Somewhat belatedly, Verone muttered, "Let me check..."

---

Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Vanas
-'I think a relativistic paladin has its own problems.
Lack of skin error, please reboot.'


Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)

OOC:

No offense meant, but this is just too awkward; there's a time zone gap between Kaelan and White Haven and they can only manage so many exchanges of words a day. So I'd rather avoid playing out two or three pages of conversation with them being the only ones who can talk to each other intelligibly, we'd be at it for a week.

Can we try to push this conversation toward a logical conclusion some time today or tomorrow? I've actually got some free time next week and I'm hoping we can get to the meeting with the Countess then, just so I have time and energy to pay it proper attention.

OOC
I'm more than happy to cut to the chase and let ECR summaries the outcome to get things moving along faster. Any preference on how everybody wants this playing out?

Assume Verone is translating and chat as needed. Wording will be stilted and flowery in between, so some communication may be awkward. Curse you, employment! *shakes fist*

We've actually been fairly busy today. Work, at work, crazy talk!

---

Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Vanas
-'I think a relativistic paladin has its own problems.
Lack of skin error, please reboot.'


Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)

Well, you're not swinging for each other, that's a good start...

One thing, there isn't such a language as Common- Authrani, the native tongue of Tol Authran, is about as close as you can get, and tends to be more the tongue of traders and travellers and administrators, somewhat like Latin in the provinces under the Roman empire;

most people around here speak Kuquani, which given it's antecedents should actually have a large number of barely compatible regional dialects to deal with, but there is no real common tongue.

The only preference I have as to how this plays out is "in character", and saving time is not the be- all and end- all, not of intersting bits get left out along the way.

Ogres, being big, thick- skinned, and quite hard to threaten effectively, can usually afford to be relatively easy going- but the countess can be very threatening. You've all seen the hoofprints of the nightmare. Work along those lines. Oh, and don't forget the plant.

Oh, yes, Rohal; there's nothing you can see or put a nose to, but the hairs on the back of your neck are trying to transform on their own, and there is a sense of of a cold and dark presence in the air- not what you're expecting from her, but there's no-one else it could be. It feels as if you're being loomed over.

Larric feels a little of it too, but his own nerves are getting the better of his judgement.

Fifi is safe behind the shield and in her pot, and is keeping out of the way at the moment. No need to scare the travellers just yet...

using Verone to translate Dirts questions can be summarised as follows:
1 - What's behind from where you came from.
2 - What sort of reception can I expect if I head there.
3 - Do you know that there is a scary person nearby riding a non-horse horse.

OOC:

I'm sorry- I didn't mean "finish this right now," I just mean "it feels rather silly having all of us standing around for a week while Verone and Kaelan do everything back and forth." Saving time is not the sole priority, no, didn't mean it that way.

I'm beginning to be afraid to find out what Fifi is...

IC:

Dirt is neither the most frightening nor the strangest thing Larric's run into today. On the list of things he expects to run into before he goes to bed, Dirt is in fact third and fifth on the respective lists. If the ogre were going to jump us, he would have done it already, ogres are simple like that (stereotype powers activate!) So Larric's more concerned about trying to get a sense for what that tingling sense on the back of his neck. He tries to calm down and focus, so far as possible, and starts probing outwards- Insight, trying to augment and refine the jitter his own sixth sense gives him, get a sense of range, bearing, or nature of the thing that's out there.

Focusing outwards achieves, initially nothing- then far too much.

There's clearly a shield, a damper, some kind of suppression- not a hiding thing, not really, more like the stripes of a tiger; a predator choosing to blend into the background for the purpose of not spooking her prey.

Hmph. Freudian slip. Spooking. That's exactly what for a moment slips out from behind the shield, and Larric crumples to the ground, a thousand voices screaming in his head, curses, pain, damnation and twisted worship-

how much blood has she got on her hands, anyway? How many dead bodies could someone lay at her door? How many ghosts does she trail behind her?

Too much, too damned many.

It's like looking at the sun, more brightness than the eye can easily react to, too vision- filling to really pin down. Fades as they are dragged back behind the shield, and Larric can get to his feet, but she's close.

OOC:

Well, that worked.

IC:

A horrorstruck Larric staggers back to his feet from where he'd stumbled and fallen on the ground. He shudders and clutches at his crossbow, more like a talisman than like a weapon.

