Forumstuck 1: Skaian Holiday (DEFUNCT)

Years in the future (but not many)....

A Martial Marauder finds shelter against the burning sun and blistering desert wind.

An oasis of respite was a welcome blessing for the weary soldier lost in the featureless waste. Not the calm still spring and shading trees he had expected, but a dark bunker descending into the cool depths of the earth. Perhaps here he could regain supplies as well as food. Yes, this was satisfactory.

He descended into the dark column, swiftly climbing down the metallic steps with the ease of long practice - a task once performed so often as to become mindless, a skill that had not atrophied in the time since his last encounter with such. A long time it had been since he had seen the trappings of civilization. A long time indeed.

For a few minutes, or perhaps longer - time had become an alien concept to him, without the ever-present abuse of the sun or the cutting edge of the wind - he simply stood in the bottom of the cylinder, basking in the cool stillness of silent metal. No, not silent... the soft whir and occasional chirp and ring of technology echoed from somewhere nearby, muffled by distance or obstruction. Curious, he opened his eyes to study the area about him.

A door... no many doors, arranged about him in a circle. Three in all, it appeared. Two seemed to be locked. The third.... He reached forth a rag-wrapped hand and pressed his palm to the symbol on the door, which seemed to resemble a house or residential building. There was a whoosh of compressed air, and the door slid up into some ready slot above, opening the way and buffeting him with a blast of blessedly frigid air.

The room was a vast chamber with unadorned walls save two exceptions. To his left was a grand door, closing in some sort of closet or storage shelter. Supplies would be stored in there, he was sure of it. To his right, the wall was dominated by six glass boxes and a complex-looking computer to which they were connected. One screen - in the top-right - was lit; it displayed a figure of a species with which the Marauder was unfamiliar, with a form as pale as his own carapace but bearing some sort of black fur or feather upon the top of its head, draping in an elaborate crest in front of its face. The others were dark.

He should have gone straight for the supplies and taken an immediate inventory of his available options and resupply measures. It would have been the appropriate thing to do, protocol demanded it. A soldier should never be as low on rations as he had allowed himself to become in his lonely, agonizing trek across the sands. But the strange figure on the screen caught his attention with a sudden bit of movement.

He was under attack!!

Whatever and whoever these black, hat-wearing assailants were, there was no doubting the malicious intent in their sneering expressions. They had long since breached this young creature's perimeter, and were closing in on his location at rapid speed.

The Marauder quickly scanned about and noted the keyboard at the computer's base. Perhaps he could communicate with the boy through this interface! It was worth at least a cursory attempt. He would live long enough without his own supplies, safe in this bunker, to give this greenhorn the tactical command he needed to turn this rout into an unbeatable defense.

===> Boy! Attention, boy! You are under attack! Enemies have breached the premises! Arm yourself and prepare to defend the base!!

Years in the past...that is to say, the present day...

This is the most boring Christmas ever.

Eris picked up her camera from the bedside table and clicked through the saved pictures. This was a fairly lackluster round. She hadn't seen too much in the way of interesting people to snap this time and had looked at some of the buildings instead. Those - the scenery shots - had turned out pretty nice, especially with the layer of snow. As she flipped through, it occurred to her that taking so many pictures of buildings could be seen as highly suspicious, especially with her fireworks hobby. She frowned a little and set the camera down. She looked back at the laptop. Oh good, Matt was finally on. Time to get this rolling.

Spoiler:

The sburb window flickered, and Matt's room sprang into her field of vision. Interesting. So that's what he looked like. Pretty much what she'd pictured. She looked around a bit. The place was covered in holiday decorations. She'd thought he was exaggerating. If anything, he was leaving things out.

Spoiler:

She looked at the controls and at Matt's nervous expression. She couldn't resist.

Spoiler:

She moved the cursor and picked up a small Santa statuette from the floor. It was a stupid looking thing, more like a leprechaun. She slid her finger across the touchpad, which promptly slipped off. The Santa went flying. Eris cringed.

Spoiler:

Well, that was something to keep in mind. She looked around for something else to test. Aha! She clicked on a small plushie Santa.

Spoiler:

That hadn't been good. Eris sighed. Stupid game was trickier than she thought. She wondered if furniture was fair game. She clicked on the bed. Neat. She waved the cursor around a little, trying to decide where to put-

"SQUAWK"

Eris sat straight up, finger skidding off the touchpad. The bed went straight through the wall.

Spoiler:

She hovered over the controls and looked through the items. They were all pretty big and unwieldy. The build tool looked promising, thought.

Spoiler:

It was his silly bedsheets that gave her the idea. If asked, Eris would stick to that, and it was mostly true. The rest...well, who didn't love a game of Tetris? She grinned broadly as she stacked the furniture.

Spoiler:

Eris very briefly considered obeying. The thought passed as soon as she saw his reaction. Her eyes flicked to her keyboard, and she pressed a button. PRNT SCRN. She repeated this a few times and saved the images in a special folder. She smiled. This was better than cable.

Spoiler:

Building. This would, if nothing else, be a good chance to prove that she could do more than just destroy things, fun though that undeniably was. Now was the chance to get creative. She panned the camera up and added another floor high above the building supported by chimneys. It was a little off-balance and sloped, but it looked good to her. Surrounding the house and leading up to the new floor, she added a series of staircases, none of them connecting. She smiled. It looked good. She scanned the interior of the house for placements and deployed the machines. He was gonna have to do some walking, but it was the best she could do. Better check on him. But first... She went online and pulled up a walkthrough. This would make life much easier.

Spoiler:

Eris clicked on the closest object. Matt was pretty quick to respond.

Spoiler:

She shook her head. Dumbass. The instant he was out in the hallway, she picked up the couch and rammed it into the cruxtruder. The hatch flew open. Matt raced back into the room.

Spoiler:

She picked up one of the myriad Santas. She would never admit this, but it was a little creepy. Though it might've been more the fact that Santas appeared to be Borg in the Engard household. She shrugged and flung it into the sprite. There was a flash of light.

Spoiler:

Eris rolled her eyes. Horus squawked again, once again causing her to jerk the cursor outside. At least this time it was just the camera. She looked at the sky.

Spoiler:

There was another flash of light. When the camera toned it down enough for her to see again, she almost choked. It looked like a cartoon. Good grief. She wondered how the Grinch would take it - after all, it was definitely not Christmas here. Ah, there he was.

Spoiler:

Eris dutifully carried out her orders to barricade a little old lady in a now windowless cell. Merry Christmas!

Spoiler:

She looked at the house, now crawling with strange little black creatures dressed as Santa. They looked imp-like. With all of them around, there was no room to move anything. Oh well.

