up again. Charles could feel the deadly orgone flowing into the air, contaminating it. He ran over to Detective Yates.<br />
“I'm sorry, Detective,” he said. “You need to get out of here. I've got to try and keep these two from destroying the city. Get somewhere safe and I'll do what I can.”<br />
“I won't just run, damnit! I'm a cop!” Yates took out her radio. “I'm going to get a perimeter around here. If we get people evacuated it'll make your job easier.”<br />
“Thank you,” Charles said. “That's a big help.”<br />
“Yeah,” Yates said. “Just try and take both of them down. I want them both thrown in cells for this!” Charles nodded. Though he'd be happy as long as he managed to keep them them from ending up in body bags. With what he knew of Krieg, that'd be a difficult task.<br />
<br />
Tilda cursed at herself as she circled around the shark Verbesserte. She should have known Charles would end up mixed up in this. It was just her luck. Now she wouldn't even be able to look at him without feeling that sick, crawling feeling Pax gave off.<br />
She tried to focus on the monster instead. She'd just seen it kill a cop, after all. She had told that idiot that things wouldn't work out. But he hadn't listened. It was probably better that it had happened here, when she was there to deal with it permanently, than in the middle of a police station or something. Tilda was even able to convince herself of that.<br />
The shark roared from the street. Tilda smirked. It was going to have a hard time biting her from all the way down there. She could take her time picking it apart, maybe even lure it all the way out of town before she finished it off to make sure no one else got caught in the crossfire.<br />
“Come on, you stupid thing,” She yelled. “Pay attention to me!” She backed off slowly, making sure it could keep up. There was no way the slow thing was even going to be able to come within striking range as long as it was just roaring and trying to bite things. This was going to be an easy fight for once.<br />
And that was just what Tilda was thinking as the thing raised its arms and a flight of darting shapes launched from its flat surfaces. Tilda flew to the side as quickly as she could, hoping to avoid the missiles or whatever they were. They followed her, even more maneuverable than she was. They closed in, with the droning sound of jet engines.<br />
“Shit!” Tilda cursed, just as they caught up to her and sent her spiraling out of control. She slammed into the street with bone-crushing force. Bone-crushing for someone not wearing superhuman armor, anyway. It still managed to hurt, though. She coughed up blood as she picked herself up. Tilda could tell she had probably broken a rib or something, but for some reason the pain didn't bother her as much as it should have. Maybe it was the effect of the energized orgone.<br />
“We need to calm her down!” Pax telled, running up to Tilda and helping her up. Tilda jerked away from him. She didn't need his help now. She'd never ask for his help again.<br />
“You've done enough to screw this up,” Tilda said. “You should have ended this!” She reached down to Krieg. If that thing wanted to play with long range, she could do that too. She changed the channel on the device, and the armor glowed, expanding back into energized orgone before collapsing and re-forging back into armor, this time curved and thicker. She was forced to take a few steps to adjust to the propeller heels that appeared under her feet.<br />
“Krieg, don't fight! We can just talk to her. Calm her down. She can change back and then we can figure out what's going on and how to stop it.” Tilda felt disgusted. In other circumstances, Charles' insistence that this could be solved peacefully would have been cute, even adorable. But now, with lives on the line and Charles clearly on the wrong side of that line, it was infuriating.<br />
“Don't be so stupid. I'm going to stop her for good. If you want to know what's going on I'll fill you in later, after that monster is dead.” She raised her arms, sending out a sonar ping. A red box appeared in her vision over the Verbesserte, and she launched a wave of torpedoes. She smiled as they closed in. That smile faded as white cylinders spun to track the torpedoes and fired a barrage of shots, blowing up the torpedoes long before they reached the shark-monster.<br />
“What?!” Tilda yelled. “That's not fair! That's not even possible!”<br />
“I told you not to fight!” Charles yelled, obviously frustrated. He shoved her, actually physically put his hands on her. Tilda felt rage growing in her throbbing chest. “What's wrong with you?!”<br />
“What's wrong with me?!” Tilda shoved Charles back. “I'm the only one who's actually doing something useful! Don't get in the way! You've done enough harm here and if you aren't part of the solution than you're just part of the problem!” She ran towards the monster, her heels clicking on the asphalt. With some effort, her chest feeling like something was loose and torn inside, she jumped into the air, trying to land a kick on the monster.<br />
The Verbesserte had surprising speed, raising up its arms like shields, catching the attack on their armored surfaces. The full power of the kick barely cracked the surface, and Tilda fell away in a shower of blue sparks. She almost landed on her feet, but the heels on her boots sent her sprawling.<br />
“Only the goddamn Nazis would think it was a good idea to fight in heels,” Tilda tried to get back to her feet, too slow to avoid a giant backhand from one of the armored slabs the Verbesserte was swinging around. She grunted as she was sent head-first through a lamp post, ending up sprawled on the ground Stars floated through her vision, and everything was silent as her ears rang.<br />
Something was wrong with the display in her helmet. There was a line through it. No. A crack. Right through her helmet. She could feel the cold from outside seeping in. This thing was impossibly strong and she had underestimated it. Her eyes fluttered. She felt so tired. She'd have to hope Pax could handle the rest. She closed her eyes, and everything went black.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-62523887489922170472011-11-18T10:40:00.000-08:002011-11-18T10:40:38.277-08:00National Novel Writing Month VVVIIIOh god I can't into roman numerals<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8UbzFb11yFB6CDziijVrlmvEURJXIBz3aRvqnLEgbOPdzwTlMVnv1vaJXDEVyQ20jEz6ssIIk9KPLgSUaIaLzRb7shKcYWBjrwugj1HFsXgLwUgo6_mFZjw7PfgmDgTFRUfLXsBY0w/s1600/Madrid_peace_dove_graffiti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8UbzFb11yFB6CDziijVrlmvEURJXIBz3aRvqnLEgbOPdzwTlMVnv1vaJXDEVyQ20jEz6ssIIk9KPLgSUaIaLzRb7shKcYWBjrwugj1HFsXgLwUgo6_mFZjw7PfgmDgTFRUfLXsBY0w/s320/Madrid_peace_dove_graffiti.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br />
Today, we have one wedding and a funeral. Except one of those things is a lie.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
“You'd be surprised how much of your culture borrows some pointers from ours. We've been here for a long time, you see.”<br />
“You've mentioned that,” Tilda nodded. “So just tell me already.”<br />
“Alright.” Arma stood up and cleared her throat. “Tilda, we work well together, and I want to keep working with you. We're good partners. And so I want to offer you this.” She reached behind her back and produced a small box.<br />
“What's that?” Tilda asked. Arma opened the box. Inside was a golden ring, shaped like a snake biting its own tail. Something glittered in its eyes, tiny chips of some gemstone. Tilda's jaw dropped. “W-what-”<br />
“I want you to be my partner forever. We're a great team.” Arma smiled widely. Tilda blushed, now absolutely certain that she had no idea how to deal with the alien.<br />
“T-this is way too sudden!” Tilda said, waving her hands defensively. “We've only known each other a few days! You shouldn't marry someone that suddenly! And we're both women! I don't even like women that way!”<br />
“Oh really?” Arma asked, giggling. “Because you might protest, but I can tell that you were having some very interesting feelings when you woke up this morn-”<br />
“I don't want to talk about that!” Tilda yelled.<br />
“Besides, you're taking this whole thing too seriously,” Arma sighed. “It's not exactly the same as it is for your kind. This is just how we signify formal contracts and partnerships. It's like signing your name or...” Arma smirked. “...saying some vows.”<br />
“Stop that,” Tilda said, still blushing. “Look, you said doing this will keep the other Anunnaki from attacking here, right?” Arma nodded.<br />
“That's right. And it will mean I can keep helping you as much as possible. If they find out I've been helping you without a contract it could be bad for both of us.” Tilda stared at the ring, thinking. It was a big step. Bigger than she had expected. It would almost have been easier if the reptilian had asked her to sacrifice a chicken or something.<br />
“I...” Tilda hesitated. “Okay.”<br />
“You have to say 'I do.' It's kind of a thing.”<br />
“Fine. I do.” Tilda blushed more as she said it. Arma took her left hand and slipped the ring onto Tilda's ring finger. It felt strange there. Tilda looked at it on her hand, a band of gold, impossibly ornate. Tiny scales carved into the gold made it look almost like a living thing.<br />
“There,” Arma said, satisfied. “Now we're real partners.”<br />
“S-so is there anything else I should know? Does this mean I'm going to wake up some morning and you'll have turned me into a wolfroid or bear-gun or something?”<br />
“Not unless you really want to,” Arma said. “You have Krieg, and I promise I wouldn't do anything like that without your permission. “<br />
“That's good to know,” Tilda muttered. “But just so we're clear, this is just a business arrangement. I-It's nothing else.”<br />
“Of course not,” Arma nodded. “Just business.”<br />
<br />
Charles was forced back by another barrage. He knelt down behind the remains of a tree, taking cover while he regained his breath. He could feel Pax growing stronger as it converted the deadly orgone radiation from the monster he was fighting, but at the same time it was barely able to keep up with the sheer punishment the enemy was putting out.<br />
He wished he had been able to get a little more information on Pax from the Professor. Up till now, he hadn't had to really fight, and he had just been relying on things he had found by chance. Somewhere in Gable's notes there had to be notes on what the weapon could do.<br />
Right now, what he had was the sword. Maybe not the best weapon against an aircraft carrier, and possibly worse against a shark, but it was at least better than punching it in the nose and trying to scare it off. He was pretty sure that even if it worked on a Great White it wouldn't against a ship.<br />
The tree suddenly crunched. Charles rolled away just as the Verbesserte bit through it, shattering the wood and swallowing the remains with a few huge chomps. Charles felt real fear as he realized that this thing was aiming to do the same to him next, though with more screaming and bleeding than the oak had managed.<br />
“You're just being used by the reptilians,” Charles said, circling and keeping his distance. “Look, I don't know what he's promising you or what you think you'll get out of it, but we don't need to fight. Whatever they've done to you, I can help you. I can save you from this.” The monster circled with him, still chewing on a loose bit of timber.<br />
“You're a human being, not a pawn for them to use,” Charles continued, ready to jump at a single move. “All you have to do is want this to end. No one else has to get hurt.” Pax started to glow with a steady but calming light. He could sense what it was doing, saturating the area with calm, cool flows of fresh orgone. The monster hesitated, stopping, looking around. It seemed confused.<br />
“That's it,” Charles encouraged. “Just think about it. Everything will be okay. I know you don't want to hurt me.” The monster lowered its arms, looking down. It moaned, somewhere between a cry of anguish and a whale song. Charles cautiously approached it, not making any sudden movements. He reached out to put a reassuring hand on its shoulder.<br />
As he did, there was a flickering light like a dying lightbulb. The shape of the monster seemed to collapse in on itself, fading away. A dirty, pale, thin woman replaced it, shaking and bloodied. She was crying, obviously cold and weak. Charles let out a breath that he hadn't known he had been holding. He had been able to end it without violence, without having to kill anyone.<br />
“I'm sorry...” The woman whispered, hugging him. He held onto her, lightly.<br />
<br />
Yates watched, shocked, as Charles managed to talk the monster down. She didn't think that would be possible. She kept pressure on his mother's head wound from where they had taken cover. The woman hadn't woken up yet, but she was breathing.<br />
“Detective, are you okay?” Mohan ran up to her and knelt down. Yates nodded.<br />
“Yeah, I'm fine. Stay with her. EMS is on the way. She has a head wound and they'll need to get a look at it.” Mohan replaced Yates in putting pressure on the woman's injury. “I'm going to go have a talk with our Mister Masterson.”<br />
“Okay,” Mohan said. “Maybe he'll be more willing to give us some real answers now.”<br />
“I hope so,” Yates muttered. She put her gun away and slowly approached the armored figure, still holding onto the weeping woman. She didn't want to look like a threat. Yates wasn't sure yet that this was really over. “Mister Masterson? You've been keeping some secrets from us.”<br />
“Sorry, Detective,” Charles said. The helmet altered his voice, making it sound deeper and more authoritative. “I'll try to explain what I know later. I didn't think you'd believe me if I said everything all at once.”<br />
“I'm willing to listen, Mister Masterson,” Yates said. “Do you need any help... dealing with this?” She nodded at the woman who had only a few moments ago been a monster trying to eat him.<br />
“No,” Charles said. “But I think she could use somewhere warm to sleep and a decent meal.” He looked at Yates. Even through the helmet, she could tell what he was thinking. She nodded.<br />
“I think we can help with that,” Yates said. “Do you want me to arrange a ride for her?” Yates had just the right cell to throw the woman in. Carefully. Gently. Where she'd be safe and people would be safe from her.<br />
“That would be a good idea,” Charles agreed. “I'll stay with her to make sure the thing that did this do her doesn't come back.” Yates nodded. She stepped away over to the side of the house, well out of hearing range, and got on her radio.<br />
“This is Detective Yates to dispatch, over.” She glanced back to keep an eye on Charles.<br />
“Dispatch here. What's the situation, Detective Yates, over?”<br />
“We've got a handle on things, for the moment. The perp has been talked down, but we need to handle this carefully. Get the unmarked car down here. No one in uniforms. When we arrive at the station, I want everyone to just keep their distance. You get that?”<br />
“Yes, Detective. I'm dispatching some plainclothes officers to your location, over.”<br />
“Good. Prepare an interrogation room and a hot meal. Make sure it's all very friendly and happy. We can get some answers out of this one, but only – only – if we can keep this from blowing up in our faces, over.”<br />
“Understood. Anything else, over?”<br />
“Just one thing. When EMS gets here, have them keep the sirens off.”<br />
<br />
Tilda sat on her couch and looked at the ring on her finger. She definitely had some mixed feelings about all of this. It felt like a really awful decision, but on the other hand, it was supposed to protect her. At least it was just a business arrangement. She'd just keep telling herself that.<br />
“Something's wrong...” Arma said. She was looking out the window. “I can sense a flow of energized orgone.”<br />
“Another Verbesserte?” Tilda asked. She stood up. “Is it coming here? We can-”<br />
“No,” Arma said. She looked confused. “There's something... very strange going on with it. I don't know what's going on. But we need to see what it is. This must be something important.” Tilda nodded, grabbing Krieg.<br />
“Where are we going?” She strapped Krieg around her waist. She was getting used to wearing the thing. She barely noticed the device's bulk and weight.<br />
“That way.” Arma pointed downtown. “It's coming closer, but not directly towards us.”<br />
“Guess I'll just meet it halfway.”<br />
<br />
Charles had deactivated Pax to get into the unmarked car. The woman held onto him like he was a lifeline keeping her held down onto the earth. Maybe that wasn't so far from the truth. The way Pax was acting, she was still producing a large amount of deadly orgone radiation. It wouldn't be too dangerous for him for a limited time, but he couldn't imagine what kind of horrible things had been done to her that would change her biology so badly.<br />
Detective Yates was sitting up front along with the detective who had driven the car out. She kept glancing back at the two.<br />
“We're almost there,” she assured them. Charles nodded.<br />
“Thank you for the ride, Ma'am,” he said.<br />
“It's no problem, Mister Masterson. I appreciate the help. I've made arrangements so things will be safe and calm when we get where we're going.”<br />
“That's good,” Charles smiled. “I think I've had enough excitement today.”<br />
“Your mother is on the way to the hospital, but the EMS team said she looked like she'd be okay,” Yates assured him. “She has a concussion, and they'll want to keep her for a day or two, but there's no permanent damage and-”<br />
“Do you hear that?” The other officer said. There was a sound cutting through the air. A roaring sound, getting louder. Charles blinked and looked up.<br />
“Oh no,” he said. A red figure flashed through the air, dropping out of the sky to land in the street in front of the car. The detective driving slammed on the brakes, too late. The figure braced itself and caught the car with one hand, with obvious effort but even more obvious effect. The car slammed to a stop like hitting a brick wall.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-20334500957421773062011-11-17T09:17:00.000-08:002011-11-17T09:17:24.067-08:00National Novel Writing Month Sweet SeventeenAnother day, another two thousand words or so.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGxVCJkeGiHE_cJqKrtaBDLMuVZmfreVMUQvl8oahyvabDwr5Fwlhf463RC9lYoTPer77yq1DFfmZokzRI-9Fx3f7y1EbBdDWKYTz6SlTiM0rYwP9un0cLvu4RUMxe_04CMdA52xLFg/s1600/WWIposter12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGxVCJkeGiHE_cJqKrtaBDLMuVZmfreVMUQvl8oahyvabDwr5Fwlhf463RC9lYoTPer77yq1DFfmZokzRI-9Fx3f7y1EbBdDWKYTz6SlTiM0rYwP9un0cLvu4RUMxe_04CMdA52xLFg/s320/WWIposter12.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br />