"My gods, she's- she's close, and the shades of her dead with her..."

IC MK II:

The next minute or so consists largely of Larric's left brain trying to take over from his right brain- the man who makes a vocation out of honesty and craftsmanship overriding the panicking monkey, at least to the extent of having a hope of looking at and interacting with the Countess as a very powerful person, rather than as an... entity.

Because that's the part of his brain that actually thinks he can survive this. This takes him some time, though, because that was a hell of a jolt of fear.

Hmm,
Humans don't normally drop to the ground [img]before[/img]you hit then. Can dirt sense anything in the immediate area?

The sudden collapse draws, obviously enough, interest. Verone looks over with an expression more curious than worried, at least at first. Before he can ask any question, though, Larric starts babbling about...she. The ogre, unlikely, albeit that gender could be hard to tell at times. Being close wouldn't be a shock. Other shes that could apply and would terrify the crayomancer--oh dear. "Ah, just for the purposes of clarification, by she, do you mean...ah...our objective, perhaps?" He approaches the topic somewhat obliquely, hoping to avoid a relapse into gibbering.

At the same time, on the assumption that he was right, he begins weaving together a seriously heavy-duty shielding spell around himself, tucking in bits of every type of magic he can conceive of working in an attempt to make it as complete and effective a defense as possible. Could be jumping the gun in advance of an answer, but better to have a nigh-impregnable sorcerous fortress and not need it, than need a nigh-impregnable sorcerous fortress and not have it. For given and probably utterly-inadequate values of nigh-impregnable, but to not make the attempt is even more unthinkable.

---

Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Vanas
-'I think a relativistic paladin has its own problems.
Lack of skin error, please reboot.'


Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)

IC:

A telepath looking at Larric right now would get an unusual sense that his reflexes and emotions are being consciously pushed to the back of the field, and his actions are thought out to a higher degree than usual.

Metaphorically speaking, at the moment he stays in one place by suspending his body underneath the fixed point of his brain, rather than from resting his brain on the fixed point of from his feet by way of his guts. His guts are much less functional right now than his brain is.

Verone usually sounds very abstracted compared to Larric. Right now, Larric is actually closer to the tone Verone takes than normal. "I think it's Calvern, aye."

"Bother. I assume she knows we're here?"

Verone's tone is decidedly distracted, as his shield-construction has taken on a new level of urgency and thus a new level of focus.

---

Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Vanas
-'I think a relativistic paladin has its own problems.
Lack of skin error, please reboot.'


Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)

"I don't know. Bet on it, though."

There is a sudden presence in the air before you, and seeming from between two shadows, the woman on horseback emerges, the tall, heavy, black skinned and flame- maned horse lighting the area, the hounds flanking and covering it, the lady herself- as she looks at all of you, it is terribly obvious that all your estimates are dangerously, pofoundly wrong.

Physically, she's a large, strong woman- at or beyond the upper limits for a normal human being, which she may no longer be- but that's not the important part, that is what shines through it.

The poise, presence, and yet almost translucence, the body merely a vessel, a hammer in the hands of her own will, it is possible to see how she managed to convince thousands of mutually hostile maniacs to unite their differences and follow her- both much worse and far better than they could ever hope to be on their own.

Red- violet eyes, impossibly sharp- the gift that Larric has a small touch of, Rohal in greater measure, she has to the last degree. She looks into you, through you all, reads, grasps everything- surface thoughts the least of it; after a mere moment, she knows you, physical, mental, moral drives and limits, strengths and weaknesses- no wonder she's always a move, a dozen moves, ahead.

It doesn't hurt, but it does chill and dislocate, and arguably violate; but what would that gift do, to someone still in the process of growing into an adult? Most thaumaturges come into their talents- they congeal- some time between late youth and adulthood, about the second half of growing up. A terrifying time to suddenly have the head of everyone around you laid open, to have to deal with, understand all of that, to try to be a self in the middle of it all.

What emerged from the process is this almost incandescently driven woman, for whom boundaries scarcely exist; evil- by some definitions, yes, including some that she probably shares. Unable to turn back, definitely, and probably also by temperament unwilling- what does she see when she looks at herself?

It may be as well that you cannot return the favour. She's probably- hopefully- much better grounded in herself, but the faintly fire- illuminated trail of spectres that hover behind her will never leave her now, and only grow longer with time and chance.