Spoiler:

Eris picked up the fallen tree and hurled it at the imp, barely missing Matt. It exploded into grist.

Spoiler:

Eris pinched her nose. Fastest migraine she'd ever gotten. She was beginning to see why Matt hated Christmas. As Horus squawked once again, she sighed. Maybe that silly War Games movie was right. The only way to win was not to play.

Well. At least she wasn't bored anymore.

Eris thought a moment. That had been awfully close, and it seemed awfully suspicious that the Sburb countdown matched its impact. She checked Pesterchum. Rick was on.

The computer jingled. A new message had appeared.
-- mercilessTango [MT] began pestering hyperactiveHistorian [HH] --

Spoiler:

She'd need to check that email soon. But first, the game.

-- hyperactiveHistorian [HH] began pestering antithesisLegionnaire [AL] --

Spoiler:

Eris cringed and wandered into the hallway, looking for the best spot to tell Rick to put the equipment. She balanced the laptop on her arm.

Spoiler:

She twisted the wheel. The cruxtruder jammed, as expected. Eris whacked it with the hammer of the pistol, and it opened easily, expelling a gold sprite. She turned it again and received an uncarved dowel. She flipped through her inventory and selected the Dalek figurine that normally sat on her desk.

Spoiler:

She lobbed the toy into the sprite and blinked as it flashed. When she could see again, it had gone. Figured.

Spoiler:

She mimicked Matt's earlier actions and set the lathe to carving. She inspected the dowel with an odd expression.

Spoiler:

Eris darted to the alchemiter and set the dowel in its position. Moments later, a small golden box sat on the pad. She picked it up and threw it, hoping the impact would shatter it. Nothing. Eris sighed and retrieved it, now noticing the grooves carved into it. She poked it, and it jumbled itself into a mass of tiny connected cubes.

Spoiler:

She ran back to her room and stopped dead in the hallway. The door had vanished. Having a pretty good idea what had happened, Eris counted five and checked the chatlog.

Spoiler:

She sat cross-legged on the floor and focused on the puzzle. She turned a few of the blocks and thought she had one side figured out.

Beep

Goddammit.

Spoiler:

Back to the puzzle. Turn this one, and that should...

Beep

She was going to kill him.

Spoiler:

Now he had her attention. She twitched.

Spoiler:

There. Eris turned back to the puzzle. She struggled a minute longer before clicking the final block into place. The cube began to glow, and everything went white. She braced for impact. When it didn't come, she sighed in relief. And now she could state with certainty that Rick's attitude was going to be the death of her.

===> Boy! Attention, boy! You are under attack! Enemies have breached the premises! Arm yourself and prepare to defend the base!!

Great, now Matt was hearing things. Normally he'd be freaked out by this, but considering how his day had been going so far, it was just another streak of miserable luck. He didn't like the way the voice was speaking to him though. Why did it sound like a drill sergeant?

~This one's name is not "boy"

===> State your name and rank.

~This one is named Matt. Ranking: Awesome

===> Very well then Awesome Matt. At attention! Your location is under assault!

~This one is aware of that, this one just fails to care

Matt would really like to avoid fighting these imps if possible. They weren't much of a threat anyways. They were just annoying.

===> You'd better care Greenhorn, those intruders are moving in on your position and you are the last line of defense for this post!

~This one is not capable of fighting back

===> What

~This one lacks the necessary skill for combat

===> Okay Greenhorn. Your ranking is demoted to Private until you assure me of the worth of your prior rank.

===> Now arm yourself!

===> I'll make a soldier out of you.

~This one would prefer not to

===> This one would prefer to be on the battlefield kicking arse and spitting in danger's face but we don't always get what we want now do we princess???

~This one does not appreciate the tone you are using

===> This one does not appreciate the pansy posture and obscuring head crest you are using PRIVATE

===> On your six soldier! Bogey coming in fast!

Matt saw the imp lunge for him. He rolled out of the way just in time. The imp crashed into a stack of gifts and became buried beneath the pile of festive boxes.

===> Yes! Excellent evasion, Private!

===> Now back on your feet and arm yourself. Gut this black bastard while you're on his blindside!

Matt had quite enough of this and returned to his room where that Alchemix thing was.

~This one has much more important things to be doing than fighting

===> You're going to be surrounded Private. See you try to do any of these more important things when you're up to your armpits in these gremlins.

The sarge had a point. It wouldn't be long before the imps cornered him and defeated him with their numbers. Then he remembered he still had Eris and the sprite to rely on. They could handle the imps better than he could.

~This one would rather let the others do the fighting for him

===> There are no others Private! You are the last!

===> And you will STAND and DELIVER!

~This one is getting tired of listening to your orders

===> This one is getting tired of listening to your whining!

===> Incoming!!

Before Matt could retort, he was struck in the back by an imp. These accursed creatures had managed to breach his room. They would pay for this.

===> Pay attention Private! And get that bloody tassel out of your face!

This voice did not help matters. And why was it always the hair? Seriously, there was nothing wrong with his hair.

~This one would like to remind you that his hair is stylish and he does not appreciate your mockery

===> Style is pointless on the battlefield Private.

~This one would beg to differ

===> On your blindside!

===> Dammit Private, pay attention!

Relying on the voice's instructions, Matt sensed the imp try for another attack at his side. He ducked below the strike and swept his leg at the creature, knocking it over.

===> Excellent!

===> He's down, finish him off!

Though he wasn't fond of violence, it would be best to remove these things from his house. He pulled out his razor and slashed it across the creature's neck, separating its head from its body. The imp exploded into more of those crystalline objects.

===> At ease Private! Collect the spoils of war.

~If this one must

As Matt scooped up the grist, it vanished upon him touching and inexplicably was added to his collection. Matt had to remind himself once again that he was in a game and that was how these things usually worked.

===> You've now had experience with combat. The rest of these grunts look to be the same rank and file as that one. Should be equally simple to handle.

~This one supposes that there is no alternative

Matt twirled his razor in his hand. Eris, trolls, imps, and strange voices in his head...Everything was out to just drive him crazy. Well he wasn't going to take it anymore. It was time for him to stand up for himself. He needed to show everyone he wasn't some whiny goth kid that could be pushed around. He was the leader! These imps were nothing compared to him!

Before he could charge out of his room and teach those imps a lesson, one of them managed to sneak up beside him and hit him in the face. He started to think the others might be right about his hair. The room spun around him for a bit before everything suddenly went black.

===> Keep your eyes open Private! The enemy doesn't stop for tea and crumpets!

===> Go for the soft underbelly Private! Or for the throat, the joints, the eye!