New bits of story after the break. Today, Sharks!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> “Mom?” Charles asked, walking out of his room. “Did you feel that?” He walked to the stairs and looked downstairs into a scene of destruction. His heart jumped in his chest. One of the windows was shattered from outside, and a crack ran down the wall. A roar sounded from outside, like tearing metal and hate.<br />
“Oh no...” Charles whispered. He could guess what that was. He ran back to his room and grabbed Pax before going down the stairs, strapping it to his waist while he took them two at a time. The house shook again, nearly tripping him as he got to the bottom.<br />
He ran into the kitchen just as the outside wall was blown inwards. He watched in horror as a brick was propelled into the back of his mother's head as she ran from the blast. She went down like a ton of bricks as a literal ton of bricks fell around her. Charles ran over, screaming wordlessly.<br />
Something horrible roared outside. Charles grabbed his mother, debris painfully bouncing from his shoulders. He grabbed her, shaking her.<br />
“Mom!” He screamed. She was completely limp. Blood oozed through her hair. But she was breathing. He dragged her away from the broken wall, putting her down as far as he could from the danger. He wiped wetness from his eyes and stood to face the destroyed wall, looking outside.<br />
There, the monster stood, distracted. It was distracted shoving debris into its mouth, a massive fang-filled maw. It was some sort of lithe shark-woman, but with a grossly distended jaw that could have torn a man in half. It was mostly wearing only thin plates of gray armor, but its lower arms were replaced with huge, slab-sided plates.<br />
“You monsters...” Charles wiped another tear from his eyes. “You'll pay for this.” He put a hand on Pax. The proximity to the deadly orgone radiation being generated by the Verbesserte set Pax to humming. Blue motes, orbs of free orgone energy, floated around him.<br />
He flipped the switch on the control box over his right hip. The pure orgone surged around him like snow caught in a zephyr. Flakes of it stuck on him, building up to become a white bodysuit, glowing with energy. He took a deep breath, and the orgone around him flexed and moved with his breath, drawing in and finishing the suit, plates of armor forming over the bodysuit into the birdlike shape of Pax. With a final surge of orgone, a cape sprouted from his shoulder.<br />
“Before we start, I just want to say this,” Charles said. “I don't want to hurt you. But I am going to stop you.”<br />
<br />
Yates had been watching Charles' house, and hadn't thought much when the dirty-looking woman came down the block. She had barely noticed her until she stopped in front of Charles' home and stumbled over to a cat. She scratched it behind the ears, then picked it up, opened her mouth wide, and-<br />
Yates' eyes went wide. She shook Mohan's shoulder.<br />
“What is it?” Mohan asked, yawning. He had been taking a short nap.<br />
“That woman! She just-” She pointed. Mohan looked.<br />
“Jesus Christ!” He was instantly awake. He grabbed for his gun. “Okay, we were waiting for something strange and I'm pretty sure that eating a goddamn cat counts.” Yates nodded, drawing her own sidearm. Just as she did, the woman across the street started glowing.<br />
“Now what?” Yates asked. The woman fell to her knees in obvious pain, her body twisting and changing in an unhealthy pale light. Her mouth fell open, her teeth elongating into daggerlike fangs. Her skin became slick and metallic, her entire body warping into a mix of animal, machine, and man.<br />
She stood on armored legs, a finned tail whipping behind her. The slabs of metal that had replaced her hands and lower arms swung through the air like they were weightless.<br />
“A monster,” Mohan whispered. “Shit. We need to get everyone here. There's no way the two of us can take it out with just these.” He motioned with his gun.<br />
“Yeah, but we can get these houses cleared.” Yates ran for Charles' house. “You evac the area! I'm going to try and get that kid out of here! This monster has got to be here for him!” She got to the house just as the monster bayed a terrible roar and raised its arms, shapes like darts launching along the flat surfaces to fly through the air.<br />
The darts ducked and weaved like tiny birds before crashing into the house, exploding in a series of pops. Parts of the wall broke away, the windows shattering. Yates took cover behind a tree, then ran for the door. She had to get everyone out of there. She knocked on the door.<br />
“Police! I'm coming in!” She kicked, popping the door's lock with a single well-placed kick. Really quite an easy thing to do. Yates ran inside, an eye towards where the she knew the monster was standing outside. Another shattering rumble sounded as the monster attacked again. She heard a scream. She ran towards it, into the kitchen, just as Charles activated Pax.<br />
Yates knelt down by the prone form of Charles' mother, checking her pulse. Still alive. She watched in awe as Charles transformed into Pax. A feeling of peace washed over her, like a tide of positive emotions. For a few moments, she felt no fear or pain or anything at all except a perfect harmony.<br />
<br />
Tilda smiled as she started in on dinner. She could say a lot of things about her alien guest, but it would be hard to say something negative about her cooking skills. Her spice cupboard certainly couldn't have produced these effects alone. Arma either knew what she was doing or she was cheating somehow. And with food like this, Tilda didn't care.<br />
“What do you think?” Arma asked, smiling, as she watched Tilda eat. She hadn't touched her own plate yet, obviously waiting for Tilda's verdict. Tilda made a show of slowly chewing, visibly judging the food on every level, carefully keeping her face straight.<br />
“Well, I suppose it's not bad,” Tilda said, with a shrug. “But I might need a few more bites to tell for sure. Could even take two or three servings.” Arma smiled and started eating.<br />
“I'm glad you like it.” Arma had surprisingly good table manners for an alien shapeshifter. “I wasn't sure how human foods had changed since we had left. Your fads come and go so quickly.”<br />
“So what is that ritual you were talking about before?” Tilda asked. She tried the vegetables Arma had made. They tasted like meat. She must have cooked them in the juices from the rabbit. They were good.<br />
“Well...” Arma smiled. “Like I was saying, I want to formalize our arrangement. It would mean that we'd officially be together. Your accomplishments would count for me in the Grand Melee, and I'd be able to offer you more help and protection.”<br />
“What kind of help and protection?”<br />
“Truthfully, I've been helping you as much as I can anyway,” Arma said. “Because we have traditionally kept a low profile, most of the time all we can grant is information, and I've shared that freely because you deserve it. I think you'd be more interested in the protection, though.”<br />
“Alright, go on.” Tilda kept eating. It sounded like Arma was making a business pitch to her.<br />
“The thing is... the dwelling places of other Anunnaki are considered off-limits for attacks. We try not to kill each other during the Grand Melee.”<br />
“No, just a bunch of us humans,” Tilda said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “It's very noble, really. You only murder people who are different.”<br />
“That's not fair. You know I haven't hurt anyone.” Arma frowned. “It's true the others aren't playing by my rules on that, but they do follow tradition. After the ritual, this will be considered my home as well, and you won't need to worry about the Verbesserte attacking here. It would be an unthinkable breach of conduct.”<br />
“So if I don't go through with this thing, the monsters can just show up at my front door and kill me.” Tilda swallowed, her throat dry.<br />
“Yes. And I'm certain my people know you live here. They've just been assuming that we've already made our arrangements, but if any of them actually bothers to check, they'll be here in a heartbeat. They are not afraid to attack someone when they're most vulnerable.”<br />
<br />
Charles fired a blast from Pax's water cannon, the miniaturized cloudburster on his belt drawing in atmospheric moisture to fuel it. The monster, which had taken half a step into his kitchen, was forced back outside. He looked back towards his mother. Detective Yates was there, watching in shock. He felt suddenly guilty. He should have told the police everything.<br />
“You need to get her out of here,” Charles said. “I'll keep this thing busy!” He drew the crystal hilt and activated the blade, orgone pouring from the suit and forging itself into a blade. Yates started dragging his mother away while he charged at the shark monster. It roared as he approached, and raised its arms.<br />
Charles saw a fleet of darting shapes coming towards him, launching from the monster's arms. He turned, using his cape as a shield. The material was a tough weave of crystal fibres, metal threads, and an organic material like spider silk. The orgone-based explosives of the darts the Verbesserte fired blasted into the cape. Sparks showered down as it grounded the free energy. He winced, his already bruised shoulder taking a pounding from the shakes.<br />
“Please just surrender!” Charles said, firing another shot from the water cannon. The monster was forced back another step, delaying its attack, overwhelmed as the pure water disrupted its flows of orgone. As it was reeling, Charles brought down his sword. As if he was seeing things in slow motion, two cylinders on the monster's shoulders turned, tracking his sword. Before it could reach the monster, there was a roar, and the blade was deflected as shots forced the blade away.<br />
Charles blinked. Some kind of defensive system? The monster roared, recovering, and lunged at him with its huge fang-filled maw. He reacted on pure instinct, shoving his water cannon into its mouth. It bit down on the weapon. Charles pulled the trigger, blasting a stream of water down its throat.<br />
The monster growled and bit down harder, crushing the housing of the water cannon. Water sprayed everywhere as valves ruptured, an explosive burst of liquid blasting everywhere as the monster's teeth came together only an inch from Charles' hand.<br />
Charles hastily took a step back, not far enough to avoid the monster slamming one of its thick armored arms into him, spinning him around. He tripped over a brick, catching himself on part of the kitchen wall that was still standing. He panted with effort and dropped the broken water cannon, though there was little left of it but a handle.<br />
“Okay,” Charles said, pulling himself to his feet with some effort. “Looks like you're not going to play nice. I was hoping you'd see sense and surrender, but maybe you need to be taught a lesson first.” He raised his sword, ready for the next attack. The monster roared.<br />
<br />
“So are you going to tell me about this ritual?” Tilda asked. “I'm going to guess it involves sacred oaths and bloodletting.”<br />
“Well, you're half right,” Arma said, with a laugh. “It does involve some oaths. Really, though, it's not as alien or strange as you think. Humans even adopted the practice, though I think they interpret it somewhat differently.”<br />
“Oh?” Tilda raised her eyebrows, even more curious now. “That's interesting.”<br />
“You'd be surprised how much of your culture borrows some pointers from ours. We've been here for a long time, you see.”LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-31035513869329851142011-11-16T09:21:00.000-08:002011-11-16T09:21:02.349-08:00National Novel Writing Month 4^2In today's episode of NNWM, I still don't have a title.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ_1Mc-PlJd_wOFjpjXeiNoAwUTCQ_1I1b6xOL_JgfEMF-FjZYQWYTnSZM-AE33nPawv8bgfb1VSp7RCGywBygcPQegFOr8crxwGOvlD5iYQblg5i6S5FiSP7LPlf9PtOqJLJ3qrE2JA/s1600/Pax250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ_1Mc-PlJd_wOFjpjXeiNoAwUTCQ_1I1b6xOL_JgfEMF-FjZYQWYTnSZM-AE33nPawv8bgfb1VSp7RCGywBygcPQegFOr8crxwGOvlD5iYQblg5i6S5FiSP7LPlf9PtOqJLJ3qrE2JA/s1600/Pax250.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Story after the break!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> “Look, I know this isn't the best time,” Charles said. “But we really need to talk. I know we kind of lost touch after you had to leave school, but I want to change that.” Tilda blushed.<br />
“W-well, I wouldn't mind that,” Tilda said. She smiled. “I've kind of missed seeing you around. Outside of work, I mean.”<br />
“Great!” Charles smiled back at her. “How about tomorrow after work? We can go and get something to eat, if, um, that's okay with you.”<br />
“It'd be nice to not have to cook for once,” Tilda sighed. “Okay. We'll meet then.” Charles nodded. He smiled and took his leave. Tilda sighed as he left, leaning on the case. Finally, something to get her mind off of all the trouble that was going on.<br />
<br />
“He knows something,” Yates said. She looked over at Mohan. They had left the car back at the precinct and had been tailing Charles on foot. It was a lot less conspicuous than one of the only motor vehicles in town.<br />
“Of course he does,” Mohan shrugged, lighting a cigarette. “He even admitted to being right there. I didn't see him at all.” He took a long drag on it as the two leaned on a building down the block from the butcher's shop.<br />
“I don't like him as the perp, though,” Yates muttered. “I've never seen anyone so straight-laced. No one had anything bad to say about him except that he humored Gable too much.”<br />
“Yeah,” Mohan said. He looked at Yates. “You seemed to know the Professor. I keep forgetting to ask you about that.”<br />
“Oh. Him.” She rolled her eyes. “I've had to bring him in more than once. The man always marched to the beat of a different drum. He never meant much harm but... Well, a few times we had to talk to him about some of his strange habits. He'd pound pipes into the ground around monuments and public works projects. Once he damn near killed himself doing that when he hit a buried power line.”<br />
“That's not too bad,” Mohan shrugged. “Harmless, at least.”<br />
“Yeah. But he also experimented with a lot of drugs. Once, he ended up running through the middle of town, completely naked, and insisting that he could see things that the rest of us couldn't. I'm not sure what kind of drugs he was on.”<br />
“Obviously the good kind,” Mohan joked. “Anyway, even if he isn't the perp, we can at least learn something by following him. The investigators I brought in are going over the scene in detail. They're damn good people, trust me. If there's anything to find they'll tell us.”<br />
“They'd better find something,” Yates sighed. “I can't believe my people couldn't find anything. Whoever did this must have been a real pro. It had to be an attack on the Professor.”<br />
“Makes me wonder who he pissed off,” Mohan said.<br />
<br />
Tilda smiled and hummed as she walked in the door, and was greeted with the sounds and smells of someone cooking. She took her shoes off and walked into the kitchen. As predicted, Arma was making food. She turned to look at Tilda.<br />
“You're back!” Arma smiled and walked over, hugging Tilda and kissing her on the cheek. Tilda blinked at that. Once again, she was left without a clue on the appropriate response.<br />
“Y-yeah.” Tilda blushed. “What are you cooking?” She pulled away from the reptilian. “It smells good.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. There was something oddly electric about proximity to the alien. She wondered if it was the energized orgone the alien had mentioned. It did feel a little like when she was wearing Krieg.<br />
“Well, your refrigerator was badly understocked, so I had to make do. But I thought after your victories, you really deserved something good for dinner. I got some meat and made a roast. I used the last of your vegetables, so you'll need to buy more.”<br />
“You got meat?” Tilda frowned. “I didn't see you at the butchers.” And it didn't smell like beef, or really like chicken either.<br />
“Oh, I didn't buy it.” Arma waved a hand dismissively. “I decided to get it the old-fashioned way. I hunted down the rabbits myself. It was a fun afternoon.” She skipped back to where she was cooking and took a lid off the pot. Tilda could see the skinned hindquarters of a rabbit cooking there.<br />
“I see.” Tilda blinked, considered for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, I haven't had rabbit in a while, and I guess that's as fresh as it can be.”<br />
“And I think you'll like what I'm cooking up for you,” Arma said, smiling broadly. “I thought we should have a heart-to-heart today. There's something I've wanted to talk to you about for a while now. I should have brought it up right away, but I guess I got distracted with Krieg and all the fighting we've been doing.”<br />
“Really?” Tilda raised an eyebrow. “What?”<br />
“Oh, it's... um...” Arma paused. “Well, I'll tell you over dinner. There's just kind of a ritual for this arrangement between us. It's simple, really, though sometimes people really dress it up.”<br />
“A ritual,” Tilda said, skeptical. “Is this going to include, like, human sacrifice or something? Because even if I do butcher cattle, I don't want to go and do the same to anyone. Especially if it's someone I know.”<br />
“No, no!” Arma laughed. “It's just a ceremony between the two of us. I'll explain later. For now, you should go and get cleaned up before dinner. I don't mind the blood-splattered look, but I'm sure you'd prefer to get into something clean.”<br />
“Yeah,” Tilda agreed, with a nod. “Whatever the ceremony is, we'll do it after dinner, as long as it's nothing, like, strange.” She shrugged.<br />
“Don't worry.” Arma smiled and stirred the pot. “It's just a little thing.”<br />
<br />
It was cold. So cold. Donna had been forced out onto the streets a week ago, after she had finally made her landlord angry enough to actually carry through on his threats. She had been sleeping on a park bench since then, until one of the local cops had tried to arrest her. Donna had almost let him do it, just to spend a night in a cell somewhere warm. Her pride, what little of it was left, wouldn't let her do that.<br />