'You were looking for me? I am as alone as you will ever find me, myself, my literal and metaphorical ghosts and demons...what do you dare to want?'

---

"I beseech thee, In the bowels of God, think it possible that you might be wrong."
-Oliver Cromwell to Parliament, 1647
"It is good to keep an open mind; but not so open that your brains fall out." Attributed to James Oberg

Well, on the bright side at least dirt can claim he was heading away from the countess, and on the even brighter side he has the intellect to keep quiet (unlike William.. )

(OOC: Stop right there, criminal scum!)

"To parley." He looks to Verone.

---

"I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?"
"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too." - J.E. Sawyer

OOC:

To be sure, Larric is uncomfortable with that sense that someone's rifling through his cerebral cortex- but probably at least a shade less uncomfortable with it than the average might be. I sit here thinking about it, and I would honestly believe that the part of his mind in the driver's seat can cope, more or less. I can imagine characters who would be truly dislocated by the idea of someone who really knows who they are, but I don't think he's one of them.

Come to think of it, Calvern is reading his mind. I can definitely tell what he's thinking- the part of him that's more or less hijacked him from his own reflexes- to first order, surface thoughts. That's interspersed with his actual dialogue in italics, and I'm pretty sure it would go something like this.

IC:

Larric swallows, he is still nervous, but perhaps more functional than he'd have predicted half an hour ago. After Sir Alfred, by a hair:

"To talk." 'Parley' sounds wrong... "We thought you were in the area-" shut up, idiot hindbrain, you'll tell the truth and LIKE it- "and that you might be headed for Qulan after the spell that went off there just now. The people in charge there were hoping..." oh gods we're all done for "...hoping to find out what you had in mind." I can't believe I just said all that...

'What I reckon is actually worth the candle might be a better question.' she says, grudgingly recognising the fact that so many options are not actually open to her, 'I believe it would serve them well to know that my verbal instructions from the Chancellor himself amounted to "cut away the deadwood."

Not everything happened as it should, but there was supposed to be a great deal of damage, and inevitably there would be a very great many dead.' Inevitably. A hell of a word. Maybe in her mind, it is as matter of fact as it seems- maybe once you've lived through the fear and the silver lining of hope around the storm, the panic and the struggle, the surge to prove yourself the superior animal by killing and the desperate, frantic rush not to die, once you have spoken of the unspeakable and made sense of it, it really does come down to "inevitable."

Any sane human being would hope otherwise. That it could have been avoided to begin with.

'Some who were chosen to live, she states, 'would not let themselves be spared; and some yet live who, if there is to be new growth and a new beginning, the future would be better without.

Perhaps you should tell them that; see who thinks they fall into which category.'

Waits a moment for you to react to that.

"I see." He keeps his face as emotionless as possible.

---

"I'm just reading through your formspring here, and your responses to many questions seem to indicate that you are ready and willing to sacrifice realism/believability for the sake of (sometimes) marginal increases in gameplay quality. Why is this?"
"Because until I see gamers sincerely demanding that if they get winged in the gut with a bullet that they spend the next three hours bleeding out on the ground before permanently dying, they probably are too." - J.E. Sawyer

Bother. Why couldn't she hold off until this shield was ready?

"Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but wouldn't 'dead wood' have scurried for the horizon upon hearing you were about?" Verone's mouth is painfully dry by midway through that sentence, the half-built shield angled as best he could manage in an attempt to present its strongest facings towards the Countess. "Rather than, ah, sending us here to...discuss...matters with you?"

---

Chronological Incontinence: Time warps around the poster. The thread topic winks out of existence and reappears in 1d10 posts.

Out of Context Theatre, this week starring Vanas
-'I think a relativistic paladin has its own problems.
Lack of skin error, please reboot.'


Fiction!: The Final War (Bolo/Lovecraft) (Ch 7 9/15/11), Living (D&D, Complete)

OOC:

You know, that may perfectly encapsulate the most common last words she's ever heard. Well, the thought does.

Hmm. Let me think... what might Larric say to that, under these circumstances?

IC:

"I... think that would depend on what her ladyship calls 'deadwood.'"

Suddenly and perhaps uncharitably, he finds himself thinking of the Krylanyan in the cast-iron bikini. Somehow he doubts she'd be running for it, but from what he knows of her faith and her sanity, he's sure she'd find a way to irritate the Countess.