Though it was distant, Matt could still hear the voice. He wanted to say something back, but he felt so tired.

===> Goddammit soldier!

Matt slowly opened his eyes. He sat up and looked around. His room was gone, as was the diabetic land of horrors. Instead, he was surrounded by glorious buildings constructed of gold. He couldn't believe it. He pushed his hair back out of his face so he could see better. He felt the sides of his mouth stretch up to corners of his face. It had been a while since he had been back here. He sprang to his feet and began walking down he street, staring at the marvelous architecture. Overcome with excitement, he broke into a run. He could feel all his misery being swept away, nothing mattered to him anymore. Christmas, Sburb, goddamn imps, those things didn't exist here. He jumped into the air and soared upwards, flying over the buildings. He spun around in the air and let out a triumphant cheer. He was finally back in the one place where he truly felt happy.

The Marauder pounded relentlessly on the keyboard, inputting command after command. But it was no use, the boy was unconscious. The invaders began scampering over the area, apparently more interested in raiding his headquarters than finishing off a fallen opponent.

There was nothing further he could do for now. With the Private unconscious he could not provide further commands; no one else on the screen seemed present save the attacking creatures. He grumbled and hung his head. For a few moments, he had felt alive again - even if not the one doing the actual fighting, he had been able to give commands and instructions; to have an influence on something again, something more than sand and wind! But there was nothing more to be done now. Not until the boy woke... IF he woke.

The Marauder turned his attention to the bunker closet behind him. Since he could do no more with the machine, he might as well resupply. Hopefully the boy would survive. It would be sheer luck if he did.

Yay, line piece! Aaaaaaand TETRIS!

The four full rows collapsed from view and the last remaining object in her sylladex - her Sburb disks, which she'd entered and retrieved countless times now - dropped calmly into Shea's lap as the Tetris Modus flashed "Game Over - You Win!" before her eyes. She was truly just killing time at this point while waiting for her turn to come up in Sburb, well that and avoiding her Aunt as much as possible by remaining holed up in her room for the remainder of the evening.

Pesterchum beeped. Hopefully that was Joan, letting her know that she was done as Rick's server and ready for her own clientside turn; however, quick examination quickly proved that wrong as the text was in purple rather than Joan's cheery orange. She didn't know anyone who used purple text....

-- taciturnMercenary [TM] began pestering amazonaReveille [AR] --

Spoiler:

What a curious person. If she didn't know better she might have thought they were being serious! They sounded awfully earnest, that much was sure. All the better to get into character, she supposed. And Glenys was a pretty name. Still. Aliens from a conquesting world (Alternia needed work, not the most original name for an "alternate world") trapped in some fated dimension because of the still-in-beta Sburb? Troll indeed! Still, she saved taciturnMercenary to her Chumroll - this Glenys person, even RPing as an alien troll, was too amusing and too friendly to block.

She'd had enough of Tetris for now. Shea dug around in her desk before pulling out the remote to the small TV, TiVo box, and satellite receiver she kept on the bedside table. Squiddles was her guilty pleasure - she would tell almost no one, but she loved the saccharine-sweet kids' show. Joan was really the only person she talked about it with much. It was about time that the Christmas Special would be coming on, and she wouldn't miss it, especially while the others were dawdling about getting to her turn in the game.

First things first. Eris looked around. No imps. Good sign, though she was a tad suspicious. Matt's house had been crawling with them. She flipped through her modus and retrieved her pistol, taking four tries to locate it. It wasn't going to be as effective as the bombs, but she hadn't thought to captchalogue her lighter, seeing as no reasonable person would plan for the doorway to her bedroom to vanish. She set the pistol on the ground next to her and turned her attention to the computer.

Pesterchum was buzzing. Rick was attempting to break out of her trollslum, but he could just wait. For one thing, she was still mildly irritated at the whole impeding of her efforts to not die horribly, and for another, she was willing to bet Matt had gotten chased up a tree or something equally stupid. She checked the Sburb window.

Once again, Mister Hand made Madame Forehead's acquaintance. The two were becoming great friends. Eris had no idea how, but the idiot had passed out. Imps were swarming his unconscious body.

Eris let out a long string of phrases picked up from the time she'd watched Full Metal Jacket and instinctively looked around to make sure Sis hadn't heard. She sighed and shook her head. She was tempted to start keeping a tally: Times Eris has pulled Matt's ass out of the fire. She set to work hurling his furntiure around like a game of Pong.

Beep

Oh now what. A new window had popped up.

-- spectralPsiren [SP] began trolling hyperactiveHistorian [HH] --

This was a new handle. But the timing could definitely have been better. Eris looked at Matt's room again. She figured she could spare a minute or two to see what they wanted.

Spoiler:

Another weird typist. What was with Pesterchum today? Anyway. She looked back over to Sburb. Where were all of these things coming from? A quick survey of the room showed its status to be best described as fubar. Matt was going to flip his shit. Assuming the imps didn't manage to overrun him.

A sound jolted her to attention. Eris grabbed her pistol and looked over to see an imp approaching, this one different from Matt's. Or was it? She looked again, and it appeared those had changed as well, though she hadn't noticed before. They still had the Santa hats, but they now wore bumpy armor as well, rather like a Dalek...

"Oh balls," muttered Eris, catching on. She hated the game already.

The imp drew closer, only to fall as a bullet took it through the face. It exploded into grist. Eris smiled. The new specibus was working out well. Good thing, too. It was impractical to think she'd have enough bombs to take all the imps, even assuming it wouldn't destroy the house in the process. The pistol was much cleaner for one on one encounters. Though the Dalek part would be a problem, especially considering Matt was in no condition to fight back.

She hovered the cursor over him, trying to think of a plan. She couldn't move him, that would be too easy for Sburb to allow. Unable to think of anything else, she opened the build tool and added walls around him, creating a small room a little bigger than a closet. Now no imps could get to him.

Eris paused a moment. She couldn't remember if Matt had ever mentioned having claustrophobia. Oh well. She'd take down the walls later, once he'd decided to finish napping.

She cracked her knuckles. She had a video game to live. Best get to it.

Eris shot another imp and watched it explode into a number of little shapes, none the same shade of light purple-blue as the creature. She frowned, adding this to what she expected to be a growing list of things off about the game and basic science.

Oh right, she had a conversation going.

Spoiler:

Long. Heh. This wasn't her first RPG, and for this one, she didn't need to find a special item to allow sprinting.

Spoiler:

Eris sighed in relief. Best news she'd heard today.

Spoiler:

That made sense. Santasprite had been pretty jolly. Now, she'd thrown in a Dalek figurine. So that meant... Eris felt any trace of a grin slipping rapidly from her face and melting into horror.