It also wouldn't let her beg for food like a dog, or eat garbage. She was so hungry. One of the local churches had a soup kitchen, but it had closed for the day already. It was keeping her alive with one decent meal a day, but it wasn't enough, especially with the winter. Donna had been reduced to staying in an alleyway between two buildings, sleeping under an overhang that kept most of the water away from her and wrapping herself in newspapers to stay warm.<br />
She didn't even notice the man coming until he stopped to kneel down in front of her. She cowered in fear, covering her face. The last time someone had bothered her, they had kicked her and almost raped her until her screaming attracted enough attention to make him run off.<br />
“P-please,” she whispered. “I don't have anything. J-just go away.”<br />
“I know you don't have anything,” the man said. He smiled slightly. The sunglasses he wore made his expression hard to read, especially at night. There was something very dangerous about him, though. Donna wasn't sure what was going to happen.<br />
“T-then what do you want?” Donna whispered, afraid. The man stroked her head. She jerked away from him.<br />
“I want to help you,” the man said. He looked around. “You look like someone who needs a second chance. You're still in the prime of your life.”<br />
“What?” Donna asked, confused. “Mister, I don't know what you want. Just don't hurt me.” She shivered, pulling the newspapers close with a crinkle.<br />
“I'm not going to hurt you,” the man assured her. “Like I said, you look like you need a second chance. I want to give you some help, make sure you have something to eat. I guess you could say I'm something of a philanthropist.”<br />
“I don't...” Donna bit her lip. She wasn't sure she had anything to lose now. “I don't know. I just... please... what's the catch?”<br />
“There are two conditions,” the man said. “The first is that you have to do a little job for me. After that, you'll pretty much be free to do what you want. It's a simple thing. Once we get you cleaned up, it'll be the easiest thing in the world. You'll even have fun doing it.”<br />
“I won't-” Donna stumbled over her words. “I won't sell myself. I'm not that kind of girl.”<br />
“I wouldn't ask you to. Don't worry. It's not that kind of job. Now the other condition...” the man smirked. “Well, it's just a little thing. We just have to make this arrangement formal.” He reached into his jacket and took out a small box. Donna watched, confused.<br />
“What is that-” her question was cut off as he opened the box, revealing a golden ring. On close inspection, it was shaped like a snake eating its own tail. It seemed to glow with some kind of internal light.<br />
“This is the second condition. You have to say 'I do.'”<br />
<br />
Charles paged through Gable's book as he relaxed. It had been a good day. After the mess he had gone through with Krieg, having a more relaxing day was nice. And better, he had actually gotten the guts to ask Tilda out, and she had said yes! He could figure out what to do about Krieg later. There were more important things to worry about for now.<br />
“Where Krieg's is ultimately the expression of mankind's ability to make war,” Charles read. “It cannot be allowed to represent our future. It is something that can only destroy. The paradigms of war, especially those set down by the most evil human regime the world has ever seen, are simply not something we can afford to propagate into the future.<br />
“What mankind needs now is something better. There are technologies that can be used to make war on war itself. Weapons of peace. If the machines of death that make up Krieg are replaced with these weapons of peace, we can make an improved version of the device, one that is designed to save people instead of simply destroying them.<br />
“I have been putting together a copy of Krieg from memory, though with the changes I've made, especially to the reification matrix, will grant it abilities that make it much more useful to mankind. I think that the only appropriate name I can give this device is Pax. It represents more than just peace and stability, but a type of harmony that no other device could broker.<br />
“The only problem I am having with the device is finding an appropriate power supply. Krieg's power source was and still is far ahead of any other such miniaturized generators, even today. The reactor built into the device seems to use some sort of artificially created element to generate deadly orgone radiation with radioactive decay.”<br />
Charles started to turn the page when his house shook, and a loud crashing sound echoed through his home. He blinked, confused, and sat up. He walked over to the window to look and saw nothing out of the ordinary.<br />
“Mom?” Charles asked, walking out of his room. “Did you feel that?” He walked downstairs to a scene of destruction. His heart jumped in his chest. One of the windows was shattered from outside, and a crack ran down the wall. A roar sounded from outside, like tearing metal and hate.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-63641780463151066602011-11-15T10:10:00.000-08:002011-11-15T10:10:54.774-08:00National Novel Writing Month 15The month is half over and I'm already at 30k words. Going well so far this year. Typically I get a little behind.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVys6Dh4xoxrjeGmi0OVqBWyI67G8Eq4sFJYan2eYNF1egqBeAYJeEby_mkSv-oVdRHbU2Doc_vA2PYc8BJe5MF-t7QwWkGpN6YcNPulUmNLM3CKT1JpmFbbBhTEount2A7NsEIgGrQ/s1600/HawkandDove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVys6Dh4xoxrjeGmi0OVqBWyI67G8Eq4sFJYan2eYNF1egqBeAYJeEby_mkSv-oVdRHbU2Doc_vA2PYc8BJe5MF-t7QwWkGpN6YcNPulUmNLM3CKT1JpmFbbBhTEount2A7NsEIgGrQ/s320/HawkandDove.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Story after the break.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> Charles answered the door on the third knock. When he opened the door, there was a man and a woman standing there. They both wore suits, and the man had a box stuffed with odd things in his arms. They both looked serious, but not threatening.<br />
“Charles Masterson?” The woman asked. He nodded. She flashed a badge. “We're with the police. I'm Detective Yates, this is Detective Mohan. We're here about the recent disturbance at the University. May we come in?”<br />
“Oh, um, sure.” Charles stepped aside, letting the two in. “My mother is out right now but I can make some coffee if you want a cup.”<br />
“That won't be necessary, Mister Masterson,” Yates said. “We just need to ask you a few questions about what happened. Some of the witnesses we have at the scene reported that you and Professor Gabel were close.”<br />
“He was one of my favorite teachers,” Charles said. “I'd like to think he thought well of me, too.” Yates noted something down in her notebook.<br />
“Professor Gable was killed in the recent accident,” Yates noted, watching Charles' reaction. He looked down. Hearing it made him feel weak and alone. “We recovered some personal effects from the scene and the college dean suggested giving them to you.”<br />
“Here,” Mohan said, handing Charles the box. Charles took the heavy box and carefully put it on a table. He'd look through it later. Mohan coughed. “Do you know anything about what happened, Charles?”<br />
“I was there,” Charles admitted. He wasn't going to lie to the police. “It was some kind of explosion. It was confusing, and frightening. I got out of there as soon as I could.”<br />
“Do you know what caused the explosion?” Mohan asked. Yates was writing more in her notebook. Charles hoped it wasn't a note to arrest him.<br />
“It-” Charles stopped. “If I tell you, you'll think I'm lying or crazy.”<br />
“I just want to know what you saw, Charlie,” Mohan assured him, putting a hand on the younger man's shoulder. “Whatever you say, I'll listen.”<br />
“Well...” Charles sighed. “It was some kind of monster. It was like a bat. It attacked Gable's lab while he and I were working on something. Gable protected me. I barely got out.” Charles sat down heavily in a chair at the memory. “I didn't see what happened after that.”<br />
“I see,” Yates said. “Did the monster look like this?” She flipped back a few pages and showed Charles a sketch. A birdlike helmet.<br />
“No.” Charles shook his head. “Like I said, it was like a bat.”<br />
“I see.” Yates put her notebook away. “Do you remember anything else about the accident?”<br />
“I- no.” Charles sighed. “I just wish it hadn't happened.”<br />
<br />
Tilda tried not to think too hard about her morning as she rode to work. She had woken up with head on entirely the wrong kind of pillows and she was going to be spending all day getting that image out of her head. Arma was way too comfortable as a houseguest.<br />
As she got to the butcher's shop, Heinrich walked out, frowning. She shrank from his gaze a little. She had missed work entirely because of this mess with the Verbesserte. And he was hard on her just for being on time. She could already see him firing her.<br />
“Where have you been?!” Heinrich yelled, walking over.<br />
“It's, um, I-” Tilda stuttered. Heinrich reached her and pulled her into a hug.<br />
“I was so worried about you! You vanish with no warning after big accident with many people hurt! I thought you had been killed! You have never missed work before! I spent all day thinking you were hurt!”<br />
“I'm sorry, Mister Heinrich,” Tilda muttered. He pulled away and looked at her bandaged arms.<br />
“Look at this! You are hurt! You should have said something. I would give you day off if you were hurt. You go inside and sit. You can work the counter today. I will cut.”<br />
“Really, Mister Heinrich, it's not that bad. I'll be fine.”<br />
“Do not argue,” Heinrich said, waving a finger. “I know what I am doing.” He waved her inside.<br />
“Thanks, Mister Heinrich,” Tilda said, smiling. She walked inside and put on an apron before going out to the counter. Maybe things would actually get back to normal.<br />
<br />
Charles sat in his room, looking through the box that the police had brought over. It was mostly junk, bits and pieces of unfinished Orgone devices. A miniature cloudburster that was supposed to act as an umbrella but had never worked. A copper pyramid with orgonite corners, supposed to keep food fresh. Charles put them somewhere safe. He'd treasure them, even if they were just scraps.<br />
The one item of real interest was a book. It was a journal, apparently a personal diary and design journal for Pax. He wondered if the police had bothered looking through it. He sat back on his bed and paged through the tome. He could almost hear Gable reading it to him.<br />
“Krieg is a marvel of its age, or of any age. It uses techniques and materials that were never recorded or recognized by any scientific journal. When I studied it, before the Collapse, I knew I was looking at the true future of warfare, something arriving a hundred years before its time. It shouldn't have been surprising that the Nazis managed it. They had always been a few steps ahead of everyone else.<br />
“The trouble with Krieg, though, was the same problem we were discovering with the most dangerous weapon of our age. Nuclear weapons should have created peace. They should have made people too afraid to ever wage war. But instead, it just lead to proliferation of the deadly devices, and then, on that terrible day, they were used.<br />
“If Krieg were to be mass-produced, every soldier would have the power of a tank, or a fighter jet, or worse. And every nation would have to rush to make their own. The proliferation of Krieg would have far more long-lasting effects than even nuclear war. Krieg's power source and principal operating force is deadly orgone radiation, which it produces in vast quantities. Any human using the device would quickly succumb to its effects.<br />
“The effects of deadly orgone radiation are widespread and terrible. The small amounts produced through natural processes cause desertification, droughts, and some sicknesses. While dangerous, this energy can easily be handled with the use of cloudbursters and burying orgonite in areas that permanently leak deadly orgone radiation.<br />
“However, the radiation created by Krieg is not natural. It irritates and stagnates flows of orgone from the atmosphere. In the tests we've preformed with Krieg, anyone exposed to the radiation first feels positive, with an initial upturn that gives the exposed more energy. However, this also comes with personality changes, the exposed becoming hectic and angry. They lash out at any source they can.<br />
“After this phase, the affected become despondent, burned-out. With long-term exposure, people are driven insane and become ill. Cancers and immune system failure are almost certain in most cases. The deadly orgone radiation simply can't be processed correctly by the human body, and it stays stagnant inside, eating a person up from within.<br />
“If Krieg was mass produced, the deadly orgone radiation it produces would cause massive environmental and spiritual damage. It's likely that any area where Krieg was used in open warfare would become a desert. And unlike nuclear weapons, there is no deterrent factor. From the perspective of the people who make decisions on these things, Krieg is just another plane or boat. They don't understand the dangers involved.<br />
“Thankfully, after the Collapse, Krieg was lost. Perhaps forever. The site it was housed was the first target in the nuclear barrage. It's up for debate who fired that shot, but perhaps it was for the best. Despite the lives lost, it may have saved the future of humanity.”<br />
<br />
Arma tore into the raw meat with her teeth. She had found some butcher's scraps in Tilda's fridge. She smiled as she picked another strip of beef out of the package and delicately ate it, juices dripping down her chin. She wiped her lips with a napkin and looked out over the city. The roof of the guest house had a decent view of the sad little town.<br />
“You know, using Krieg is almost cheating,” Messer said, as he sat down next to Arma.<br />
“I'm simply taking advantage of something I found,” Arma said. She smirked. “Besides, any of us would have done the same.”<br />
“Maybe,” Messer said, nodding. “It was definitely a windfall for you.” He looked over the city. “I'm going to make my move soon. I came here to make you an offer.”<br />
“Oh?” Arma raised an eyebrow. She put the meat away so she could focus on Messer.<br />
“I think we should work together. Our goals really aren't that different.” Messer took off his sunglasses. “You're naïve about working with them as equals.”<br />
“And you underestimate them.”<br />
“Maybe,” Messer shrugged. “But you've seen this city. This is the best they can do by themselves. If we treat them as equals, they'll drag us down. We're already in enough trouble back home. If we sink too many resources into bringing them up to our level...” He shook his head.<br />
“If we don't, we're just going to end up with another disaster. It'll just end in another slave revolt. They were getting worse and worse all throughout history. If we make them part of the plan, they'll help us instead of working against us.”<br />
“It's a nice theory,” Messer agreed. “But all we really need is to be more careful than our predecessors. Don't be soft.”<br />
“Well then we'll have to agree to disagree.”<br />
Messer sighed. “I suppose. I'll try to avoid killing you. I can't say the same for your pet.”<br />
<br />
Tilda leaned on the case. No one was coming in today. Everyone was staying inside after the attacks from the Verbesserte. There had only been a few customers, all of them regulars who lived nearby. For the last two hours, no one had walked in the door at all.<br />
She was starting to fall asleep when the bell over the door rang. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and looked up.<br />
“Charles!” She said, happily. “I was afraid that, after what happened in the university...” She trailed off, looking at him. “Are you okay?”<br />
“I...” he sighed. “I'm okay.” Charles forced a smile. “One of my professors died.”<br />
“I'm so sorry,” Tilda said. “Is there anything I can do?”<br />
“Nah,” Charles said. “I just need some time. He was a good man.”<br />
“Oh, um...” Tilda looked around. “I guess you came here for a reason. What can I get you?”<br />
“Actually, I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Charles said. “I had a bad feeling about everything going on and I knew you worked here...” He coughed. “Anyway, um, I'm glad you're okay.” He stopped and looked at the bandages on her arms. Tilda held her arms up.<br />
“It's nothing big.” She assured him. “Just a scratch. It'll heal in a few days.” She lowered her arms, self-consciously tugging at the bandages.<br />
“Look, I know this isn't the best time,” Charles said. “But we really need to talk. I know we kind of lost touch after you had to leave school, but I want to change that.”LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-61168414719190764882011-11-14T10:03:00.000-08:002011-11-14T10:03:23.626-08:00National Novel Writing Month 14<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHBgDS-gFwnTpurdZU63762sHUgbYd96ez9FJ2lzagOV9Y2IEdbGDj3WEDEXOr_rLV8X6yww4O7FOW2ImWLZ6MtYBF6SC8RGKTkRWwx_Q-BP1eihB9HFaH0wFZbMPVbomBSBFxPz_56g/s1600/mil_max.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHBgDS-gFwnTpurdZU63762sHUgbYd96ez9FJ2lzagOV9Y2IEdbGDj3WEDEXOr_rLV8X6yww4O7FOW2ImWLZ6MtYBF6SC8RGKTkRWwx_Q-BP1eihB9HFaH0wFZbMPVbomBSBFxPz_56g/s320/mil_max.png" width="192" /></a></div>Gentlemen, story after the break.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> “Please at least consider what I'm saying,” Pax said. “I want to help you.”<br />
“I don't need your kind of help. This is twice now you've shown up after I've fought a monster and attacked me. You do it again, and I'll know it's not an accident.” She took off, flying through that hole in the roof.<br />
<br />
Arma walked back to Tilda's room. She hated this town. This so-called city. It was a symbol of just how far the the human race had fallen. There were no cars, no bustle. The only movement on the streets were bicycles and pedestrians. There was no sign of industry, no mark of the conquest of nature. It was pathetic.<br />