Spoiler:

Eris sighed and looked around. This was not going to end well. "Hey, Daleksprite!" A golden glow filled the air as her sprite flew in. She sighed.

Spoiler:

Welp.

Spoiler:

Eris pinched the bridge of her nose. The Hyphenator didn't seem to get the point. She tried again.

Spoiler:

Here we go again...

Spoiler:

She couldn't help but smile, watching the thing speed away, gun arm blazing. Good riddance.

Spoiler:

Eris got to her feet and stretched. She balanced the computer in one arm and held the pistol ready in the other. Moving cautiously, she made her way to the living room window, finding the room predictably trashed but surprisingly free of imps. Apparently Daleksprite had scared them off.

This was not what she had expected to see. After Matt's Pastel Hell, it was a welcome step up, but it was still rather jarring. Instead of the sleepy suburban neighborhood she'd lived in all her life, what she now saw was best described as a cutout of a magazine run through a colored filter several times. Everything was tinged with purple - the sky and land alike. On the ground was a hedge maze - she assumed it was a maze, though she couldn't see through it. It was easily the height of a two-story building, and she could scarcely see the sky from her position on the ground floor. Odd glints of light occasionally grabbed her eye, and it was a long moment before she realized what she was seeing. Mirrors. Mirrors everywhere, literally growing. Trees shot from the ground, flowers bloomed in the hedge, both entirely made of glass. The hedge wall was just far enough back that she could make out a very few tall buildings in the distance, one making an impression against the dark skyline that reminded her of St. Basil's, at least the picture of it Sis had hung in the den.

Spoiler:

Of course there would be tougher enemies. The game would be boring and over quickly if all she had to deal with were imps. Eris looked at her gun.

Spoiler:

Just a tick.

Spoiler:

She set the computer down and went to the kitchen, where she rooted through the drawers. Found it. Back to the laptop.

Spoiler:

Well, there was an imp she'd missed. Eris selected a firework from her inventory, lit the fuse, and hurled it at the poor bastard, who went up in green sparks.

Spoiler:

Luckily, it was a short run.

Spoiler:

Eris frowned. This was a little suspicious. If she was in the game but not playing with them, exposition central made the most sense. But...

Spoiler:

Eris' eyebrows shot up so fast they almost merged with her hairline. She shook her head. There was probably a perfectly rational explanation here.

Spoiler:

That was not perfectly rational. At all. She felt her eye twitch but shrugged it off. No big deal. She was used to nonsense games.

Spoiler:

Eris flipped through her modus. No. No. No. Hell no. Maybe. No. No. No. Hm.

Spoiler:

Eris' lips spread in a manic grin. She ran to the window, pulled the pin, and threw the grenade into the air.

The next several minutes were a roar of repeated explosions and a field of pure white.

Eris felt her way back to the laptop.

Spoiler:

As the world came back into focus, Eris felt herself fixating on this line. It made no sense. Had to be a joke.

Spoiler:

Eris had the feeling she really wasn't going to like where this was going.

Spoiler:

Oh dear God. Eris' jaw dropped in ill-concealed shock. The Sburb beta was a preprogrammed murder machine? This was a joke. It had to be. She took a breath and resumed typing.

Spoiler:

Her head was swimming. No way. No way this was anything more than a stupid game. On shaky legs, she stood and made her way back to her room.

Right. Door.

She looked at the computer again. Rick's window was still buzzing. Eris sighed. It was pretty much a hundred percent that there was absolutely nothing he could say was worse than the news she'd just heard.

-- hyperactiveHistorian [HH] unblocked antithesisLegionnaire [AL] --

Matt sat atop the towers that overlooked the golden city, his eyes focused on the clouds above him. Everything was so calm and serene here, just as he remembered it. As Matt stared into the clouds, he began to see images. He remembered this, it was a frequent occurence when he looked into the clouds here. He saw what he presumed were his friends, playing through the game. He could see himself wandering through the land, a frog at his side. He was talking into what appeared to be some kind of communicator on his wrist. His expression was not a pleasant one. Then again, it usually wasn't. Then he saw something else. Something that horrified him. It was an image of Eris lying on a stone slab of some kind. She was covered in blood and her head had been torn off. And she wasn't the only one. He saw the others as well. Joan, Shea, Evan, even himself...They were dead. He clasped a hand over his mouth as he felt bile rise into his throat. He couldn't believe his eyes. He didn't want to. The skies were playing tricks on him. That had to be the case. Matt didn't want to look at the sky anymore. He didn't even want to be here. This place had become just as upsetting as everything back home. He just wanted to get away from it all.

Matt suddenly sat up. The golden city and the clouds had gone, but where he was now he had no idea. He got up and looked around. He was in a small enclosed room, about the size of a closet, but there was no door. He pinched himself to make sure he was awake. Indeed he was, and further proof was that he could hear the imps scampering around outside the walls. He was back home, but how on earth he had become trapped inside this tomb was-

A name suddenly popped into his head. His earlier feelings of fear and misery faded to anger and resentment. He concluded that this was another one of Allard's pranks and that she had taken great pleasure in trapping him while she destroyed the rest of his house. How could she do this? Did that woman have absolutely no intention of cooperating? Matt started pounding on the walls in frustration. She would pay for her insolence!

Right off the bat, she knew the conversation was going to go downhill like a beginner at the slopes. May as well make a strong start to things.

-- hyperactiveHistorian [HH] began pestering antithesisLegionnaire [AL] --

Spoiler:

Eris turned to look. Her eye twitched again.

Spoiler:

Seriously, if all he needed was to get an imp out of the way, he should have just said so. She turned around and shot the imp in question, scattering grist all over the door. She collected the grist and moved off of the door.

Spoiler:

Door now installed, Eris slammed it open and walked into her room, worried about the damage he had no doubt caused. She looked around and froze. The walls were absolutely covered in scribbles. Big pastel flowers sprouted, petals curling in all directions, from the posters and every available space. Her eye twitched.

Spoiler:

She caught herself breathing heavily and tried to force herself to calm down. There was absolutely no sense in losing it right now.

Spoiler:

Eris sat on the bed and looked again at the graffiti. One patch of wall was different - still flowers, but smaller and more organized. The same four, actually: a rose, lily, daisy, and tulip in very simple and stylized designs. They repeated, but the sequence differed. It had to mean something...

She was vaguely aware of the noise around her fading to a dull fog.

Spoiler:

Rose...Lily...Daisy...Tulip...R...L...D...T...

Spoiler:

Eris looked down. There was indeed a dead bird there. Horus was, for perhaps the first time in months, quiet.