Humans should have been grinding the world to dust under their heels, shaping it into a concrete garden, plundering its resources for their own gain. Her own people had turned their world into a paradise, perfectly suited to serving them. What else was a world for but to be used, after all.<br />
Instead, without their influence, the humans were regressing. In just a few decades they'd hardly advanced at all, and the most important project, globalization and a single Earth government... that was nowhere to be seen. Humans were reverting to shattered and insular tribes, after all the work that had been done. Without that unity, they'd never achieve anything great.<br />
She didn't even have a can to kick in frustration. She hadn't seen a can or paper plate since she had arrived. No sign of disposables anywhere except in the most basic forms. It was like the clock had stopped in 1954 and the technology and culture had simply stagnated there.<br />
Arma shook her head. It was going to be a lot of work getting things back on track. She walked to the guest house and up the stairs. There, at the top, was Tilda's neighbor. What an annoying man. Arma started to walk past her. He held out an arm to stop her.<br />
“Hey,” he said, angrily. “Don't just ignore me!” Arma rolled her eyes. <br />
“What is it?” She asked. “I have some things I need to do.”<br />
“You were the one who talked to me on the phone. You said you were going to come to me. What kind of game are you and Tilda playing with me?!” He shouted the last part. Arma raised an eyebrow.<br />
“Yes. I remember. We did speak. Sorry, nothing personal,” He didn't move his arm. He glared at Arma.<br />
“Nothing personal?! You call toying with someone's feelings 'nothing personal?'” He gritted his teeth. “You're a goddamn bitch, and so is your friend! You just set it all up to mock me and make fun of me! Did you like it, huh?! Did you have good goddamn laugh?!”<br />
“I didn't set anything up. I was going to meet you, but...” Arma smiled. “Tilda was much more interesting. I could feel it even from outside the building. Sorry, but I guess you could say something better came up. It's not like I made a promise to you anyway. I don't see why you're upset.”<br />
“Goddamnit!” He slapped Arma. “Don't make fun of me!” Arma blinked, surprised. She looked back at him. She didn't know if she was upset or angry. She was definitely confused, though. Did humans really have such emotional frailty?<br />
“I see you wouldn't have been suitable anyway,” Arma said. “You are unstable.” She glared at him. “And you have the gall to raise a hand to your betters. You would be a poor servant.”<br />
“Don't call me a servant! You're just a bitch, you're not better than me!” He raised a hand to slap her again. Arma backhanded him before he could, using her greater-than-human strength to full effect. He was spun completely around, spitting out blood.<br />
“Don't speak like that to me, human,” Arma said. “You're pathetic. If you touch me again I will kill you in an instant and it will be no effort at all.” She put her hands on her hips and stood over him. “Remember your place and who you're speaking to.”<br />
Tilda's neighbor cursed as he lay on the ground, picking himself up and retreating back into his apartment. Arma waited for him to leave.<br />
“Pathetic,” she muttered.<br />
<br />
Tilda landed on the roof of the guest house. It was perhaps a bit obvious, but there wasn't a monster hunting her now and she didn't feel like walking the whole way. Deactivating Krieg, she hopped down to her door and walked in. Arma hadn't bothered locking when she got back.<br />
“You got away!” Arma said, happily, running over to Tilda and hugging her as she got in. “I was so worried about you! That thing you were fighting was awful. Did you get hurt?”<br />
“Yeah,” Tilda said, distracted. She awkwardly returned the hug then pulled herself away. “My arms hurt like a bitch.” She held them up. She had shallow cuts on them from Pax's blade. They weren't deep, and the bleeding had already stopped, but they stung.<br />
“Let me take care of those.” Arma pulled her into the kitchen and made her sit in a chair. “I have a first-aid kit.” Arma got to work applying an ointment and then bandages. The ointment made it itch, but then as the itch faded, she felt cool relief.<br />
“Thanks,” Tilda said, as Arma wrapped her arms in the clean fabric. The alien was surprisingly gentle. “Arma...” Tilda pursed her lips. “What Pax was saying, about how you wanted to... take over the world, and how we'd be better off without you...”<br />
“It's a matter of perspective,” Arma admitted. “He means what he's saying, but he's looking at it the wrong way. We have different goals. He wants humans to stand on their own, I and my people want to, well, use humans. But not to hurt them. It's more like... how you'd want to raise a child instead of leaving it on its own.” Arma stood up and started pacing. She seemed to do that whenever she was starting to lecture.<br />
“So you see us as children?”<br />
“Yes. In a lot of ways you're like children. A younger version of us.” She paced. “And we want you to grow up right, and to avoid making the mistakes we made. It's a perfectly natural instinct.” Arma sighed. “Really, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising. Your own children rebel when their parents try to make them into functioning members of society. It's ingrained in your beings, I suppose.”<br />
“Oh, and you've got a better way?”<br />
“I don't know if it's better,” Arma shrugged. “My kind doesn't care for its children the way yours does. Education and child care are just industry. It's not nearly as sentimental as you mammals. In fact, I'll grant that it's one of the things your kind is better at. We were going to have your people raise our children, but I don't think that ever panned out.”<br />
“Really?” Tilda raised an eyebrow.<br />
“Credit where credit is due. Mammals seem to be very good at raising children. And it would help our people become closer.”<br />
“No, I mean, you'd really just adopt your children out to another race? That seems... reckless.”<br />
“You let teachers instruct your children. We don't see it as any different.”<br />
“Whatever,” Tilda said. She stood up. “I'm going to make some tea before bed.”<br />
<br />
Across the city, in the abandoned warehouse where Krieg had defeated the Verbesserte, a man in black knelt down over the body of the woman who had been transformed into a monster and killed by another monster. He brushed a loose lock of hair back from the woman's face.<br />
“Getting sentimental, Ser?” The man in black didn't look back. Geruda leaned in the open door of the warehouse. “She was useless. Your Verbesserte didn't even rack up much of a body count. What did you end up with, five people killed?”<br />
“Six,” Ser mumbled, as a correction.<br />
“Only a fraction of what I was able to do, and you had much longer to do it.” Geruda sighed and walked inside. “At this rate, I don't have anything to worry about. You'll never win the Grand Melee.”<br />
“It's about quality, not quantity,” Ser said. He stood up to face Geruda. “I destroyed one of the greatest threats to us. All you did was randomly slaughter a few dozen people. I have plans for this place, and indiscriminate slaughter isn't the way to get anything done.”<br />
“But slaughter is fun!” Geruda said, giggling. “I love it when the streets are filled with bodies. Besides, these people all deserve to die. They're pathetic mammals.” She flexed, assuming her true reptilian form. “Trying to treat them as anything except slaves is pathetic.”<br />
“You don't appreciate how we could use them.” Ser shook his head and transformed into his natural shape.<br />
“We don't need to use them. Using them got too many people killed last time.” She circled Ser. “We should just reform this world and be done with it. Maybe if any of them survive the reforming, we can keep them as pets.”<br />
“If you win the Grand Melee you're free to do that,” Ser said, with a shrug. “I'm sure that would make a lot of people happy. But I plan on fixing things in my own way. Ruling openly through terror instead of from the shadows. That will keep them in line and give us servants to use.”<br />
“And if you want to win, you'll have to work harder.” Geruda laughed.<br />
“Neither of you is winning,” a third voice put in. Geruda and Ser looked up. A man wearing all black with sunglasses was sitting on the lip of the warehouse's broken roof. “Arma's champion has defeated both of yours, and that counts for more than either of you has managed so far.”<br />
“Messer, you haven't even chosen a champion yet,” Ser said. “So don't give us that nonsense.”<br />
“Still not good with shaping your eyes?” Geruda asked. Messer took off his sunglasses. Unlike the other two's human guises, his eyes were still totally inhuman.<br />
“I don't like taking this shape anyway,” Messer said. “It's weak and ugly.”<br />
“I think we can all agree on that,” Ser said, nodding.<br />
“Anyway, the old ways worked,” Messer said. “We just have to be more careful. More information control and less gifting of our technology to them.” He looked up at the sky. “I'm going to go and make my own Verbesserte. If I can beat Krieg, that should assure me the win in the Grand Melee.”<br />
“So it is Krieg,” Ser said. “You're sure of it?”<br />
“Yeah,” Messer said, nodding. “I'm sure. And there's another one, too. It's even worse.”<br />
“I felt that one,” Ser agreed. “And unlike Krieg, it's not under our control.”<br />
“Not that Krieg is,” Geruda said. “Arma has gone rogue. Or native. Or something. She's way too soft on these mammals. If she has her way, we'll be treating them as equals instead of as the animals they are. She sickens me.”<br />
“She may sicken you, but if she wins you'll be following her orders,” Messer said.<br />
“I'd rather die first!” Geruda growled. “I will never pretend these things are anything like real people.” She kicked Clare's corpse, rolling it over. “They're weak and stupid and they bite the hand that feeds them.”<br />
“Hm,” Messer muttered. “Well, then. I guess I'll have to kill Krieg to make you happy.” He smiled.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-8165401085563435502011-11-13T15:41:00.000-08:002011-11-13T15:41:02.688-08:00National Novel Writing Month XIIIThis marks a special occasion! We are now more than halfway to the goal, at over 26k of my 50k goal.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigaO054OmnlS26qXMT-EFut6sVwaNUc-twgvnuXmxaF_TMa1DB-Ww5Ff5Cf2-C_ZxFPTnHVOv-y1SB71dEFSeUHzyKwxmqghI6fHKJ_S8O776o5HFi6ODEk4idLqN4h8DkzHoVL-03Ww/s1600/cakeboss+is+boss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigaO054OmnlS26qXMT-EFut6sVwaNUc-twgvnuXmxaF_TMa1DB-Ww5Ff5Cf2-C_ZxFPTnHVOv-y1SB71dEFSeUHzyKwxmqghI6fHKJ_S8O776o5HFi6ODEk4idLqN4h8DkzHoVL-03Ww/s320/cakeboss+is+boss.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Story after the break!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> Tilda tried to fly out of the way as missiles bolted towards her. And realized only too late that submarines couldn't fly. Two missiles hit her squarely, blasting her right into, and through, the door she had been trying to open. Her impromptu rocket-powered flight ended in a pile of crates filled with rotting rolls of fabric. A plume of dust filled the warehouse.<br />
The Verbesserte screeched and circled the warehouse. Tilda stood up, shaking. Still alive. Whatever else this form did, it felt like it was protecting her against the blast waves a little better. With the warehouse in the way, it was hard for her to detect the Verbesserte on sonar, but its screeching was helping quite a bit.<br />
“Come and get me you son of a bitch!” Tilda screamed. The Verbesserte seemed to hear. The roof blasted inwards as the monster took it off with a well-placed missile hit, putting a hole large enough for it to fly through. Debris cascaded down around Tilda. She stepped aside as an I-beam slammed into the floor where she had been standing. She could see every piece falling, perfectly, exactly where they were in space. It was amazing.<br />
The Verbesserte followed the debris in, like a ghost in Tilda's vision. She could see it perfectly with her sonar, but to her sight it was just empty space, flickering and distorting slightly as it flew through the falling shrapnel. It landed heavily, slamming into the floor with enough force to crack the poured concrete. Tilda wondered if it even felt pain anymore.<br />
The monster launched itself at her, fang-filled maw first. Tilda knew she didn't have the timing right for this new for to dodge, so she braced herself and met it head on, punching it as it reached her. She felt one of its fangs crack with the force. The Verbesserte stumbled back, screeching in pain or confusion or both.<br />
Tilda grabbed one of its wings and pulled. Once, years ago, she had taken a few martial arts classes. She still knew how to do a few things. She used her leverage and a fair bit of superhuman strength to throw the monster over her head and into a pile of old crates. There was an eruption of dust as it slammed into and through them.<br />
The monster got to its feet screaming in rage, flickering back into visibility. Whatever else she had done, that last throw must have done some kind of damage to its stealth systems. Tilda smiled. The poor thing seemed upset for some reason.<br />
“I've got you now,” Tilda said. Something lit up in her display. A crosshairs fixed itself over the Verbesserte. Something was locking on to the monster. She willed whatever it was to fire. Ports opened on her forearms, in those big gauntlets. Two small missiles – no, torpedoes – launched out of each, curving through the air to hit the Verbesserte.<br />
The explosion from Tilda's weapons was just as powerful as what the Verbesserte had been throwing at her. The black panels of armor cracked and shattered. The monster stumbled out of the broken crates, the spilled fabric bursting into thick smoke and heavy flames. It crashed into a wall, screeching and confused, then focused again on Tilda.<br />
Tilda readied herself for another charge. It didn't disappoint, almost blindly careening towards her like an out-of-control train. She stepped to the side like a matador to let it go past, where it went head-first into a wall. The blast must have nearly blinded its sonar. It couldn't fly, see, or fight. The only thing left was to finish it off.<br />
It picked itself up again, orgone energy leaking through the rents in its armor, and came at Tilda one last time. Tilda took a deep breath. She needed to end this in one hit. She jumped as it came at her and kicked, heel-first. The propeller spun as her foot slammed into the Verbesserte's head. She almost heart the crack as its skull split open. It fell back, energized orgone steaming from the new wound.<br />
Arma ran inside. Tilda waved for her to stay back. Bluish bolts of orgone radiated out from the monster, sparking into every available surface. The armor seemed to peel and melt away and then, as if some final safety failed, there was an explosion of blue and red flame. A woman was left among the flames, her face covered in blood. It was over.<br />
“Excellent!” Arma said, happily. “That's one less Verbesserte, and one step closer to our goal. And I told you the U-boat form would be fine.”<br />
“Yeah,” Tilda agreed, smiling. “It's better than I thought. It's got a lot of power behind it.”<br />
“What we should do now is go out and celebrate. You managed to beat this monster before it could cause more than a handful of casualties. That's impressive work. You even showed a bit more skill in this fight. A little more work and even I wouldn't know how to beat you!”<br />
“What have you done?!” Someone yelled. Tilda looked up. There, at the edge of the broken warehouse roof and looking inside, was Pax.<br />
“I killed the monster for you,” Tilda said, bragging. She motioned to the dead woman. “They return to human form after you finish them off. It was a pretty good fight. Maybe next time you'll actually show up in time to help fight the monster instead of just getting in the way.”<br />
“You're the monster!” Pax jumped down. “I could have saved that woman! If I had converted the deadly orgone radiation powering the monster that was controlling her, I would-”<br />
“You would have killed her,” Arma said, folding her arms, annoyed. “You obviously know a little about orgone science, but only enough to make yourself dangerous to yourself and others. You should leave this to the professionals.”<br />
“You just want to conquer the world and make people your slaves!” Pax shouted. “You've already warped Krieg's mind! You're just using her!” He pulled out that water cannon, taking aim at Arma. Tilda jumped, catching the blast of water on her chest. It wasn't nearly as bad as that first hit she had taken from it. Then she remembered – submarines handled the water a lot more easily than a jet fighter.<br />
“Leave her alone!” Tilda yelled. “She may be an evil alien, but she's my evil alien!” The water jet turned off.<br />
“You'll thank me once she's gone. I don't know if she's using some kind of bribery or threat or if she's just controlling your mind, but the reptilians have never tried to help us!” He put the water cannon away and took a large crystal, the size and shape of a screwdriver, from under his cape. A copper coil was wrapped around it tightly, with large copper beads at the end.<br />
“The only thing we're doing is protecting people,” Tilda said. “If you can't see that, then you're just deluding yourself.”<br />
“And racist!” Arma put in.<br />
“It doesn't count as racism if you're from an entirely different world,” Tilda muttered. “I'm pretty sure it would be speciesism or planetism or something.”<br />
“It's not racist!” Pax shouted defiantly “They've literally been trying to control mankind for thousands of years!” He squeezed the wrapped crystal in his hand, and a blade of pure orgone forged itself from the tip, just like his armor had forged itself.<br />
“If you want to get her, you have to go through me,” Tilda said. Though really, part of her wasn't sure why she was being so protective of the alien. She had only met her a few days ago. And she had admitted that her people had basically be controlling mankind. Still, it felt like the right thing to do.<br />
“Then I'll try not to hurt you.” Pax jumped, his cape billowing. A wind smelling like ozone and energy surrounded him as he made that impossible leap, soaring all the way across the warehouse at Tilda. She raised her arms in self-defense, that blade biting deeply into the thick gauntlets. She gasped in sudden pain as the edge of the blade got all the way to her flesh, leaving a shallow cut on both arms.<br />