Spoiler:

...oh yes, it could talk. Well, yell. And engaging the damn thing in what passed for conversation anytime in the next decade was not high on the list of priorities.

Spoiler:

That person...troll...them... had mentioned a second prototype to try and offset the Dalek's difficult personality. Well, Horus had been her pet for three years. He might be a little less inclined to want to kill her. Carrying the bird down the hall, Eris found Daleksprite and threw the corpse at it. A flash of light told her it had worked. She shrugged, still not in the mood to talk to the sprite. She returned to the computer. Good grief. At some point, she was going to need something more portable.

Spoiler:

Eris went to the source of the sudden noise and rolled her eyes. He'd actually gone and made a statue of himself. The boy's ego knew no bounds. She rolled her eyes.

Spoiler:

She smiled. The seeds of doubt had been planted. It shouldn't take much to crack him. Eris readied her gun and wandered the house, picking up grist from Horusprite's swath of destruction. This should help. Now she could make some new equipment. But first...probably wouldn't hurt to check up on Matt.

Sigh.

Joan stretched and rubbed at her eyes, then wiggled her fingers a bit to loosen them. Note to self: don't try and speedpaint five things in a row ever again. She made sure that there wasn't anything she was forgetting in the picture she had open. The figure was suitably rounded and potentially-jolly and also red. It also looked suitably vaguely menacing, like any self-respecting Red Demon would. Matt would love it.







Okay, maybe not. But it would still be funny.

Joan stretched again and shifted in her seat before checking Pesterchum, to see if anyone had spoken to her. Nope. Cool. She hadn't made anyone wait on her.
...Wait! Shea was on! And she hadn't said hi! D:

THIS HAD TO BE REMEDIED IMMEDIATELY.

-- mercilessTango [MT] began pestering amazonaReveille [AR] --

Spoiler:

SHEA IS THE BEST.

SO MUCH LOVE FOR THE JAYNEHAT.





Approximately one flipout later, Joan came to terms with how awesome her friends were, and remembered that she had some presents to send out. Well, two. But two cool presents for two cool friends. She attatched the images to seperate e-mails, and sent them off. Joan figured she'd wait a few minutes before telling Eris and Matt about the e-mails, since she didn't want to bother them if they were already checking their e-mails! Also because she had a Christmas special to watch!

Turning the TV and satellite box that she had in her room on, she went to the recent recordings and started the Very Special Squiddles Christmas! Or something like that. It didn't matter. It was SQUIDDLES combined with CHRISTMAS. HOW AWESOME WAS THAT??? Joan sang along to the entire theme more than slightly off-key, but she made up for it by knowing all of the words.

Immediately engrossed in the show, she only remembered about her presents to her friends when the ads broke the spell of the childlike wonder that always overtook her whenever she saw into that magical land below the waves (castles of sand? WOW). starting to fastforward through the ads, she went back to Pesterchum and went to tell Eris that she had sent her present. Once she did, she considered doing the same for Matt when a loud shout for TANGLEBUDDIES came from the TV, which was super distracting. Gosh these cephalopods(?) were adorable. Speaking of adorable, so was Berryboo, in her special Christmas outfit. Man it was adorable. Shea would love it!

Okay, so, it was a bit of a cop-out, but Joan wanted to draw Princess Berryboo in this outfit for Shea for her present.
Also Joan wanted to let Shea know that she didn't forget about her either.

-- mercilessTango [MT] began pestering amazonaReveille [AR] --

Spoiler:

---

Okay, just finish up the snowman, and.... DONE! Joan looked prodly upon her completed picture for Shea. Even when not done in official art, this girl was just so precious. Not that Joan meant to toot her own horn, but it was pretty much a universal constant or something, right? It had to be.

Not really knowing what she could do for Evan, Joan opened up one of the songs she knew he liked, deciding that she'd draw something based on one. Opening 'Santorini,' she relaxed, closed her eyes, and let her imagination roam free, as she would imagined a wide-open landscape, with progressive motion. This was definitely a song that would go well with exploration, wonder, and the majesty of--and then the bloops from Pesterchum brought her out of that trance and back down to earth.

-- hyperactiveHistorian [HH] began pestering mercilessTango [MT] --

Spoiler:

Joan started playing Santorini again, so she could finish the images as soon as possible, but couldn't get Eris's odd behaviour off her mind. She hoped that Eris would be alright in the end.

Matt continued trying to break down the walls that surrounded him, but to no avail. Giving up, he figured it was worth a try to pester Eris and see what the hell she was doing. He didn't like pestering her while he was still seething with anger, but there was no other choice.

-- facelessSchemer [FS] began pestering hyperactiveHistorian [HH] --

Spoiler:

Matt hadn't been paying much attention to what Eris was saying, he just couldn't stand this kind of behavior. Trashing his room and house was bad enough, but the fact that she would trap him in something like this was the final straw. But he couldn't just keep flipping out like this. He needed to be calm.

Spoiler:

Matt scrolled up through the conversation. He realized that Eris was totally right.

Spoiler:

Ass didn't even begin to describe it. It was logically the best thing she could have done, and he was an idiot to jump to conclusions based on how her attitude had been lately. All Eris had done for him this whole time was help him, even if she was pretty damn snarky about it. Matt was a horrible friend.

Spoiler:

Matt had forgotten about the meteor stuff. Of course, he didn't believe it really was the end of the world. Eris was probably exaggerating. This was just a game after all.

Spoiler:

Matt smacked his forehead. Same old Eris. No amount of snarky attitude would ever change that. He couldn't help but feel a little relieved by this.

Spoiler:

Matt had no clue what a dalek was, but it didn't sound like it was any better than the demon.

Spoiler:

Matt was unfamiliar with her slang. What did "six" mean? He suddenly heard something fall behind him. He turned to see a santa lying amongst some grist.

Spoiler:

This new lingo confused him. He guessed this was what most teenagers used when they were playing sports or going to dances or something. He couldn't fathom a use for it outside of a battle. He spotted another imp trashing his stuff. As he was about to attack it, he noticed that it looked different than the others. It now had some weird camera eye and was covered in bumps.

Spoiler:

The imp struck him in the side as he was speaking with Eris. He retaliated by swinging his razor at it. It took him a few tries to actually kill the damn thing, the weird bumpy armor made it a little more resilient. The constant attempts it made to claw his face off certainly didn't help.

Spoiler:

Matt was not about to run down into a giant nest of those crazy space santa imps. Granted, they had probably torn apart most of the decorations in the house and that would be awesome to see, but it wasn't worth his safety.

Spoiler:

He saw no reason not to trust her. He was still alive after all. He walked down the hall to the staircase and peered down. Sure enough, the imps had destroyed damn near everything in his house. He was so glad his dear sweet Gram Gram could not see this. He saw Eris lift up the couch and hurl it into a pack of imps. Taking that as his cue, he scrambled down the stairs and past the imps. Furniture rained down around him as he gathered up all the grist he could find. Any imps that survived Eris' assault were quickly cut down by his razor. Once the dust settled, the imps had been vanquished and the grist was collected.

Spoiler:

As Matt was about to open the file, he saw one lone imp standing among the wreckage. This one was actually armed with something. Matt was impressed that these creatures could actually use weapons. This one was obviously smarter than his comrades. The imp brandished its weapon at him, obviously trying to intimidate him. Matt felt his heart sink when he realized exactly what it was that the imp was holding.

Spoiler:

Matt had taken down enough imps, but this one had a psychological advantage.

>ADVANCE

Showing no fear, Matt charged at the imp. It held out the urn in defense, stopping Matt in his tracks. The imp took this chance to strike him with urn. Matt toppled backwards, but it was going to take more than that to keep him down.

>AGGRESS

Jumping back into the fray, Matt decked the creature right in its grisly beard. His blow was too weak to do any critical damage unfortunately, and it allowed the imp to counter with another strike from the urn. Matt was counting on that though, as he ducked beneath the strike. He pulled his leg back, then swung it upward at the imp's chin. It connected, sending the imp into the air. Without missing a beat, Matt jumped into the air after it and with one strike, sliced through it with his razor. The imp exploded into a bunch of grist just as Matt landed. Feeling pretty cocky, Matt flipped his hair and crossed his arms in a pose that said, "Yeah, that was nothing." He must have looked so cool right now. He went back to pestering Eris to see if she was at all impressed.

Spoiler:

Matt turned around to see the shattered urn and its contents scattered amongst the grist.

Spoiler:

He knelt down by the ashes, trying to scoop them back into the broken urn, but it the pieces wouldn't hold together and the ash kept spilling out.

Spoiler:

Matt whistled for the Santasprite. It appeared before him, still chuckling with that maddening laugh.

Spoiler:

Matt scooped up the ashes and tossed them into sprite. There was a bright flash of light as the sprite's belly bulged out even further and its beard grew to cover most of its face and chest. A small pair spectacles materialized and perched on the bridge of its nose, covering its beady eyes. All that remained of the sprites original form was a simple santa hat sitting atop his grandfather's bald head.

Grandpasprite: HO HO HELLO MATT!
Matt: Grandpa...?
Grandpasprite: HAVE YOU BEEN A GOOD BOY WHILE I WAS AWAY?
Matt: It's you...You're back.
Grandpasprite: HO HO HO! INDEED I AM! NOW HOW ABOUT A HUG FOR YOUR OLD GRANDPA?

Matt's eyes welled up with tears as he jumped into his grandpa's arms. He couldn't believe it. It was like some kind of holiday miracle.

Spoiler:

Eris minimzed the Sburb window. It didn't feel right hanging around at the moment. Besides, now that he had a sprite that didn't terrify him, Matt should be fine for a while. Onto other business. She raided her room for a few things, cringing each time the flowers caught her eye. It had to have been Rick. She'd never seen them, and the idea that she'd put them there? Ridiculous. Eris shook her head. Not important.

Aha. There it was. The VISOR she'd gotten for her last birthday, a toy replica of the one from Star Trek: TNG meant to be used as sunglasses. She put them on. Good. This should help. She captchalogued the rest of her fireworks and went to the alchemiter. She tried several combinations of fireworks, all of which seemed functional. It was actually pretty relaxing. It wasn't as brainpower heavy as making them from scratch, but it did keep her occupied. None of them, however, were combined with the tribble. That seemed like something best saved as a last resort.

She eyed her computer across the room. She was, quite frankly, starting to get tired of carrying it around. There had to be a more portable method...

Maybe...

She returned the computer to her sylladex and got the code, combining it with her visor. She picked up the result and tried it on. A smile spread across her face. She hadn't expected it to work. But it had, and this was pretty cool. Now she had to test it out...

Oh, hello. Shea was online.

-- hyperactiveHistorian [HH] began pestering amazonaReveille [AR] --

Spoiler:

Eris pulled out the first combination and lit the fuse, a manic grin spreading across her face.

All right. Let's see if this works.

She threw the firework about fifteen feet, what she considered a safe distance. What happened next was surprising. The firework went off in a flash of gold sparks. Eris felt her head strike something solid, and the next thing she knew, everything had gone purple.

Shea stared dumbly at the television. Squiddles had long since been changed to a local news station, thankfully captioned in English for those on-base who didn't (yet) speak the local language by the tech crew. She was without words, there was simply nothing she could say or do to truly comprehend what she was seeing.

It was a picture apparently sent down by the Hubble Space Telescope earlier that day. It showed a wild blaze of falling lights streaking past it in all directions. A few of these lights stopped within the frame of the picture, and were clearly visible as small blazing meteors burning up in Earth's atmosphere. Not small enough that they would be vaporized before making impact, though; these stones would each make landfall and cause untold amounts of damage. Several other photos were shown, all of basically the same thing, just at different angles and with different patterns to the streaks.

They were the last pictures the Hubble would ever send - according to the meteorologist, the satellite had been struck and destroyed by one of the incoming space rocks.

It made no sense. This time this morning, the sky had been clear and the most exciting thing on the news had been some minor volcanic eruption in Alaska. Now apparently the entire Stateside half of the globe was due for a meteoric pummeling, and if what the weatherman was saying was...

"This just in! Apparently the meteors are spreading. We don't know where they're coming from, but they're everywhere now. Impact estimates suggest that Eurasia and Africa will be experiencing similar meteoric events...."

OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod...

Shea snatched up a pillow from her bed and crushed it to her chest, knocking a plush Squiddle hidden beneath it to the floor in the process. It took a few moments for her panicked mind to settle and her breathing to get back under control. Just a meteor shower, nothing to be afraid of, a game can't do this, it's just a game, it's just a game, it's just a game! Still, Eris had seemed shaken, and someone was actually trying to claim that this was going to be the end of the world....

She shoved the idea away with a grimace. That was ludicrous! These trolls had officially ceased being funny, no matter how much Joan liked the shouty one who used green text. Shea was half tempted even to block the one who called herself Glenys, if simply out of spite and frustration. She muted the TV; she didn't need to hear any more about that right now. Her attention turned back to the computer, and she plopped back into her seat and snatched up the Sburb server disk from its place on the desk. She popped it into the CD drive and began the install process; that way, when it at last came around to her turn, she would be ready the instant Joan was. As the installation began, she pulled the conversation with Eris back up.