“Damnit!” Tilda hopped back. He was serious, and the armor wasn't going to take another attack like that. It was good at stopping blast waves, but that sword had just cut right through it. She wasn't going to be able to just sit there and take it.<br />
“Stand down and I won't hurt you!” Pax said again. Tilda growled. That uneasy, draining feeling was still coming from Pax, and it was only getting worse by the moment. Pax's eye seemed to glow brighter as she felt worse.<br />
“He's draining your enhanced orgone!” Arma yelled. “You have to end this quickly!”<br />
“End it quickly? I can do that.” Tilda stepped back, spinning the dial on Krieg. The armor glowed with a humming white light, just like Arma did when she changed shape. The armor changed back to free-floating energized orgone for a moment before snapping into the familiar shape of that first form she had asssumed, the bright-red flying armor.<br />
Pax swung his blade as she transformed. She blocked his sword with her own arm blades, the edges meeting in a bright shower of sparks. Unlike the armor of the previous form, though, the blades held up to the strain. The two were forced apart as bolts of lightning exploded from the weapons.<br />
“Stop protecting her!” Pax shouted, as he readied himself for another attack. Tilda clicked her heels together and rose up into the air, engines roaring loudly.<br />
“Stop trying to kill her!” Tilda retorted. She gained some altitude, then swung down in a dive, letting Pax block her and letting her engines carry both of them through the debris of broken boxes to the other side of the warehouse. They slammed into the wall and stopped.<br />
Tilda could feel him draining her with the proximity. She flew up and away in a loop. The distance helped. She backed off slightly, keeping near the roof.<br />
“Arma, you get out of here while I keep him busy,” Tilda said. The reptilian nodded and ran. Pax glanced up at Tilda and then ran for the retreating alien. “Oh no you don't.” She swooped down to shoulder-slam Pax. The man was much heavier, but speed did count for something. He was knocked off his feet, landing in a roll and standing up in an instant.<br />
“Don't do this. I'm trying to save the future of humanity!” Pax swung at Tilda. Tilda blocked it again, but she wasn't able to block it as well as the first time. Pax's sword nicked the edge of her blade, cutting into it. He was growing in power, and hers was fading away.<br />
“So am I,” Tilda muttered. She twisted her arm, trying to knock his blade away, and swung for him with her other arm blade. The blade scraped along his right side, opening a long but shallow cut. Pax cried out in pain and back off.<br />
“I don't want to hurt you,” Pax said. He stepped back, lowering his sword. “I'm not doing this to hurt people. I just want to save everyone.”<br />
“Yeah, well, then don't threaten the person who is teaching me how to use this thing.” Tilda took a few steps back herself and took a breath. It felt like the fight was over. Not that either of them really wanted to fight. Well, not that Pax wanted to fight anyway. She felt like she wanted to punch him in the face every time she looked at him. But she could keep it under control.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-61336161466625457652011-11-12T16:20:00.000-08:002011-11-12T16:20:40.893-08:00National Novel Writing Month Dozen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgceqwgN61ViX3csBw3Qn2S0a3gll8AOQbESympbIe2RJRQY8Eq00FTL3TySHNPEsE-OwIvoquFItqe_I8zOoKl__EgoGwf176I7GOczhMljCFxQDGuPSlBNHkxD8d5eejOpY27MVPnnA/s1600/crift10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="105" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgceqwgN61ViX3csBw3Qn2S0a3gll8AOQbESympbIe2RJRQY8Eq00FTL3TySHNPEsE-OwIvoquFItqe_I8zOoKl__EgoGwf176I7GOczhMljCFxQDGuPSlBNHkxD8d5eejOpY27MVPnnA/s320/crift10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
In this episode, Rocky avenges Apollo!<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> Tilda rolled over in bed, not really awake. The room was cold from the lateness of the year. The bed was nice and warm, though, and with how out of it she was from the fight, she really didn't feel like getting up. Tilda snuggled into a warm mass that was lying next to her.<br />
It took her sleep-addled brain a long time to realize that the breathing mass was another person. She had slept alone for her entire life, and so didn't immediately recognize it. When her dreaming mind processed just what was going on, she opened her eyes, blinking sleep from them, and jerked away.<br />
“W-what?!” She asked, coughing. Arma yawned, looking up.<br />
“Hm? What's wrong?” The reptilian was in the bed with her, and apparently had been for some time now. Tilda blushed. Arma hadn't even bothered keeping her human disguise. She was in her natural form and, on closer inspection, not wearing anything. Tilda blushed more and tried not to think about it.<br />
“Why the hell are you in my bed?!” Tilda moved away slightly. “You can't just crawl into someone's bed without asking!”<br />
“It's the only place to sleep in the house and I was tired,” Arma said, frowning. “Besides, you're the one who was trying to snuggle with me. I was staying on the other side of the bed.”<br />
“T-that's besides the point! Don't do that without permission!” Tilda got out of bed. It was much colder away from the covers. She shivered. “Besides, there's that monster. We can't just sit here and sleep all night!”<br />
“I suppose,” Arma said, reluctantly. “Though it was starting to get comfortable here.” She sighed and got out of bed as well, a white dress forming around her with the humming sound of ambient energized orgone.<br />
“Where should we go to look for it?” Tilda asked. She pulled on some warm clothing. “Last time it attacked the University and then came for me.” She glanced outside. It was dark. She couldn't see the clocktower's face in the darkness, but it must have <br />
“Well, since it hasn't attacked yet it's either resting or hunting. Maybe it knows it didn't finish you off.” Arma looked outside. “There's one obvious option, of course.”<br />
“What's that?” Tilda walked into the kitchen and grabbed Krieg from the makeshift orgone accumulator that had been shielding it.<br />
“You go somewhere advantageous to you and then activate Krieg. That much energized orgone should act as a beacon and draw it right to you. Of course, considering how you fared last time, I would consider using a different station.”<br />
“Yeah. I'll try to find some better music while that thing is killing me.” Tilda rolled her eyes and walked out the door. “Let's go.” Arma smiled, changed her shape into a warmly-dressed human, and followed. Tilda sighed. She was going to need to set some rules when they got back, or something.<br />
As she walked out, the other door of the guest house opened. Tilda sighed. This was going to be awkward. Paul stepped outside, glaring. He was a tall man, somewhat bigger than average. Tilda couldn't remember what he did for a living, if she had ever even bothered asking. He was just too creepy for her to ever want to talk to.<br />
“Hello, Paul,” She said. “Sorry. I'm in kind of a rush.” She walked past him. He glared at her the whole way, not saying anything. Arma looked back at him as she followed Tilda. As they walked down the stairs, Arma giggled a little.<br />
“How amusing,” Arma whispered, talking to herself. She shook her head, dismissing some thought.<br />
“What's so funny?” Tilda asked, quietly, as they got out of the man's hearing range.<br />
“I was originally going to try and use him as my champion. It was merely a coincidence that brought me to you. A lucky one for both of us. He isn't nearly as suitable or pleasant as you are. He would never be able to handle real power.”<br />
“Him?” Tilda paused. “So he would have turned into a monster. Right next door to me.”<br />
“Well, I have better judgement than that. That's why I chose you. You aren't turning into a monster, now are you?”<br />
“No,” Tilda agreed. “How did you decide on him, anyway? Is it just random, or-”<br />
“It's not random at all,” Arma said, shaking her head. “We're still reconnecting to this world, and so we need anchors. Almost half of the population used to be suitable for acting as anchors for my kind, but now only a small percentage remains.”<br />
“So is this happening all over the world, with monsters appearing?”<br />
“Oh, no. This town is special.” Arma smiled. “It has the perfect geomancy to act as a focal point for the fate of this world. The flows of orgone are strong here. It is probably not luck that Krieg was here, that you were here. And I suppose the same is true for that Pax thing.”<br />
“A conspiracy?” Tilda started walking. She had to get somewhere restricted, so the stealth the Verbesserte had displayed would be less of an advantage. There were some old warehouses on the edge of town, disused for over a decade now. They were as good a place as any, and likely with no bystanders to be killed in the crossfire.<br />
“No, no. Just... that things always seem to fall towards the center. It's a tipping point in space and time. What happens here will decide the fate of the world. My people can sense it, and so we are all gathering to this place for the Grand Melee. When only one of us remains, when only I remain, I will have the right to decide the path our return will take.”<br />
<br />
Claire laughed as she felt the wind beneath her wings. The power was so incredible! She had spent hours just soaring through the clouds. And all she had to do was kill a few people. And then a few more. That was easy now. She couldn't even remember why she was reluctant to do it before. In fact, it sounded fun. She could hear the bustle of the people down in the street, and even without looking she could tell exactly where everything was.<br />
Those people. So annoying and weak. They had made fun of her before. They wouldn't make fun of her now. She wanted them to fear her. That would be even better than making them like her. They had never liked her for long, but she could make them run in terror forever.<br />
Claire dived down to the busy street, where people were walking between stores, chattering amongst themselves. She landed on the street, cloaked, right in front of a few children on bicycles. They slammed into her, one of them going right over the handlebars to smash his face into her armored chest. Claire grabbed him out of the air and threw him through a window.<br />
She uncloaked and laughed, the sound coming through her new vocal chords and fangs as an ultrasonic screech. Someone screamed. Everyone started running. It was hilarious. Claire fired a missile at random into a building, a blazing fireball destroying the first floor and bringing the upper stories right down on it.<br />
“That's enough playing,” Someone said. She turned to look. It was a man, all in black. Her new husband. She smiled, and tried to respond to him, but it just came out as a sonic blast that knocked a running woman off her feet.<br />
“I know you're having fun,” her husband said, patting her on the nose. Snout. She'd figure out which it was later. “But the job isn't done yet. Arma is still out there, and so is Krieg. We need both of them destroyed before we can really be happy.” He patted her snout. “It should be easy for you. You nearly got them last time. We'll just have to make sure they're dead this time.”<br />
Claire screeched happily and fired another missile wildly down the street, blowing up a phone booth. She flapped her wings and took off, vanishing into the night.<br />
<br />
Tilda kicked the door to the empty warehouse. It stubbornly stayed closed. She frowned. She kicked it again, harder, and almost broke her ankle. Cursing, she hopped back from the door.<br />
“Well, that was impressive,” Arma said sarcastically. Tilda grumbled.<br />
“Shut up.” She pulled Krieg on. “I'll just do it with this thing, then.” She tuned the dial. “You said there are other stations, right?” She passed the station she had used twice before.<br />
“Yes. It has several others.” Arma stood back. “At least one of them should be useful. The 262 was a wonderful fighter for its time, but it has its limits. Going head to head with something as advanced as the Verbesserte is too evenly matched, and it has the advantage of firepower.”<br />
“But anything else will be just as old, right?” Tilda searched through the static.<br />
“That's true,” Arma nodded. “But that doesn't mean much if you're not fighting using the same tactics. Krieg's ability to generate orgone is just as good as the modifications made to a Verbesserte. The peak output might even be higher.”<br />
“Well that's good news,” Tilda muttered. She stopped as she stumbled on another station. Instead of Wagner, there was the even more familiar tune of Beethoven. She took a moment to adjust the station properly. “Okay. Here goes nothing.” She flipped the master switch.<br />
As before, a huge burst of energized orgone braided itself into strands and formed a body suit. This time, though, when the shell of orgone collapsed to forge itself into armor, Tilda yelped as she was suddenly put on her toes, the boots growing high heels. The rest of the armor formed as thicker and heavier, rounded on all edges. The lines were almost like a dolphin.<br />
“What is this thing?” Tilda asked, looking down at her boots. The heels were shaped like screw propellers. No, they were screw propellers. With a thought, they blurred into motion. Useless in the air. The armor became a greyish teal as the light faded.<br />
“Looks like a U-Boat,” Arma noted. She watched Tilda, thinking.<br />
“Well that won't help us,” Tilda said, putting her hands on her hips awkwardly. This armor had thick gauntlets that made it hard to move her wrist. “We're nowhere near open water, and I don't think it's going to play nice and let us fight it from a swimming pool.”<br />
“I admit it would be better suited for the ocean...” Arma circled Tilda. “But it might just be what we need. While a normal submarine would have problems fighting an aircraft, you don't share its limitations. Besides, you've probably got a system or two that should help negate the advances it has.”<br />
“You mean the stealth?” Tilda paused, thinking about the Bat Verbesserte. “Oh! I get it. I've got sonar now, just like a-”<br />
“Bat, Tilda. Just like a bat.” Arma smiled. “The stealth technology it's using doesn't work on sonar at all. It'll be visible the whole time. Now you just need to figure out a way to actually kill it.” Tilda flipped the sonar system on. A mechanical ping echoed between the warehouses. If activating Krieg hadn't attracted the Verbesserte's attention, that sure would.<br />
“Well I think the display is telling me-” Tilda stopped. She spun around. There, on top of one of the warehouses. She could feel it. The air distorted slightly, something terrible hiding there. And she couldn't see it. Stealth. The Verbesserte.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-4331376829165362812011-11-11T10:56:00.000-08:002011-11-11T10:56:19.403-08:00National Novel Writing Month JAPANSIf you don't get it, you're not a nerd who has seen CG. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0iEioGU3UtrB7Nd45gWUBoecMm-7SFJj1YwyBkGbBwZ0itN8pRurC_kmKaXv-EL6gxFWMvFEMWpAtq35r_ViNzB3TemzBGRcULlHhRDX7JNs_ybMCj2Z3Lqf-a8oe7tCIgyKccNVhbg/s1600/ROME.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0iEioGU3UtrB7Nd45gWUBoecMm-7SFJj1YwyBkGbBwZ0itN8pRurC_kmKaXv-EL6gxFWMvFEMWpAtq35r_ViNzB3TemzBGRcULlHhRDX7JNs_ybMCj2Z3Lqf-a8oe7tCIgyKccNVhbg/s320/ROME.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Story after the break<br />
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<a name='more'></a> “That's fine,” Tilda said. “Because there's a monster that needs killing.” She coughed, still dripping water. “Just stay the hell out of my way.”<br />
<br />
“I can't believe I lost...” Tilda muttered. She was lying face-down on her bed, barely able to move. After she had deactivated Krieg, the pain had hit her all at once. It felt like someone had thrown her down a rocky hill, and she had managed to land in a bramble bush. The spots where the Verbesserte's fangs had sunk into her neck were covered with a bandage that Arma had thankfully found and applied.<br />
“You don't have fighting experience,” Arma said. “You can only get so far on talent. Still, your reactions were good. You did exactly the right thing when it bit you, but you should have pressed the advantage you had when you struck it.” Arma sipped at a cup of tea, sitting next to the bed.<br />
“I was too busy trying not to die,” Tilda said. She rolled onto her side. “You said that thing was decades more advanced than Krieg. How am I supposed to beat it?”<br />
“The design is, yes,” Arma said. “Krieg is the most advanced weapon humans ever made, but the reification matrix's designs were limited by the imagination of the man who built it. He programmed it with the most advanced designs of his day, and enhanced with the technology he took from my people, but there are things he simply could not have anticipated.”<br />
“Like that stealth stuff?” Tilda asked. Arma nodded.<br />
“Yes. Though I suppose the Nazis did accidentally stumble onto some extremely primitive stealth designs towards the end of the war. It was really quite amazing. They were decades ahead of their time, but limited to the manufacturing and materials of their day. It is too bad they were so focused on their ideals. They would have been excellent puppets.”<br />
“They were evil,” Tilda said, rolling her eyes. “The Nazis went around killing millions of people and trying to take over the world.”<br />
“Unfortunately so,” Arma agreed. “Anyway, that's in the past. There are more important things to worry about.”<br />
“Yeah. How do I beat that stealth stuff? I can barely keep up with it, and it's much better armed than I am. I don't know if I can beat it.”<br />
“Not with Krieg's primary form,” Arma agreed. “You'll have to use one of the other channels.”<br />
“Other... channels?”<br />
“Well it would hardly be an ultimate weapon with only one shape!” Arma laughed. “I'm sure one of the other forms will be more useful in this fight. It will need time to recharge, though. And so do you.”<br />
“Yeah,” Tilda agreed. “I feel awful.” She paused. “But what if that thing follows us here? You said it was after Krieg, right? Won't it just track us here? I don't want my house blown up!”<br />