Odd. She hadn't said anything yet. Maybe she'd forgotten they were in the middle of a discussion, what with her new toy and all. Shea decided she'd send her a few notes to remind her that she was still here.

This was odd. She definitely didn't remember getting in bed. But here she was. She kicked off the covers and stood, looking around. She definitely didn't remember all this purple. Her room had definitely been painted blue. Everything seemed to be normal, aside from that - her posters were there, as were her stars and ships...

That was not normal. There were flowers drawn here, brightly colored ones in various shades of pink, red, and yellow, just like she'd seen before. Definitely weird. They were certainly pretty, though. Especially the lilies...always her favorite, though she'd never have admitted it to anyone. Weird that they'd be here, though...

She stepped toward the window and was astonished at how light on her feet she felt. Looking down revealed two things - firstly, she was flying. Secondly, she was wearing a dress, a long lavender nightgown hanging to her ankles. Eris couldn't remember the last time she'd worn a skirt that wasn't a school uniform...

She looked out the window. More purple. Purple buildings as far as the eye could see. Why was everything purple? It felt right, odd as it seemed. She jumped out and took to the skies. This deserved investigation. She failed to resist the urge to try a few stunts in the air, not that she thought anyone could blame her. Who could honestly say they'd never wanted to backflip in flight?

There were two other towers identical to the one she'd just left. Interesting. She flew over. The first had to be Rick's. She couldn't think of anyone else who'd decorate like that. There he was, asleep. She thought about messing with him, but that ran the risk of waking him up, which would ruin everything pleasant about being here. Next. Joan's. The room looked just like she thought it would. That was one creepy drawing on the wall, though...she wondered if she should mention it to her. Maybe.

Eris had noticed people below. Apparently it wasn't normal to fly here - none of them seemed able. They all seemed to wear the same outfit - a Santa suit. She suppressed a giggle. They looked so silly. But most didn't seem to mind. That one, however, she could tell even from here that he wasn't happy. That was probably the most interesting thing she'd see here. She decided to follow him. She assumed he was a him.

He was headed toward the castle, a huge six-spired building. Two of the six orbs on top were lit, each with a dark shape in the center. Seemed a little ominous...

She flew closer and skidded to a stop as he turned around. Oh. Probably a bad sign. Yes, that was a sword pointed at her. Definitely a bad sign. She held up her hands in surrender.

JN: The hell do you want?
HH: uh
JN: Better think fast, kid.

Eris complied, wracking her brain for an answer that wouldn't get her stabbed. She felt herself fading out. Her eyes closed, and she lurched forward, falling from the air.

She sat up with a start and looked around. Back in the hallway...what was left of it. The walls were charred, and all of the pictures Sis had hung now sat in broken frames, some actually managing to stay intact. She turned slowly and found a large crack in the wall. Well...that definitely explained a few things. She rubbed her head.

Right. Shea.

-- amazonaReveille [AR] began pestering hyperactiveHistorian [HH] --

Spoiler:

Ohhhhhhhh God. She could already tell this was not going to go well. Shea turned the TV off, so she could focus all her attention on Pesterchum.

Spoiler:

She released the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. For a second she thought Eris had cracked, and had no idea why or what she could do. This game was something else. Or was it the game? Might as well get everything straightened out now....

Spoiler:

Shea slumped in her seat, suddenly exhausted. This was just too weird.

She turned the TV back on, which also immediately unmuted it. The anchorman was still going on about meteors, it seemed; apparently a few larger meteors had been spotted. She quickly turned it back off. This was starting to look like something out of a sci-fi horror. Armageddon or something like that. There was nothing else she could do though. If Eris was right, the only thing they could do to stop it was play the game. Maybe if they got in quickly enough, they could turn the meteors off or something. That's all they had to do, yeah.

Sburb was done installing the server client. Shea switched the disk and began the install for the player client, figuring she might as well get that out of the way as well. She then picked up her Squiddle off the floor and hugged it close as she waited for Joan to let her know she was ready to begin.

Years in the future, but not many...

A Scatterbrained Custodian catches sight of a large object she has never seen before.

It was big and shiny, and that was more than enough to merit investigation. She leaned a moment against her pointed walking stick, examining the thing from afar. Seconds later, the sand flew in a flurry around her feet as she scrambled to a run.

Her bag slapped against her rag-clad body as she ran toward the object. Up close, she could now tell it to be a building, though it was certainly unlike anything she'd ever seen bef

What's that?! Oh, she recognized that! That image is banned, and she knew it. But worse...it was covered in dust, for shame! She wondered if there is anything she could do to clean it. But she'd need to get up there first. She hurried over and entered.

She nearly fell over in surprise as the floor moved, the elevator shooting upward. She was now at the top of the structure, and what a mess it was! Now was definitely the time to try and straighten up. Honestly, it was obvious no one lived here, no one could live in such squ...was that a bug? It was a bug. The bug needed to be caught. She leaped into action.

And tripped, skidding to a halt at the very edge of the ledge. She got to her feet only to stumble again, this time sliding off and barely catching herself on the edge of the stone.

She looked down. That wasn't good. There was moss and mold growing, too!

This bunker was well-stocked, thank whatever powers you revered. The Marauder had scoured the room for supplies and equipment and not been disappointed. The closet had contained the simple necessities - repair supplies, carrying containers, food and drink storage devices, traveling gear, even several gleaming rolls which he gladly used to replace his long-sand-clogged bindings. He could not wear armor, not in the brutal heat of the desert, but this silver adhesive seemed surprisingly tough and resilient to wear and tear, and thus would suffice. It was even the proper color for a soldier such as he. Silver wrappings in place of silver armor. It would do.

He stocked up as much as he could carry, packing crates of stuff into transport bags, strapping himself down with spare belts and hooks into his wrappings that would allow him to carry even more supplies. He would not be returning to the brutal waste unprepared! He had paused only long enough to check the screen - the boy was still unconscious, but someone had moved him into a saferoom. Excellent, he was not alone and his companions were wise, well-prepared, and had initiative. Too bad he'd been stuck with the greenhorn as the only one he was able to communicate with; if he could speak to whoever was in charge over there, things might have gone more smoothly.

He went back out into the cylinder in the middle of the bunker. The door hissed behind him and slammed down, catching momentarily on two of the massive packs hanging from his shoulders before pulling them clean off his arms and trapping them in the room behind him. Thankfully he'd only been pulled off balance for a moment and managed to wriggle his arms free before grabbing onto the ladder; in retrospect, had he simply tried to hold on the much more powerful door might well have torn his arms off, and then where would he be? The Marauder shuddered at the very thought, then turned his attention to the panel beside the door. Thankfully, it appeared the door had not locked shut behind him. Even better, one of the two doors - not the one with the circular emblem, but another with a symbol that looked like a snowflake - that had been locked before had now been opened. Had he triggered something while communicating with the console?