“Don't worry,” Arma said. “I built a simple orgone accumulator while you were sleeping last night for just this reason. I put Krieg inside. It should mask the energized orgone signal from the weapon, and allow it to recharge a bit more quickly.”<br />
“An orgone accumulator?” Tilda blinked. She hadn't ever heard of that. Or a lot of things she'd been having to learn about lately. It was starting to annoy her how much people seemed to know and just never told her. Aliens, monsters, secret Nazi weapons... it was like they'd been keeping her in the dark for her entire life.<br />
“Yes. Alternating layers of metal and organic material. I used tin foil and paper. A bit weak, but it should keep any Anunnaki or Verbesserte from detecting it.” She pointed to the kitchen. There was a complicated-looking chunk of origami taking up part of the counter.<br />
“Oh. So that's what that thing is.” Tilda sighed. “I couldn't even beat that Pax guy...” She could still feel that awful soggy weakness of being blasted by his water cannon.<br />
“That thing...” Arma growled. “That thing is absurd. It shouldn't exist.” She stood up from where she had been sitting next to the bed. “It uses our technology, and perverts it! It's good for nothing except killing my kind! Whoever designed it is a maniac!”<br />
“Mm,” Tilda said, not agreeing or disagreeing. Pax had felt draining and awful just to be around, so it was hard to disagree too strongly. “Arma, what the hell did he mean by deadly orgone radiation?”<br />
“I told you, it's just a silly term he's using for energized orgone.” Arma paced. “Energized orgone is natural for my people. We'd die without it, like you would die without food or water. In an environment like this, my body naturally makes small amounts of it to sustain me. Krieg generates huge amounts of energized orgone to create armor and weapons. It's useful technology.”<br />
“But you said it could be dangerous,” Tilda pointed out.<br />
“Only to a few people. It's like an allergy. You wouldn't call peanuts dangerous just because there are some people who will die if they eat them. We were introducing more sources of energized orgone into your environment before the Fimbulvetr. Humans would have long since become tolerant to it.”<br />
“Well... I guess.”<br />
“Besides, many humans, yourself included, are able to absorb and process energized orgone.” Arma ran a hand down Tilda's face. “It's why using Krieg makes you feel so good. The supply of energized orgone is much richer than anything else you've had in your life.” Tilda sighed.<br />
“How long until Krieg is charged up again?” Tilda asked, closing her eyes. She was vaguely aware that Arma was still petting her, not quite like a pet. She was too tired to ask the alien to stop, and it felt nice anyway.<br />
“An hour or two. Enough time for you to get some rest.” Arma kept petting her. Tilda drifted off to sleep.<br />
<br />
Paul sat in his room, brooding. He had seen Tilda come home with that strange woman from somewhere. She had looked really out of it. Probably drunk or something. He'd lived next door to Tilda for over a year now and she hadn't even said two words to him. She was so stuck up. He had to admit that she wasn't bad-looking, though.<br />
Paul stood up and paced, stepping on discarded clothing and papers. He had tried so many times to get on her good side. It wasn't fair! He was a hard-working man with lots of things going for him, and he wasn't bad looking either. He had to figure out a way to make her notice him.<br />
It wasn't like he was desperate for attention or anything. Why just a few days ago a woman had called him out of the blue and asked if he wanted some company. She hadn't actually showed up, but that was besides the point. She had probably gotten delayed or couldn't make it or something. Yeah, that was it. He could still remember her voice it was-<br />
It was coming through the thin wall from Tilda's apartment. Paul blinked. What? That was impossible! Did that mean the woman that had called him was... the same woman that was over in Tilda's apartment? No wonder she had called him out of nowhere! She had been toying with him the whole time! It was some friend of Tilda's, making fun of him!<br />
Paul threw a glass across the room, shattering it against a wall. He couldn't believe it! No, that wasn't it. He could. Women had always done this to him playing with his feelings and then crushing him just because they found it amusing!<br />
Paul stormed around the room, the center of a violent storm of emotions. It was taking all of his self control to avoid just going over there and screaming. But that was probably what they wanted. And he wasn't going to give them that statisfaction. No.<br />
He'd find a way to get revenge. Something that would mean they'd never make fun of him again. And then he'd be the one laughing and enjoying himself.<br />
<br />
Charles managed to get home just as Pax's power supply flickered and died. The armor it had formed around him dissolved back into pure orgone energy and dissipated into the air. It was probably for the best. It meant there wasn't any deadly orgone radiation around his house, and that he wasn't going to have to explain it to his mother. He took Pax from his waist and tucked it under his arm.<br />
He walked in to his mother cooking something on the stove.<br />
“Charles! I was so worried!” She ran over and hugged him. “I heard there was some kind of an accident at the University!”<br />
“I'm okay, Mom,” he said. “It was... pretty bad, though.” He shook his head. “I know some people got hurt. One of my professors...” He stopped, looking down.<br />
“Oh, Charles... sit down.” She led him to a chair. “I'll get you some tea.”<br />
“Thanks, Mom.” He sat, putting Pax on his lap. Charles rubbed his forehead, tired. It had been a long day. He was still trying to really grasp the idea that Professor Gable was dead. He really could have used the man's guidance right now. At the least, he could use some advice on how to use Pax. The weapon had so many components, most of which he hadn't even tried using yet.<br />
Charles looked down at the dove embossed on Pax and thought about how it had felt. It had been like riding a wild animal. It was primal and powerful in a way that was hard to explain. Every moment wearing the armor he had felt like he had been immersed in a rushing river of cold mountain water. If it had been much stronger, he would have been swept away by it.<br />
He had to admit it scared him a little. A little more and it would have eaten him. Too much like an untamed beast. Gable probably could have told him how to make it work for him instead of against him, but those weren't questions he could ask right now.<br />
“Here you go, Charles,” his mother said, putting the mug of hot tea in front of him. Charles looked up and smiled.<br />
“Thanks.” He sipped it.<br />
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” His mother sat down across from him. “I know it can be difficult to take about something like this, but it can help a lot to get your feelings off your chest.”<br />
“I still need to process it all,” Charles said, with a sigh. “This wasn't... it's not easy. It was all so sudden. It's not real to me yet.” His mother nodded, understanding. He couldn't tell her that he was still trying to figure out how he was going to stop the monster he had seen, or what he was going to do about Krieg. That woman was a pawn for evil alien forces and he didn't know if he could save her. Or if she wanted to be saved.<br />
“Okay, Charles,” she smiled. “I'm always here if you want to talk, though, okay?” He nodded. After a few moments, his mother went back to cooking. Charles sipped his tea quietly and thought. It was a while before he put his thoughts together enough to talk.<br />
“Mom... what do you do if someone really needs help, but they don't want it?” He looked down in his mug of tea, watching the tea leaves in the bottom swirl around.<br />
“If they don't want help, there are only two things you can do,” she said. “You can let them fail on their own, or you can give them the help they need even if they don't want it. If you're lucky, they'll understand why you did it, and they'll forgive you.”LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-78396517497705467432011-11-10T11:05:00.000-08:002011-11-10T11:05:01.046-08:00National Novel Writing Month X<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUWfJdpIUe6uhwejesXgwyVeVvGdQZHu4DU4AkMyFnfjvKk3mFJLvzyG5TDRb39Ef3V4zzXwbdy2jLbPLHF76Yh1GLmGSb3DY7nPJApRaA9hHSLfyHanXDgMtS8qI0D_UC7b9d6JhHaQ/s1600/ALIENS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUWfJdpIUe6uhwejesXgwyVeVvGdQZHu4DU4AkMyFnfjvKk3mFJLvzyG5TDRb39Ef3V4zzXwbdy2jLbPLHF76Yh1GLmGSb3DY7nPJApRaA9hHSLfyHanXDgMtS8qI0D_UC7b9d6JhHaQ/s320/ALIENS.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
New chapter after the break<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> “Are we getting close?” Tilda asked, running down the street, Krieg strapped around her waist. She hadn't activated it yet. That strange feeling she got along her spine last time... she wasn't sure it was a good thing, even if it had felt great at the time.<br />
“Yes. The enhanced orgone levels are rising,” Arma said. She followed, in that casual disguise she had adopted. “There is nothing human that gives off that energy. At least nothing anymore, since your people abandoned the technological advances we gave you.”<br />
“Can we argue about that later?” Tilda snapped. “There's a monster on the loose!”<br />
“Indeed. And it is probably coming to kill you.” Tilda slowed.<br />
“What!?” She turned to look at Arma.<br />
“As I said, they'll go after the most dangerous targets. It must have sensed something at the University, but it's heading this way now. And I know what the greatest threat in this city is.” She pointed at Krieg. “You killed the last Verbesserte. This one is going to be doing its best to take you out. You will have to fight smart. You won't get lucky like last time.”<br />
“Lucky? I nearly died!”<br />
“That's why it was good luck,” Arma countered. She looked up. “There's no time to talk.” Tilda spun around, following her gaze. A monster covered in flat black plates of armor flapped its angled wings in the sky above them.<br />
It searched the street before fixing on them, screeching. Tilda spun the dial on Krieg, searching for that station she had found before. The familiar tunes of Wagner played from a hidden speaker on the belt. Tilda snapped the safety cover over the master switch open.<br />
“Let's see who can make a better monster.” She flipped the switch home. Energized orgone surrounded her in a sphere. Faster than the first time, perhaps because she had tuned it more accurately or simply because it had been disused for sixty years, strands of orgone wove themselves into a body suit, and the bubble of energy around her collapsed like a bubble popping, forging itself into armor plates. As the light show died down, the plates turned bright red.<br />
The monster's ears, huge and pointed up like spires, twitched. Doors opened on the wings that had replaced its arms, with strange serrated edges. Missiles dropped from them, rocket engines firing as they fell. Tilda blinked. This thing wasn't wasting any time. She ran and jumped, trying to get as much of a lead on them as she could.<br />
Her feet left the ground as she felt the blast of the missiles hitting the asphalt. She pulled up as hard as she could, pushing the engines as far as they'd go. She just barely managed to avoid going through a building. She spun around to face the Bat Verbesserte as she got to the open sky. It had vanished. Tilda blinked, looking left and right. Where had it gone!?<br />
A shadow fell over Tilda. Before she could turn, the monster grabbed her. Fangs sunk into her neck. She gasped. She could feel it draining her energy away. She stabbed backwards with the blades on her arms, and the thing fell away, surprised. Its pale white eyes, flickering like the aura around Arma had, fixed on Tilda with a hateful gaze. Its maw dropped open. A screech pierced the air, so loud that Tilda could actually see it, visible like a heat shimmer. In the street below, windows shattered. Arma shielded her eyes with her hand.<br />
“Aaaah!” Tilda clutched at her head. The helmet was some protection, but not nearly enough. She had to make it stop. She charged at the Verbesserte. Even her passage through the air was slowed, the orgone-powered engines unable to cope with the pressure waves. Just before she reached it, it silenced itself and vanished.<br />
It hadn't moved. It had faded, from the center out, into total invisibility. Tilda flew through the space it had been hovering in. Nothing. She looked around. That was impossible. Almost as impossible as aliens and what she was doing. She revised her estimates on what was possible and what wasn't.<br />
She knew she couldn't stay still, though. Tilda circled, spinning erratically to try to keep an eye on the entire sky at the same time. Then, too distant for her to stop the monster, it appeared. The weapon bays on its wings opened. Tilda flew down, trying to evade the rockets. She took a sharp turn between two buildings.<br />
“Come on, come on...” she muttered. She looked back, just in time to see the missile that slammed into her. The explosion threw her into a building, right through a wall, landing in someone's kitchen. A table broke under her weight. A second missile followed her through the hole she had just punched.<br />
“Oh shit,” She said, just before it struck her. The building erupted in flames, and she was thrown clear out of the other side, the damaged building collapsing into fire and rubble. Tilda took a deep breath, trying to get up from where she had fallen. She didn't feel like anything was broken, but she was going to be covered in bruises.<br />
“Be careful,” Arma said, suddenly there and kneeling next to her. “The enhanced orgone will help get you back on your feet, but you could still be seriously hurt.”<br />
“W-what the hell is that thing!?” Tilda gasped. “This is insane!” Arma looked up. No sign of the monster yet.<br />
“Stealth technology. It's something your people never developed. A primitive version.” She shook her head. “You cannot simply bully your way through this. This technology is almost four decades ahead of what Krieg was programmed with. You're lucky this Verbesserte isn't an air superiority type, or you would already be dead.”<br />
“Thanks for the tip,” Tilda said, struggling to her feet. Arma helped her up. “Now how the hell do I fight it?”<br />
“You have pretty much the same speed, but you should be more maneuverable. If you plan on fighting it in the air you will need to be aggressive and keep on it. It might be easier to-” Arma stopped. “It's moving away.” She looked into the sky, trying to visually track it.<br />
“What?” Tilda gasped. She started to jump to take off.<br />
“Stop!” Arma commanded. “You're hurt and it probably thinks you're dead. If you play this smart you can take advantage of its mistake. It should have kept pressing the attack. We will make it pay for that.”<br />
“I can't just let it go and kill people,” Tilda said. She clutched her side. She was going to be sore in the morning. She took a deep breath, ignoring the pain. “We'll go after it now. I'll come up with something.” She turned to look at Arma. Arma wasn't looking at her. The alien woman's gaze was trained back towards the University.<br />
“Something else is coming,” Arma said. “I don't like it.” She narrowed her eyes.<br />
“Another Verbesserte?”<br />
“No. This is different.” Arma grimaced. “It's not the same type of energy. Verbesserte use energized orgone. This... thing... it's using natural orgone. Massive amounts of it. How inefficient.” She shook her head. “It must be something humans created. My people would never use something like that.”<br />
“Something made by humans?” Tilda relaxed. “Then maybe we don't have to worry about it.”<br />
“Don't be naïve!” Arma snapped. “Just because it was made by humans doesn't mean it's here to help you.” Just as she said that, a shining figure surmounted the building across the street, right next to the collapsed home that Tilda had been blasted through.<br />
The figure was armored much like Tilda, though all in white, blue, and red. It looked down at her through a bird-like helmet, eyes glowing blue. Something about it made her skin crawl. It looked at Arma, then jumped down into the street, cape billowing up. It landed lightly on the concrete, as if it had just stepped off a curb instead of jumping down from a rooftop.<br />
“What a disgusting creature,” Arma said, shaking her head. “Some kind of poor copy of Krieg.” She put her hands on her hips.<br />
“I'm here to put a stop to your destruction!” The main said, pointing. “I've learned everything I need to fight you reptilians! You won't be able to take over the world or poison us with deadly orgone radiation while I'm around!”<br />
“Deadly orgone radiation?” Tilda whispered. That was a worrying thing to hear.<br />
“He means energized orgone,” Arma explained. “To weak or infirm humans, it can overload their bodies and auras. You don't need to worry about it. Your body accepts and uses energized orgone, which is why you can use Krieg safely.”<br />
“I'm surprised he can tell what you are,” Tilda said.<br />
“Some sensitives can see through our shapeshifting.” She sighed and dropped her disguise, an aura of flickering mist appearing around her as she changed to her natural form. “Might as well not bother with it for now.”<br />
“I don't know who you are,” the strange man said. “But you're poisoning this place with your very presence!”<br />
“Who are you?” Tilda asked.<br />
“Pax,” the man said. “Or at least that's the name for this weapon.”<br />
“Fine, Pax. I'm-”<br />
“Don't tell him your name,” Arma said. Tilda nodded. She didn't want this nutjob tracking her down later. Tilda put her hands on her hips and stepped forwards. The closer she got to Pax, the stranger she felt. It was like standing in front of a cliff, every step bringing you closer. That sense of vertigo.<br />
“I'm Krieg,” Tilda said. “I'm not here to fight you. I've got bigger fish to fry.” She pointed at the device strapped around his waist. “We may have similar styles, but this is the original.” She tapped the old Nazi weapon. “I'm better suited to handling this. So just stay out of my way, bird-boy.”<br />
Tilda powered up her engines, slowly rising up. She had only gotten a few inches above the ground when she was thrown against a wall by a high-pressure steam of water. Tilda sputtered and flailed until the water turned off. Blue energy crackled around her. She could feel her injuries more strongly. Something in the water was draining her power!<br />
“I can't let you do that,” Pax said. He lowered his arm, putting the water cannon back on his hip. “Even if there's another monster like you flying around, you're just as dangerous.”<br />
“I'm trying to kill the Verbesserte, you twit!” Tilda shouted. “I'm nothing like that monster!”<br />
“You're exactly like it! A pawn of the reptilians!” Arma rolled her eyes. Tilda couldn't see it through the veil, but her body language clearly showed it.<br />
“I'm trying to save people. You're trying to stop me from doing that.” Tilda slowly stood up. “No matter what you are, if you're going to get in my way I'll stop you.” Arma smiled.<br />
“You can't save people with a weapon like that. You can only kill.”<br />
“That's fine,” Tilda said. “Because there's a monster that needs killing.”LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-67970897821878031492011-11-09T10:07:00.000-08:002011-11-09T10:07:16.567-08:00National Novel Writing Month part Niner<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbSsvEvtO2_aerEUHQX-JWCpNe8yFn6qvqV8TxXnc3_Gzpc6iQ-saqYHXVCI3Q9XxdA6HtvZ6fR23hE3xFuHhb81tonYeuhT3XGkQPOnICcqjHPk6fkxsY6HnLO_L9RzkmQp2rQWDnJQ/s1600/DOR_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="91" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbSsvEvtO2_aerEUHQX-JWCpNe8yFn6qvqV8TxXnc3_Gzpc6iQ-saqYHXVCI3Q9XxdA6HtvZ6fR23hE3xFuHhb81tonYeuhT3XGkQPOnICcqjHPk6fkxsY6HnLO_L9RzkmQp2rQWDnJQ/s320/DOR_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<br />
I'd just like to note that in doing research for this book, I have found some really amazing interweb sites. I'll probably publish a full bibliography of hilarious sources later, but even the most cursory glance at a google search for orgone, orgonite, deadly orgone radiation, and so forth turns up an entire world of people with fascinating beliefs and rituals.<br />
<br />
At least it makes more sense than homeopathy. More story after the break.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
“I call it Pax.” Gable ran a hand over the surface. “I'm too old to use such a thing well. I want you to have it.” He smiled at Charles. “You're one of the few students I have that listens to me.”<br />
“But sir... I can't just accept a gift like this. You said you worked on it for years.”<br />
“And if it doesn't get used, then that work goes to waste.” He smiled. “Don't worry. I can see the potential in you. This has to go to someone who knows and understands and respects my work, and you are that man. To many others, this would just be junk.” Gable picked it up and pushed it into Charles' hands. “Now take this and I'll show you how to use it properly.”<br />
“Okay,” Charles said, with a sad smile. He could sense Gable's regret at not having been able to convert more people to his way of thinking. Before he could ask the professor just how to start, the room filled with blue light. He looked around. The orgonite in the room was releasing blue light, blobs of light the size of coins starting to come off of some of them and float in the air.<br />
“Oh my!” Gable said, surprised. “This is amazing! I've never seen a reaction like this!” He walked over to a table where the reaction was strongest. “Why the orgonite has never given off energy like this! This is really astounding. Charles, can you get my orgoscope? I really need to get a reading on this phenomenon.”<br />
“Is this...” he looked at the device in his hands. “Is it because of this thing?” Gable turned to look.<br />
“Hm? No, no. Actually, what this most likely is is a reaction to a large amount of deadly orgone radiation. The orgonite is converting it back into normal orgone, you see, and releasing it as these streams of light and orbs of radiant energy.”<br />
“Wait, deadly orgone radiation?”<br />
“Oh yes. As I said, actually quite rare, in this day and age, which is why it took me some time to remember that orgonite could produce energy like this. I suppose Pax is really building up quite a charge now, with this amount of radiation in the area.”<br />
“But what's causing it?” Charles looked around the lab. Nothing seemed out of place, though considering the mess he wouldn't know if a tornado had come through.<br />
“That is an excellent question. You know, the only time I saw this much deadly orgone radiation in one place, at least as of late, was in the street where that attack occurred.” Gable was about to continue, but he paused as a shadow suddenly appeared at the window. There was no sense of movement to it. It was more like it faded into view. Gable and Charles turned to look.<br />
With the sun at its back, it was hard to make out more than the general shape of the being blocking out the light. It was angled and bizarre-looking, like a giant bat made out of flat black plates. It spread huge wings, casting the lab into shadow, the only light provided by the blue glow silently pouring out of the loose chunks of orgonite around the lab.<br />
“Oh my,” Gable said. The monster opened its triangular maw and screeched. Glass beakers exploded. Charles clutched his head, falling to his knees. Gable screamed. Everything erupted into flames.<br />
<br />
“So if the others are here for revenge, what are you here for?” Tilda asked, raising an eyebrow. “After that story, I can't believe that you're just here to help everyone.”<br />
“Of course not,” Arma agreed. “I've got my own plans. But they're for the benefit of humanity as a whole, instead of short-sighted trying to kill you all. That's pointless and wasteful. Earth is a nice place to live, after all. It has some problems, but humans and my kind have worked together in the past and it has been beneficial for both of us.”<br />
“...So you want to be a friendly dictator,” Tilda said, sarcastically.<br />
“If you want to put it like that. Humanity is better off with the guidance of my people. And besides, I think that you are ready for a more equal partnership-” she stopped. “Something is wrong.” Tilda could hear it too. Fire trucks. She had a feeling in her gut that this wasn't just some small kitchen fire.<br />
“Yeah.” Tilda walked over to her window and opened it, looking around. The trucks were heading north. She looked that way. A plume of smoke was coming from the University. She could see the complex of buildings from here. From the size of the smoke cloud, it was something serious.<br />
“It must be the next Verbesserte,” Arma said. “This is happening more quickly than I expected.” Tilda stood up, running a hand through her hair. She walked over to her grandfather's trunk, still sitting, now closed, in her living room. Krieg was lying on top of it. She picked it up, the weight still surprisingly heavy in her hands.<br />
“I guess that means its up to me to stop it,” Tilda said. She looked at the eagle emblazoned on the front. “I don't know if I like using this thing. It makes me feel... strange.” She frowned.<br />
“That's the energized orgone release. It's similar to the energy my body gives off when I change shape. The technology is based on that, actually. To be honest, it can be harmful to some humans.” She waved a hand. “You don't need to worry about it, though. You aren't susceptible to that. That's one reason I said you were suited to use this device.”<br />
“Just one reason?” Tilda asked.<br />
“Well there are others, of course. You are a natural warrior, after all.” She was obviously keeping something from Tilda, but considering there was a monster on the loose, she didn't have time to sit and argue with the... Tilda was even mentally reluctant to admit she was an alien, but it was impossible to deny what she had seen. She'd need time to get used to that thought.<br />
“Fine. Don't tell me,” Tilda said. “Let's just get to the University.”<br />
<br />
Mohan rode close on the tail of the fire truck as it roared towards the University, Yates in the passenger seat. The smoke rose up over the city like black cotton. People in the streets were standing and looking as they passed.<br />
“Think it's the same perp?” Mohan asked. Yates shrugged.<br />
“Could just be some lab accident,” Yates said. “You'd be surprised the kind of mess those professors can make with just a few beakers. I don't think we'll be that lucky though.” She shook her head. “This right after that mess last night? If it's not connected I'll be shocked.”<br />
“Yeah,” Mohan nodded. “If it is the same guy, we'll need all the backup we can get.”<br />
“We can keep our distance until we've confirmed it one way or another,” Yates replied. “We'll have to evacuate the University for their own safety.”<br />
“That sounds like a good idea no matter what we find,” Mohan agreed. They passed onto the University grounds. He could see the smoking building now, one of the smaller buildings away from the main commons.<br />
“Classes were canceled, so there won't be any students around,” Yates said. “We'll just need to get the teachers out of here!” The fire truck stopped in front of a shattered window, orange flames and dark smoke pouring out from within. “Go around to the other side. We'll go through the main entrance!”<br />
Mohan sped around the ivy-covered building, screeching to a halt in front of the doors. Yates jumped out of the car the moment it stopped. Mohan followed a moment later. Just as they were reaching the doors, they were opened from the other side. A thin, balding man hobbled out, coughing.<br />
“Sir!” Yates said, stopping him. “Are you alright? What happened?”<br />
“It came from that damn Gable's lab!” The man coughed. “That insane bastard has really done it now! I'll have his tenure revoked for this! He'll never work again!”<br />
“Gable's lab?” Mohan muttered. He looked at Yates, who shrugged.<br />
“There are firefighters on the other side of the building, sir,” Yates said. “They'll have trained EMTs. Do you want me to escort you there?”<br />
“No, no, I'm fine,” the man said. “Just go make sure none of the students were hurt by that maniac! He was probably trying to burn incense made out of thermite or some crazy thing like that!” He started walking to the other side of the building, his walk becoming more steady as he did.<br />
“Should we wait for the firefighters?” Mohan asked.<br />
“There's no time!” Yates opened the door and rushed in. Mohan followed her, looking around the dark and stately halls. The building mostly smelled like smoke now, but under it there was a pervasive musty odor of old books. Yates stopped at an intersection, looking left and right, then ran to the right.<br />
“Do you know where you're going?” Mohan asked.<br />
“Towards the smoke!” Yates replied. “If there's anyone who needs help, that's where they'll be!” A few grad students were standing in the hallway, confused. Yates ran past them. “Get out of the building!” She yelled as she passed them. After another moment of confusion, they complied.<br />
“You'd think they'd know to get away from fire!”<br />
“They're grad students, Mohan! They'll run right into the fire if they think it'll get them a better grade!” She stopped in front of a door that was halfway open and cracked vertically. Professor Gable's name was on the door, broken in half by the crack. She pulled it open, and immediately the amount of smoke doubled.<br />
Mohan raised a hand to cover his face as they entered. The smoke was thick and choking. He couldn't see anything for a few moments. Then a blast of pure air raced past him, clearing the smoke. The room was filled with a deep blue light. Mohan blinked, clearing his eyes. Small files burned through the room, their ruddy light unable to compete with that azure radiance.<br />
A man stood in the rubble, carrying something. As the blue glow died down, Mohan could see he was carrying the limp form of Professor Gable. And the man was about the strangest person he had ever seen. He was almost entirely dressed in white, with red and blue edging. A helmet obscured his face, ornate and birdlike. An ornate cape hung over his left shoulder, with a serrated edge that made it look feathered.<br />
Mohan somehow felt at peace when he looked at him. The strange man walked over to them, putting Gable down carefully at their feet. He was extremely careful, but obviously strong. Mohan knew how difficult it was to carry a person, especially when they went limp, and this oddly-dressed man was managing it with no visible effort.<br />
“I'm sorry,” the man said. “There was nothing I could do to save him. It all happened too quickly.” He sounded distraught.<br />
“What happened here?” Yates demanded.<br />
“There was an attack.” He looked up. “I have to go. That thing is still out there.” He stepped back towards the broken windows, glass crunching under his boots.<br />
“Wait!” Yates said. “You can't just run! You're a witness! You need to come with us!”<br />
“Sorry. There's no time. I need to make sure this doesn't happen again.” He looked down from the window. “Please take care of Professor Gable. He was a good man.”<br />
“We at least need a name!”<br />
“Pax.” Water blasted into the room as the tanker trucks outside unleashed a torrent of water into the room, putting out the small fires that remained. Mohan covered his eyes as a spray of water hit too close to him. When he looked back, the strange man was gone.LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-59049966952053123252011-11-08T10:37:00.000-08:002011-11-08T10:37:40.939-08:00National Novel Writing Month part H8I WILL SPEAK THE TRUTH AND I WON'T LET NO GUVVAMINT MAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSJiXNt6pXrdYiKg95GM6FrzMNy27u0dBoQ6wwZuqQzNk9Ip1FHoDonlQb9oHOZP1cJfSIrCOZSyIG-mhALurOwUD0aYkSEJ5VtyOcnvFLgQ8XOSWMnUvEwRnH6aN5Ckl6U6i0_57u0w/s1600/acient-aliens-tide-goes-in-tide-goes-out-aliens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSJiXNt6pXrdYiKg95GM6FrzMNy27u0dBoQ6wwZuqQzNk9Ip1FHoDonlQb9oHOZP1cJfSIrCOZSyIG-mhALurOwUD0aYkSEJ5VtyOcnvFLgQ8XOSWMnUvEwRnH6aN5Ckl6U6i0_57u0w/s320/acient-aliens-tide-goes-in-tide-goes-out-aliens.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a> “You don't believe me,” Arma said, with an understanding nod. “I think you just need a little proof.” She stood up and stepped back from the table. Tilda raised an eyebrow. She had to admit that she was curious. At least to see just what kind of nonsense Arma would pull to try and 'prove' she was an alien.<br />
Arma smiled, looked at Tilda, and blinked. But there was something wrong with the way she did it. Before Tilda could really process that, the strange woman started to glow with a pale shimmering white light. A humming sound filled the air, like an old electrical device powering up. A mist surrounded Arma, and Tilda's jaw dropped as it solidified into a white dress around the strange woman.<br />
“W-what?” Tilda whispered. “How did you-”<br />
“The Anunnaki are shape-shifters.” She spun around slowly. “We can all do this. Though this is still only a disguise.” As she turned to face Tilda, Arma's appearance changed again. Her skin changed to a teal shade, and the texture warped to scales. Her smile became filled with fangs. The woman's fingers twisted into claws. Tilda stood up and took a step back.<br />
“Holy cats!” Tilda gasped. Arma laughed, a slight hiss in her voice. Tilda looked Arma up and down. She should have been more shocked. Maybe it was because the woman wasn't as monstrous as the spider-tank that she had fought before. Maybe it was because she was more willing to accept such a transformation after experiencing one herself. Or maybe it was because despite how inhuman she was, Arma was still, somehow, beautiful.<br />
“Is this not proof enough?” Arma asked. She stepped closer to Tilda. Tilda was paralyzed, not knowing how to react. A claw came up to her face before running down it, softly. The scaled skin was dry and sleek.<br />
“I think I'm willing to take you word on it,” Tilda said, weakly. Arma laughed again, and that mist surrounded her. As the humming and soft, slightly flickering light died away, she was back to that casual, human, form.<br />
“Good.” Arma walked back to the table and sat down in her seat. “Now, if we can continue with the answers you wanted? I trust you're ready to listen now.”<br />
“Yeah,” Tilda agreed. Cautiously, she sat down. She was definitely awake now. “Okay, so... what, you were here before, secretly in charge of things, and then there was a war or something and you all got kicked out and now you're coming back.”<br />
“Extremely simple and missing many important parts, but essentially correct.” Arma nibbled on her bacon. “We weren't just kicked out. The same person that caused the nuclear war killed the secret masters, the Anunnaki that were in charge of dealing with your race.”<br />
“You mean...”<br />
“Yes, a single man was behind the nuclear war and the Fimbulvetr. The entire Collapse. He set your race back decades, killed millions, and has set many members of my people on a quest for revenge against your entire species.”<br />
“One man?” Tilda muttered.<br />
“He died some time ago, and it isn't important who he was. As you've noticed, his name and deeds are already lost to your history. Only my people remember him.”<br />
“So what are they going to accomplish with those... Verbesserte?”<br />
“They plan on taking over the world again,” Arma said. “But before they can do that, they're going to eliminate the last few things that can threaten them.”<br />
<br />
Claire cried into her pillow. She was alone, again. And this time, it had ended even more quickly than she had wanted. She had started dating a nice guy from a bar after he bought her a few drinks. Things had gone from there and she hadn't even gotten a new outfit before he had stopped returning her calls.<br />
She wasn't sure how she was going to make rent this month. She'd have to work fast, or she'd end up spending another month or two sleeping on couches. It wasn't fair. If this kept up, she would have to get a real job just to make ends meet. It wasn't proper for a woman, especially someone as delicate as Claire was, to have to actually work!<br />
There was a knock on the door. Clare looked up. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad after all. If that guy had actually decided to do the smart thing, the kind thing, and come back to her then her troubles were over! She wiped the tears from her eyes and skipped over to the door, adjusting her top to be just a little more revealing before she opened the door.<br />