Clank.

The Marauder looked up. Oh bollocks, the entryway has been sealed. Well. Only one way to go now and that's forward. He pressed the snowflake emblem, which again responded with a whoosh sound as the floor rotated beneath his feet, the door receded into the ceiling, and a burst of cold air greeted him. Downright numbingly frigid, at that.

... ...

Oh glorious creators.

This was a cold storage chamber.

And it was packed with food.

How long had this bounty been hidden here, awaiting the day when someone would finally discover this buried haven and venture into its depths to claim the treasure within? Jaw hanging the Marauder stepped dumbly into the room, inching step by laborious step toward the mercifully preserved consumables beyond counting. So much food, so long stored, so well kept! This must have been the planning and creation of an exceptionally tactical mind! A preparatory genius! Someone who had seen the devastation coming and gone to every possible length to survive the fallout. Every expense, every technology, every preparation. If this was here, and the communication console and supply closet in the other room, what wondrous treasure and proof of anticipatory intelligence lay hidden behind the door with the spirograph emblem!?

He would eat and regain his strength, then he would pack as much of this well-preserved bounty as his mighty carapace could bear and retrieve his supplies from the other room, then see to removing the obstruction on the ceiling above. There was another machine in this chamber, but after giving it a quick glance-over he could tell nothing about it except that it showed no controls regarding temperature or storage and thus was likely not the control panel to this refrigeration chamber. Perhaps after he was more well-fed and rested, he would investigate. It might well be the control to the doors in this bunker - both the entrance door which had shut, and the third door which remained locked.

Frozen food in hand, the Marauder returned to the central column and selected the door panel that would return him to the first room. He was sure he had seen a heat-radiating device in the supply closet; with a little adaptation and some inventive thinking, he was sure he could use it as a portable cooking apparatus. The Marauder was quite proud of his ability to adjust and cope with his ever-changing situation. It was a necessary talent for a soldier in the field. It didn't take long to set up, either. As he searched through the supplies looking for utensils, he noted movement on the screen. The greenhorn was awake, it appeared, and had vacated his saferoom. Curiosity yet again overrode hunger and he made his way back to the console for a closer look. Not only was the boy awake and out, he was in combat. The Marauder stared dumbly, once more stricken from speech, as the weakling pathetic child rushed his opponent - armed with an oblong object the Marauder couldn't recognize but guessed was a weapon of some sort - feinted once, took a blow, engaged a grapple, endured a second assault, then lashed out and felled his enemy in a few deft strikes. The defeated creature exploded into crystalline shards and the weapon dropped to the ground, shattering and spilling dust and debris into the air and onto the floor. He began to type another message to the boy. "Excellently done, Private! Keep that up and you'll..."

He didn't get to finish, though. The boy, victory in hand, looked more defeated than exulted. What was wrong? The Marauder couldn't understand. He was trying to collect up the scattered dust on the ground, it looked like. Perhaps the object the creature had used as a weapon had sentimental value to him? That might be a worthwhile explanation.

Before he could inquire, though, the console suddenly blared out a single alarm blat. The screen went dead for a moment, then all six screens suddenly glowed to life, displaying that house-shaped emblem along with a timer that had reached 00:00:00. This flashed six times at him, accompanied by six more blats, before going dark and silent once more. Then there was a rumble, a shudder, and a deafening crack... and then the Marauder felt himself moving up. Had the bunker just lifted out of the sand and soared into the sky? He would need to get the grate above open to be sure.

He pounded a button on the console, and the first screen he'd been viewing glimmered back to life, though the others remained dark. The boy was there again, but now he was being held in the arms of a large man with tiny spectacles and a hat. And he was smiling. It didn't make sense to the Marauder at first, but after a little observation he recognized the welcoming hug of a family member to the returning men-at-arms when he saw one.

===> At ease, Private. Job well done.

The smell of smoked meat turned his attention away from the machine and its screens yet again. The jury-rigged barbecue had done its duty, and the slab of freeze-dried meat was now ready to be devoured. The Marauder plucked it off his makeshift grill, flipped the switch back into the off position, and bounced the hot meat between his carapace hands, tearing strips off with his sharp digits and folding them happily into his mouth as he made his way back to the cold storage room to investigate that other device and see if he could manage to escape this bunker or at least find out exactly where it was taking him.

And meanwhile, an ancient facility took to the air, carrying its bounty and its unaware passenger to a continent westward....

Beep-beep!

Shea had kind of dozed off there for a minute. Literally, a minute or maybe a little more, by the look of the desktop clock. A Pesterchum window was open, but the text was a familiar shade of purple rather than Joan's orange like she'd been hoping. She scowled slightly as she set the Squiddle on her desk and leaned toward the keyboard.

-- taciturnMercenary [TM] began trolling amazonaReveille [AR] --

Spoiler:

Okay. So for a moment, just consider things as if whatever she says is true. That's not too hard, right? Shea took a deep breath and shook her head slightly. She didn't like being angry, and didn't have enough of a temper to keep it up against someone as nice as "Glenys".

Spoiler:

Wait... what?? That can't be right.

Spoiler:

Or maybe it was... Shea really didn't like where this was going.

Spoiler:

How could she say something like that so casually? Shea was having a bit of difficulty holding up her suspension of disbelief at this rate. But at the same time, there was a nagging part of her thoughts that insisted all of this was true, down to the very last word.

Oh hey, Glenys was still talking.

Spoiler:

Shea spent a few moments just staring at the screen and the chat window which still hung open. So whoever Eris was talking to was right. The world really was going to be destroyed - not the planet itself, but Earth as everyone knew it. The meteors were going to obliterate every living thing, wipe the slate clean, and presumably start from scratch. Anyone who couldn't get into the game would die.

Unless we win, she thought, and even after such a dismal revelation a confident smile came to her lips. That's exactly what they'd do. The group worked well enough together - they'd played how many games under Shep, getting through every trap and trick and dungeon he cobbled together? There wasn't anything this game could throw at them that together they couldn't beat. All they'd need was a little time to learn the ropes - after all, Shea had no idea what a "Sylph" was in game terms and apparently neither did Glenys, so it might take a little bit of trial and error. But once they had their "Roles" down, which seemed to be the Sburb term for game classes, they would be able to ascend through the ranks and face whatever challenge awaited them, win the game, and fix everything.