“Good morning, Claire,” the man at the door said. He was a tall man, handsome, and wearing a black tuxedo. “I know you've been looking for someone who can give you what you really want.”<br />
“What I...” Claire blinked. “Who are you?” She wasn't used to strange men turning up at her door. Not usually, anyway, unless he was someone she had met while very, very drunk, which was entirely a possibility.<br />
“I'm here for you, Claire.” He smiled. “You don't have to live like this. Are you ready for a good life? A better life?” The man stepped inside. Claire just got out of his way, watching him. He didn't seem like a thief. She wasn't sure what he did seem like. There was something strange about him.<br />
“A better life?” Claire asked. She felt strange, an odd feeling starting in her gut and going all along her spine. She believed him. Or at least she wanted to. <br />
“That's right,” The man smiled at Claire. “I can give you money, power, respect, anything you want. All you need to do is one little thing.”<br />
“What?” Claire asked, slightly afraid. The man stared her in the eyes. He blinked, sideways.<br />
“You have to say 'I do.'”<br />
<br />
Charles knocked on the door to his professor's lab. The classes at the university had been canceled for the day, and so the halls were empty except for a few grad students and professors who had come in to work at the facilities. In this corner of the university, those students and professors were rare. Aside from Professor Gable, that is. Charles wasn't sure he ever left the Alternative Energy Department except when someone remembered to have him eat.<br />
“Professor?” Charles asked, as he pushed open the door. There was the soft sound of white noise from within. He looked around the room. Strange devices covered several work benches, some of which Charles had helped the Professor put together.<br />
He spotted the Professor hunched over a table, assembling something. The man was, like always, so absorbed in his work that he didn't hear Charles enter. The young man walked over and glanced at what he was working on. Some kind of small device the size of a thick book. After making sure he wasn't going to startle the man in the middle of something delicate, Charles tapped him on the shoulder.<br />
“Ah!” Gable exclaimed, blinking. “Mister Masterson. Is it time for class already? I apologize. I'm afraid I've gotten a bit wrapped up in this latest project of mine. It's really quite an exciting time to live in, you know. It has been too long since people really took this department seriously, and for good reason. We've gone decades without a proper discovery or development.” He looked down at what he had been working on, the case still open to reveal its internal components.<br />
“Classes were canceled today, Professor,” Charles said. “You said you wanted me to come in to help you with a special project when we spoke on the phone.”<br />
“Ah! Yes.” The professor nodded. “I'm just finishing it now. I need rather a, ah, test subject for this. It's quite safe, I assure you. It's a derivative of a device that I was lucky enough to study when I was a grad student. Of course, that device wasn't nearly as safe.” He shook his head. “Quite a dangerous thing, that. It produced a large amount of deadly orgone radiation.”<br />
“Deadly orgone radiation?” Charles asked. “But you said that hasn't been a problem since the fifties.”<br />
“It hadn't been, no,” Gable agreed. “After many of the more esoteric examples of borrowed and subversive technology went out of fashion, conditions did improve. What little orgone radiation is still produced is easily negated by sunlight and weather patterns. But that changed when I took my readings today. I hadn't seen orgone radiation levels like that since I investigated the site of nuclear tests.”<br />
“You mean that what happened last night was some kind of nuclear accident?” Charles was surprised, and horrified.<br />
“No, no,” Gable waved his hand. “Nothing quite like that. I don't think this was the work of men. It's possible that this is only the start of something greater. If so, then this is an opportunity to put theory into practice. Even if I'm wrong, then no harm is done.” He indicated what he had been working on. “I spent most of the night working on a new batch of orgonite for this. It's my finest batch yet, I think. I used microcrystals in addition to the metal shavings, and a novel arrangement of quartz crystals that should provide a large energy flow to the integrated coil.”<br />
“So what is it?” Charles asked, readying himself for a long explanation.<br />
“Ah. Well, I considered the original device I had examined. It was a beautiful device in its own way, though horribly irresponsible. Focused entirely on power and performance above efficiency. The power supply it used was the strongest they could come up with back then. I don't know who designed it, but he was a genius. Fifty years ahead of his time and limited to what he could make with the tools of the day.” Gable shook his head. “Anyway, I had been tinkering with something similar for years now, but there hadn't been much need and I had been focused on simply minimizing the radioactive exhaust rather than converting it to work on something more sustainable.”<br />
“I see,” Charles said. He smiled and let Professor Gable talked. He liked listening to the man simply expound on his theories. It was relaxing.<br />
“Yes, so what I had done was I brought the sample tank I had taken back here. It was still charged with deadly orgone radiation, you see, so I was going to have to dispose of the material safely. But you see I had accidentally placed it on the table next to a piece of orgonite. The orgonite created a fountain of clean orgone energy as it converted the deadly radiation. Do you know I had forgotten just how efficient it really was? We've seen so little deadly orgone radiation since the Collapse that I had been used to orgonite simply giving off a trickle of collected orgone from the environment.”<br />
“Really?” Charles asked. “I'd have loved to see that.”<br />
“You may still get a chance!” Gable had a twinkle in his eye. “I put down some orgonite on the street to dissipate the lingering radiation, but I doubt this is an isolated event. The next time it happens, though, we'll be ready with this.” He closed the device's case. The only part of the internal mechanism that Charles recognized was a sphere of orgonite, glittering from the metal shavings, the crystals and coil faintly visible in the resin.<br />
“What is it?” Charles asked. The casing of the device was burnished silver and bright wood. There was a bird on it. At first Charles thought it was an eagle in flight, but the silver bird's beak was smaller. After a moment, and with the help of an olive branch it carried, he recognized it as a dove.<br />
“I call it Pax.”LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975042472566251678.post-44956481053219686182011-11-07T10:17:00.000-08:002011-11-07T10:17:27.450-08:00National Novel Writing Month 7: The Revenge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7uVi1_ThtOVCRdfm9CsTB0qD9o_GBffb10dpObOxSjEx-p_PX0bYZ2SqrWWRYygnniXqWZExY-Iwrrvjkkc5xiBQZSlp2n4oANOM3uC2nlaYBTWdnD_V1DJ9SC5MNVF95nMlgMWnxlg/s1600/Greys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="279" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7uVi1_ThtOVCRdfm9CsTB0qD9o_GBffb10dpObOxSjEx-p_PX0bYZ2SqrWWRYygnniXqWZExY-Iwrrvjkkc5xiBQZSlp2n4oANOM3uC2nlaYBTWdnD_V1DJ9SC5MNVF95nMlgMWnxlg/s320/Greys.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
In this episode: Intrigue, excitement, drinking, and breakfast<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Paris<br />
Late 1954<br />
<br />
The spark of nuclear fire had started with the self-destruct of the warehouse, and consumed a dozen cities with mushroom clouds and fallout. The body counts were still unknown, and martial law had been declared in almost every country involved as the leaders met for peace talks.<br />
Or, rather, that was the official word on the matter. To those in the know, the peace talks were just a formality. No one wanted a nuclear war, after all, except perhaps a few insane generals that had nearly had the full arsenal of the world's superpowers airborne and live. No, what was really being discussed was exactly what had happened, and how to prevent it again. The aides and spies had been asked to leave the room so the four representatives meeting there could speak off the record.<br />
“After Berlin and Geneva, we come to this, eh?” Tony Garden shook his head. He was the representative for Britain. A few weeks ago he had just been a paper-pusher stuck in middle management. But with London gone, well, there was room closer to the top. <br />
“Hard to believe MacArthur wanted this,” Joeseph Sears said. “I met him once and he told me all about how a good show of force with nuclear weapons would really put the Soviets in their place. I wonder if he's smiling happily or turning in his grave.”<br />
“You Americans always thought that,” Vlad Mylenovich said. “Our nuclear program is... was just as advanced as yours. Better in some ways. All secret, of course.”<br />
“I don't think it matters now,” George muttered. “After this mistake, the public will be against nuclear programs.” The french representative took a long drink. Unlike the others, with glasses of water, he had a glass of wine. “I weep for the future of France. So many men lost in war, and now the refugees coming across the Channel. There may not be many true Frenchmen left in a few decades.”<br />
“Sounds like you made out pretty well, then,” Tony said, rolling his eyes.<br />
“How can you say such a thing when-” George grew red in the face. Tony waved a hand.<br />
“I don't mean any offense. But we have more important things to worry about.” Tony looked at Joeseph. “Joe, be honest with us. We're all on the same side. How hard were you hit?” Joe gave Vlad a long look, then looked back at Tony.<br />
“Pretty bad. We lost Washington and New York before we even knew what was going on. Los Angeles and Boston got hit before we could scramble interceptors. The President, Vice President, and most of Congress and the House died. We're going to keep the country under martial law until we can hold an election. The interim government we set up will keep things together until then.”<br />
“At least you got rid of McCarthy,” Vlad said. He took out a flask and sipped from it. “The man was insane. I cannot imagine how a person like that can be elected in your country.”<br />
“You know how it goes, Vlad,” Joe said with a sigh. “Put on a good song and dance and the public loves to watch. That's all it was, really. Just a way to keep people busy and give them something to talk about.”<br />
“Yes. You Americans were very good at that, keeping people happy with politics. We used fear and force to do the same. Only different until the end, eh?” He took another sip and then put the flask away. “We did not suffer quite so badly as you, but with Moscow gone the party is tearing itself apart to find a new leader. A few generals decided to start a small civil war.” He shook his head. “The masters were not pleased.”<br />
“I'd think not,” George snorted. “None of this was according to plan. I haven't heard much from them, since the exchange. I think they're a bit disappointed with us.”<br />
“You haven't heard anything either?” Tom said, sitting up and looking at the French representative. “I thought it was just us. We lost everyone that dealt with them.”<br />
“No,” Vlad said. “Not just you. They were distant after the bombs dropped.” He paused. “They sounded busy. I would call it afraid, if it was anyone else.”<br />
“The masters don't get afraid,” Joe agreed. “Not even when the Nazis damn near put an end to them. Guess they didn't expect Hitler to double-cross them.” He laughed. “I don't think they're going to let anyone near their technology like that ever again.”<br />
“I heard a rumor,” Vlad muttered. “That in the warehouse where this all started, they were trying to reverse-engineer some of the work Hitler's men did towards the end. Do you think the masters might have...” He searched for the word. “Planned it like this? To... get rid of what the fascists had made?”<br />
“I doubt it,” Joe said. “They could have told us to throw it all into the ocean and we would have done it. Hell, we would have tossed it into the sun if they gave us a few years to figure out how.” He looked at Vlad. “Pass me that flask. I think I need a touch myself.” Vlad passed the flask down to Joe. The American sipped, winced, and passed it back. “Strong stuff.”<br />
“Good vodka must be strong,” Vlad said. He took another sip himself before putting it away. “We cannot move forward without the masters guiding us, though. So what do we do? Sit here and drink until they tell us to jump?”<br />
“We can't wait that long,” George said. “There is too much at stake. We'll just have to make do without them for now. Politics may just be a show, but, well, the show must go on.”<br />
<br />
Lyndcenter City<br />
Late 2012<br />
<br />
Tilda groaned and sat up. Her ribs hurt. Her ears were ringing. She felt like she was coming down with something. Then she heard the sounds of cooking. Tilda's heart jumped, and she was suddenly awake. She stumbled out of bed, still wearing the clothing she had gone to work in the day before, and ran over to the kitchen.<br />
“Good morning,” Arma said. She was... well that was a more casual look than the wedding dress she had been wearing. Arma was in a white skirt and tank top. It was the first time Tilda had gotten a decent look at more than her mouth. She wasn't bad looking, but there was an odd exotic look to her that Tilda just couldn't place.<br />
More importantly, the strange woman had apparently gotten changed, stayed all night, and was now cooking breakfast.<br />
“What are you doing here?” Tilda asked, exasperated.<br />
“I told you I'd explain things to you.” Arma smiled, her green eyes twinkling. She offered Tilda a plate of eggs and bacon. “When we got back you just collapsed into bed. It was cute.” Arma laughed a little. Tilda took the plate, looking at it.<br />
“...Thanks, I guess,” she said, sitting down at the table heavily. There were already two glasses of grapefruit juice waiting there. She didn't really feel like eating. Arma put her own plate down across from Tilda and sat. This was awkward. She hadn't even ever had someone over to her place, and now the first person to come over was... Tilda wasn't even sure if Arma counted as a person. She was definitely strange, though.<br />
“I can tell you have a lot of questions,” Arma said. The strange woman cut into her fried eggs, yolk dripping as she slurped it down. “About Krieg. About the Verbesserte. Maybe even about me.” She smiled seductively.<br />
“Yeah,” Tilda muttered. “I'm just full of questions.” She poked at her food. “Look, what the hell happened last night?”<br />
“You fought and killed a Verbesserte.” Arma answered. Tilda gave her a flat look.<br />
“Yeah, thanks. How about an actual answer?” Arma scarfed down another bite. Tilda sipped the grapefruit juice to clear her throat. “I don't know what the hell that's supposed to mean. You told me it meant he was someone given 'power' by someone called the 'secret masters', but that doesn't tell me shit, and you know it.”<br />
“If you knew anything about world history it would be more than enough explanation. It's hardly my fault that you don't understand anything about what was really going on before the Fimbulvetr.”<br />
“The... what?”<br />
“I think you know it better as the Collapse. When the secret masters were assassinated following a nuclear exchange. It's taken almost six decades to even begin to recover from the attack.”<br />
“Yeah, I know about the Collapse. Everyone does. There was a little war and then the economy crashed and a couple political revolutions went on around the world. It was a long time ago.”<br />
“I suppose that's all you'd know,” Arma agreed, nodding. She finished off her eggs. “There was more to it than that. There was a small nuclear exchange, that's true, but that wouldn't have stopped the secret masters. After all, getting rid of a few capitols was just a minor setback. Politics were just supposed to keep humans busy, and it would have been easy enough to replace the players.”<br />
“What are you talking about?” Tilda grabbed a piece of bacon and bit it in half.<br />
“There have always been others pulling the strings, Tilda,” Arma shook her head. “Humans may have enjoyed pretending to be in charge, but they never were.”<br />
“Let me guess.” Tilda rolled her eyes. “It's the devil. He was secretly in charge of things the whole time.” Arma laughed.<br />
“Don't be silly. The devil isn't real!” Arma laughed more. “No, no. It was aliens. We've been here since your earliest civilizations. You've made excellent servants and, more importantly, we've been helping you advance yourselves.”<br />
Tilda just stared at Arma. The strange woman had gone straight from an odd but possibly credible source of information all the way to crazytown. Or she was mocking her. But the way Arma said it made it sound like she really believed it.<br />
“If you don't have real answers, you can just leave,” Tilda said.<br />
“Just because you don't know the truth doesn't make it less true. We've been the ones writing your history. You weren't even around a hundred years ago. Can you prove, with evidence, that anything you've been told about from back then actually happened?”<br />
“Well, that's...” Tilda sighed. “That's just being paranoid.”<br />
“It's a fact. Anyway, that all changed a few decades ago. After the Fimbulvetr, we've been locked out and you humans have been in charge of yourselves.” Arma shook her head. “And you made a mess of things. You're decades behind our plans. Your corporations and governments collapsed without our intervention and guidance. You barely even have electricity!”<br />
“We?” Tilda raised an eyebrow. She had only noticed it this time, but... Arma had said we before, about the aliens.<br />
“You're one of a privileged few,” Arma said, sitting back. “Usually only the very top members of society are allowed to meet the Anunnaki.”<br />
“The...” Tilda stopped herself from asking the question and shook her head. “So you're an alien. Fine. Whatever.”<br />
“You don't believe me,” Arma said, with an understanding nod. “I think you just need a little proof.”LawfulNicehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06114939856832579393noreply@blogger.com1